tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1089082204850170942.post1596932397606046453..comments2024-03-21T12:52:08.166+11:00Comments on Freedom and Flourishing: Are citizens' juries susceptible to groupthink?Winton Bateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07383561940886657594noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1089082204850170942.post-72290417741251976862012-05-31T10:32:16.382+10:002012-05-31T10:32:16.382+10:00Thanks for your comments, kvd. I think there are s...Thanks for your comments, kvd. I think there are some longer term problems with democratic politics even in countries that don’t have to contend with proportional representation. In my view there has been a dumbing down of politics despite rising education levels. This is associated partly with technological change. Since the advent of TV there has been more focus on personalities and less on policies. Support for political parties has always been a bit like support for football teams, but with the development of the internet etc. reporting of politics has become more about entertainment rather than information about policies.<br /> <br />But I don’t think we should blame the media – to a large extent the media is just providing people with what they want. If you go looking you can still find quality journalism. I think the main problem has been the development of a culture in which all political opinions are considered to be equal. This seems to have displaced a defensible democratic culture in which every individual was thought capable of having an opinion worth taking into account if they took the trouble to inform themselves. I think school teachers are partly to blame for giving kids the idea that their opinions have value even though they haven’t gone through a thought process prior to being expressed. Modern technology helps the ignorant to express their views and to have them regarded as ‘public opinion’. These days the twits can twitter their views everywhere without risk that someone will take them aside and tell them to their face that they are displaying their ignorance.<br /><br />The republic is a good case in point. It shouldn’t be too hard for people who support election of a president by popular vote to understand that this could have implications that they might not actually like. The question is how people can be encouraged to give more thought to such issues.<br /><br />Rudd’s summit seems to me to have provided a networking opportunity for well-connected people, without actually producing anything useful. It is interesting that the nation’s opinion leaders were incapable of coming up with views that were worth taking seriously when they were expressing opinions off the top of their collective heads.Winton Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07383561940886657594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1089082204850170942.post-23431967732210132062012-05-30T17:25:00.344+10:002012-05-30T17:25:00.344+10:00Hello Winton. Thanks for more food for thought. ...Hello Winton. Thanks for more food for thought. <br /><br />On the present system, are you thinking it is just temporarily fractured, or irretrievably broken? Just wondering why the need for these other mechanisms.<br /><br />The move to a republic is bogged down - not as to if it might be a good thing, but more in the technicalities, the machinary, as to how a new head of state might be chosen. Superimposing that on the idea of "citizen juries" I'm thinking we probably couldn't agree even on the makeup, let alone what might be debated, and never mind the outcomes.<br /><br />Did you note that the final report of Mr Rudd's 2020 summit (Governance stream) mentioned as a "good idea" <i>the government to instruct the Australian Public Service (APS) that it has a duty to cooperate with the Parliament</i>?<br /><br />I was very much encouraged by that - particularly because it was stated twice. I took it to mean that the APS is working as designed, and just not simply as an extended PR department of whichever party happens to be in the ascendant on any Monday.<br /><br />kvdAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com