Comment by 9dev
4 months ago
That’s a very strange take on governments, treating them as a singular entity. A government that deserves that name is first and foremost and elected set of representatives of the constituents, and thus like citizens that vote for them again, act in their interests.
If the government is not working like that, you have an administrative problem, not a societal one. A state is its population.
> A state is its population.
Very dangerous thinking. Unless each and every citizens has approved the elected "representative" and every decision they made (which will never happen), you cannot assimilate the state and the population. The state has to be considered a separate entity, one which operate beyond the common man's thinking.
> Unless each and every citizens has approved the elected "representative" and every decision they made
But they have, by electing the representatives that ought to represent them, and thereby yield the power to make decisions on behalf of their constituents. If they do no not act accordingly, they will not be elected again in subsequent terms; if they act against the law, they will be fairly tried; and if the laws don't sufficiently capture the reality anymore, they will be adapted. That is how a representative democracy should work. If it doesn't, you have an implementation problem, not a systemic one (admittedly, this is almost a true Scotsman, but still.)
> The state has to be considered a separate entity, one which operate beyond the common man's thinking.
This isn't mutually exclusive. Of course the state has to make higher-level considerations and people in power will invariably be corrupted to some degree, but concluding that the state is your enemy and cannot be trusted is the wrong one, in my opinion. With that attitude, you're just waiting for it to become truly evil so you can say "See? I told you all along." Better to try and shape the state you have into something better while you still can.
> But they have, by electing the representatives that ought to represent them
Yes this is the theory, but what if there is no political party "representing" me, what about people abstaining from voting, what if peoples elect an authoritarian figure I didn't vote for ? This is one of the pitfalls of your system, if only one citizen disagree, or do not feel represented in it, this justification falls apart. You cannot hide this behind an "implementation problem", because there is no such implementation. If "we are the government" so everything the state is doing to me (or any other individual) will be "voluntary". With this reasoning the state is not putting me in prison for my dissident opinion, I went to prison myself.
> concluding that the state is your enemy and cannot be trusted is the wrong one, in my opinion
I didn't conclude such a thing, I only wanted to make clear that the state is a distinct institution that cannot possibly represent everyone, thus not worthy of the title "we". Also yes I do not trust it :)
4 replies →
> A state is its population.
Oh that's not true at all. A state is an institution which is influenced by its population, but if anything, the attitudes of the population are more a product of the state, its constituent political parties, and the associated media apparatuses than of a freestanding "will of the people."
To give a trivial counterexample, if the American state "is" its population, then why does your presidential vote only matter if you live in a swing state, and why can you only vote for one of two candidates? Surely your vote should reflect all of your policy preferences and have equal influence no matter where you live.
I would say it is a realistic take, and yours is idealistic.
It isn’t realistic, it’s pessimistic. If the government, the system, is your opponent, there is no other outcome than subversion, everything is futile anyway. That leaves no room for democratic participation, for any kind of peaceful change, if you’re being earnest with it. And that seems very cynical and ideologically driven to me. There’s a lot of room for improvement that doesn’t involve tearing everything down because it’s beyond the pale anyway; it isn’t.
I am not advocating tearing everything down, as that will make things worse, especially if done violently.
> That leaves no room for democratic participation
I think there is very limited room for democratic participation and it has become far to difficult to change anything. If I vote and I do not care which of the parties that have a chance of winning wins because their policies are so similar it does not matter, where is my democratic participation? Even if the parties are different and I do not like the policies of either, what is the value of my vote?
I think things will improve in the long term when there is sufficient pushback, but it will take a long time.
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False dichotomy. "Either the system is perfect or it is useless." No: systems can have mixed results, and they can be improved. Even when they can't be improved, they can be replaced by better (but still imperfect) systems.
You present a choice between pretending everything is fine and giving up. This is no choice at all. Both options entail giving up; one is just honest about it.
We can make things better.
People, and the governments they compose, respond to incentives.
If platforms like discord take a hard-line stance of "no, we're not enabling a surveillance state apparatus" and the government then forces them to cease business in that country, that is a decision with consequences. People don't like when the government takes away their nice things due to motives they don't agree with. It catalyzes a position - "unchecked government surveillance is creating negative outcomes for me".
Over time, if enough actors behave the same way, public sentiments will shift and, assuming a healthy democracy, the government line will as well.
But acquiescing to demands like these only further entrenches the position, as the public is only loosely incentivized to care. The boiling of the privacy frog in a surveillance state like the UK means most people won't care enough to change it until it's too late
> treating them as a singular entity
The entities that keep pushing for that stuff tends to be quite centralized.