I think the issue here is that while it would be great to have educated people bring society forward with their experience/knowledge, the average person doesn't care or want any long term advancement.
Like, Disco was saying earlier that he votes based on the interests of him and his family. He said most Canadians are like that. He's likely correct. The average person is fairly self interested and short sighted. You can't force people like this to start considering advancement of society and an understanding of the world and reality around them. Education is certainly key, but I just think the way you're approaching it wouldn't be likely to alter the landscape. People are very stubborn to change. A more subtle, graceful push is needed for these things. I think you'd just get alienation if you proposed an educational barrier to politics. People would disengage even more from the process than they already are. Forcing this change on them would be like a genesis of oppression, even if it was in some way beneficial.
The rampant anti intellectual climate in our culture(and in the US) certainly doesn't help. I just don't know that forced educational barriers would offset that in a positive manner right now. I think if the educated elite of our country want to do so, cultural manipulation would do more to change things. Get the idea out that education is empowering and fulfilling, not intimidating and useless. This is likely why conservatism persists, because it's a less challenging way of perceiving reality.
Korlash: There's a disconnect in your thinking here. Your premise appears to be that smarter people tend to make better decisions, which seems more or less acceptable. But you're equating intelligence, in the realm of politics and policy in particular, with education. There is no reason to believe this is the case. Even people with advanced degrees in political science have a tremendous capacity for partisanship, ignorance and poor judgement.
The second problem is that it undermines the fundamental democratic tenet of self-determination. You're right to say that pure self-determination is highly problematic, and I would agree that it has to be mitigated. But the whole point of the House of Commons is that it is as democratic as possible, to be balanced by the Senate and Judiciary.
The government can't simply give people what they want with disregard for what's best; but what people want must still have a role in policy. If they want to elect a nineteen-year-old MP, nothing should stop them.
I think the idea of making more stringent requirements makes much more sense for the Senate. I wouldn't go in the direction of hard degree requirements, but rather institute a rigorous vetting process and decrease the amount of discretion in the appointments.
hippofant, your argument is wrong because you do not consider how "demographic 1" is more qualified than "demographic 2". You are acting as if I suggested that right handed people are more qualified than left handed people. That would be pretty arbitrary.
What I'm suggesting is not at all like saying that only white people are qualified. That is because there is no inherent genetic advantage to having white skin that would make you a more qualified politician. It is simply due to historical circumstances that we tend to be more well off, and clearly this is a sad situation that should be redressed, not maintained.
That is very different from my claim. Not only do people with innate intellectual ability gravitate towards university, even those of average intelligence who go there are shown how to do critical analysis and how to solve problems, and simply obtaining a degree does require some amount of discipline (although the case could be made that it's not every program or institution that fosters these qualities equally). The result is that the population of graduates does have some advantage over others when it comes to disciplines that require these skills, and I think (and in fact I consider it obvious) that politics is one such area.
This is also different from the white/black scenario in that given a fair education system, people from all social classes and cultural backgrounds could obtain an education. No one is born into the wrong class. In a perfect world, university education would be mandatory and free, but I don't think we're quite ready for this yet.
Have I elaborated to your satisfaction?
EDIT: Lucid, I totally agree with you. Again, this is a theoretical argument because I honestly can't even fathom how we could sell this to people. We will have to defeat anti-intellectualism through other methods. Cheaper education is one way to do this, I think.
@Torso Boy: I think we disagree on some fundamental level here. I think a lot of people determine what they want based on a lack of information. In that regard, what they want loses a lot of value. If the facts point to what they want not being the optimal choice, than we should disregard what people want. This is really a personal philosophical difference though, so I'm not sure there is much capacity for reconciliation between our opinions here.
I'm not so sure about that Azio. One would expect that our MPs would at least try to communicate to their party on the situation in their riding. It is certainly a plus if you can participate in the party in the meaningful way in the form of ideas. So it's a bit more than just being a vote.
Communication and interface between multiple parties is exactly what Brosseau has experience in. Bartenders and other service industry people spend all day communicating and representing one party to another. You don't need a fucking degree to prove that you're good at working with people. And presumably she has some interest in federal politics and a general familiarity with the issues that face our country and some ideas and opinions of her own, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten involved with the New Democratic Party and run for office.
A lack of education certainly hasn't prevented countless other MPs from doing their jobs.
You have to keep connected/engaged with your critical faculties though. A lot of people go to University for the credential fulfillment(C's get degrees crowd).
If they don't pursue or maintain self education afterwards then a lot of the reasoning and critical thinking skills fade to a large extent.
hippofant, your argument is wrong because you do not consider how "demographic 1" is more qualified than "demographic 2". You are acting as if I suggested that right handed people are more qualified than left handed people. That would be pretty arbitrary.
What I'm suggesting is not at all like saying that only white people are qualified. That is because there is no inherent genetic advantage to having white skin that would make you a more qualified politician. It is simply due to historical circumstances that we tend to be more well off, and clearly this is a sad situation that should be redressed, not maintained.
That is very different from my claim. Not only do people with innate intellectual ability gravitate towards university, even those of average intelligence who go there are shown how to do critical analysis and how to solve problems, and simply obtaining a degree does require some amount of discipline (although the case could be made that it's not every program or institution that fosters these qualities equally). The result is that the population of graduates does have some advantage over others when it comes to disciplines that require these skills, and I think (and in fact I consider it obvious) that politics is one such area.
This is also different from the white/black scenario in that given a fair education system, people from all social classes and cultural backgrounds could obtain an education. No one is born into the wrong class. In a perfect world, university education would be mandatory and free, but I don't think we're quite ready for this yet.
Have I elaborated to your satisfaction?
Not really. You keep defining everything in terms of negatives, rather than affirmatives. You're telling me everything it's not without telling me everything it is. You want to use education as a metric for qualification, and you're okay with it being imprecise, so long as, on average, the qualification level increases. Why are you then unwilling to use any other metric?
I mean, you yourself have admitted that there's no inherent advantage to having an education that would make one more qualified to be an MP, when you admitted that people without educations could be highly competent MPs. And you've admitted that you don't believe that representation by similarity is necessary, when you said that the the few university graduates can properly represent the many non-graduates. So no, I don't understand the distinction you're drawing at all. WHY education? What "qualifies" it as a metric for qualification? What makes education uniquely suited as a metric for your purposes?
How would you amend my 3-point summation of your position then?
Come on Azio, let's drop the pretence that people actually voted for her because they thought she was qualified. They voted for her purely because of the colour of her banner. Québec decided to massively demand change from the government by kicking out everyone we had previously elected. It turns out that Layton has an appealing personality and is a progressive, so we voted NDP en masse. This has nothing to do with the candidates. In all honesty, I voted NDP myself solely to kick the separatists out of the government. I would certainly have preferred to vote for a more qualified MP, but the placeholder MP the NDP put in my riding was the only one who could defeat the Bloc.
EDIT: hippofant, you are being incredibly pedantic.
I never admitted that there was no inherent advantage to an education. In fact, I think I've been doing quite the opposite. Saying that some good MPs could lack an education is no at all an admission that education does not bring an advantage. There are hockey players who are below 5'10", yet you'd have to be pretty ignorant of hockey to claim size wasn't an advantage in this sport. This is the same. Education is an advantage. It's not everything, but it's an advantage.
I also never claimed that graduates could represent non-graduates. I just said they could elect a government that would move us in a better direction (a progressive one). A quick look at our majority conservative government shows that isn't what people currently desire, but I don't think this matters.
I also described in the very post you quoted why I think education is an advantage. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you are actually reading my posts at all. I did rebute your summation of my position in your post. Please do not bother replying unless you actually read my posts, and please stop putting words in my mouth. Give me a point by point rebuttal of my claims and then we can talk. Right now, you are merely talking at me without having really taken the time to read what I write.
Come on Azio, let's drop the pretence that people actually voted for her because they thought she was qualified.
There's that Q word again. I'm not making any argument as to what the voters of Berthier - Maskinongé had in mind when they cast their votes. That would be stupid and presumptuous.
My argument is that Mlle Brosseau is in fact qualified to be a Member of Parliament, regardless of her level of education. And that the media fixation on her in particular, the constant refrain that she is "unqualified" or "inexperienced", and the use of suspiciously quaint terminology such as "barmaid" and "cocktail waitress" instead of her actual job title ("Assistant Manager") is all symptomatic of a sexist and classist streak in Canadian political culture.
You guys need to educate me on the census. I'm too young to have ever needed to fill it out. Will everyone be asked to fill it out? Am I supposed to have already received some indication that I will be asked to complete it?
You guys need to educate me on the census. I'm too young to have ever needed to fill it out. Will everyone be asked to fill it out? Am I supposed to have already received some indication that I will be asked to complete it?
They send a letter to your residence with a code, someone at your residence goes online to complete it
if they are scrupulous they might need to ask you a couple of questions to fill out your bit
@Torso Boy: I think we disagree on some fundamental level here. I think a lot of people determine what they want based on a lack of information. In that regard, what they want loses a lot of value. If the facts point to what they want not being the optimal choice, than we should disregard what people want. This is really a personal philosophical difference though, so I'm not sure there is much capacity for reconciliation between our opinions here.
Absolutely. I agree that lack of information frequently- usually, even- makes a person's choice ill-informed, and potentially inferior to an alternative choice. But things get fuzzy and divisive when we talk about the value of that choice- does a good choice actually have a higher value than a poor choice?
The problem with asserting that individuals' choices can vary in their inherent value leads us into strange places. The implication is that we shouldn't be allowed to make poor choices. We're now talking about classical republicanism and that is scary as shit.
On a more practical level, I agree that degree holders might tend to have better critical thinking skills. But to institute a requirement like that implies a stronger claim: that degree holders necessarily have sufficient critical thinking skills and non-degree holders do not. This is not the case and it would be a naive policy to institute.
On a related note, I think critical thinking should be taught more thoroughly in school. That's a whole other issue though.
@Torso Boy: I think we disagree on some fundamental level here. I think a lot of people determine what they want based on a lack of information. In that regard, what they want loses a lot of value. If the facts point to what they want not being the optimal choice, than we should disregard what people want. This is really a personal philosophical difference though, so I'm not sure there is much capacity for reconciliation between our opinions here.
Absolutely. I agree that lack of information frequently- usually, even- makes a person's choice ill-informed, and potentially inferior to an alternative choice. But things get fuzzy and divisive when we talk about the value of that choice- does a good choice actually have a higher value than a poor choice?
The problem with asserting that individuals' choices can vary in their inherent value leads us into strange places. The implication is that we shouldn't be allowed to make poor choices. We're now talking about classical republicanism and that is scary as shit.
On a more practical level, I agree that degree holders might tend to have better critical thinking skills. But to institute a requirement like that implies a stronger claim: that degree holders necessarily have sufficient critical thinking skills and non-degree holders do not. This is not the case and it would be a naive policy to institute.
On a related note, I think critical thinking should be taught more thoroughly in school. That's a whole other issue though.
Educate me on this. Why should we be allowed to make poor choices? I can see how on a personal level, making bad choices could be a growing experience. This is a different matter entirely when your decision affects others, as far as I'm concerned. Your own mistakes should not lead to hardships for others. Should we not aim for a system that minimizes errors?
If we could make a machine that would take all the decisions on how to run the country, and somehow prove that it's the perfect leader, would you not be happy to follow its orders? I want to hear your opinion on this. I think my own pride would make this difficult for me, but given enough facts to really determine that it's the best leader, I might be swayed to agree with such a scheme.
Oh and I agree that making education a requirement might implicate the stronger claim (that all people with degrees are better) and that would be an unwanted consequence. My claim was just that such a requirement would tend to better results. Again, the precise way in which you would implement something like that is up to debate, and as I've conceded, we will likely never see such a system in place.
I also described in the very post you quoted why I think education is an advantage. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you are actually reading my posts at all. I did rebute your summation of my position in your post. Please do not bother replying unless you actually read my posts, and please stop putting words in my mouth. Give me a point by point rebuttal of my claims and then we can talk. Right now, you are merely talking at me without having really taken the time to read what I write.
I don't reply to points that aren't relevant. I'm asking for a simple statement of principle. If I'm continually misinterpreting you, that is because I am trying to suss out the boundaries of your beliefs using a Monte Carlo approach.
I don't understand why you can't just distill your premise down to a simple set of statements, but instead continue to introduce new complexities with every post. I'm asking for a simple, bare-bones, set of statements that minimally captures your idea. You keep on bringing in more stuff.
For example, what makes you think that in a "fair" education system, whites and blacks would achieve similar levels of education?
What evidence to you have that MPs that would be elected from those with university degrees would be more intelligent than MPs that would be elected from those without university degrees, given that the selection of MPs is not random? Isn't it possible that the exact OPPOSITE would occur? That even though, on average, university graduates are more intelligent, other factors, such as the sample size or ease of distinction, could result in MORE intelligent MPs being elected if we implemented the exact opposite of your idea?*
If you believe that intelligence makes for better MPs, and that the educated TEND to be more intelligent than the uneducated, so you're willing to restrict MP positions to the educated, why can't you make one more jump and say that whites TEND to be more educated than blacks, so you're willing to restrict MPs to whites? Why are you willing to play the probabilistic game to one step, but not the second? You're clearly okay with the fuzziness of the metrics; you seem to rely on a belief that the education is a causal indicator of intelligence, but not whiteness, even though you have no evidence to support that distinction. Intelligence is correlated with education which is correlated with whiteness (or more strongly, Asian-ness), which makes intelligence and whiteness correlated.
And that's not even getting into the practical effects, which would be effectively to restrict MP positions by race, if not necessarily by black/white. Certainly, there would be very few aboriginal MPs, due to their extremely low university graduate rates.
That's why I've been asking for SIMPLE. I just want a basic representation of your logic, in point form. I feel like you're circling around and around what you're saying with examples and conditionals and caveats. I just want the pure, raw logic that you're employing. I don't know why you can't provide that.
* Ie, image two populations of size 10 and 100 with "qualification" scores uniformly distributed between 1 and 10. Then imagine that a bachelor's degree only slightly increases the qualifications of the educated: increase the score of each member of the smaller population sample by +1. Then imagine an "election function that greedily elects the most qualified individual in the population. Suppose we want 5 MPs. Then if we use only the first population, we get MPs of score 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. If we use the other, we get MPs of score 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
Or we can imagine that education causes it to be difficult to discern qualified from unqualified candidates. Maybe now, I can't tell the difference between my 6s and my 10s, so I end up electing just as many 6s as 10s, whereas with the uneducated population, I might be able to elect all 10s.
On the race issue, you can read the last post of mine you quoted, in which I clearly explain my stance. I don't see how it could be any clearer.
You're asking for something I'm not claiming to provide. This isn't a philosophy debate. I do not need to make absolute statements such as "It is wrong to do *action* in all circumstances" or "Group 1 is better than group 2 in all circumstances". Clearly, the real world does not function in this way and I don't want to get into a debate on that subject. The world is full of situations where a balance is struck or where a line is drawn in the sand in some fashion that might appear to an alien species to be arbitrary, yet it seems intuitive to most of us.
The only general statement I'm making here is that education would tend to make people more qualified to be in politics. I am not making a statement more general than this. If you want to debate on a more "general" level, you will have to find someone else because I am simply not interested in your strawmen. I've managed to have a good conversation with others (at least, I enjoyed it? I hope I did not offend anyone.), I don't see why you insist on turning my statements into something they are not.
On the subject of your edit, I'm not sure it's truly relevant because I don't believe people are truly electing candidates based on their abilities. Clearly, the colour of their banner plays a large role. I think the NDP certainly demonstrated this, and the conservatives also to some extent. Basically, I don't think we would truly be selecting all the 10s from the unfiltered population.
@Torso Boy: I think we disagree on some fundamental level here. I think a lot of people determine what they want based on a lack of information. In that regard, what they want loses a lot of value. If the facts point to what they want not being the optimal choice, than we should disregard what people want. This is really a personal philosophical difference though, so I'm not sure there is much capacity for reconciliation between our opinions here.
Absolutely. I agree that lack of information frequently- usually, even- makes a person's choice ill-informed, and potentially inferior to an alternative choice. But things get fuzzy and divisive when we talk about the value of that choice- does a good choice actually have a higher value than a poor choice?
The problem with asserting that individuals' choices can vary in their inherent value leads us into strange places. The implication is that we shouldn't be allowed to make poor choices. We're now talking about classical republicanism and that is scary as shit.
On a more practical level, I agree that degree holders might tend to have better critical thinking skills. But to institute a requirement like that implies a stronger claim: that degree holders necessarily have sufficient critical thinking skills and non-degree holders do not. This is not the case and it would be a naive policy to institute.
On a related note, I think critical thinking should be taught more thoroughly in school. That's a whole other issue though.
Educate me on this. Why should we be allowed to make poor choices? I can see how on a personal level, making bad choices could be a growing experience. This is a different matter entirely when your decision affects others, as far as I'm concerned. Your own mistakes should not lead to hardships for others. Should we not aim for a system that minimizes errors?
Because we have the right to.
I agree with everything you say here, and that is exactly the justification for having stabilizing, non-democratic elements in government. It's the reason the PMO probably has too much power. It's the reason that the US is probably way, way too democratic.
But in addition to your points, not contrary to them, the will of the people cannot be ignored because we all have the right to self-determination. The liberal idea that we get to do what we want to, within certain limits, isn't trivial.
If we could make a machine that would take all the decisions on how to run the country, and somehow prove that it's the perfect leader, would you not be happy to follow its orders? I want to hear your opinion on this. I think my own pride would make this difficult for me, but given enough facts to really determine that it's the best leader, I might be swayed to agree with such a scheme.
I would. But this thought experiment is problematic on a lot of levels- I think we did a thread on it- the least of which being that it is inherently absolutely undemocratic, which is unpalatable to most. This isn't necessarily an issue for me- my issue is that the definition of this ideal monarch would still be subjective, even using strictly utilitarian considerations. It requires quantifying all costs and benefits, including the suffering its policies might cause in the short term and the pleasure derived from vices.
You're getting at a fundamental question about government and its answers are subjective; so how would a perfect ruler be designed? If the majority of citizens disapproved of its policies, would it declare itself illegitimate? Basically, is government supposed to do what's best, or what we want it to?
I would argue that a mix of the two ideals is required, and that's how our government is structured. I believe that the House of Commons is to be as democratic as possible, and be counterbalanced elsewhere by undemocratic institutions.
You seem to be arguing from a position of strict utilitarianism- government's purpose is to achieve the optimal outcome. This is fine. I just believe that it also has to tend to the rights of citizens to self-determine (and if follows that the people as a whole governs itself). It's a categorical obligation rooted in non-utilitarian ethics and liberalism, and I think it's fundamental that governments respect that obligation. I won't deny, however, that it frequently results in sub-optimal outcomes. It's the cost of the right to self-determine- I find it acceptable, but I can't fault you for not finding it acceptable.
I would agree that education tends to make people more qualified to be in politics.
However, that "soft" statement is in stark contrast with your "hard" statement that we should ban all individuals without a bachelor's degree from serving as MPs. I am trying to reconcile the difference between them. It is a significant logical leap from the former to the latter, one that involves significant trade-offs and makes strong assumptions about the way governments work and the sort of society we'd like to have. The fact that you feel unwilling or unable to explicate and defend this logical leap is disturbing to me.
And no, you don't really explain the race issue. White people achieve higher educational outcomes than aboriginal people. Your proposal would result in no aboriginal representation whatsoever. So you're clearly okay with aboriginals being represented solely by non-aboriginals, just as you're okay with non-graduates (75% of the population, 0% of the MPs) being represented by graduates (25% of the population, 100% of the MPs), which for some reason you deny.
Your claims seem to rest on the idea that an individual is likely to be be made more qualified having been educated, than had (s)he not, and that individuals who have been educated are more likely to be more qualified than individuals who have not.
There are clear gaps in this reasoning. One of your defenses is predicated on a notion of incremental improvement... but there are MANY things that would make one more qualified had they done it, and you don't suggest limits based on those. The other is predicated on a notion of probabilistic outcomes. But again, within the current societal context, white people are more probable to be qualified MPs than aboriginal people. Why not apply that restriction as well?
(Admittedly, you make some claim as to some idealized world in which all races achieve education equally and are inherently equally qualified to serve in office, but we don't live in an idealized world, and there is no evidence that we can ever even achieve that idealized world. You cannot reject the possibility that there is an inherent quality within "whiteness" that causes them to be more educated, nor can you deny the current on-the-ground reality that makes it so.)
The combination of the two doesn't occur smoothly, and still leaves questions. Why not restrict all MPs to coming from provincial or municipal government, since that experience would make an individual more qualified to hold federal office than had they not AND those who have held a lower office are more likely to be qualified to hold federal office?
By all means, you don't have to explain your reasoning. You don't need to explicate your core principles. Just as equally, we can, and seemingly do, reject your idea. My working assumption was, and continues to me, that you're simply unwilling to face the possibility that your core principles, if applied coherently and extensively, lead to what you feel would be morally unacceptable outcomes. I think you're okay with using education as a metric because a) you're on the right side of that metric, and b) it's a societally acceptable metric. You're okay with using some real-world correlations, but not others; you obfuscate absolute quality with relative quality, as well as average probabilistic quality with specific quality; and you reach for unsupported idealizations that support your premise. I think your reticence to consider other metrics is rooted in emotional values, rather than reasoned ones, and your latest post only confirms that.
I remain unconvinced as to the ethical quality of your idea, and regardless of whether you want it to be a philosophy debate or not, you're prescribing a way in which our society should be structured, a way in which we should live our lives, and that is, by definition, an ethical proposal.
As for my edit, my example was only a demonstration of how your system might fail. There are many other possibilities. The scores are only a posteori valuations to allow us to speak of the system. You'll note that regardless of the election function used, applying it to the educated population can NEVER produce an optimal result, whereas, depending on the election function, applying it to the uneducated population can. My point was to illustrate the error in your reliance on trends and tendencies and averages, when we're being highly selective - supremely selective, even, given that 308 MPs are elected out of millions of people. Just because group A > group B on average, doesn't necessarily mean that we should select from A rather than B.
You seem to be arguing from a position of strict utilitarianism- government's purpose is to achieve the optimal outcome.
You see, but he isn't. That's what's confusing to me. If I suggest to him the possibility that white people correlate more strongly with educational levels than black people, so there'd be a gain in banning black MPs similar to that achieved by banning uneducated MPs, he then makes claims from equity, saying that black people are equally capable of reaching similar education, and qualification, levels as white people in an ideal world. So he rejects that notion, but not based on utilitarian grounds. There's some... non-pragmatic objection there that's not based on outcomes.
I am all for education and a greater level of intellectualism in the public discourse. What I am not in favour of is the idea that we would all be better off if only a certain class of "educated" or "scientific" individuals are permitted to participate in executive or legislative decisions and to help guide the economic and social progress of the society. I am always astonished when I encounter liberals who express such ideas, apparently unaware of the fact that they are very illiberal indeed.
In practice, technocratic rationalism is almost always about power rather than science or ethics, and is the source of considerable misery all over the world.
At the same time though, some of the stupidest and worst shit you get from 1st world governments is because the people making or calling for the decisions lack an understanding of basic economics or policy or the like.
Democracy doesn't mean throwing out the idea that some people are better qualified in some areas then others.
Democracy means that everyone has an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Nothing more, and nothing less.
No, it doesn't.
My say isn't equal to that of a Supreme Court Justice. And it shouldn't be. I don't know shit about the Constitution or Canadian Law compared to them.
Sure, we both get one vote, but we also have a ton of other systems in our government (like the courts) that don't depend on a straight vote and where my say is a hell of alot less relevant or powerful. And those other systems are there for good reason.
Yes, there are many good reasons why our justice system isn't democratic. There are other aspects of our government that are undemocratic, for reasons that you may or may not agree with. Cabinet appointments are undemocratic. The public service is undemocratic. I mean, we have a fucking house of lords that can veto bills passed by the Commons.
However, the system by which we elect Members of Parliament is democratic and that is what we are talking about.
Yes, there are many good reasons why our justice system isn't democratic. There are other aspects of our government that are undemocratic, for reasons that you may or may not agree with. Cabinet appointments are not democratic. The public service is not democratic. We have a fucking house of lords that can veto bills passed by the Commons.
However, the system by which we elect Members of Parliament is democratic and that is what we are talking about.
Yes, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not bringing up the independence of the judiciary, I'm bringing up the qualifications of the judiciary. It's not my lack of independence that makes me unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, it's that I don't know shit about the subject (or not enough anyway).
The elected portions of our government (or certain parts of them anyway) are no different in this respect. If you are going to be making important decisions about how our country is run, you are going to need some knowledge and/or experience or whatever. There's really important shit going on there and you want people who know WTF they are doing.
Of course, it's not terribly relevant in some ways to our current system. We do have a sort of protection against this. Because of the marginalization of most MPs (backbenchers are basically benchwarmers), it's more about the leader of the party knowing what he's doing and/or knowing enough to pick people who do know what they are doing to help him. And this means individual MPs are less important, which may sort of lead to a chicken and egg thing. The low amount of authority of most MPs leads to their personal qualifications being not that relevant which in turn leads to them being powerless or some such.
There's also the issue that there's deliberately no real way to keep the "unqualified" out because defining who's unqualified is fucking mess and leads to bad things so we just run with simpler rules and hope for the best.
And when it doesn't work out .. well, then we end up with Harper's Cabinet. That's the result of a lack of qualified people in those positions.
But the point is we want knowledgeable/experienced/educated/etc people in those positions. That's one of the big reasons we are a representational democracy. The point (well, part of it) is that we are not all equally qualified and thus we elect someone who is to make the decisions in our place, along some general guideline we vote on. We don't all have an equal say in decisions, we all have an equal say in who gets to make those decisions. And that's fundamentally different.
One thing I am secretly, embarrassingly happy about in regards to our five year "strong stable" conservative dictatorship, is that I no longer feel the urge to be constantly glued to twitter and the bloody Globe and Mail. While I don't intend to completely tune out of politics, I want to refocus on other interests and priorities. When things ramp up in 2016 or whenever, assuming our dear leader doesn't pass the Enabling Act and ban elections, I will be volunteering and donating like mad to the NDP.
I'm with you on the semi tuning out thing. It's difficult though, when you're an informed and aware individual. You stay involved, only to see the general populace and the people/things they vote for let you down time and time again. Much like the recent failure of electoral reform in the UK. Constant facepalming in the face of widespread ignorance.
I liken it to an abusive relationship that you can't get away from.
I visited Madison last month. So sorry for you. The people chanting union hymns in the Capital building were cool though. Wisconsin's a beautiful state.
That's probably one of the best things Ontario has done for Toronto ever
Hmm? Is something happening over at MaRS? Are they finally going to finish the west wing? Swear to god they were working on that even when I was working there.
Not exactly politics, but the four RCMP officers who more or less killed Robert Dziekanski are being charged with perjury.
It's not the criminal charges I'd like to see, but I hope at least this might lead to these four being permanently expelled from the force.
They'll probably get shuffled up north to some perma-frozen detachment like Inuvik. It's where they send their problem members that they can't completely oust from the force for whatever reason.
Posts
I think the issue here is that while it would be great to have educated people bring society forward with their experience/knowledge, the average person doesn't care or want any long term advancement.
Like, Disco was saying earlier that he votes based on the interests of him and his family. He said most Canadians are like that. He's likely correct. The average person is fairly self interested and short sighted. You can't force people like this to start considering advancement of society and an understanding of the world and reality around them. Education is certainly key, but I just think the way you're approaching it wouldn't be likely to alter the landscape. People are very stubborn to change. A more subtle, graceful push is needed for these things. I think you'd just get alienation if you proposed an educational barrier to politics. People would disengage even more from the process than they already are. Forcing this change on them would be like a genesis of oppression, even if it was in some way beneficial.
The rampant anti intellectual climate in our culture(and in the US) certainly doesn't help. I just don't know that forced educational barriers would offset that in a positive manner right now. I think if the educated elite of our country want to do so, cultural manipulation would do more to change things. Get the idea out that education is empowering and fulfilling, not intimidating and useless. This is likely why conservatism persists, because it's a less challenging way of perceiving reality.
The second problem is that it undermines the fundamental democratic tenet of self-determination. You're right to say that pure self-determination is highly problematic, and I would agree that it has to be mitigated. But the whole point of the House of Commons is that it is as democratic as possible, to be balanced by the Senate and Judiciary.
The government can't simply give people what they want with disregard for what's best; but what people want must still have a role in policy. If they want to elect a nineteen-year-old MP, nothing should stop them.
I think the idea of making more stringent requirements makes much more sense for the Senate. I wouldn't go in the direction of hard degree requirements, but rather institute a rigorous vetting process and decrease the amount of discretion in the appointments.
What I'm suggesting is not at all like saying that only white people are qualified. That is because there is no inherent genetic advantage to having white skin that would make you a more qualified politician. It is simply due to historical circumstances that we tend to be more well off, and clearly this is a sad situation that should be redressed, not maintained.
That is very different from my claim. Not only do people with innate intellectual ability gravitate towards university, even those of average intelligence who go there are shown how to do critical analysis and how to solve problems, and simply obtaining a degree does require some amount of discipline (although the case could be made that it's not every program or institution that fosters these qualities equally). The result is that the population of graduates does have some advantage over others when it comes to disciplines that require these skills, and I think (and in fact I consider it obvious) that politics is one such area.
This is also different from the white/black scenario in that given a fair education system, people from all social classes and cultural backgrounds could obtain an education. No one is born into the wrong class. In a perfect world, university education would be mandatory and free, but I don't think we're quite ready for this yet.
Have I elaborated to your satisfaction?
EDIT: Lucid, I totally agree with you. Again, this is a theoretical argument because I honestly can't even fathom how we could sell this to people. We will have to defeat anti-intellectualism through other methods. Cheaper education is one way to do this, I think.
@Torso Boy: I think we disagree on some fundamental level here. I think a lot of people determine what they want based on a lack of information. In that regard, what they want loses a lot of value. If the facts point to what they want not being the optimal choice, than we should disregard what people want. This is really a personal philosophical difference though, so I'm not sure there is much capacity for reconciliation between our opinions here.
A lack of education certainly hasn't prevented countless other MPs from doing their jobs.
If they don't pursue or maintain self education afterwards then a lot of the reasoning and critical thinking skills fade to a large extent.
Not really. You keep defining everything in terms of negatives, rather than affirmatives. You're telling me everything it's not without telling me everything it is. You want to use education as a metric for qualification, and you're okay with it being imprecise, so long as, on average, the qualification level increases. Why are you then unwilling to use any other metric?
I mean, you yourself have admitted that there's no inherent advantage to having an education that would make one more qualified to be an MP, when you admitted that people without educations could be highly competent MPs. And you've admitted that you don't believe that representation by similarity is necessary, when you said that the the few university graduates can properly represent the many non-graduates. So no, I don't understand the distinction you're drawing at all. WHY education? What "qualifies" it as a metric for qualification? What makes education uniquely suited as a metric for your purposes?
How would you amend my 3-point summation of your position then?
EDIT: hippofant, you are being incredibly pedantic.
I never admitted that there was no inherent advantage to an education. In fact, I think I've been doing quite the opposite. Saying that some good MPs could lack an education is no at all an admission that education does not bring an advantage. There are hockey players who are below 5'10", yet you'd have to be pretty ignorant of hockey to claim size wasn't an advantage in this sport. This is the same. Education is an advantage. It's not everything, but it's an advantage.
I also never claimed that graduates could represent non-graduates. I just said they could elect a government that would move us in a better direction (a progressive one). A quick look at our majority conservative government shows that isn't what people currently desire, but I don't think this matters.
I also described in the very post you quoted why I think education is an advantage. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you are actually reading my posts at all. I did rebute your summation of my position in your post. Please do not bother replying unless you actually read my posts, and please stop putting words in my mouth. Give me a point by point rebuttal of my claims and then we can talk. Right now, you are merely talking at me without having really taken the time to read what I write.
Me too. I even did all the optional stuff, so at least they have some data
My argument is that Mlle Brosseau is in fact qualified to be a Member of Parliament, regardless of her level of education. And that the media fixation on her in particular, the constant refrain that she is "unqualified" or "inexperienced", and the use of suspiciously quaint terminology such as "barmaid" and "cocktail waitress" instead of her actual job title ("Assistant Manager") is all symptomatic of a sexist and classist streak in Canadian political culture.
They send a letter to your residence with a code, someone at your residence goes online to complete it
if they are scrupulous they might need to ask you a couple of questions to fill out your bit
Absolutely. I agree that lack of information frequently- usually, even- makes a person's choice ill-informed, and potentially inferior to an alternative choice. But things get fuzzy and divisive when we talk about the value of that choice- does a good choice actually have a higher value than a poor choice?
The problem with asserting that individuals' choices can vary in their inherent value leads us into strange places. The implication is that we shouldn't be allowed to make poor choices. We're now talking about classical republicanism and that is scary as shit.
On a more practical level, I agree that degree holders might tend to have better critical thinking skills. But to institute a requirement like that implies a stronger claim: that degree holders necessarily have sufficient critical thinking skills and non-degree holders do not. This is not the case and it would be a naive policy to institute.
On a related note, I think critical thinking should be taught more thoroughly in school. That's a whole other issue though.
Educate me on this. Why should we be allowed to make poor choices? I can see how on a personal level, making bad choices could be a growing experience. This is a different matter entirely when your decision affects others, as far as I'm concerned. Your own mistakes should not lead to hardships for others. Should we not aim for a system that minimizes errors?
If we could make a machine that would take all the decisions on how to run the country, and somehow prove that it's the perfect leader, would you not be happy to follow its orders? I want to hear your opinion on this. I think my own pride would make this difficult for me, but given enough facts to really determine that it's the best leader, I might be swayed to agree with such a scheme.
Oh and I agree that making education a requirement might implicate the stronger claim (that all people with degrees are better) and that would be an unwanted consequence. My claim was just that such a requirement would tend to better results. Again, the precise way in which you would implement something like that is up to debate, and as I've conceded, we will likely never see such a system in place.
10 minutes of feeling like you belong to something?
I never finish anyth
I don't reply to points that aren't relevant. I'm asking for a simple statement of principle. If I'm continually misinterpreting you, that is because I am trying to suss out the boundaries of your beliefs using a Monte Carlo approach.
I don't understand why you can't just distill your premise down to a simple set of statements, but instead continue to introduce new complexities with every post. I'm asking for a simple, bare-bones, set of statements that minimally captures your idea. You keep on bringing in more stuff.
For example, what makes you think that in a "fair" education system, whites and blacks would achieve similar levels of education?
What evidence to you have that MPs that would be elected from those with university degrees would be more intelligent than MPs that would be elected from those without university degrees, given that the selection of MPs is not random? Isn't it possible that the exact OPPOSITE would occur? That even though, on average, university graduates are more intelligent, other factors, such as the sample size or ease of distinction, could result in MORE intelligent MPs being elected if we implemented the exact opposite of your idea?*
If you believe that intelligence makes for better MPs, and that the educated TEND to be more intelligent than the uneducated, so you're willing to restrict MP positions to the educated, why can't you make one more jump and say that whites TEND to be more educated than blacks, so you're willing to restrict MPs to whites? Why are you willing to play the probabilistic game to one step, but not the second? You're clearly okay with the fuzziness of the metrics; you seem to rely on a belief that the education is a causal indicator of intelligence, but not whiteness, even though you have no evidence to support that distinction. Intelligence is correlated with education which is correlated with whiteness (or more strongly, Asian-ness), which makes intelligence and whiteness correlated.
And that's not even getting into the practical effects, which would be effectively to restrict MP positions by race, if not necessarily by black/white. Certainly, there would be very few aboriginal MPs, due to their extremely low university graduate rates.
That's why I've been asking for SIMPLE. I just want a basic representation of your logic, in point form. I feel like you're circling around and around what you're saying with examples and conditionals and caveats. I just want the pure, raw logic that you're employing. I don't know why you can't provide that.
* Ie, image two populations of size 10 and 100 with "qualification" scores uniformly distributed between 1 and 10. Then imagine that a bachelor's degree only slightly increases the qualifications of the educated: increase the score of each member of the smaller population sample by +1. Then imagine an "election function that greedily elects the most qualified individual in the population. Suppose we want 5 MPs. Then if we use only the first population, we get MPs of score 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. If we use the other, we get MPs of score 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
Or we can imagine that education causes it to be difficult to discern qualified from unqualified candidates. Maybe now, I can't tell the difference between my 6s and my 10s, so I end up electing just as many 6s as 10s, whereas with the uneducated population, I might be able to elect all 10s.
You're asking for something I'm not claiming to provide. This isn't a philosophy debate. I do not need to make absolute statements such as "It is wrong to do *action* in all circumstances" or "Group 1 is better than group 2 in all circumstances". Clearly, the real world does not function in this way and I don't want to get into a debate on that subject. The world is full of situations where a balance is struck or where a line is drawn in the sand in some fashion that might appear to an alien species to be arbitrary, yet it seems intuitive to most of us.
The only general statement I'm making here is that education would tend to make people more qualified to be in politics. I am not making a statement more general than this. If you want to debate on a more "general" level, you will have to find someone else because I am simply not interested in your strawmen. I've managed to have a good conversation with others (at least, I enjoyed it? I hope I did not offend anyone.), I don't see why you insist on turning my statements into something they are not.
On the subject of your edit, I'm not sure it's truly relevant because I don't believe people are truly electing candidates based on their abilities. Clearly, the colour of their banner plays a large role. I think the NDP certainly demonstrated this, and the conservatives also to some extent. Basically, I don't think we would truly be selecting all the 10s from the unfiltered population.
Because we have the right to.
I agree with everything you say here, and that is exactly the justification for having stabilizing, non-democratic elements in government. It's the reason the PMO probably has too much power. It's the reason that the US is probably way, way too democratic.
But in addition to your points, not contrary to them, the will of the people cannot be ignored because we all have the right to self-determination. The liberal idea that we get to do what we want to, within certain limits, isn't trivial.
I would. But this thought experiment is problematic on a lot of levels- I think we did a thread on it- the least of which being that it is inherently absolutely undemocratic, which is unpalatable to most. This isn't necessarily an issue for me- my issue is that the definition of this ideal monarch would still be subjective, even using strictly utilitarian considerations. It requires quantifying all costs and benefits, including the suffering its policies might cause in the short term and the pleasure derived from vices.
You're getting at a fundamental question about government and its answers are subjective; so how would a perfect ruler be designed? If the majority of citizens disapproved of its policies, would it declare itself illegitimate? Basically, is government supposed to do what's best, or what we want it to?
I would argue that a mix of the two ideals is required, and that's how our government is structured. I believe that the House of Commons is to be as democratic as possible, and be counterbalanced elsewhere by undemocratic institutions.
You seem to be arguing from a position of strict utilitarianism- government's purpose is to achieve the optimal outcome. This is fine. I just believe that it also has to tend to the rights of citizens to self-determine (and if follows that the people as a whole governs itself). It's a categorical obligation rooted in non-utilitarian ethics and liberalism, and I think it's fundamental that governments respect that obligation. I won't deny, however, that it frequently results in sub-optimal outcomes. It's the cost of the right to self-determine- I find it acceptable, but I can't fault you for not finding it acceptable.
However, that "soft" statement is in stark contrast with your "hard" statement that we should ban all individuals without a bachelor's degree from serving as MPs. I am trying to reconcile the difference between them. It is a significant logical leap from the former to the latter, one that involves significant trade-offs and makes strong assumptions about the way governments work and the sort of society we'd like to have. The fact that you feel unwilling or unable to explicate and defend this logical leap is disturbing to me.
And no, you don't really explain the race issue. White people achieve higher educational outcomes than aboriginal people. Your proposal would result in no aboriginal representation whatsoever. So you're clearly okay with aboriginals being represented solely by non-aboriginals, just as you're okay with non-graduates (75% of the population, 0% of the MPs) being represented by graduates (25% of the population, 100% of the MPs), which for some reason you deny.
Your claims seem to rest on the idea that an individual is likely to be be made more qualified having been educated, than had (s)he not, and that individuals who have been educated are more likely to be more qualified than individuals who have not.
There are clear gaps in this reasoning. One of your defenses is predicated on a notion of incremental improvement... but there are MANY things that would make one more qualified had they done it, and you don't suggest limits based on those. The other is predicated on a notion of probabilistic outcomes. But again, within the current societal context, white people are more probable to be qualified MPs than aboriginal people. Why not apply that restriction as well?
(Admittedly, you make some claim as to some idealized world in which all races achieve education equally and are inherently equally qualified to serve in office, but we don't live in an idealized world, and there is no evidence that we can ever even achieve that idealized world. You cannot reject the possibility that there is an inherent quality within "whiteness" that causes them to be more educated, nor can you deny the current on-the-ground reality that makes it so.)
The combination of the two doesn't occur smoothly, and still leaves questions. Why not restrict all MPs to coming from provincial or municipal government, since that experience would make an individual more qualified to hold federal office than had they not AND those who have held a lower office are more likely to be qualified to hold federal office?
By all means, you don't have to explain your reasoning. You don't need to explicate your core principles. Just as equally, we can, and seemingly do, reject your idea. My working assumption was, and continues to me, that you're simply unwilling to face the possibility that your core principles, if applied coherently and extensively, lead to what you feel would be morally unacceptable outcomes. I think you're okay with using education as a metric because a) you're on the right side of that metric, and b) it's a societally acceptable metric. You're okay with using some real-world correlations, but not others; you obfuscate absolute quality with relative quality, as well as average probabilistic quality with specific quality; and you reach for unsupported idealizations that support your premise. I think your reticence to consider other metrics is rooted in emotional values, rather than reasoned ones, and your latest post only confirms that.
I remain unconvinced as to the ethical quality of your idea, and regardless of whether you want it to be a philosophy debate or not, you're prescribing a way in which our society should be structured, a way in which we should live our lives, and that is, by definition, an ethical proposal.
As for my edit, my example was only a demonstration of how your system might fail. There are many other possibilities. The scores are only a posteori valuations to allow us to speak of the system. You'll note that regardless of the election function used, applying it to the educated population can NEVER produce an optimal result, whereas, depending on the election function, applying it to the uneducated population can. My point was to illustrate the error in your reliance on trends and tendencies and averages, when we're being highly selective - supremely selective, even, given that 308 MPs are elected out of millions of people. Just because group A > group B on average, doesn't necessarily mean that we should select from A rather than B.
You see, but he isn't. That's what's confusing to me. If I suggest to him the possibility that white people correlate more strongly with educational levels than black people, so there'd be a gain in banning black MPs similar to that achieved by banning uneducated MPs, he then makes claims from equity, saying that black people are equally capable of reaching similar education, and qualification, levels as white people in an ideal world. So he rejects that notion, but not based on utilitarian grounds. There's some... non-pragmatic objection there that's not based on outcomes.
In practice, technocratic rationalism is almost always about power rather than science or ethics, and is the source of considerable misery all over the world.
Democracy doesn't mean throwing out the idea that some people are better qualified in some areas then others.
No, it doesn't.
My say isn't equal to that of a Supreme Court Justice. And it shouldn't be. I don't know shit about the Constitution or Canadian Law compared to them.
Sure, we both get one vote, but we also have a ton of other systems in our government (like the courts) that don't depend on a straight vote and where my say is a hell of alot less relevant or powerful. And those other systems are there for good reason.
They are all part of our government.
Yes, there are many good reasons why our justice system isn't democratic. There are other aspects of our government that are undemocratic, for reasons that you may or may not agree with. Cabinet appointments are undemocratic. The public service is undemocratic. I mean, we have a fucking house of lords that can veto bills passed by the Commons.
However, the system by which we elect Members of Parliament is democratic and that is what we are talking about.
Yes, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not bringing up the independence of the judiciary, I'm bringing up the qualifications of the judiciary. It's not my lack of independence that makes me unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, it's that I don't know shit about the subject (or not enough anyway).
The elected portions of our government (or certain parts of them anyway) are no different in this respect. If you are going to be making important decisions about how our country is run, you are going to need some knowledge and/or experience or whatever. There's really important shit going on there and you want people who know WTF they are doing.
Of course, it's not terribly relevant in some ways to our current system. We do have a sort of protection against this. Because of the marginalization of most MPs (backbenchers are basically benchwarmers), it's more about the leader of the party knowing what he's doing and/or knowing enough to pick people who do know what they are doing to help him. And this means individual MPs are less important, which may sort of lead to a chicken and egg thing. The low amount of authority of most MPs leads to their personal qualifications being not that relevant which in turn leads to them being powerless or some such.
There's also the issue that there's deliberately no real way to keep the "unqualified" out because defining who's unqualified is fucking mess and leads to bad things so we just run with simpler rules and hope for the best.
And when it doesn't work out .. well, then we end up with Harper's Cabinet. That's the result of a lack of qualified people in those positions.
But the point is we want knowledgeable/experienced/educated/etc people in those positions. That's one of the big reasons we are a representational democracy. The point (well, part of it) is that we are not all equally qualified and thus we elect someone who is to make the decisions in our place, along some general guideline we vote on. We don't all have an equal say in decisions, we all have an equal say in who gets to make those decisions. And that's fundamentally different.
I liken it to an abusive relationship that you can't get away from.
I don't recommend being active in politics in anywhere conservatives rule if you value your liver
And remember: it's never too late to build a better world
Poor Michigan. It's basically Wisconsin except nobody is noticing or can do anything about the Governor going insane.
Seriously any science folks check them out
www.marsdd.com
That's probably one of the best things Ontario has done for Toronto ever
It's not the criminal charges I'd like to see, but I hope at least this might lead to these four being permanently expelled from the force.
Hmm? Is something happening over at MaRS? Are they finally going to finish the west wing? Swear to god they were working on that even when I was working there.
Perjury is a pretty good start.
They'll probably get shuffled up north to some perma-frozen detachment like Inuvik. It's where they send their problem members that they can't completely oust from the force for whatever reason.
I never finish anyth
An interesting piece, though I wonder how much of it is fueled primarily by bitter, gossipy Liberals.