Monday, September 24, 2018
Expertise or Popularity?
Plato criticizes democracy throughout The Republic. In Chapter 8, for example, he compares the state to a ship. He argues that it is better to have a captain knowledgeable about navigation steer the ship rather than untrained crewmembers. The crewmembers may be able to persuade the owners to let them sail the ship, but without the proper expertise, the ship will not reach its destination. In other words, Plato argues that democracy rewards popularity over expertise, but it is expertise that is essential for good government. Is he right? Consider some examples from class. Can democracy deal with such long-term issues as global warming when most people would prefer to ignore them? Can it deal with economic recovery when most citizens don't understand economic theory? Or can you give a point in democracy's favor?
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I think that Plato is correct to argue that democracy favors popularity over expertise. We have discussed that democracy is a form of government that prioritizes freedom and that everyone is allowed to do what they want. Because of this, anyone is allowed to become a ruler if enough people vote for them, including a charismatic deckhand who has no idea how to captain a ship. People from all types of jobs are allowed to run for leader in a democratic government. This leads to certain problems when it comes to legislature for instance a fisherman might make laws that benefit him so that he is allowed to catch more fish or certain endangered fish. A businessman might make laws that prioritize making money instead of saving the environment. Because it is immoral to do more than your own job, democracy is a failure as a moral form of government. Only someone whose job is to be a leader is fit to run a country because they will create laws that do not prioritize their alternate job and will instead create laws that benefit the community as a whole because that is what the job of a leader is. The constant switch of rulers also makes it difficult to solve any long term problems because if two leaders with opposing viewpoints are in power after each other, they will do what they can to undo the policies of the ruler before them. For instance in America, terms only last 4-8 years. Barack Obama and Donald Trump has pretty opposite viewpoints. Trump has undone some of the policies that Obama created during his term. I think that the potential inexperience of leaders in a democratic society combined with the constant switch of leaders with potentially opposing viewpoints makes it nearly impossible for important long term subjects such as global warming to be solved.
ReplyDeletePlato’s analogy of the ship points out a major flaw in the democratic system: the people, no matter how ignorant, may elect a popular person to office who is unfit to rule; however, his argument does not work because a popular person may also be a good ruler. Plato reduces the whole system of democracy into mob rule, where people would “put the others to death or cast them out” in order to gain control (Plato 488c). This point does not hold up because in a good democracy, there would be legislation in place to discourage such behavior and punish those that commit these crimes to win the vote. In the United States, a candidate that unfairly wins an election, for example by using an unfriendly foreign nation to hack his opponents and influence the election, would normally be impeached by now. Plato is correct about his claim that sometimes rulers will be elected based on their popularity instead of their competence at their job. Not every person in the voting body can possibly be well-informed in all areas of politics, thereby making it plausible that they may not be most fit to elect a leader. Sometimes leaders will be elected based on false claims that the average person might not detect. Many leaders in the United States do not believe in and will not act on the issue of climate change, although there is a majority consensus of climate scientists that concluded it was real. Finally, Plato is wrong in his argument against democracy because even if a bad leader is elected, if enough voters are disappointed in the leader’s incompetence, a new leader will be elected to rule. Plato’s argument against democracy highlights flaws within the governmental system, but his analogies fail to completely discredit democracy.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with Plato’s argument that democracy rewards popularity over expertise. Democracy is an essential ingredient for a just and functioning society. Where democracy is absent, apathy, discouragement, and hopelessness are present. Witness any communist country where only ignorance allows people some idea of belonging and control. The real question is not whether democracy is useful or preferable to a society run by "expertise", but how expertise and democracy can be effectively combined for the good of the individual and the state. No one would argue that a group of well meaning citizens can fly a plane, perform heart surgery, or navigate a ship. We must assign such tasks to experts who have demonstrated competence and ability. However, that does not mean that democracy itself is fatally flawed. Can it deal with issues such as global warming? Global warming cannot be addressed in any other way other that through democratic will. We cannot assume that people prefer to ignore such issues. Most people have a vested interest in society's welfare and if not in society's welfare then, in their own. In such issues with such wide ranging and complex causes and even more complex consequences, the need to involve, educate, and invite participation is critical. There have been many heroes in the environmental movements who have no expertise except their own instinctive wisdom for self-preservation and their ability to involve their neighbors. Economic theory is abstract and controversial. Experts are often wrong, and their mistakes and arrogance have cost millions of people their savings and livelihoods. This is not to say we do not need them or want them, but to be effective their theories must be accessible and understandable to the people and the people must decide.
ReplyDeleteIf in a perfectly ideal Democracy citizens are informed, think rationally, and make good decisions, then it is through this inevitable lack of ideal that we see popularity and emotion overshadow expertise. In a Democracy, people are given the opportunity to vote for their ruler and how they want the state to be run. In thought, the idea that the people are to choose since they are the ones affected makes perfect sense, although, when looking at it in practice and using Plato’s ship analogy, we start to see its flaws. In general, the analogy points out an important idea that people might not always choose what is best for them – in the passage this is explained by the sailors choosing based of popularity instead of expertise. When compared to Democracy, I don’t actually agree that people choose solely off popularity. In this context, I think that popularity and expertise are two sides of the same coin: the only reason that the sailors choose popularity is because they [wrongly] value it more than expertise (their values are in the wrong place because, thinking from Plato’s perspective, they are being controlled by the wrong state of mind). However, I do agree with the message that, since people aren’t always informed/thinking beneficially, then a system that values expertise could be more beneficial. Whether or not people believe that something is good for them, the moment they start voting on a basis that actually harms themselves or their community, then Democracy loses its purpose [of benefiting its people]. In the ship analogy, the people believe (subconsciously or just wrongly) that the popular person is the better candidate. In doing this, they are harming themselves purely based off they fact that they are misinformed.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to be negative then I suppose that you could also argue that the lack of good candidates in a Democracy is the issue: like, people will be force to ‘pick their poison’ so you might as well give them a choice. It’s an unnecessarily negative viewpoint though and I believe that, whether or not there is a clear better candidate, one will be better (if only slightly) than the other.
Plato’s argument that Democracy is merely a popularity contest fails since he doesn’t give a deeper comparative analysis between Democracy and an Oligarchy.
ReplyDeleteTo begin, I’m operating under the framework that we can’t evaluate forms of government in the strictly theoretical, and instead should analyze how governments function in the real world. To give an example, some people would say that communism is a hypothetical ideal society, but whenever communism is tried it leads to bad outcomes for the populous. Even if it is hypothetically ideal, how that form of government practically functions is more important when deciding if it is the best form of government. With that in mind, let’s proceed to his comparison.
The problem with Plato’s Oligarchy is that he never explains how philosophers become kings in the first place, and instead asserts that the best policy occurs if they become kings. For the sake of argument I will concede the latter point. The only question then becomes what system would lead to philosophers ruling effectively. I would say the answer is Democracies, and I say that for two reasons.
First, the mark of a good government isn’t whether or not good policies are passed, but rather if those policies are enforced and followed. If no one listens to a law and if the police don’t enforce it, the law becomes obsolete. For this reason, it is not sufficient for a good government to have a philosopher as king, and the burden of good governance is instead what system has good laws that are respected. Under Plato’s system it is entirely ambiguous how philosophers become rulers, and I would contend the general populous would become disenfranchised since all diktats are from the top down. This means that in an oligarchy people are less likely to respect and follow the law, so In a Democracy however, the people elect the rulers. This means that respect of law increases with Democracy, since the electorate feels as though their voice is heard and the leader is elected based on if he/she is popular with the electorate in the first place. Plato would respond to this by saying that Democracies don’t guarantee philosophers as kings and instead guarantee populists as kings, but this is where my second argument comes into play.
My second argument is that knowledge is diffused in the electorate, and as such they are more likely to elect a philosopher than Plato’s non-existent mechanism. Plato never explains how Philosophers become rulers in an Oligarchy, but for the sake of argument that Plato’s mechanism is himself, and he gets to elect the first generation of rulers. That would mean there are philosophers as kings for one generation, but once they get old who takes their place? Those philosophers would elect new philosophers of course, but what if any of them mess up in the future? Even philosophers are human and are prone to error every now and then, so electing the future leader of a society ought not be at the behest of a few people where the chance of a mistake is high and the impact of such a mistake is potentially catastrophic. Instead, a greater number in the electorate would create less human error. Simply looking at the problem from a statistical angle, the chance that one of the five or so philosophers messes up eventually and appoints a bad ruler is significantly higher than the chance that over 20% of the population votes the wrong way in an election. Furthermore, even if we are to assume that these are the five smartest people to have ever lived, the three hundred odd million American citizens collectively know more than those five people combined. Since knowledge is diffused within the population, a few philosophers, granted all their knowledge and wisdom, picking new people to replace them is significantly more likely to fail than the majority of the population voting the wrong way.
It is for these two arguments that Democracy is a good form of government.
I agree with Plato’s argument that Democracy rewards popularity over expertise. I also agree that expertise is essential for good government. The whole thought behind democracy is to nominate politicians. Politicians get appointed based upon how many votes they receive. Usually the Politicians that are nominated are the most liked by the community. Democracy revolves around popularity which could prove problematic if someone is popular but they have no knowledge. This could result in a bad leader as they have no expertise in said field. It is also true that expertise is the essential for good government. The best leaders are also experts in their field. This would show that Democracy would most definitely develop problems when dealing with issues that are not agreed upon by the general public. If the general public prefers to ignore long term issues then the issues will never be taken care of by democracy. It would also seem to result in problems with economic recovery if most people do not understand economics themselves. On the other hand it could be argued that Democracy could help in multiple ways. It is important that the public also agrees with the actions being taken. While the politicians are the ones creating the law, the public are the ones that have to follow in order for it to work in a positive way. Another argument is that while most citizens don’t understand economic theory, they are not required to as they are nominating a politician that does understand economics. Therefore for democracy to work, there has to be trust that the public will nominate someone with expertise in the field.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Plato's argument that popularity is valued over/equal to competence. For someone (anyone) to become a leader in a democracy, they simply have to be popular. This system makes no sense, considering that we wouldn't take some random person to pilot the plane we are riding, or to perform the surgery we need, so why would someone be put in power who doesn't have expertise in that topic? To create an optimal society where everything runs smoothly, the most well-informed people from every occupation should be put in charge. It simply comes down to the fact that rather than having someone who is supported by the public in power, it is far more beneficial to have a knowledgeable person in power who can make smart, informed decisions that will benefit the community rather than make everyone happy. However, it could be argued that Democracy is beneficial in the sense that keeping the people happy is very important. By allowing them to choose whoever they want to be in power, even though they lose some knowledge, they gain the support of the people.
ReplyDeleteThough Plato’s allegory argues first and foremost for rulers to be philosophers, one can extrapolate his words to understand that expertise of both the populace and the ruling party is essential for sustainable civilization. At the beginning of his argument for an expert ruler, Socrates states that ‘“Unless communities have philosophers as kings… or the people who are currently called kings and rulers practice philosophy with enough integrity – in other words, unless political power and philosophy coincide, and all the people with their diversity of talents who currently head in different directions towards government or philosophy have those doors shut firmly in their faces – there can be no end to political… or even human troubles (473d). In this way, Socrates argues that civilization will never reach a healthy or productive state unless the rulers practice philosophy and are therefore expert members of society with myriad intellect and understanding. According to Plato, democracy, however, is paradoxical to Socrates’ ideal civilization. Through Socrates’ ship analogy, Plato writes that “[the populace] thinks highly of anyone who contributes towards their gaining power by showing skill at winning over or subduing the owner, and describe him as an accomplished seamen”’ (488c-d). According to Socrates, an uninformed populace will select an unfit leader if the leader is able to convince the populace through means that appeal to passion, desire, and the lowly forms of self. As such, Plato substantiates his argument for an expert ruler regardless of election or popularity. Plato may not deem the expert ruler a tyrant because the tyrant would be motivated by truth and not selfish means; however, restricting the right of the populace to elect a ruler promotes a tyrannical form of government because the populace is effectively enslaved to a ruler they did not elect. Ideally, the populace would elect the most informed rulers of society. For this to happen, knowledge needs to be disseminated to the masses and everyone needs equal chance to pursue truth in the vein of a philosopher’s experience. Oftentimes in the Republic, Plato praises philosophers but ignores the unequal opportunity to achieve this level of knowledge. Currently, information is more accessible through news sources, but this information is not always unbiased or of the highest quality. A truly informed person in our society has access to indisputable fact and has the ability to interpret these facts appropriately. However, this ability is often restricted to those who have the socioeconomic means to obtain this information and ability to interpret; uneducated people are more likely to believe misinformation. In our country, lack of education is often synonymous with poverty and concentrated in racial enclaves. The election of the most expert rulers requires an expert populace. If our society is able to create equal opportunity for knowledge, then democracy will always support adequate rulers while providing a voice to the people and avoiding tyrannical rule.
ReplyDeleteIn The Republic, Plato very clearly says that democracy is a terrible form of government because it is a popularity contest and does not ensure that the best and most qualified people are leading the government. Plato argues that for a civilization to be run well the people in charge need to be the best possible options for the job, and that popularity contests weaken a government. Plato does have a point, the most efficient way to run anything is when the people know what they are doing, and are experts in their field, so it makes sense that this would apply to running the government as well. But there is one thing that Plato doesn’t account for, and that is the will of the people, it is the people who have to follow the laws, and they wouldn’t want to follow said laws if the people in charge are not who they like. As many people have said, it is the citizens who are required to follow these laws, so shouldn’t they have a say in who makes them? Plato would argue that they should not because they are simple and uneducated in advanced matters of government, they make the wrong decisions because they do not know enough. But making the government full of unliked professionals could make the populace discontent, and at worst if the citizens feel like the government isn’t good enough then they will rebel and replace it with a new government. The will of the people is a key factor in running a government, so though I think Plato is right, he is missing a key piece of what makes a government function.
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