Pearls of Wisdom from Lord Acton
Fresh from my comments on Nadia's blog.
I believe you've all heard Lord Acton's famous saying:
"Power Corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Think about it more deeply. What does it REALLY mean? And how might it apply to 1984? What does this quotation tell us about the nature of POWER?
Another issue:
Have you ever wondered why the Party bothered to do plant the seed of rebellion in Winston's subconscious 7 years ago? Why the 7-year prank on a poor pen-pusher? Why PROVOKE him to rebellion, and even facilitating him the tools and accessories, such as the fake antique shop, complete with old man and painting, etc.?
LT
posted by Unknown @ 12/01/2004 01:32:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
i've always been attracted to power, not power itself, just people with power..evil as it may sound (though i like to think otherwise).
anyways.
power can be incorruptible, and absolute power can be controlled. it would depend entirely on the individual holding that power. i stand by my belief that a dictatorship is the best form of government, provided that the dictator stands by high standards of moral ethics. the possibility of that is definitely questionable (could we parallel this with mjc or singapore even??).
if power is used not for power's sake, but for the use of a greater good (of the people,that is), then power would reach a point where it can be incorruptible. then again, how many people would want power for the greater good? *thinks of robespierre*
politics has always been my greatest interest..and i do believe that politics can be clean; that would be the highest level of political wisdom attained, its epitome. i like to think i never had to play dirty as of yet. ;b
power...the nature of power. its temptation is hard to resist isn't it? few think of the responsibilities that come with it, some even discard them.
oh wells. that's just what i think. not an argument or anything, just random thoughts. ciao!
-liane-
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sorry for the above deleted posting - realised i misread a portion of Liane's posting. So here i go again.
In many ways, I agree with you, Liane, that a dictatorship is the best form of government. When i read 1984 for the first time, i thought that the best way to change the world (in all the positive senses this phrase can mean) is to first control it. Unless one has total control over the world, it is impossible to change, to improve it.
Two problems:
1. Technical details aside about HOW to achieve total world domination (don't i sound like some Dr Evil from James Bond or Austin Powers?!), one has to consider, and here's the BIG "IF", HOW is one to ensure that one can find a philosopher-king to become the dictator? How is one to ensure that he/she will always be fair and just? Remember the cliche of the 2000s - "With geat power comes great responsibility". (In a way, this is an inversion of Lord Acton's phrase!) This dictator-philosopher-king must be wholly responsible and benign or else great evil and suffering will ensue. Isn't that too much to stake? And how can we ensure that all rulers thereafter will be as good and kind?
2. Is total control the best, the most efficient way to achieve world peace and deliver universal happiness? In a way, Liane, your desire for total control (dictatorship) is precisely what informs most utopian writings - the world is imperfect; to perfect it, there must be total control to weed out all the bad things. But Utopian writings have taught us that total control is often not simply a neutral mean towards a desired end. Total control often brings about its own host of problems. E.g. it tends to prohibit difference and freedoms. And, many utopian writings seem to be suggesting that no control can ever completely master the situation - there is always an element of unpredictability, of chaos, that upsets the apple cart. Control can never be total, even though it always pretends towards totality, and acts as if it is the master of the situation. And when the unpredictable occurs, the ripples it sends out soon turns into a tsunami.
Further to this point - chaos and unpredictability always threaten the best thought-out systems because of the way humans are constituted. I don't mean Biblical fallability and sin, but simply the fact that human nature is extremely fluid and adaptable. To paraphrase Jurassic Park (!?) "Nature always finds a way": Humans always find a way (out).
So coming back to your point - yes, rationalistically speaking, a dictatorship is the ideal political system. But because human society is so complex, we never have perfect knowledge (econs!), the dictator can never make the perfect decision. But if the dictator can't do that, then what is to catch the state from falling? Who else is accountable?
And in a way, we haven't really tried to explain how power necessarily corrupts, assuming Lord Acton is right at all....
LT
haha, i do agree with everything's that been said. its true, how is it possible to find that one perfect philosopher-dictator? however, i could give an example of an interesting compromise that was striked many years back, by forced circumstances or otherwise - singapore. notice that we are almost (being the key word here) controlled in every aspect of our lives here yet the people are relatively happy and do not harbour any desire whatsoever to rebel against the authority.
one could claim that singapore ISN'T a dictatorship, but a democracy, as that's what we call ourselves. true, we are not controlled by one person (weren't we? ;p) but by one party. if that one party is able to combine the 'powers' of all their members, they should be able to gather a rather accurate idea of what the people want and need, and thus work towards better government for the people. singapore has managed to achieve most of that, under what some of us term as social democracy. could that be the alternative to a dictatorship then?
just random thoughts ;p
(don't mind me. i hardly think i make sense.)
Good point, Liane. Take a look at Nadia's blog. She talked about S'pore, in a slightly different way...
Yes, i think "compromise" is the right word. Yes, in many ways, one may say that Singapore was(is?) managed under the sway of one party, and if one pushes it, one man. And overall, S'pore has come a long way, achieveing wonderous economic and social developments.
I think closely linked to the desire or believe in benign dictatorship is Utilitarianism. Encountered that in GP? Econs, surely - utils, marginal utility? JS Mills. (wait, didn't i mention him in the lecture?) He claims that governance should be run with the principle of maximising the greatest possible level of happiness and minimising the greatest level of unhappiness. Some actions may be unpopular but if these actions can produce the greatest level of happiness for most people, then it should be done. E.g. take the local Casino debate. A Utilitarian would say: measure the aggregate utils having a casino would have for the overall population VS that of not having one. If having a casino would generate more money for the country, feeding more poor people, pumping more taxes into the government, then, even if a group of people are vehemently against it, it should still be done anyway, literally, for the greater (quantity of) good. To be able to do this, a dictatorship would be most useful, isn't it?
The only problem with the Utilitarian argument is that one can never measure things in terms of utils or whatever units of happiness. And if that can't be done, how can we quantify which action would produce a greater level of happiness, versus another? Sure,an utilitarian might literally have to measure utils but simply to look at the BIG picure and see which action benefits the most number of people. Same problem - a quantitative analysis yields different results from a qualitative analysis. Some things may be deemed inherently bad or wrong, in a moral or religious sense, that even if it benefits a big group, should not be done. Issues, like the casino, therefore, need to be debated in the public sphere and the most persuasive and/or forceful discourse, wins.
Having said that, one notices too that the democratic system too, shares something with the utilitarians. Since we can't measure utils, the next best thing is to count votes. The action supported by the most number of people, gets carried out. Again, there are problems to this: democracy assumes (its BIG "IF") that voters are all rational and well-informed (look at the recent american elections! ARGHH!).
Enough said. I can see why you are interested in politics, Liane. IT'S SO COMPLICATED! Politics is the stuff of life. And yet, though we continue to live our lives daily, no one, it seems, has been able to come up with a fool-proof theory of everything to explain the way politics works and how it should be.
LT (eagerly awaiting Liane's next big political theory)
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