Just a brief thought on the election. I've really only been paying attention to politics for the last ten years. What seems to be increasingly clear to me is that there really is no reason to expect any improvement out of parties or legislators. Why do so if your party is swept out of office in one election, then can come back saying the exact same thing two years later and sweep back in?
To me it seems ludicrous that people should be fed up with Republicans in 2008, then think that the best option is going back to many of the same people in 2010 because they don't like what the Democrats did in those two years. If there was ever an opportunity for a third party to establish itself, it seems like this was it. Instead of a legitimate third option arising, all that we saw was what appears to be a faction of the right wing that's further away from 'center' and so doesn't really pose as a long term third option other than moving the Republican party further to the right and polarizing the process even more.
I would really like the American public to realize that politics need not be thought of as a continuum, where every issue falls on one side or the other, and the degree to which it varies from center determines how appealing it is. If you disagree with some issues but agree with others for a party, there really isn't going to be any candidate that can possibly appeal to you.
But like I said, if ever there was a time to establish this possibility, this year's election was it. As such, I suspect another method may be necessary if that system will ever change. I know we've discussed alternate voting methods before, but I suspect those will be nigh impossible to implement, as those in power are complicit in maintaining that power structure, so they have no incentive to change it.
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I remember the Sunday after the 2008 elections Joe Scarborough (Morning Joe, MSNBC) was on Meet The Press. The topic was “is this the end of the Republican party?” Joe laughed and made a comment that the Republicans had nothing to worry about. They just need to sit back and not do anything completely stupid, and in 2 years when the economy and everything was not back to pre-recession levels, then the American people would turn back to them. It’s just the cycle of things. He was right.
ReplyDeleteUnder the Obama administration the stock market recuperated, the health-care system was overhauled, financial system overhauled, unemployment stopped rising, the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, and the recession ended. Despite this, the Republicans took back the House. I don’t have anything to really add to your post except that instead of adding another party, and therefore another set of ideologies that a group of individuals would align themselves with, I posit doing away with a party system altogether. No more listing Ds and Rs on ballots so people can’t vote straight ticket without knowing the candidate, no more major/minority leaders, just people sent to Washington by their communities to be that community’s representative. I honestly believe if some of the people did not have a name brand to hide behind they really wouldn’t know what to say half the time. While we are changing thing up, with Skype and the internet let’s just send everyone back to their home states. They can vote online or by phone, teleconference to propose bills, etc.
I agree with the eliminating of parties from ballots. In fact, I don't even think they should list who the incumbent is on the ballot. If you don't know the name of who you want to vote for, you really shouldn't be voting for them.
ReplyDeleteThough I wasn't necessarily arguing that a third party would be the end of the road and we'd be good with three. Merely that if a third party could get a foot in the door, it might open people up to voting alternative parties more often and not worry about "throwing the vote away."
I really like the idea of no parties for informed voters, however, I do have some concerns. Based on the tone of this post and this blog in general, I assume we are all fairly informed voters, and we actually consider who we are voting for, not just the party. Of the meager percentage of registered voters who actually vote, I'd say we are an equally meager minority.
ReplyDeleteLook at the Primary in South Carolina. Alvin Greene won the nomination likely because his name was first on the ballot, and in spite of coming across as an idiot with criminal charges in interviews, still won 28% of the vote on Tuesday. In light of this, is it a good idea to turn uninformed people loose in the polls without even the vague insight a party name provides? If the shift would lead to voters being motivated to be informed, absolutely. But if it led to more voters staying home, or making random votes, I'd say no. Thoughts?
I think a core question of this discussion is whether it is better to have an uninformed majority participating in government or an informed minority doing so. In my mind an informed minority would be more effective and efficient, and probably make better decisions, but I also think people don't like decisions made for them, and the country would be much less stable in such a case. What do you all think?
These are valid points, MrL. I forgot about the mysterious case of Alvin Greene. This really does become a catch-22 very quickly. You can't really try to select the informed voter without accusations of elitism or other biases/agendas.
ReplyDeleteBut including all the uninformed voters leads to problems as well. I suspect the tone of campaigns and strategy of politicians is largely to attract the voters who don't spend much time researching the election (i.e. mudslinging, fear-based campaigns, short-term policy initiatives).
I like your core question, but I'm having a difficult time coming up with an answer to it. Technically, the system of government we have is supposed to be an informed minority (representatives & senators) speaking for the uninformed majority. But I know what you mean in that everybody wants to feel they have their say, and rightfully so.
I guess I have two questions that I don't have the answer to yet. First, wasn't this initially attempted in the founding days of the country through only property-owning white men being able to vote? I could be conflating things, but it essentially boiled down to that. Then over time everybody has been included. Before I go any further, I should just say I'm not implying we should go back to that. I'm just asking the question of whether or not this was basically the intent of the original laws. I want to say I remember that one of the founding fathers was dreadfully frightened of the proletariat being able to vote, but I don't remember which one it was (Hamilton is popping up in my head), nor do I know if that was common amongst the other writers of the Constitution.
Second, does the method of voting advertisement/discussion lead to more uninformed voters? When you think about it, people on television or in ad campaigns never say anything along the lines of "research the election and pick the best candidate." It's always simply saying "go vote." What pops into my head is Sean (Puff Daddy/Puffy/P Diddy/Diddy) Combs' campaign a couple years ago of "Vote or Die." Perhaps it's implied to think about it, but the message is never directly delivered. Casting a vote is the important thing. Picking the best candidate is not.
The core question raised by MrL is one that I will have to contemplate for awhile. Although, certainly the question insinuates one must choose between the lesser of two evils, results from which my prevailing assumptions tell me, no one wins. I will suggest, and to no surprise by the readers, that what the U.S. has is a cultural-priority problem. Individuals, including myself, can recite obscure sporting-event statistics but cannot recite Supreme Court decisions. We value certain “entertainment” professions to such an extent that workers are compensated on a logarithmic scale when compared to workers that produces products or pass on knowledge. In general, we are a nation stuck in apathy. Cable news might not reveal it this way, but more individuals (collectively) will watch football this weekend than turned out to vote last Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteWhatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, does not enter into his very being, but still remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness – Wilhelm von Humboldt
This quote educes in me the thought that perhaps we don’t appreciate the value of voting because we never had to fight for it. The right was inherent from our birth. Perhaps every able-bodied individual should have to spend some time with Americorps (or similar org.) in a country with no democracy before s/he is allowed to vote.
Steve, you're right about Hamilton, and I've heard the same argument regarding the intents of the founding fathers. I too don't have a good answer to your second question. My initial response is that commercials really help in no way. At least here in Ohio, they blatantly contradicted each other, and as far as I could tell everybody was lying. People listened to who they were already going to vote for, and undecided voters just got frustrated. Maybe somehow if we could convey "Get out and Vote... if you've done your homework."
ReplyDeleteThis discussion reminds me of one I had regarding how scientists should get involved in public discourse on socioscientific issues (stem cell research, cloning, GMOs, etc.), we ended up at the depressing conclusion that either people need to become scientifically literate in order to have useful debate, or such decisions should be delegated to experts and the public should accept their decisions. Maybe I'm cynical, but I'm not holding my breath for the prior, and I also don't think the latter would go over well.
So whether we are talking about SSI, or politics in general, how do we convince people they need to understand something they think they already do?
MrL, that is a great question. Introspection, or the practice of questioning our own thoughts and actions. What percentage of the population do you think practices this? The only thing I know for certain is that I am ignorant about something. This is my modus operandi. I don't think college is necessary to acquire it, because actually it was my thirst for philosophy that brought my attention to it. It goes back to my quote from above by von Humboldt, if an individual does not thirst for more knowledge from within, you can teach and beat it to them, but in the end it would become nothing more than a mechanical operation.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is where it gets difficult, specifically the last question MrL poses. Whenever I think about it, I am reminded of the health care discussion we had with Gabe on Facebook in which he told us we need to "educate ourselves" or something along those lines pretty much because we disagreed with him. I think pretty much any effort to tell people to approach voting differently will fail because people will suspect you want them to vote for the other party automatically, and thus will often just tune you out because they think you're a liberal or conservative (depending on what they are).
ReplyDeleteIn my experiences that I presume are similar to the Facebook conversation you mention Steve, I don't know that debate works to change perspectives, as people are more interested in winning than understanding.
ReplyDeletePerhaps in less polarized times this was possible, but I think whenever people have an emotional tie to their perspective, they won't deal with conflicting facts regardless of how strong they are.
There are a few sources I was ready to cite regarding theories of cognitive development and conceptual change (below if you're interested), but as Taggart pointed out, there must be a thirst for knowledge before any such theory is relevant. I think our society values financial success above anything else. If you're wealthy, it doesn't matter if you're stupid, ugly, or socially inept. In high school and undergraduate courses I've taught (or been a TA for), most students don't really care whether they understand the concepts, what matters is that they know what they need to get the grade, so they can move on to the next level, whether that be higher education or a better job. I don't think there will be a widespread desire to gain knowledge until wisdom is what our society values highest. As to how we can help implement this shift in values, I am all ears.
Further reading:
William G. Perry's theory of cognitive development (I don't recall a particularly good citation off hand, but I can find one if you're interested)
Ozdemir and Clark (2007) An overview of conceptual change theories. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 3(4): 351-361.
No, you're exactly right. Too often people are interested in being perceived as being right more than fully understanding the process and actually getting to the right answer eventually. And I won't absolve myself from this accusation by any means. I know that sometimes I get in arguments where as soon as it starts I get defensive about my initial position. Sometimes I'm able to step back and realize I was wrong, sometimes I don't do that. But in my coursework now I definitely try to balance an actual understanding of the concept material with the desire to do well on the test. I've tried the worry about the grade angle before and didn't care for the road it took me down.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that doesn't go beyond just the thirst for knowledge (though obviously that's still a big part) to the scenario of the discussion. In other words, are people more receptive in a discussion than they are in an argument when things get a little more heated and emotional? And are there certain topics they're willing to be receptive on as opposed to others? But these still relate back to the issue of people thinking they know everything about a topic (or any topic). If you think that's the case, you're probably going to be less receptive to opposing ideas despite the evidence. I know these aren't exactly new questions, but they're ones I need to learn more about. And hopefully sometime in the near future I can read those citations.
Just out of curiosity MrL, what is your academic background? What field are you in? If you don't care to answer, I understand. As I said, I'm just curious.
Well said Steve, I fully agree. I have certainly caught myself continuing to argue a point even though I'm wrong. This is probably something most people struggle with.
ReplyDeleteFor my undergraduate degree I was a biology major and education minor. I taught high school biology for a few years, during which time I began a masters in Science Ed. I'm now a PhD student studying the evolution of social behavior, specifically cooperation in animal groups.
This next bit is anecdotal, but adds to the conversation. It was brought up that our society values money, products, results that sell. However, the questions we ask, such a “how can we ask better questions” or “how can we reconcile differences for progress” these are issues addressed by philosophy and psychology departments at colleges and universities. I mean this in as much as there being actual studies done to address these topics. The problem is, these studies will perhaps generate great insight but you can’t sell them. The outcomes are not a pill that can be sold by a pharmLab. Just recently at the University of Minnesota they decided the best way to treat the gushing wound that is the college of liberal arts (home to philosophy and psychology) is to chop jobs, decrease graduate students, and eliminate majors. I understand from a financial standpoint that these colleges don’t generate the income like the sciences. I am just pointing out the conundrum.
ReplyDeleteThat's a valid point. It's a short-term view, much like cutting kids phy. ed. classes for school children and having pop and candy machines throughout schools because they bring in money, then wondering why we have a drastic increase in Type-II diabetes among kids.
ReplyDeleteThere's a larger problem to Steve's first point about a third (or more numerous) political parties in a pluralist state.
ReplyDeleteDuverger's Law:
"uverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system: a proportional representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller political parties, resulting in what is known as a two-party system.
A two-party system often develops from the single-member district plurality voting system (SMDP). In an SMDP system, voters have a single vote which they can cast for a single candidate in their district, in which only one legislative seat is available. The winner of the seat is determined by the candidate with the most votes. This means that the SMDP system has several qualities that can serve to discourage the development of third parties and reward the two major parties.
A prominent restrictive feature unique to the SMDP voting system is purely statistical. Because the SMDP system only gives the winner in each district a seat, a party which consistently comes third in every district will not gain any seats in the legislature, even if it receives a significant proportion of the vote. This puts geographically thinly spread parties at a significant disadvantage. An example of this is the Liberal Democrats in the UK, whose proportion of seats in the legislative is significantly less than their proportion of the national vote. The Green Party of Canada is also a good example. The party receives approximately 5% of the popular vote, but has not yet won a seat in the House of Commons. Gerrymandering is sometimes used to counteract such geographic difficulties in local politics, but controversial on a large scale. These numerical disadvantages can create an artificial limit on the level at which a third party can engage in the political process.
The second unique problem is both statistical and tactical. Duverger suggested an election in which 100,000 moderate voters and 80,000 radical voters are voting for a single official. If two moderate candidates and one radical candidate were to run, the radical candidate would win unless one of the moderate candidates gathered fewer than 20,000 votes. Observing this, moderate voters would be more likely to vote for the candidate most likely to gain more votes, with the goal of defeating the radical candidate. Either the two parties must merge, or one moderate party must fail, as the voters gravitate to the two strong parties, a trend Duverger called polarization.[4]...
...In countries that use proportional representation, especially where the whole country forms a single constituency (like Israel), the electoral rules discourage a two-party system; the number of votes received for a party determines the number of seats won, and new parties can thus develop an immediate electoral niche. Duverger identified that the use of PR would make a two-party system less likely. However, other systems do not guarantee new parties access to the system: Malta provides an example of a stable two-party system using the single transferable vote, although it is worth noting that its presidential elections are won by a plurality, which may put a greater two-party bias in the system than in a purely proportional system."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
So, don't expect this country to ever have more than two parties because the founding fathers fucked things up with the way they set up the voting system.
There's a larger problem to Steve's first point about a third (or more numerous) political parties in a pluralist state.
ReplyDeleteDuverger's Law:
"uverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system: a proportional representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller political parties, resulting in what is known as a two-party system.
A two-party system often develops from the single-member district plurality voting system (SMDP). In an SMDP system, voters have a single vote which they can cast for a single candidate in their district, in which only one legislative seat is available. The winner of the seat is determined by the candidate with the most votes. This means that the SMDP system has several qualities that can serve to discourage the development of third parties and reward the two major parties.
A prominent restrictive feature unique to the SMDP voting system is purely statistical. Because the SMDP system only gives the winner in each district a seat, a party which consistently comes third in every district will not gain any seats in the legislature, even if it receives a significant proportion of the vote. This puts geographically thinly spread parties at a significant disadvantage. An example of this is the Liberal Democrats in the UK, whose proportion of seats in the legislative is significantly less than their proportion of the national vote. The Green Party of Canada is also a good example. The party receives approximately 5% of the popular vote, but has not yet won a seat in the House of Commons. Gerrymandering is sometimes used to counteract such geographic difficulties in local politics, but controversial on a large scale. These numerical disadvantages can create an artificial limit on the level at which a third party can engage in the political process.
The second unique problem is both statistical and tactical. Duverger suggested an election in which 100,000 moderate voters and 80,000 radical voters are voting for a single official. If two moderate candidates and one radical candidate were to run, the radical candidate would win unless one of the moderate candidates gathered fewer than 20,000 votes. Observing this, moderate voters would be more likely to vote for the candidate most likely to gain more votes, with the goal of defeating the radical candidate. Either the two parties must merge, or one moderate party must fail, as the voters gravitate to the two strong parties, a trend Duverger called polarization.[4]...
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ReplyDelete"I think a core question of this discussion is whether it is better to have an uninformed majority participating in government or an informed minority doing so. In my mind an informed minority would be more effective and efficient, and probably make better decisions, but I also think people don't like decisions made for them, and the country would be much less stable in such a case. What do you all think?"
ReplyDeleteSome people would argue that an informed minority already makes the decisions or at least exerts a disproportionate amount of political might - I am of course talking about the business class, the "responsible men".
Again, Chomsky says it better than I could when he references Walter Lippmann:
Now there are two "functions" in a democracy: The specialized class, the responsible men, carry out the executive function, which means they do the thinking and planning and understand the common interests. Then, there is the bewildered herd, and they have a function in democracy too. Their function in a democracy, [Lippmann] said, is to be "spectators," not participants in action. But they have more of a function than that, because it's a democracy. Occasionally they are allowed to lend their weight to one or another member of the specialized class. In other words, they're allowed to say, "We want you to be our leader" or "We want you to be our leader." That's because it's a democracy and not a totalitarian state. That's called an election. But once they've lent their weight to one or another member of the specialized class they're supposed to sink back and become spectators of action, but not participants. That's in a properly functioning democracy.
Now, how do I feel supposing this shit about specialized class is true? Well, it infuriates me just like having scientists make all of the decisions would upset everyone who isn't a scientist. Are these two cases perfectly analogous? No, but they're not wholly dis-similar either.
There isn't an easy answer to a lot of the questions being raised here. Keep in mind, a lot of people in Greece didn't think democracy would work because the average person is too self-involved and too stupid and too lazy to function in a real democracy. The best case is to have a fully committed population to the principles of their democracy and constitution. Theoretically, we could all be informed enough to vote on each issue ourselves and do away with (many) elected officials entirely. This would require each member of the voting class to be well-educated, meeting a minimum intelligence, and motivated. Then there is our current system which will never resemble the system I just described with two parties who really aren't much different both controlled by larger business interests more than by popular will. Our situation could be a lot better.
Just a couple thoughts (already raised on the phone with Brent, but repeated here for everybody else) - saying the founding fathers 'fucked up' is a bit harsh considering political science developed Duverger's Law well after they set the system up. But is that not why amendments are possible? To cover the unintended consequences, unforeseen possibilities, and changing circumstances a country is likely to face? I don't think proportional voting would have really been possible technologically in the late 1700's, and even if it were, it likely would've been very easy to manipulate.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this is the argument many keep making that essentially gospelizes the founding fathers works and makes any changes to our system of government "radical" even though the founding fathers allowed for this possibility. I'm left wondering if any amendments are really possible in this polarized situation when you need 75% of the states to agree.
Just out of curiosity, Brent, does Duverger's Law predict the number of parties for any given voting system? Specifically, if a proportional voting system allows for 5 ranked votes, will there form 6 parties?