PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: JUST AS STUPID AS REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY. The early New Left called for participatory democracy, meaning, participation in the decisions which affect your life. Thats blatantly impossible, because people all over the world, every day make decisions which affect your life. You wouldnt have time to participate in these decisions, in their millions, even if you knew about them. I had a philosophy professor who refuted the thesis by a simple example. You propose marriage to someone. S/he declines. Surely the decision to marry or not, is not one in which the proposer of marriage has some right to participate. How is that even possible? Once the proposal is made, it is at the absolute, arbitrary discretion of the proposed-to, to accept or reject it. I, however, have an even better counter-example. The United States boasts of being the worlds only superpower. That may not be true for long, but, certainly, what the U.S. Government does, affects the lives of many millions of people around the world. Iraqis, Syrians and Afghans are profoundly and, mostly, adversely affected by U.S. Government decisions. So shouldnt they have the right to vote in U.S. elections?
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 23:35:34 +0000