non-voters

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jan 16 09:09:30 PST 2003


Doug:
> Wow, if any short comment ever revealed the psychology of a
> vanguardist, this is it. The masses are too ignorant and stupid on
> their own and need to be "liberated" by an elite. Of course, if that
> elite comes to power, the contempt will endure, and prisons and
> firing squads will be the result. Lovely, Woj.
>

I think you can do better than that Doug. Just look what the "masses left to their own" accomplished - Cambodia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Rwanda....

There is a good reason why virtually every human society has developed hierarchically organized institutions. Of course, as Aristotle observed, these institutions can degenerate and become dysfunctional, but that is not a justification for a mob anarchy. The trick is not abolish institutions, but to effectively guard them from abuses of power. If you have a pothole in a pothole in a bridge, you do not destry the bridge, you fix the pothole, no?

Wojtek



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