Carnal desires
A flock of sheep
Nicholas D. Kristof in the NY Times:
‘This book, by Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, does a remarkably thorough job of insulting the American voter. The cover portrays the electorate as a flock of sheep.
“Democracies frequently adopt and maintain policies harmful for most people,” Professor Caplan notes. There are various explanations for this — the power of special interests, public ignorance of details, and so on. But Mr. Caplan argues that those accounts fall short.
“This book develops an alternative story of how democracy fails,” he writes. “The central idea is that voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational — and vote accordingly.”’
Is there a moment when people behave rational except when they have to use the bathroom and when they are hunted by carnal desires?
What I really meant to say is that Arnon Grunberg's paper on Guantanamo has come out today in the french Courrier International, in case someone else here doesn't speack dutch but does read french. http://www.courrierinternational.com/article.asp?obj_id=76391
I think a lot of people, consciously or unconsciously, believe in that rationality to underpin our democracy. More emphatingly so: They have to, it's one of the foundations of our society.
Whenever I saw politians on dutch television talking about 'the people', their complaints, their rights, their voices, I always seemed to notice something fishy, though I could never really put a finger on it. I guess now what I felt then was a suspicion they pretend to believe in the rationality. Most, or at least some, of them must be aware of the absence of rationality, but that would be like a football player conceding that his game is nothing more than a few grown man running after a ball for enormous amounts of money.
Still an amusing game, all together.
I would not state that there is absence of rationality in politics, I think it is only a part of the game. Some politicians, like some voters behave very irrational, others tend to be more rational. I mostly prefer the rational, well informed ones, those who posses some self irony too (a difficult task for a politician, I am afraid, so I can admit that I am not a great admirer of politicians, although there is necessity in their existence. Keep a very close watch on them).
Ah, sometimes I simply vote for the most attractive woman on the list – in Belgium voting is obliged - (at least if there is minimal decency & rationality in her program). So no shame, please, irrational is not always a synonym for bad or wrong.
Yes, carnal, a nice word, is it not? Carnal desires, it always reminds me of a song by Frank Zappa “…What’s the ugliest part of your body? I think it is your mind…”.
using the bathroom
Did you know that women use the bathroom more rational than man do?Women sit down and take some paper, mostly even folding it.
Men sit down, wait, do what is needed and after all they start to think of he paper.
This is it. No metaphor for voting.
