Direct democracy to the rescue

Your ideal state of mind is an individualistic one, correct?

With willingness to compromise when necessary.

Can we say that it is often the crowd psychology that spoils well-intentioned social systems?

Take democracy. It drifts toward populism because of the if-you-say-so kind of laziness in us.

Sure, laziness is to blame for everything. By the way, when is the last time you cleaned up your place?

It's not only populism and fascism that the crowd psychology leads us to. Bank runs, too, are caused by it. Any kind of run is nasty, because it is the expectation of a big enough group that creates the real phenomenon.

Runs can be over sugar, rice, petro---anything people believe would be very scarce.

Crowds are responsible for fads which are all about following the so-called trend-setter without thinking much. It has also contributed to the making of winner-take-all societies. Think about the contracts that sports players, singers, kiss-and-tell authors sign. We value the very few as if there were an abyss between the top and the rest.

How can we avoid such undesirable consequences of our innate nature to follow the leader? In other words, is it possible to make even the most thinking-averse ones to think on their own?

I'm afraid some of us are die-hard followers, but I know a way to make the majority of us think more. It is direct democracy.

Like the one practiced in Switzerland? I suppose your line of thought is that we act only if the consequences are dire.

To some extent, yes. But unfortunately, if we think we have no power to influence the system or our daily lives, we turn apathetic and do not exercise our rights to participate in politics. That is, we may cease to act, even when our action can prevent dire consequences to fall upon us. Eventual depletion of petro may be one such instant.

Let me rephrase it then. We would act only if we know that our actions have real consequences on our everyday lives.

Yes, we are much more likely to take action, if not doing so would inconvenience us tomorrow. Our mental capacity is so limited that we need direct feedback to feel responsible for what we do. Consider hazardous waste, for example. As long as it is taken to a far away place, we do not think much about its treatment and effects on the environment.

Waste that is hard to treat is often shipped to developing countries, because they are in need of cash.

And only when the toxic material makes its way into the food system in the developed countries that people who generated it start worrying.

As long as you don't see, hear, or smell, anything goes.

Sadly enough, that is our natural behavior. It is one of the reasons why gated communities are not a good idea. They allow the rich to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, but it is the rich who have the power to make changes so that gated communities would not be necessary. Some are opposed against universal health care, because their family and friends do not need it.

If it is about people whom you could not relate to, you care much less.

The same with income redistribution. If you don't know anyone suffering from bad luck of having no father and an alcoholic mother, you think it unnecessary.

What about the case of parents dying in a car accident and no relatives with the financial means to take care of the children?

You know, a single, alcoholic mother was simply one of the myriad possible cases...

I know another one. Political refugees with no linguistic skills to survive in the host country. Or losing your limbs while working in a factory, or...

The first world is dependent on the low prices of primary resources and simple manufactured goods from the third world. Not all, perhaps, but the vast majority who are employed by such industries work in dismal environments for a pittance. And, that is a big contributing factor in the affluence in the first world. The consumers in the developed countries, however, do not see the abhorrent labor condition or the absence of proper waste treatment; it encourages them to be careless and wasteful about what they purchase.

Anything cheap is good, although they are made possible by underpaying for labor and material.

The important point is that all of us on the globe are connected and support each other in one way or another. You may not be interested in Amazon Rainforest, but we all benefit from its mere existence as natural wonder, not to mention its biodiversity and function as a carbon sink. We owe to the people of the Rainforest for the knowledge of plants and animals unique to the area.

I heard that many companies have turned to the forest as a hunting ground for new drugs.

We have called the enlargement of the definition of human beings as progress. We have managed to relate to more and more people, even if we do not share the same biological attributes---such as skin color and gender---or beliefs and life styles.

If you are incapable of sympathizing with types of people whom you have never met or come in contact with, such as starving babies in Darfur...

Or, if you cannot treat the person whom you despise with basic respect, you are going against what civilization should be. Given the latest gross wealth of the world, universal health care is possible and sufficiently progressive tax systems are musts.

After all, it's a piece of cake to be nice to people whom we know and like.

A socially formal system for supporting the disadvantaged allows us to be more business like, compared to reliance on informal support system, such as extended families.

A formal system is more convenient, though, because there would be cases in which we have to say 'no more support' due to abuse.

At the same time, it is inconvenient, because there would be occasions in which we would like to extend support, but bureaucracy does not permit it. Getting back to the issue of direct democracy, it will make us more aware that nobody but ourselves are responsible for government actions.

We often accuse governments of their abuse of power, including corruption.

In some countries, people with the most resources have decided unilaterally to govern others. In such cases, we cannot say that the masses are responsible for what the government does. But, if you claim that democracy is working well...

It's a generic 'you,' I hope!

Of course, ahem! If you think your country is governed by well-working democracy, you are responsible for the body that you happen to elect.

It's a generic 'you,' I hope!

I told you so! You are responsible for government actions, under either type of democracy, but I am sure that the point would be driven home better in the case of direct democracy.

Our government is not 'them,' but 'us,' so to speak.

Most of the time, people complain about certain government decisions but do not do anything to change the situation. If we were truly serious about it, we would take to the streets.

Ah, your revolutionary streak, again. But you know, we can't be out on the street everyday.

That is one of the reasons why student protests are powerful. They have the time to engage in protests and not much of a job to lose.

For people whose daily bread depends on how your boss views you...

Direct democracy to the rescue!

Handle with care: individualism

Individualism is not a step forward, but backward.

Really?

You implied so in our last meeting.

No, not really...

I also remember your saying earlier that self-help books are bad, because they have done the necessary contemplation on our behalf.

Zero thinking on our own is surely a gigantic step toward totalitarianism.

Why should you be negative about individualism, then? Isn't it about being individualistic in thinking?

Alas, individualism comes in many guises.

I see, you're taking a cheap escape route by claiming that several types of individualism exist.

Several versions exist for everything. Think about a national dish of any country, Nasi goreng in Indonesia, for example. We all know that no two persons make the same Nasi goreng.

Suppose the society tries to identify the artist to whom a highly valued work could be attributed, and gives that artist elevated social status and/or financial rewards. You called it individualism last time. No doubt, it could lead to competition, but I don't see anything wrong with that. On the contrary, it motivates the artists to strive for better quality.

I wouldn't deny that. However, it could also lead to petty competitions, resulting in waste of energy for all involved.

Stealing and obstructing others' work?

Yes. Incentives always have the potential to be misused or abused. Suppose you reward a child for reading as much as s/he can, and you measure that amount by the number of pages read.

Naturally, s/he will go for books that are easier to read and with fewer pages per word. Was that your strategy when you were in elementary school?

Shhhhh! Individualism should not mean putting oneself above others at all times.

If everyone puts her/himself above others, we will have nothing but hell.

Individualism is not equivalent to isolationism, either.

Do you think it is possible for every one of us to think on our own? I thought you suggested that it would be difficult.

There will always be people who prefer to follow the most vocal and strong-sounding person.

We have herd instincts.

And we must resist them.

You said that we should overcome our me-me-me urge, and now you are saying we should not succumb to our if-you-say-so desire.

Again, the best lies in the middle. But that does not mean we are allowed to be egotistic some times and apathetic other times. By the way, the famous case of Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton shows that even brilliant minds can be alike.

They invented calculus separately, without collaboration... We belong to the same species and have access to similar sets of information. So it is natural that some of us come to think very similarly.

In my opinion, the best state of mind is an independent one which never fails to examine the problem itself carefully.

I take it that the ideal is not to let personal likes and dislikes interfere when forming our opinion.

All of us are under the great illusion that we are the very best human beings around, at least to our friends and family. So, I would be extra careful to voice an opinion that does not go down well with one of them.

Did anyone tell you that you drive people crazy? I'm getting totally confused.

Do you remember, Natsume Soseki, Blaise Pascal and all that? I know another line by Pascal, which serves us well here. Deux excès : exclure la raison, n'admettre que la raison.
Two excesses: to exclude reason and to allow only reason... You always find a way out of a tight corner!

I have a better way out.

Let's hear it.

You should form your opinion independent of who are for and against the issue, and also of how you feel about them as persons. Reason should prevail in this part. However, in making public the conclusion thus arrived, you should take personalities and personal histories into account. That may entail tweaking your conclusion a bit.

If there is a need to consolidate various opinions, as in the case of deciding what to do in order to prevent the city of Venice from going under water, we will be asked to compromise.

Certainly. It would not help to have everyone pushing her/his own idea. Note that this is the kind of instance where leaving the principal agent unnamed is a very wise plan.

All want to bask in the glory of being the one who rescued Venice, and clashes of such desires can well lead to adopting a plan that is not the most effective in terms of technology and finance.

As for the Golden Gate Bridge, Joseph Strauss managed to appear as the principal designer for seventy years after its construction, contrary to what actually took place.

Do you think it possible to suppress the me-me-me urge? I think it would be rather counterproductive.

I agree. We cannot totally eliminate such primary desires and they have to be taken care of one way or another.

Let me guess what you have in mind. It's an "Employee of the Month" scheme when there are exactly twelve workers...

Regress is in the signatures

Bon anniversaire, Claude !

Hé, Claude, we visited le musée du quai Branly last year. Tant pis, we didn't see you there.

We?

Let me think, perhaps you were with someone else, not me. But I know that it's nobody other than myself who told you that the museum was inspired by Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Lately, you have been making remarks as if you had been with me, but...

Minor details shall not get in our way, my dear comrade! I should have asked you earlier---how did you like the museum?

It was very nice.

And?

Very well done.

Anything else?

I just can't get too excited over an anthropological museum. The objects that they display were not made for that purpose, unlike Western paintings and sculptures.

That does not diminish their value.

Certainly not. However, they are in the wrong place, because they can be fully appreciated only in situ.

A set of bow and arrow shows its greatest functional beauty when used to hunt a deer, for example.

You got it. Buddha sculptures did not interest me much, until a few years ago when I saw one in the center of a very small temple. Before then, I saw them mainly in museums. It shone subtly in the darkness. It was sublime. That experience convinced me that the so-called anthropological objects removed from their original environments are akin to fish out of water.

The sculpture made sense to you in its natural habitat.

It came with its context, which I think is important. In contrast, paintings and sculptures in the West are produced under the assumption that they will find permanent homes in sitting rooms.

Wouldn't you say museums, instead of sitting rooms, in the case of Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami and the like?

Or, the Nth spare room of obscenely rich collectors. None of their works is meant to be used in ceremonies or in everyday life, and that is what differentiates the art in the West from the traditional art in the rest of the world.

I have seen Chinese vases adorning rooms with no flower in them, though.

I would say their principal function is still to hold flowers.

What about Chinese scroll paintings?

Those function in the same way as Western paintings, I admit. Let me rephrase "the rest of the world" as "the part of the world in which houses were traditionally not decorated as in the West." Anyway, when Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and others encountered the art from Africa, they were astonished.

By the abstract nature of it?

Yes, and also by the fact that no record existed as far as the names of artists and the dates of production were concerned.

Can we say that the emphasis is more on the utility of objects than who toiled to create them?

I think so. If a sculpture reveals extraordinary artistic value, the artists/artisans who were responsible would be appreciated by the community, but the object is seen more as something that the community as a whole produced and owns.

It must also mean that there would be support for the artisans during the production period.

I imagine that the community provides food and other necessities so that they can devote all their time to making objects.

There used to be a similar system in the West. Musicians and painters, even mathematicians, were employed by rich patrons.

Such arrangements are not quite the same, because the parties involved had some kind of a contract, an agreement between two individuals. And more often than not, we know who paid and who did what work in return.

In other words, the West came up with individualism the earliest and the trend is spreading around the world.

Individualism is irresistible, because it legitimizes the me-me-me desires in us.

If so, we are moving from systems which suppress such biological and primary urges to one that celebrates them.

It's a regress, don't you think?