In my explorations into US history, I read once that our Founding Fathers (Persons?) did NOT really have in mind a democracy based on Churchill's *average voters*...that they tended more toward an enlightened plutocracy. And that it was not until Andrew Jackson (US President 1829-1837) that "the common man" really got into the USA mix...however, you asked responses not be one country, one situation...
Okay, I am going to say Churchill was correct, IF you think worldwide. And maybe the US experience in Iraq demonstrates that. In democracies, even the educational system is designed partly to prepare people to participate.
* * * Given citizen preparation and involvement, I think democracy is the best form of government so far, and at the same time it's still not very good and we need to be looking for something that works better, more conducive to human potential.
Wasn't it true that in Athens be a citizen and participate you had to have shown proven service to the city?... That citizenship was something earned and not granted automatically? ... I tend to the belief for many people, gifts given with earning them are wasted gifts ... Maybe automatic citizen ship based on birth alone is one?
I only requested a wider focus in an attempt to avoid the current situation in DC. In Australia we have compulsory voting and we are fined if we do not vote. That means that a great number of people cast a vote without the slightest interest or knowledge of the prevailing situation. Some, and this is the same in all countries, vote the way their parents voted (much as children follow the religion of their parents). I also think he was right but, as Churchill hmself pointed out on another occasion, Democracy is still the best system we have.
I think most people are familiar with the concept that opposites attract and likes charges repel---pretty basic high school physics, right?....
But at the nuclear level in an atom, forces exist that bind the positive protons together, i.e., a force called the strong nuclear force keeps them attracted to each other once they are close enough....
The first force that most of us are familiar with (opposite attract; likes repel) refers to the electromagnetic force....(There are two others basic forces in nature---gravity and the weak nuclear force.)...
At very close distances, the strong nuclear force is greater than the electromagnetic force, and the protons are found together....
Summary---both forces are at work....But under different conditions, one or the other will rule and---but if you don't know when which condition exists, you can't know what will happen....
My point----knowledge and understanding are not liked directly with intelligence and money---you have to be specifically educated to evaluate whether someone like Trump has successfully evaluated which forces are in actually at work when he proposes changes in the current systems...
If he doesn't understand international trade for example, do you know enough to know that about him?...
Democracy requires an informed electorate---the question is, does the electorate know enough to judge whether or not they are actually informed?
Reading your post I thought of something I just learned from Ozgirl, just above...the Dunning-Kruger Effect where you actually assume you are more competent than you are...
That's not exactly what the Dunning-Kruger Effect is. It states that the LOWER the intelligence, the more intelligent the person thinks himself to be. Conversely, the HIGHER the intelligence, the less intelligent the person thinks himself to be.
Smart people are aware of their shortcomings. Not-so-smart people less so.
Hi Louie, I am still trying to assimilate what Dunning-Kruger really is, just having heard of it a few days ago right here on aMug...might you have experience in actually how it is applied?
For example, maybe what it really means is that we ALL tend to think of ourselves as average? So the brighter folks would think along the lines of: oh that is SO simple anyone could do it...but then I am not quite seeing how us dimmer lights might come to think we are actually average...
One of the things that came up in grad school 47 years ago was "the frustration-aggression hypothesis."...Just reading the phrase I put in quotes makes it sound reasonable, but while it is true that some frustration may result in aggression, it does NOT mean that you can "boil it down" and assume that frustration breeds aggression....
Same thing with "Dunning-Kruger EFFECT"....
And in searching for additional explanation of the Dunning-Kruger effect, I came across this on the internet....Forgive me, but this is (if true) an excellent example of the Dunning-Kruger effect ....
Idiocracy now: Donald Trump and the Dunning-Kruger effect — when stupid people don’t know they are stupid Trump is not merely ignorant. He is also supremely confident and feels superior — the most dangerous kind of idiot...
(If you highlight the above paragraph and search for it, you will find the source link.)...
(And I have mentioned before that he is not well educated.)
This post was edited by tom jackson at February 27, 2017 5:05 PM MST
And what's fascinating, Virginia is that the Dunning-Kruger effect is demonstrated in some of these answers and comments---both in regards to what it really states and to what can be logically implied (as opposed to what can be proven logically)...
TJ...I was almost going to message Didge, because I am really wondering if maybe people have different kinds of sense of humour? Didge has been married 56 years to a woman with an immense wit and sense of humour, I grew up with a father of incomparable wit...to me, Churchill's subtle British humour is delightfully obvious...a whole different spin than I see in some of these answers!
This style of humour reminds me of the Adlai Stevenson response when the supporter said, "Any thinking person would vote for you!" "That's not enough, Madam, we need a majority." In other words, maybe the Churchill quote is not literally the point, but still makes a very valid point...democracy isn't working as well as we need it to.
I think that the electorate, myself included, are heavily dependent on medias sources for our information. Politicians lie. Media owners lie, or at least put pressure on their journalists. One of the wonderful advantages of the Internet is that we're not tied to one or two news sources; if a sensational story hits the news we can pursue it through various media and across national borders. It makes it so much easier to get a handle on what's really happening. Thanks for an interesting answer.
Unfortunately, Didge, people tend to use the internet to look at the opinions of those who share their existing bias. That is an effect which a lot of people who research these things are noting. I agree it can, potentially, give people greater freedom in how they follow a story, but a lot of people just stay within their own comfort zone.
Inevitably. But the resource is there and opens windows to understanding that didn't exist in the past. Of course, there are those who get their "news" from Facebook and Twitter, and that's a worry.
Counties with more college-educated residents gave Trump substantially fewervotes....
I didn't keep the link for that, but there were a lot more interesting findings by the person who assembled all the data across the country...
Democracy requires an educated electorate....I knew one person who didn't realize that to get the result on an issue he wanted, he had to vote no on the proposition as presented on the ballot.....And of course he voted against his own interest when he voted yes.
That can certainly happen, Tom. It's happened in Oz often enough -- particularly with referendums in which we vote not for a person or a party but for an idea. Some of those ideas have been presented very obscurely.
No, you're the one suggestion that he wants to abandon democracy. He was merely stating a fact. Why is his mind great? His scholarship, his leadership through two world wars, his original and clever thinking.
In May 1940, long before American joined WW2, the British army was soundly defeated in France and had to be evacuated by a fleet largely comprised of fishing boats and pleasure craft. This was Dunkirk. The whole of Britain waited for the Wehrmacht to invade and it was just a few weeks later than Churchill stood in the House of Commons and delivered his "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech. He rallied an entire nation and made them believe.
At that time, when everybody else was expecting the invasion, Churchill called Mountbatten into No. 10 Downing Street and tasked him with planning the invasion of Europe.
The man was a giant. Without him Germanyu would have won WW2 before the Japanese ever thought of attacking Pearl Harbor and forcing America into the war.
The battle is not between one ism and another. It is between centralized government and the individual. The only function of a government is to prevent any other group from taking control. The duty of a citizen is to control his government. That is why governments always eventually treat citizens as enemies of the state.
Benedict Arnold 