Essay talk:Ruminations on the past decade

My remarks

"Thus, the system makes the dangerous idealists ... almost entirely irrelevant." This is supposed to be a bad thing?

Myself, I think that this decade was one in which collectivism lost much of its cultural and political relevance, winding up what the 1990s started (the age of the Internet, etc.). This means we can all sleep easier at night. ListenerX^TalkerX 03:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I worry that it might lead to a "Brave New World"-ish scenario, in which people do not even think to question or rebel against societal norms. If we lose the power to make a difference through activism (including aggressive and possibly violent activism) we decrease our ability to ensure that the government pursues the interests of the people. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 03:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

As long as there are people walking the earth, there will be people having miserable childhoods, and as long as there are people having miserable childhoods, a lot of them will grow up to be the spitfire radicals who make life exciting for the rest of us, so no worry on that front.

The problem with the entire concept of "the interests of the people" is that two people even in the same neighborhood are likely not even to have one common interest, and the proportion of the electorate that voted for the members of the current legislature are no more "the public" than the proportion that did not, a fact often overlooked. ListenerX^TalkerX 04:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. But my point was that if people do not become activists, politicians will never hear their voices and never represent anyone's interests but their own. I agree that there will always be revolutionaries, but if they are only "spitfire radicals," then they are simply condemned to irrelevance. But if "regular people" (a term I use very loosely) are a part of this activism, then people and politicians will listen. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 04:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Most political change is made either by special-interest pressure groups or by comparatively small activist networks comprised of the aforementioned radicals (not all revolutionaries), the Socratic gadflies, who often believe that they are speaking for "the people." If they actually have legitimate concerns, things turn out well. If not, not so well. ListenerX^TalkerX 04:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't argue with that. Perhaps I'm pining for a long-lost era in which young people rallied together and shook the political world with their activism. (Odd, because that era was 30 years before I was born.) And I still maintain that young people's passivity is partially brought about by technological advancements and the effects of the US's two political parties becoming hair-trigger attack machines. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 04:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)