I think yeah, this is very close. Though I wouldn’t call the category “accountability”; that’s your word and I think it makes the thing sound better than it actually is.
You’ve read Demons, right? You have the older generation, still basically decent guy popularizing nihilistic views (S.T.) and the younger guy putting it into practice with horrible results (Petr), at which the older guy is appalled, but the novel makes it clear that a lot of the fault is his. There’s a parallel between this and the Critias situation; I know you dismiss the link, but I wouldn’t dismiss it. Plato also felt Athenian democracy was too messy and subjective and preferred Sparta as more logical.
So instead of “accountability” maybe “nihilism”? Or “dissolving the subjective in favor of the logical”? To be clear, I do think this view can be held sincerely, without a power motive. It’s an appealing view. But I think it leads away from democracy. To have a democracy, we have to trust that people with their messy subjectivity can still be right. Otherwise we eventually end up with a system with more power at the top, and even less accountability at the top, where it matters.
EDIT: Maybe this comment should be taken as a package with Karl Krueger’s comment. In the response to him, you ask “what hazardous info”, and here I try to explain basically that.
I’ve gone to a lot of effort to say something very specific, and it seems like you’re just not interested, and have decided to try to use the comments section to try to project something stupider and simpler that’s already been said elsewhere onto what I’m saying. You could go argue with someone who has the opinion you’re trying to argue against, or you could try to explain to me specifically how what you’re saying is relevant.
You could start by describing what “the thing” you’re talking about is and how it relates to expecting people to mean something definite when they assert a justification for some action.
I think yeah, this is very close. Though I wouldn’t call the category “accountability”; that’s your word and I think it makes the thing sound better than it actually is.
You’ve read Demons, right? You have the older generation, still basically decent guy popularizing nihilistic views (S.T.) and the younger guy putting it into practice with horrible results (Petr), at which the older guy is appalled, but the novel makes it clear that a lot of the fault is his. There’s a parallel between this and the Critias situation; I know you dismiss the link, but I wouldn’t dismiss it. Plato also felt Athenian democracy was too messy and subjective and preferred Sparta as more logical.
So instead of “accountability” maybe “nihilism”? Or “dissolving the subjective in favor of the logical”? To be clear, I do think this view can be held sincerely, without a power motive. It’s an appealing view. But I think it leads away from democracy. To have a democracy, we have to trust that people with their messy subjectivity can still be right. Otherwise we eventually end up with a system with more power at the top, and even less accountability at the top, where it matters.
EDIT: Maybe this comment should be taken as a package with Karl Krueger’s comment. In the response to him, you ask “what hazardous info”, and here I try to explain basically that.
I’ve gone to a lot of effort to say something very specific, and it seems like you’re just not interested, and have decided to try to use the comments section to try to project something stupider and simpler that’s already been said elsewhere onto what I’m saying. You could go argue with someone who has the opinion you’re trying to argue against, or you could try to explain to me specifically how what you’re saying is relevant.
You could start by describing what “the thing” you’re talking about is and how it relates to expecting people to mean something definite when they assert a justification for some action.