Catalonia and regional self-determination

You're conflating variables now. Small communities are always better socially policed; many an anecdote exists about village living in which everybody knows everybody's business.

But my Birmingham neighbourhood for instance has its own neighbourhood committee, which its ethnic diversity notwithstanding (White CoE and atheist Brits, Catholic Polish, Asians of various religions: Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, and a mixed-race Dutchman) recently got some tenants evicted from a property for dealing drugs.

 

Have you been dinning on a diet of the Daily Mail?

 

Maybe we need some sort of caped crusader.

 

I'm not too expert on the nature of the Catalan independence movement but it seems not to be so much rooted in ethic-nationalism rather than a "political" nationalism - they object to being ruled from Madrid, partly for historical reasons.

It seems similar to the Scots. Their Independence referendum wasn't about getting the English out, or getting other people out, but about self-rule as opposed to English rule and a desire to take a different political direction to the rest of the UK.


Broadly I dislike nationalism as another form of collectivism - the interest of the group (ethnic, national, class, religious) are seen as more important than those of the individuals within it. However I don't automatically object to patriotism, if it is taking pride in your own nation or group for itself, but in opposition to others.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41646142

 

The thing is we don't know if it was democratic as the vote didn't follow the rules.

That not to say i agree with the way either side have handled things but if you want to change the system you have to work within the rules.

 

The Catalan government’s own pollster found that while 70% of voters want a referendum on the territory’s future, only 48% do if the Spanish government doesn’t agree (which it emphatically doesn't). According to the same poll, support for independence has been slowly declining, and now stands at 41%.

Add to this that the turnout for the referendum was 43%, which is constitutionally not enough to make it valid, and the whole result is a bit questionable.

As Corky42 says, neither side has exactly covered themselves in glory, but democracy != populism.

 

If we are going to take a leaf out of the book of ancient Greece as the inventor of democracy, I wish to point out that the 'people' who had voting rights were native land-owning males over the age of 20 only. Why? Because only they were considered to be wise and responsible enough to have a say.

We can question the selection criteria of Athenian society, but the basic idea was sound: democracy only works if the people act like responsible, informed and wise adults. But the uncomfortable truth is that people as a whole are not that wise and not that responsible, easily led and tend to want all sorts of irrational, mutually incompatible and outright impossible things. So there are rules to protect people from themselves and from each other, and they can't be bent or broken just to get the result you want. That's how we ended up with the *********** that is Brexit.

 

They aren't my reservations or fears; they are necessary conditions for democracy, as in: rule of the people, as in: self-rule, to work. These conditions don't disappear just because you don't care.

How about people taking some responsibility to learn and think? Because the Athenians recognised that this is the fundamental condition for self-rule by the people: the people need to take responsibility.

Democracy is not a right; it is self-responsibility. In ancient Athens there was no such concept as "citizens' rights". The assumption was that people had freedoms, in that they were beholden to no ruler but themselves. But with freedom comes self-discipline; with power comes responsibility. Self-rule is quite literally self-government, which means self-responsibility.

Putting the responsibility on schools or politicians to teach people how to think and form informed opinion is abdicating responsibility for one's self-government onto others. Next you want them to do the thinking and opinion forming for you. You may as well appoint a dictator. Your attitude of: "I don't care how it is supposed to work, I want rule by the people!" illustrates in a nutshell what is wrong with your picture of democracy.

It take two to tango. You don't have to vote for unicorns to learn that they don't exist.

 

Blaming others is again a form of abdicating responsibility. I am saying that in order for democracy to work, citizens have to take responsibility for their own thinking, for making informed judgements , for how they raise their children to do the same, and for choosing wisely the people and policies that the vote for. Otherwise: garbage in, garbage out.

You don't need revolutions; history shows that they just end in violence and chaos until another equally dysfunctional ruling system replaces the old one. Revolutions create circulation, but not change. Because the government may be replaced, but the people are still the same old people. All people need to do is act responsibly in their own community, and vote wisely. Politicians learn soon enough and things change.

And in a democracy, who votes for that system? Who votes for the people who design that system? The people.

Stop blaming the system. Either you believe in people, or you don't. If you believe in people, you believe in their ability to overcome dysfunctional systems and govern themselves wisely. If you don't believe that they are able to do that, then you basically don't believe that they can govern themselves in the first place.

If we don't accept responsibility for our own lives and choices, we cannot govern ourselves.

 

That sounds very contradictory, on the one hand you're saying we need to inform and educate people and on the other you're saying the so called news that's owned by the economic and political elite are informing and educating people, it sounds as if you simply don't like the information and education that people are being feed.

It's not that i disagree with your premise that people aren't being informed in an objective manner and aren't being taught critical thinking, however if you attempt to inform someone or teach them aren't you falling into the same trap? Whose to say X information is any more objective than Y or the way people are taught is any less bias.

 

Why do you think they only start to `teach` Critical Thinking at higher educational level? League tables! GCES and A levels , children are `taught` to pass an exam, based upon a national curriculum based upon national identity.....

 

Honesty i don't think we teach critical thinking at any level, we tell people these are the facts and you must accept them unquestioningly, we don't teach rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence, most people struggle to even understand what a fact is IMO.

 

Child cognitive development is a factor: children do not develop the full capacity for critical rational thought until about age 12 (although I agree it is important to start them young). Language development is another factor --and there, the younger you start, the better. Nevertheless, it is important not to abdicate parental responsibility to schools. There is plenty that the parents can do to teach their children the value of thinking and learning. When children incessantly ask "Why?", try to answer their questions. If you don't know, find out together (everybody has a smartphone with Google these days; how hard can it be?). When children show curiosity, encourage it. Show interest in their thoughts and feelings about things. If you don't know what your child has been doing on the internet, it's because you didn't ask.

Corky42 is right: schools don't teach critical thinking. Then again, the parents don't model it either.

There is an interesting little study that suggests that children's reading ability and school attainment are not dependent on how much time their parents spend reading with them, but simply on how many books there are in the parental home. When children are exposed to books as valued and interesting items, they want to learn to read them. Other studies show that parental respect for education and teachers is related to children's educational attainment.

The narrative throughout this entire thread is that democracy is being thwarted by the other. Corrupt politicians, a dictatorial EU, "the system", a shadowy wealthy elite. They are the puppet masters; the electorate are helpless puppets misinformed by incessant lies.

Bull. Democracy is being thwarted by the electorate. Just like schools cannot teach the smartest child if the parents do not take responsibility for their child's learning, democracy cannot work unless the electorate take responsibility for using it wisely.

 

But where do you go with this? Do you restrict the franchise? increase the voting age? Require some level of educational qualification? None of these are imaginable to me a modern, liberal society. I'd again echo Churchill in that democracy may seem terrible, but better than anything else humans have tried in it's place.

Or are you asking for an arrangement where the masses are not offered the chance to vote on questions that are deemed to complex or important for them to interfere with? What this relies on is to have all the main political parties holding the same views on the subject so no choice is offered to the masses. We see also the unstated preference within the EU where referendums are discouraged and a "No" vote only results in another referendum or a the matter passed without one. I think this only fuels populism in the long term.

It is better to show the electorate more respect and make the case to them rather than trying to avoid their input. Cameron's response to the SNP demand for a referendum was a good example. The main three parties campaigned on the same platform, made the case and won the argument.

 

I was teaching this year for a while (attempted PGCE and pulled out after 1/2 year) and in my experience teachers do tr and encourage critical thinking with discussion during tutor time and when questions occur in class. In science, for example you do try to encourage children to ask better questions, not just to know the right answers. Of course you do have teach them for the exam, it would be unfair not to as those grades can give them choices in life that they will not get without them.

Mind you that isn't them the same as teaching them that, say, regional independence is wrong or the EU is always right, or vice versa.

 

That's pretty much what we have now, we elect people to represent us who we think will make well educated decisions on our behalf, at least that's what they're meant to be doing.

It's the difference between a direct and representative democracy, direct democracy is an very bad idea IMO as not only can it be subverted by populism but the majority of people have better things to do than educate themselves to such a level where they can make informed choices on often highly complex subjects, and that's ignoring the fact that there's just some information a normal person wouldn't be privileged to (Iraqs WMD's).

Instead we elect people who vote on our behalf based on what's meant to be a better understanding.

 

Rules and safeguards.

Note how Trump is having real difficulties getting some of his hare-brained ideas put into practice. This is because the US democratic system does not vest power in a single figurehead or even a single governmental body. There are multiple layers of elected body that balance each other out.

Similarly the EU distributes its powers and has different layers of election in the EU council (elected heads of government of member states, with presidency rotating every six months) and the EU parliament (elected MEPs --even those who quite explicitly wish to end the EU, because they were elected by the people, so they get in), with written constitutional safeguards as to its operation (it is a myth that when a referendum results in a "no" vote that it is simply ignored and rerun. In truth, it results in new negotiations and compromises before a modified proposal is put before the electorate). The UK has an elected parliament, an elected government (even if not elected head of state), and an unelected House of Lords. Not as democratic as the EU, but again there are checks and balances, which is why the current government is struggling to get Henry VIII powers through the house.

The problem with the UK is that it has no written constitutional safeguards like most other countries have. As such Cameron could casually turn an advisory referendum in a binding one by public statement, while nevertheless ignoring the criteria for binding referenda on turnout and proportion of majority vote. Those criteria --75% minimum turnout and 60% minimum majority for change in the status quo-- exist for a reason. Constitutional changes have far-reaching consequences, so everybody has to be on board (and besides, choice is meaningless when the options are cake or death).

Those consequences also have to be fully understood. There were no clear and enforceable rules on what politicians could claim during the EU referendum, so lies and unsubstantiated claims flew around with abandon. Only 16% of voters stated that they felt well-informed to make a valid decision.

Compare the meticulous preparation and lengthy campaign for the binding Scottish independence referendum with the rushed *********** that was the advisory EU referendum. This was Cameron trying to get out of the way a promise that he hadn't expected to have to make good on, and a referendum that he had not expected to lose. Arguably it was also one that Johnson had not expected to win, and one that other Brexiteers like Peter North and Dominic Cummings had not expected was going to be turned into a turd sandwich (although they obviously could have known: some people are just too clever for their own good). The government and this nation are now torn in half and in full-blown crisis: over a 2% majority on a vote that was 84% gut feeling based on a three month campaign of lies and unicorns.

Basically give neither the electorate nor politicians too much power. That is why we have representative democracy of elected politicians. And do not allow for big sudden changes: have written constitutional safeguards and rules that cannot be changed for political expediency.

 

I would invite you to my History lecture (its on a Friday morning) , the theme currently is The origins of the Second World War (AJP Taylor) , and the argument of determinism vs free will (philosophy). For Narrative , we are looking at Greenfall tower and the role of the BBC in a certain `fake news` narrative they want to push. Very much looking at events, both modern and historical, critically I can tell you.