Equality by lot

Content warning: This post contains messages that may be traumatizing to some audiences. Reader discretion is advised.

The attitude expressed, explicitly or implicitly, in much of the political discussion in the West, and in particular in academic discussion, is that the existing political system is essentially, at its core and in its principles, benign. While some room for improvement surely exists, we must not act rashly. The great danger that must be guarded against when considering any changes to our political system is that we might very well end up with fewer of the great benefits that the current system bestows upon us. “Us” in this usage is supposed to cover essentially all of society, rather than just the author and their select audience.

This attitude is deplorable. The situation of the world is dire. It is sometimes said that we are living in the best of times humanity has known thus far. This may or may not be true, but in any case it is irrelevant. Even if previous times were worse, the situation is appalling. The world is full of misery that can be relatively easily alleviated simply by having public policy which is aimed at such a goal, rather than public policy that is aimed at very different goals.

Outraged rhetoric about atrocities, real, exaggerated, or fabricated, of official enemies is prevalent in the West and so is hand-wringing about the misfortune, real, exaggerated or imagined, of inhabitants of non-Western countries. Yet, even ignoring misery inflicted by Western countries worldwide, misery is rampant in the West itself, misery that can be drastically reduced by appropriate political action.

It is this situation that needs to be kept in mind when considering the Western political system and its linchpin, elections, and when considering potential changes to this system. The problem that needs to be addressed is not a downbeat mood or a feeling of alienation and political disempowerment. The problem is that people are suffering on a mass scale. They are dying, they are physically and psychologically tortured, they are deprived of the basic necessities of life. The system is criminal in its outcomes and the urgency of change is great.

The pretense in standard elite political discourse is that “we all” – in particular the author, their audience, and the political elite – want a better life for all. The unfortunate truth, we are to believe, is that misery is unavoidable and all those who claim that, given the political will, it can be easily significantly reduced are either childishly naive or deliberately manipulative. In either case, the outcome of any attempt to significantly reduce misery will inevitably be more of it. Incremental, circumscribed fixes may be discussed, and the endless rehashing of their details should satisfy us, providing a safe outlet for our energies, a distraction from more dangerous lines of thought, and lucrative careers for some.

This pretense is sustained in the face of all evidence to the contrary. No matter how many people are homeless, no matter how many people die due to lack of adequate healthcare, to workplace accidents or to suicide, no matter how high is the life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor, no matter how many people are incarcerated, no matter how common is anxiety and despair. No matter if obvious, straightforward, negligible risk policies exist that in all likelihood would affect many lives for the better, we are always told that things would only be worse if we try to make a meaningful change.

The pretense is also sustained despite the contradiction between its assumptions and the normal assumptions made both in everyday argumentation and in accepted social modeling. It is normally accepted as self-evident, and this is also encoded in standard modeling of behavior, that people pursue their personal and group interests. Such logic is routinely, unreflexively employed when discussing the horrors of foreign “dictators” – rulers who use their power to promote their own interests at the expense of the large majority of the population. Anyone who would insist that dictators should be taken at their word when they claim to be pursuing the common good would be laughed at and dismissed as a fool or a liar. Yet authors of Western elite discourse – journalists, academics, politicians – are to be treated as being completely sincere when they profess a concern for all members of society, and those who doubt this sincerity are branded as louts who should be harshly reprimanded. How dare they impugn the motives of good, hardworking, selfless public servants who dedicate their lives for others and the benefit of society?

Cry me a river. Your hypocrisy is transparent. Your pretense is disgusting. You are benefiting from a system that causes widespread death and misery and you are dedicated to its perpetuation. You should be ashamed of yourselves, but of course, having adopted the distorted mores of this system, you are not.

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Press, Sortition |