Do You Know What You Call An Uneducated Democracy? Demagoguery
So Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in front of God and everybody at the Oscars. What horror. The Fresh Prince slapped his one time BFF for insulting his wife in front of millions of people. There was a time when that would have been expected. A man who would not defend his wife would have been considered not much of a man. Not only that, Chris Rock would have been castigated severely for using a medical condition to make fun of a woman. Had he made fun of her weight…Well that would have been decidedly uncool. But a medical condition of losing her hair?
When did it get to be acceptable to troll people for any and all reasons? How is it that all the cool kids can now toss insults around like they’re throwing candy at a parade? How is it that the liar in chief, old #XLV can even consider starting a twitter alternative called “Truth Social” and put Devin Nunes in charge of it? Truth Social???? Really? The XLV and Devin? No wonder it’s falling on its face. Neither of those two know what truth or social is.
You know, way back in history, Socrates thought that democracy would fail. The reason he gave was that no one would want a ship setting sail to be captained by just any old folk. He claimed, with reason, that anyone would want the captain of a ship to be someone with experience of sea craft and lots of years of that experience. Why then would anyone want just any old folk to decide who the head of state should be or what laws should be passed to guide the state? The founding fathers of the United States sought to overcome this deficit of democracy by insisting that the population be educated.
Wikipedia defines education as the “process of facilitation learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, habits, and personal development.” Education originated as a transmission of cultural heritage from one generation to the next. It seems as if that very transmission has fallen into disuse or distrust. How can any generation trust a generation of people who put party over everything? There can be no trust in a generation which would subvert its own values for power. And not actual power, but really just for money. Consider this for a few moments, please.
Fox News puts Trucker Carlson on prime time because his brand of comedy makes money. Marge says outrageous thingies for money. Sr. DeSantis passes thought policing laws to make money. Daren the XLV wanted a second term to make money. He didn’t finish what he started so that Vlad, who has made a lot of money, would give him his Moscow tower. Further to this point why did The XLV find it necessary to deny climate change. Certainly not for money, right? The same wouldn’t be true for the Keystone pipeline, right? Of course it’s right. We do things for money. There’s nothing wrong with doing things that earn money, but it’s bad form to do things for money at the expense of the next generation. That can not be trusted.
Every generation must be stewards of that which they inherited from the previous generation. If we were to apply the concepts of hermeneutics here, understanding the whole to understand the part and understanding the part to understand the whole, we’d start with looking at the part where The XLV pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. What was that part? The whole of that idea was to goose the stock market. The XLV considered the stock market to be representative of the constituency, and it is to a point, but there still exists a huge income gap between the most wealthy in the society and the rest of the society. Due to that wide income gap we should expect a general frustration to develop in those who are the have-nots. It has been considered by academics for some time that global catastrophes are great equalizers. That has not been the case with the current pandemic. War would be the next option in terms of equalizing wealth distribution, but war isn’t even a guaranteed cure for wealth inequality.
This wealth inequality represents the lament voiced by Socrates over democracy. “There is a distinction between an intellectual democracy and a democracy by birthright. We have given the vote to all by birthright without connecting it to that of wisdom. And Socrates knew exactly where that would lead; to a system the Greeks feared above all, demagoguery.” (source). Demagoguery is defined as a political practice which seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people, as opposed to using rational argument. By this definition we are no longer part of a democracy. We are in a practicing demagoguery. The opinions of ordinary people decide that Will Smith is wrong because he slapped Chris Rock, but Chris Rock is not held responsible because he was ignorant and God knows we all like that excuse for stupid action.
It could be that the only problem here is akin to the Zen master’s reply, “You are like this cup so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back with an empty cup.” But then why shouldn’t this generation consider that they know everything necessary? The generation preceding them is consumed with money and power. The problems of this generation do not concern them. So of course we can ignore climate change. Ignoring the climate is good for today’s pocket book. Who cares what it does for tomorrow’s entire generation.
The reason The Fresh Prince is wrong is because he is imposing his will on poor Mr. Rock. Imposing one’s will is wrong, but isn’t it also true that squeaky wheels get grease? Seems to me that Will was just squeaking a bit and that Mr. Rock was way out of line. Who else was there to stand up for Jada? But then a demagoguery would poison even Socrates by hemlock because of some dishonest charge of corrupting the youth. Kind of like what’s going on in Florida. Kind of like what goes on with Trucker every evening. Kind of like what Marge does to earn reelection money. Kind of how Daren the XLV uses the last election to appeal to “the base” for more money.
This is called demagoguery. These folks are all appealing to ordinary folks’ desires and prejudices. The argument rests on the elite causing a gap in wealth by nefarious means, and the cure being, keeping the sympathizing politician in power. I have to wonder if there can be an educated solution to demagoguery, brought about by a gap in wealth?
