Q#3 Democracy and Morons. Such a beautiful simplification, both in the quote AND the follow-up questions this time... Exactly why we have a Republic or a Representative Democracy.... because true "democracy" always does "devolve into a tyranny of ignorance masked as collective freedom".
Still not perfect - but so much better when the Morons and the Geniuses pick Representatives and give them a place to go discuss policies; weed out the bad policies and then have to agree on what remains. Wondering if we could make it even better by adding the following ballot measure to EVERY future ballot:
Proposed Ballot Measure:
If you are a taxpayer your portion of the $37Trillion debt (www.usdebtclock.org) is approximately $323,051... what would you like your portion to be; by the next election?
a) Higher.
b) Lower.
c) Neither, MORE OF THE SAME Please!.. (why is this on the ballot? what's wrong with spending more than $1 Trillion dollars on just the interest on the debt; that's only more than we spend on defense spending and just about 1/2 Trillion less than we spend on EITHER Medicare/caid OR Social Security; [HINT to Voter... THIS IS THE MORON'S ANSWER!])
d) None, enough of this nonsense (Stop, mortgaging our & our children's futures).
“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.” Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837)
Q. Can the deliberate maintenance of a false belief ever be ethically justified if it contributes to individual happiness or social cohesion, or does truth possess an intrinsic moral value that ought never to be compromised.
Made me laugh! The glorious and insidious thing about illusions is that we don’t know they are illusions until suffering compounds and causes us to question our beliefs, to maybe, Wake Up! That’s the good news about suffering, it is a finger pointing to the moon - personal truth!
"Imagine a society where the policies of a highly knowledgeable minority are consistently overridden by the preferences of a largely uninformed majority. Does such a scenario still fulfill the ideals of democracy, or does it devolve into a tyranny of ignorance masked as collective freedom?"
I'm going to rewrite this question as follows: "Imagine a society where the policies of a highly knowledgeable majority are consistently overridden by the preferences of a largely uninformed minority. Does such a scenario still fulfill the ideals of democracy, or does it devolve into a tyranny of ignorance masked as collective freedom?"
The only reason this version of the question might sound strange is that we have acquired certain prejudices over millennia of listening to anti-democratic insults from public intellectuals and other personages with cultural and intellectual prestige.
It has always been the self-congratulatory and self-serving conceit of elites and those who would purport to associate themselves with that supposedly rare wisdom, foresight, and knowledge which justifies political rule to regard the democratic majority as incompetent in political matters and to slander them accordingly with various pejorative epithets like “mob”, “the multitude”, ”the masses”, “the ignorant hordes”, and so on.
This hackneyed wheel of slurs, which has been rolling since Plato, should be treated with all the contempt it deserves and finally kicked off the cliff, not least because it completely inverts the reality of where most of the undemocratic devastation in political history has originated, i.e. with elites, the alleged deserving masters. They’re the ones who start constant unnecessary and destructive wars to vindicate their vanity, the ones who indoctrinate innocent minds with religious obscurantism to elevate themselves above the “benighted” and the “flock”, and the ones who steal all of the wealth in society that they can get their filthy hands on before they are stopped. It is them that society, today more than ever, can no longer afford, and that are the reason democracy was invented in the first place: to protect the majority against the abuses of wealth and privilege, that is, the minority.
We rarely hear that it is the minority that needs to be watched. Instead, we are copiously subjected to the contrary libel, which is not an accident. But by now there is no excuse for anyone to fail to grasp that it is the elite minority who furnish the worst narcissists, con artists, demagogues, imperialists, and general public abusers. This is not to say that majorities are wise, but at best they are wiser and at worst they are no less wise than the overlords who impose themselves on them.
Q#1 Illusions and truth. I would ask whether there is such a thing as a universally accepted truth that can possess an intrinsic moral value. If our discussion is about ethics, then perhaps we should ask whether morality is our ultimate paradigm for discerning "intrinsic value" to begin with. My perspective is this: "beliefs" in and of themselves are not "false" until proven to be something other than what the believer believes to be factually or really so. They don't know something for a fact, so they must trust it to be so based on their own rationality. With inquiry and more information beliefs can change. I would suggest a "false belief" cannot be maintained, no matter how happy it makes its believer. Sure, the believer can protect a stated false belef in the presence of others (after they themselves have had their false belief corrected) for the sake of justifying their prior choices or intentionally maintining social cohesion, however disingenuous this would be. But, there can only be social cohesion when each participant offers their perspective on 'the truth' and equally accepts others' perspectives on 'the truth'. So, I would say, truth (as opposed to fact) is always negotiated. Truth is not belief. Truth is constructed from beliefs.
Q#3 Democracy and Morons. Such a beautiful simplification, both in the quote AND the follow-up questions this time... Exactly why we have a Republic or a Representative Democracy.... because true "democracy" always does "devolve into a tyranny of ignorance masked as collective freedom".
Still not perfect - but so much better when the Morons and the Geniuses pick Representatives and give them a place to go discuss policies; weed out the bad policies and then have to agree on what remains. Wondering if we could make it even better by adding the following ballot measure to EVERY future ballot:
Proposed Ballot Measure:
If you are a taxpayer your portion of the $37Trillion debt (www.usdebtclock.org) is approximately $323,051... what would you like your portion to be; by the next election?
a) Higher.
b) Lower.
c) Neither, MORE OF THE SAME Please!.. (why is this on the ballot? what's wrong with spending more than $1 Trillion dollars on just the interest on the debt; that's only more than we spend on defense spending and just about 1/2 Trillion less than we spend on EITHER Medicare/caid OR Social Security; [HINT to Voter... THIS IS THE MORON'S ANSWER!])
d) None, enough of this nonsense (Stop, mortgaging our & our children's futures).
“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.” Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837)
Q. Can the deliberate maintenance of a false belief ever be ethically justified if it contributes to individual happiness or social cohesion, or does truth possess an intrinsic moral value that ought never to be compromised.
Made me laugh! The glorious and insidious thing about illusions is that we don’t know they are illusions until suffering compounds and causes us to question our beliefs, to maybe, Wake Up! That’s the good news about suffering, it is a finger pointing to the moon - personal truth!
"Imagine a society where the policies of a highly knowledgeable minority are consistently overridden by the preferences of a largely uninformed majority. Does such a scenario still fulfill the ideals of democracy, or does it devolve into a tyranny of ignorance masked as collective freedom?"
I'm going to rewrite this question as follows: "Imagine a society where the policies of a highly knowledgeable majority are consistently overridden by the preferences of a largely uninformed minority. Does such a scenario still fulfill the ideals of democracy, or does it devolve into a tyranny of ignorance masked as collective freedom?"
The only reason this version of the question might sound strange is that we have acquired certain prejudices over millennia of listening to anti-democratic insults from public intellectuals and other personages with cultural and intellectual prestige.
It has always been the self-congratulatory and self-serving conceit of elites and those who would purport to associate themselves with that supposedly rare wisdom, foresight, and knowledge which justifies political rule to regard the democratic majority as incompetent in political matters and to slander them accordingly with various pejorative epithets like “mob”, “the multitude”, ”the masses”, “the ignorant hordes”, and so on.
This hackneyed wheel of slurs, which has been rolling since Plato, should be treated with all the contempt it deserves and finally kicked off the cliff, not least because it completely inverts the reality of where most of the undemocratic devastation in political history has originated, i.e. with elites, the alleged deserving masters. They’re the ones who start constant unnecessary and destructive wars to vindicate their vanity, the ones who indoctrinate innocent minds with religious obscurantism to elevate themselves above the “benighted” and the “flock”, and the ones who steal all of the wealth in society that they can get their filthy hands on before they are stopped. It is them that society, today more than ever, can no longer afford, and that are the reason democracy was invented in the first place: to protect the majority against the abuses of wealth and privilege, that is, the minority.
We rarely hear that it is the minority that needs to be watched. Instead, we are copiously subjected to the contrary libel, which is not an accident. But by now there is no excuse for anyone to fail to grasp that it is the elite minority who furnish the worst narcissists, con artists, demagogues, imperialists, and general public abusers. This is not to say that majorities are wise, but at best they are wiser and at worst they are no less wise than the overlords who impose themselves on them.
Love your response, Bruce!
Q#1 Illusions and truth. I would ask whether there is such a thing as a universally accepted truth that can possess an intrinsic moral value. If our discussion is about ethics, then perhaps we should ask whether morality is our ultimate paradigm for discerning "intrinsic value" to begin with. My perspective is this: "beliefs" in and of themselves are not "false" until proven to be something other than what the believer believes to be factually or really so. They don't know something for a fact, so they must trust it to be so based on their own rationality. With inquiry and more information beliefs can change. I would suggest a "false belief" cannot be maintained, no matter how happy it makes its believer. Sure, the believer can protect a stated false belef in the presence of others (after they themselves have had their false belief corrected) for the sake of justifying their prior choices or intentionally maintining social cohesion, however disingenuous this would be. But, there can only be social cohesion when each participant offers their perspective on 'the truth' and equally accepts others' perspectives on 'the truth'. So, I would say, truth (as opposed to fact) is always negotiated. Truth is not belief. Truth is constructed from beliefs.