Good morning.
So we had the parliamentary election on Sunday. I am kind of terrified of what will happen next. Because it seems like we are going to have people in the government who really if you ask me should not be in the government.
A side note, today in Helsingin Sanomat there was an article where they interviewed some cultural people like writers and musicians and stuff about the election. They were all like "Wait, what, those are our biggest parties? Who in this country even votes for them? Because no one I know does..." And one of them said that the cultural and university people and researches basically vote for very much not the current biggest parties. Now, what does it tell you is the more or less objectively most intelligent people in this country don't think the ones who probably will be in charge should be in charge?
Don't get me wrong, you need difference of opinion in order to have democracy. You can't hear all the sides and all points of views to something everyone fully agrees on, so that would make democracy completely useless. So it's good people have different opinions. But there is a difference between having an opinion and being straight out wrong. Take the same-sex marriage law that passed last fall. Every argument against it I've heard I've been able to logically turn down. So it's not even about different values, which would be perfectly ok. It's about some people being plain wrong.
Ookay, anyway. Today I wanted to talk to you about democracy. Partly because of the election, but partly because I came across a pretty interesting idea about democracy while studying for a course. Basically that idea was that even though in today's society media does a lot of work to support and enable democracy, it's not necessary for democracy. The freedom of speech is.
And I'd like to disagree with this idea. Not with the bit about the freedom of speech, that is obviously one very fundamental thing that has to be present in order for there to be democracy, but about the bit that you don't really need media to maintain democracy.
Media, I think, is what enables the large-scale conversation in a society, and that's necessary for democracy to work. Without mass communication and media people would hardly hear about anything, not to mention having their own voice heard. So I think being able to effectively get messages around to people is a pretty necessary part of democracy. Of course representative democracy and elections worked also at a time without even a radio, but the people's knowledge they used to make the decision of who to vote was severely limited, because they pretty much knew only what someone in the village had told them. In today's society people can actually find out something about the people they're voting for, and the different alternatives, and vote for who they actually think is best for the job. And I think informed decisions are kind of relevant to democracy. And without proper media people can't be properly informed. Then again, a lot of people are too lazy to really get into the whole voting thing and just vote for someone one of those advice applications. But at least they have a possibility to make an informed decision.
I also realise that ancient Greeks are still the ideal model for democracy and got the whole thing going perfectly fine without any of today's medias. But I'd like to note that the city-states in Greek antiquity were a lot smaller than today's states. Getting the word around to everyone (who was allowed to have a say, meaning fee men) was significantly easier. Especially since everyone was pretty much socially obligated to stay up with the local political news and happenings and participate. So the mass of people was tiny, and everyone was actively looking for information. So unless you want to go back to tiny city-states, you need media for democracy to really work.
And then there's the other model country of democracy, that at least I think is pretty strong evidence you need media for proper democracy. Because their election system was developed in a time when the fastest way to deliver messages was by horse and they're apparently refusing to update to today's media, you can still (theoretically) win their presidential election with less than a quarter of the total vote. Yes, I've done the math myself. And I'm not sure if you can even call that a democracy. I mean sure, you hold elections, and everyone has equal say, only one vote. But the thing is everyone don't have an equal say. The votes of people from smaller states weigh more in the total decision than those of people from big states. Also the point of democracy is kind of listening to every one and all the points on views and then doing what the majority wants (which is hopefully what is best for everyone), and I don't think this is what happens in the US right now. In their system not only the minority votes are completely lost on the way, it's possible even the voice of the majority can be easily muffled if most of them happen to be from states where the other guy happens to be slightly more popular.
And that is why you need media for democracy to work in the huge states we live in today. Instead of using the electoral system that was outdated over a hundred years ago by the invention of radio and telegram (which are medias), you could just count the votes and send the actual numbers to the other side of the country to be summed up with all the other actual numbers in the fractions of a second.
Because that's the only way to know what the majority actually wants.
I'll hear from you... later today, I suppose?
No one gave you a topic yet, did they? Cups.
I'm going to Kuopio tomorrow, so I'll tell someone else to give you a topic then.
~matu
So we had the parliamentary election on Sunday. I am kind of terrified of what will happen next. Because it seems like we are going to have people in the government who really if you ask me should not be in the government.
A side note, today in Helsingin Sanomat there was an article where they interviewed some cultural people like writers and musicians and stuff about the election. They were all like "Wait, what, those are our biggest parties? Who in this country even votes for them? Because no one I know does..." And one of them said that the cultural and university people and researches basically vote for very much not the current biggest parties. Now, what does it tell you is the more or less objectively most intelligent people in this country don't think the ones who probably will be in charge should be in charge?
Don't get me wrong, you need difference of opinion in order to have democracy. You can't hear all the sides and all points of views to something everyone fully agrees on, so that would make democracy completely useless. So it's good people have different opinions. But there is a difference between having an opinion and being straight out wrong. Take the same-sex marriage law that passed last fall. Every argument against it I've heard I've been able to logically turn down. So it's not even about different values, which would be perfectly ok. It's about some people being plain wrong.
Ookay, anyway. Today I wanted to talk to you about democracy. Partly because of the election, but partly because I came across a pretty interesting idea about democracy while studying for a course. Basically that idea was that even though in today's society media does a lot of work to support and enable democracy, it's not necessary for democracy. The freedom of speech is.
And I'd like to disagree with this idea. Not with the bit about the freedom of speech, that is obviously one very fundamental thing that has to be present in order for there to be democracy, but about the bit that you don't really need media to maintain democracy.
Media, I think, is what enables the large-scale conversation in a society, and that's necessary for democracy to work. Without mass communication and media people would hardly hear about anything, not to mention having their own voice heard. So I think being able to effectively get messages around to people is a pretty necessary part of democracy. Of course representative democracy and elections worked also at a time without even a radio, but the people's knowledge they used to make the decision of who to vote was severely limited, because they pretty much knew only what someone in the village had told them. In today's society people can actually find out something about the people they're voting for, and the different alternatives, and vote for who they actually think is best for the job. And I think informed decisions are kind of relevant to democracy. And without proper media people can't be properly informed. Then again, a lot of people are too lazy to really get into the whole voting thing and just vote for someone one of those advice applications. But at least they have a possibility to make an informed decision.
I also realise that ancient Greeks are still the ideal model for democracy and got the whole thing going perfectly fine without any of today's medias. But I'd like to note that the city-states in Greek antiquity were a lot smaller than today's states. Getting the word around to everyone (who was allowed to have a say, meaning fee men) was significantly easier. Especially since everyone was pretty much socially obligated to stay up with the local political news and happenings and participate. So the mass of people was tiny, and everyone was actively looking for information. So unless you want to go back to tiny city-states, you need media for democracy to really work.
And then there's the other model country of democracy, that at least I think is pretty strong evidence you need media for proper democracy. Because their election system was developed in a time when the fastest way to deliver messages was by horse and they're apparently refusing to update to today's media, you can still (theoretically) win their presidential election with less than a quarter of the total vote. Yes, I've done the math myself. And I'm not sure if you can even call that a democracy. I mean sure, you hold elections, and everyone has equal say, only one vote. But the thing is everyone don't have an equal say. The votes of people from smaller states weigh more in the total decision than those of people from big states. Also the point of democracy is kind of listening to every one and all the points on views and then doing what the majority wants (which is hopefully what is best for everyone), and I don't think this is what happens in the US right now. In their system not only the minority votes are completely lost on the way, it's possible even the voice of the majority can be easily muffled if most of them happen to be from states where the other guy happens to be slightly more popular.
And that is why you need media for democracy to work in the huge states we live in today. Instead of using the electoral system that was outdated over a hundred years ago by the invention of radio and telegram (which are medias), you could just count the votes and send the actual numbers to the other side of the country to be summed up with all the other actual numbers in the fractions of a second.
Because that's the only way to know what the majority actually wants.
I'll hear from you... later today, I suppose?
No one gave you a topic yet, did they? Cups.
I'm going to Kuopio tomorrow, so I'll tell someone else to give you a topic then.
~matu
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