It is an unfortunate state of affairs that, despite the fact that proposals of empowering allotted bodies do enjoy significant popular support, most people are not mobilized into action by the idea of sortition. Much of that can no doubt be attributed to despair. There is no point in being politically attached to radical ideas since such attachment has insignificant impact on society and is bound to end in frustration, and quite possibly to being seen by friends and acquaintances as slightly unhinged.
Still, it is rather surprising that despite the unending contempt that many people heap on the existing electoralist system, or more accurately, on its outcomes and on those who act within the system, there is still a strong attachment to the idea of elections and aversion toward proposals at eliminating them altogether in favor of a sortition-based system. Of course, a long list of arguments against sortition is available, and they are endlessly regurgitated (often as if they were brand new) to justify the suspicion toward sortition. However, since all of these arguments are easily refuted, it is quite clear that the arguments are not the cause behind the aversion toward sortition, but rather that some underlying attitudes against sortition must be common, attitudes for which the arguments merely serve as rationalizations.
Below I list 5 attitudes which I believe exhaust the range of attitudes motivating the rejection of sortition and the various arguments offered for this rejection. Unlike the arguments, the attitudes are not easily refuted in the sense that they do form rational bases for being hostile, or at least cautious about the idea of sortition. The list is ordered by my assessment of the prevalence of the attitudes in the population. This should be distinguished from prevalence of the attitudes among those who opine about sortition – a self-selected group that is very different from the population as a whole.
1. Conservatism The most common reason for clinging on to the notion that the existing system is at the most basic level functional and well-justified, and for being reluctant to reject it outright in favor of sortition, is in my opinion conservatism or mental inertia. People are habituated to their lives under the electoralist system. It creates a certain society which they know and a certain personal situation which they are accustomed to and adapted to. They are also used to thinking about the political order in certain ways that justify this system. If this electoralist status quo were ever to be overturned, this would involve a large risk that things would not turn out as hoped for. Furthermore, becoming a supporter of a fundamental political change involves the adoption of a new radical mindset which is never easy.
Conservatism is also buttressed by the constant electoralist propaganda which reinforces the notion that elections are fundamentally good, no matter how poor or frustrating their actual outcomes are.
2. Elitism Quite a few people in the supposedly democratic electoralist society have some version of an elitist notion according to which it is unsafe to let a group of unvetted people make important decisions about society. Of course, this mindset had been dominant and openly proclaimed by the best and brightest for at least 2,300 years, with Socrates never tiring from explaining to the Athenians the folly of their sortition-based ways and as recently as the end of the 18th century the American founders talking about how the best system of government is one which puts in the charge the “natural aristocracy” (their humble selves). This kind of thinking has been largely pushed into the shadows over the last 250 years, making a resurgence among political scientists in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century, only to be pushed to the shadows again as the Schumpeterian theory of democracy [sic] lost ground in favor of various obfuscations such as the theory of deliberative democracy [sic].
The fact that elitism is common among those who enjoy disproportionate power and privilege in society is perhaps not surprising since of course in that case it may be seen as self-serving. However, some flavors of elitism are not uncommon among the less well-positioned as well. One such flavor is expressed for example by support for “rule by experts”.
Beyond reverence for the select few there is also quite a lot of popular distrust of the population. And while there is a tendency to trust others to do the right thing on some matters involving practical personal behavior, trust on political matters is fairly low. The notion that “other people” are irrational, ill-informed, bigoted and just plain stupid is rather common. How this idea fits with a self-proclaimed democratic outlook that our society is proud of representing and cultivating is a bit of a conundrum.
3. Suspicion of manipulation This attitude, and the two that follow, are probably quite rare in the population. They are however quite common among the tiny minority in society who opine on sortition and therefore rather evident in writings about sortition.
Following decades of elite exploitation of the population, supported by media manipulation, high levels of suspicion toward institutions and experts (as they exist, rather than as ideal types) is common. Some small minority takes this suspicion to an extreme and sees conspiracies everywhere. Such people see any existing institution or person with suspicion, but also see any idea for change as an attempt at manipulation. A sortition-based system, or even a single allotted body, requires institutional setup and support, and thus may be potentially manipulated. The hyper-suspicious mindset sees such potential as being proof that the entire idea must be a trap.
4. Dogmatism There is a small minority of people who unwaveringly insist that democracy is about X. Since sortition does not involve X, then sortition cannot be a tool for democratization. For such people, the question of the effects of a sortition-based system is beside the point.
The substance of X varies, but what is fixed is X being a characteristic of society or of the political system that many people in society would consider as either simply unimportant, or maybe as a tool for obtaining other ends. Thus the one who insists on X being the essence of democracy is in effect insisting that a lot of people are wrong about what democratic society is about. The most common X is of course, “competitive elections”. The insistence is not that elections are democratic because they achieve certain outcomes. Rather it is the pure Schumpeterian idea that “competitive elections” are by definition and by themselves the essence of democracy. Less commonly asserted dogmas involve “being able to replace government”, “checks and balances”, “participation”, and “accountability”.
5. Self-serving expert privilege This attitude is limited to established experts, who serve as authorities in describing what is democratically legitimate and what democracy is, primarily in their own minds but also elsewhere in the circles of power. Thus, this mindset is very rare in the population as a whole, but may be the most common among those who write about sortition, because such experts dominate the discussion around sortition.
Like the dogmatists, the established democracy experts often see themselves as having the ability to dictate to others and to society as a whole what democracy is about and what a good, or legitimate government should look like. Unlike the dogmatists, the experts will elaborate at length, in fact ad infinitum, about their ideas and come up with obfuscations and tortuous justifications for those ideas. Embracing a straightforward idea such as a sortition-based system, without adding to a thousand qualifications and bells and whistles would undermine the experts’ self-appointed role as the arbiters of good government. In addition, it would also pit them against the established power system, the same power system within which they occupy their privileged position.
Thus, the experts either ignore sortition altogether, or stake out positions along the spectrum between outright rejection and endorsement of a system which has some component of sortition, but conditioned on having it managed in various ways by the experts themselves and/or other elements close to the establishment.
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Opinion polling, Sortition |
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Ali
Ahmed R. Teleb
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Common Lot Sortitionist
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Equality by lot 
Great post! T his is exactly the kind of hurdles I’ve run into, beyond the quickly dispatched questions about “what if a psychopath is chosen?”
I don’t know if sharing this post with people with these attitudes will help, but I do sortition advocates would be wise to recognize these attitudes as what we need to primarily engage with.
And I think there is hope.
As you pointed in, in several instances, these attitudes hold self-contradictory positions that can be resolved by sortition.
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Although it could be included under ‘conservatism’, I would specifically speak of the need for many if not most people to identify and follow a leader, which is of course the exact opposite of sortition. That’s why I propose a mixed system in which each citizen can choose her individual path to representation, either election or sortition.
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6. Personal Accountability (Fear & Laziness)
There’s a great film titled “Waking Life”, a beautifully rotoscoped collage of heady conversations covering a range of thoughtful and challenging topics. I found this quote to be the most memorable and provoking, and it haunts me to this day:
“There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I’ve always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved.
“Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes? No greater values have developed. Hell! The Greeks – 3,000 years ago – were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this:
“Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear or laziness?”
I would argue that it’s not fear “OR” laziness; it’s “AND”
***
Laziness:
It’s just easier to have someone else do the hard stuff; to let “them” handle it, instead. Much easier to sit behind the keyboard and complain about all of that “awful” stuff that someone else did. How could “they” allow this to happen?
Most CEOs are sociopaths and probably a high number of politicians, too. Which appears to be a feature of the system and not a bug. They want to be in control and we apparently want to let them. Because at the end of the day, that Netflix queue ain’t gonna watch itself (…and it should most definitely include “Waking Life” for those who have not yet had the pleasure ;-)
Maybe some of these “zeroes” (nowadays referred to disturbingly as NPCs) do occasionally dream about what it might be like to find themselves in such positions of power and/or responsibility, yet instantly shrink away at the thought of any such fantasies suddenly turning into realities.
Fear:
In addition to the stress/anxiety [read: effort/energy] of having to get involved and make such decisions, there would also be the accompanying concern of the real-world impact: “What if I make the wrong decision or choice and make things worse, and then everyone hates me?”
Perhaps they do not see themselves as worthy, or find even the thought of such constant scrutiny and criticism to be intolerably exhausting and/or threatening, and therefore thoroughly undesirable. (Which is exactly why sortition needs to be mandatory, lest they all opt out and then we are right back to Square One with the sociopaths and the know-it-alls and the busy-bodies and the do-gooders and those with ulterior and thusly compromised motives, etc)
Also: let’s maybe acknowledge that these days, there are politicians getting doxxed and swatted and shot at and beaten up…or even just being threatened with any of these things. It really does boggle the mind that any sane human would desire such attention (oh wait, that’s right…cause they aren’t sane…cause they are mostly sociopaths who get off on and high from the chaos and drama and intensity)
***
“The hyper-suspicious mindset sees such potential as being proof that the entire idea must be a trap” Pray then, do tell: what magical method of tamper-proof randomization and unhackable selection is being suggested by this humble blogger with such utter confidence so that it might finally put these “hyper-suspicious” [read: healthily skeptical] fears to rest, once and (finally) for all? If there are those of us within The Community who already possess these rational and reasonable reservations, then how are we to allay, assuage, and/or alleviate the doubts and misgivings of the unbelievers?
Circling back to Fear: there is also the fear of making things worse. Just look at what happened by re-electing Trump; all of the worst possible case scenarios which the skeptics (quite possibly-maybe myself, included) rolled their eyes at have now come fully to blossom and bloom, and then some. The desire to “do things differently” has led us right to the very doorstep of fascism; some would claim we have already fully arrived.
There’ll be those on The Left saying: “We must go back to how it was…before Trump! Or maybe let’s pick that Communist dude, because there’s never been a point in all of human history when *that* shit ever went south of sideways…” While those on The Right foam and froth: “We haven’t fully regressed or gone back *far enough* just yet…after all, the females can still vote and the fags are still free to frolic and fuck with abandon!”
Somewhat humorous and ironical, then, that We, The Sorters turn to both sides and say: “No, no [read: know know] we need to go back *even further* then all of that noise! To a time and place and space inhabited by Aristotle himself, in which elections led to oligarchy while selections insured/assured the demonstration of democracy!” And the dimwitted amongst us (those happy zeroes and blissful NPCs who can’t even tell you how many branches of government there are) will squint and awkwardly scuff their feet in the dirt and say: “Air-is-who what now?”
I don’t know what to think these days, if the mad ramblings above didn’t clue you in already. I am lazy (check) and I am fearful (check-check) and sometimes I do just want to plug my ears and cover my eyes and pretend like none of this shit could ever possibly be really happening (check-check-check) because it is all so poorly written and stupidly staged as to be entirely implausible, let alone feasibly believable. It’s like being trapped inside the dumbest reality television series from which there is no seeming escape.
There you go: turn sortition into a reality series and pitch it to Netflix. Rent an island for one year and try to self-govern it with the poor SOBs who are selected. Too boring? Ummm…they are all naked and afraid? Yes! Just like our politicians should be. Something about randomly voting people off the island? This shit practically sells itself! If it catches on, perhaps we can then revisit my previous idea of turning The Sorting Hat into a third party with no elected officials.
#FearfulAndLazyAndNaked
#IfThisIsWakingLifeThenPleaseWakeMeWhenItsOver
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I imagine some or all of you may have heard the argument that letting civic juries decide laws and choose public officials, denies people the right to vote.
Yes you would be in the lottery and have an equal chance to be chosen for the juries that decide laws and choose public officials, but you lose your right to vote for a politician.
(I of course don’t agree with this argument. Popular votes are poorly informed methods of decision-making on skewed playing fields. Also, unless voting in mandatory, like in for example Australia, those who vote are unrepresentative of the public, and those who vote in the primaries and other forms of choosing party candidates for elections, are even more unrepresentative of the public.)
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Anonymous in the previous comment is me, Simon Threlkeld.
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Arturo,
> I would specifically speak of the need for many if not most people to identify and follow a leader
If this is really about following a leader, then I would classify this under elitism.
If this is less about having a leader to follow and more about being part of a camp or a party which is fighting together then this may be an attitude I have not considered. I guess in a sortition-based system you could still be engaged in an ideological competition as part of a camp, but the manifetation of the competition in electoral gains or losses makes the “fight” more tangible.
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> sortition advocates would be wise to recognize these attitudes as what we need to primarily engage with
Exactly. Focusing on the arguments is a mistake.
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> you may have heard the argument that letting civic juries decide laws and choose public officials, denies people the right to vote
If this is sincere then this is dogmatism (“democracy is about voting”), but it could very well be insincere and being used to mask elitism or expert privilege.
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> I would argue that it’s not fear “OR” laziness; it’s “AND”
Yes – I categorize both of these under conservatism. Radical social change is both hard and dangerous. Most likely one puts in the effort and is unsuccessful. In the unlikely case that change does indeed happen, undesirable effects are a definite possibility. Why not sit back and go with the flow?
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I’m sorry to hear that conservatism is viewed on this forum as a form of psychopathology — motivated by fear and laziness. Sortitia’s contempt for the “average human being” aligns her with Hillary Clinton’s basket of deplorable, and I would also point out that both lottocrats and populists share similar tropes on elite domination.
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I suggest “immobilism” instead of conservatism.
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Simon,
> I of course don’t agree with this argument.
It’s entirely irrelevant whether you agree or not. If anyone opposing sortition has this as their reason, you will not be able to convince them otherwise. Hence the need to introduce sortition as an opt-in choice: you can vote in the election if you want, but let me at least participate in the lottery.
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Yes, but immobilism could also be taken to describe some of the “radical” contributors to this blog, who dismiss refutations of their arguments as self-serving. While conservatives prefer the familiar to the speculative, some progressives take refuge in their ideological certainties and are immune to argumentation. It’s much easier to circle the wagons and talk among ourselves than to engage with genuine critics of the lottocratic mentality (hence Nadia Urbinati’s rapid departure from this forum).
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I don’t think you get far regarding this as about arguments. Trying to get sortition up is a difficult business because most political action and most activism is focused on the concrete – taxes, electricity prices that kind of thing – and participation in politics is usually on behalf of some section of the community – business, consumers, unions, various minorities and so on.
This was the point I made in my presentation at NESTA a couple of years ago. Developing an activism of the system is difficult.
To explain the problem in another way, I was involved in Rory Stewart’s campaign for London Mayor. A plank of his platform was to have a sortition based citizen council. But it focus-grouped badly. People thought of it as another committee. They repeatedly said, we don’t need another committee – we need a strong leader.
Which is why I believe we should build the institution and as people see it, they’ll understand better what it is and why it might help represent them.
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> a sortition based citizen council
This really is an unconvincing proposal. It really does sound like just another committee. It is not clear what problem it is trying to solve or how it would solve it.
Replacing an elite body of elected politicians with a representative allotted one is a clear solution to a clear problem.
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> I suggest “immobilism” instead of conservatism.
I don’t see why we need this term. Conservatism is a perfectly understandable position and as far as I can tell is the attitude that is often at play when rejecting sortition. (I am talking about conservatism in its literal meaning – being reluctant to change – rather than “conservatism” as a label that politicians use to market their oppressive ideologies and policies, ideologies and policies that have nothing to do with conservatism and often involve radical change.)
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Although I would describe myself as conservative (small c), I have been researching (and advocating) sortition for over 20 years. Conservatives are cautious, incremental and pragmatic but not opposed to change on principle.
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You forgot about “political alienation” as the Marxists complain about. They believe that if a person is not constantly engaged in politics (even if that engagement serves no actual purpose), that person will become alienated from society.
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[…] has a lengthy piece in the Boston Review which reviews Alexander Guerrero’s Lottocracy. Unsurprisingly, Kolodny is not sympathetic to the idea of sortition. Predictably, Kolodny finds ample […]
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