I think it was Churchill who supposedly said it and I always took it as
a bit tongue-in-cheek for the very reasons you highlight. My point is
that in the pursuit of (self?) governance (restraint/guidance?) we have
formed governMENTs which seem destined to be tyrannical, even if it is
(another proverbial sophism?) "the tyranny of the majority over the
minority". As (dynamical) systems oriented folks, I think we might
have a good intuition for what governance in the abstract is good
(essential) for. One one end, some here seem to be strong believers in
the emergent "invisible hand" of Adam Smith escaping the economic
markets and ruling all things (thus the Darwin Awards, etc.).
I felt the Churchill quote left one important opening (intentionally)
which might challenge us to come up with a *more better* form of
governANCE which aspires to some of the qualities that Democracies seem
to seek (Equality, Justice, Freedom, Pursuit of Slap-Happiness, etc.).
I'm further from an answer here than ever on this topic. My ambitous,
misspent youth had me wanting to believe in the Libertarian Ideal which
I've abandoned in it's various formalisms, but still give a nod to the
"invisible hand" of collective, emergent properties. I think one of
Nick's threads is verging on this (group-selected evolution) but I don't
have the bandwidth (or acuity?) right now to do justice to braiding
these together.
- Steve
On 1/6/22 7:35 AM, glen wrote:
I hear that quote repeated and I can't help but think it's a bit
exceptionalist. I'm no scholar of types of government. But the quote,
and the sentiment, always seems flawed to me, as if "democracy" were
well defined. I mean, if we can call the US and the many European
governments "democracies", all in the same vague class, with all the
different voting protocols, representation methods, local -> national
hierarchy, etc., what can the word really even mean? It's just too
vague to hold the water implied by "all the other one's we've tried".
On 1/5/22 18:58, Steve Smith wrote:
"The *worst* form of government, except for all the other one's we've
tried!" I suppose it is time to try some other forms of "governANCE" ?
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