What's the difference between "protect people from themselves" and "take away people's freedom and decide for them anything important"?
IMHO, freedom must contain the freedom to choose "bad", or make mistakes. "Bad" is in quotes because it's only certain to be bad from the perspective of the person considering the problem, you or me in this case. Maybe the people will be well served by "bad" decisions, able to learn from them, or be happy in ignorance, or who knows what else.
I think it's parallel to giving children autonomy. The more you protect them, the more you prevent their growth as a person.
Unlike with children, though, "people" is not a singular entity. While the sets of those voting for some platform and the set of those harmed by its policies often intersect, they rarely overlap entirely.
In general, the biggest problem with any kind of democracy is preventing it from dissolving into a cycle of people voting to, basically, oppress and/or rob their outgroup neighbors for their own benefit (with outgroups themselves created or redefined over time to provide for new targets).
> This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state.
I am certain Xi and Putin and Trump think it is their right and prerogative to "protect people from themselves". Just like you.
This is for example the justification used to ban books. Certain books, when read, give people incorrect ideas, and we need to protect them from themselves.
No, the point is that you'd better "protect yourself from them". That one should not «protect people from themselves» is opinable, but as that one is directly involved, a better question is "how to protect yourself" - which is a revolution in perspective.
That some people may have had a position (and that is also to be shown) that coincidentally overlaps with something that be confused as related to the above changes nothing (of the truthfulness of the idea).
You first said it is your right to protect people from themselves. This new different position is more reasonable. Sure, go ahead, protect yourself from others. Be aware they will protect themselves from you too, on the exact same arguments.
No, look: you cannot take chunks of posts when they are not semantically isolated, there is no «new» position, it is the same expressed more verbosely:
it was "Protect[ing people] from themselves[? ... Certainly[], because society has consequences over the individual".
It means, "no, it is not a good idea to let them be liabilities: the consequences fall on you".
You see that the point is not plainly "protecting people from themselves", and the closest cone of interpretations of that, right?
> Be aware they will
An where is the problem? That is duly! Society is based on reciprocal interaction AND correction! Of course everybody is supposed to contribute.
> Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about “liberty”; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “progress”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “education”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, “Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty.” This is, logically rendered, “Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.” He says, “Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress.” This, logically stated, means, “Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.” He says, “Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.” This, clearly expressed, means, “We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.”
No, it is just that that one was not the context to discuss the details of sought education. That one did not go into specifics does not mean the specifics are not available in good amount.
I would rather have someone "uneducated" than "educated" with wrong values. And I would much rather not fund "education" of people with values that are entirely antithetical to my own.
Of course for "education" I certainly did not mean "indoctrination".
In an education system people are taught to think, and given intellectual keys, and material for thought. The values imparted are the natural ones, consequential (e.g. "work, or no results") - not factioneries.
If you are imparting values, you are, in fact, indoctrinating — and I don't mind as long as it's strictly indoctrinating my values.
There is no rational process for deriving values and morality from first principles. Science is about what is, not about what should be. Democracy therefore can't be derived from facts of nature alone. You can only reason from true
things to other true things, not from nothing to something. There is no reasoning your way from physics to how a state ought to be run.
I think people who say education is the solution to democracy, or in particular to the people voting someone the spearker does not like, mean "educate more people to believe what I believe".
It's clearly a good solution from the perspective of that speaker - more people would vote the same way they do, so the "right" people would get elected, "right" policies would happen and so on.
Meh, if this avoiding the "definition of good" is really the problem, then the likes of Putin and Xi and Trump will fix us. They clearly think they know exactly what's good for everyone, and are willing to do most anything to achieve it. Doubtful they will make the world a better place, but who knows. I guess we'll find out.
Because to me it appears that you just give the "ignorant" peoples power to someone else, and if your goal is to keep being a democracy, then this sort of power redistribution is almost certain to screw your system over in the long term.
It is not an opinion: you do not choose it among alternatives. You have to look at it and see. "Giving the ignorant power over the rest is dangerous". Try to argue the opposite, you'll probably have to go into quite some effort to produce some good arguments.
> Are you not worried in any way about needing to answer everything with "no"?
No, I trust you with understanding the sense. (It's not a need, it just works in formulation.)
We don’t want to do that. We want to give them the tools to help themselves, and leave them with the advises we believe relevant to not hurt themselves when using them, and then let them the duty to act according to their own experience.
Sure, we would rather not see our kids die from all the dangers of the outside world. But they won’t thrive an bloom if we confine them in a padded basement.
IMHO, freedom must contain the freedom to choose "bad", or make mistakes. "Bad" is in quotes because it's only certain to be bad from the perspective of the person considering the problem, you or me in this case. Maybe the people will be well served by "bad" decisions, able to learn from them, or be happy in ignorance, or who knows what else.
I think it's parallel to giving children autonomy. The more you protect them, the more you prevent their growth as a person.