Author Archives: Emily Peckham

Vote for Me

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While many of us probably disapproved of the candidates’ actions in Please Vote for Me, I think it safe to say that Machiavelli would condone the children’s behavior. Machiavelli is perhaps best known for his belief that “the ends justify the means,” condoning the use of morally questionable–and even outright immoral–methods to capture and/or maintain political success, and each of the three candidates exemplifies this ideal to some degree during their campaigns. Xiaofei exemplifies this when she briefly teams up with Cheng Cheng and asks other students to identify Luo Lei’ faults. In general, however, Xiaofei’s methods are not especially Machiavellian, most likely, I would argue, because she is not as invested in the campaign as Luo Lei and Cheng Cheng are. Luo Lei’s campaign adheres more to this Machiavellian ideal, particularly when buys the support of his classmates; the most obvious example of this is when he takes his class to ride on the monorail, but he also distributes gifts to the class right before voting begins! Luo Lei exhibits Machiavellian behavior more so in his actions as class monitor; he “beats” his classmates to keep them in line because, as he says, “If I am not strict, you kids will never obey me!” Though Luo Lei strongly exemplifies Machiavellian ideals as class monitor, I would argue that Cheng Cheng’s campaign methods are arguably the most Machiavellian, and this is evidenced by his manipulation of both his classmates and his opponents; he attempts to–and often succeeds at–getting his classmates to criticize his opponents, he tries to turn his opponents more against each other, and it is clear that he is willing to do pretty much whatever it takes to win.

As for whether the election depicted in this movie is democratic, I would argue that it isn’t, though it does bear some striking similarities to the practices of American democracy– which is considered perhaps one of the strongest democracies in the world; as in America, the students (the People) were given candidates to choose from, these candidates campaigned–by questionable methods similar to those used by American politicians today–and participated in debates, and the class finally voted freely. However, the primary reason that this election was nondemocratic was the fact that, as others have mentioned in there blogs, the students were not voting for a candidate to represent them, but were voting for a candidate who would ultimately enforce the unwavering authority of the teacher.

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A concept that I found particularly interesting in these readings–and one that many people have touched on in their blogs–was the distinction drawn between democracy and liberalism and Zakaria’s assertion that the two do not necessarily go hand in hand. Zakaria says that “liberal democracy seems to be one of the many exits on which the democratic experiment could end,” and while I had not previously thought of democracy in this way, I very much agree with this statement. As Illing puts it, “[democracy and liberalism] are often conflated,” and I think that this is especially true in the United States; traditionally–or at least until recently, according to the World Values Survey referenced in Foa’s and Mounk’s article–I think that Americans have held this kind of exceptionalist pride in our presidential democracy and its seemingly inherent emphasis on individual rights and checks on majoritarian power.

However, it is the presidential system–something which Americans have in the past taken great pride in–that, ironically, seems to be a major cause of Americans’ disillusionment with democracy as a whole. Foa and Mounk cite several reasons for Americans’ declining faith in democracy: “stagnating incomes” and the resultant decline in American optimism, “rising income inequality,” and the increasing importance of “paid influence and campaign spending.” Although each of these is both valid and interesting, I think that the largest threat to American democracy is immobilism, a concept discussed in Scott Mainwaring’s essay. Generally, I think that immobilism gives rise to polarization, which, as we’ve discussed in class, is another significant threat to democracy. As Mainwaring explains, immobilism results from the seemingly beneficial “balance and separation of powers” inherent in a presidential democracy, from the dual sovereignty of both the president and Congress. I believe that this in turn leads to frustration, placement of blame, and polarization, which then results in greater immobilism, thus creating a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.

The Grocer and the Chief

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When reading this article, I often found myself thinking especially about Plato’s The Republic and Monica Ringer’s essay on modernity. The Republic came to mind particularly when, after being asked what he would do as president of Turkey, the Grocer answers that he would build roads so that the villagers would not “stay in their holes all their lives” (Lerner 24); for me, this comment evokes the image that Plato constructs of men in an underground cave, who know only shadows on the wall, being pulled above ground and  into the light, seeing the real world. This kind of process of enlightenment that Plato describes was somewhat underlined by the fact that the Balgati people originally marked the Grocer as an infidel and later, after being modernized, after being pulled up out of their holes, they refer to him as a prophet.

When reading about the modernizing process that Balgat experiences, I couldn’t help but thinking that the changes to the Balgati society followed stereotypical–possibly Western–definitions of modernity. This led me to think of Ringer’s idea of “translating foreign institutions” (Ringer 5) into the contexts of other places, an idea which is exemplified in Balgat by the introduction of basic “necessities” of modernization: roads, buses, water, and electricity (Lerner 33), but more so by the creation of a school and a police station (Lerner 30). In addition, the Grocer’s comment that, if given the chance to live anywhere else, he would move to America also made me think of Ringer’s comment on “the use of ‘the West’ as a yardstick” (Ringer 4) because the Grocer seems to see America, particularly the opportunity it affords, as an example of what he would want in Balgat.

Third Blog Post: The Dying Russians

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Masha Gessen’s “The Dying Russians” presents the approaches of two different people–Michelle Parsons and Nicholas Eberstadt–to the study of the Russian mortality crisis. In doing so, she shows much of the difference between Parson’s possibly hedgehog-esque approach versus Eberstadt’s seemingly more fox-like approach. Parsons analyzes the Russian mortality crisis in the 1990s through a cultural lens (which makes sense given that she is an anthropologist); it seems that she wants to delve into the idea that the diminishment of Russians’ self-worth has caused–or at least contributed to–the strikingly high mortality rate in Russia. She conducts her research through a series of “unstructured interviews with average Muscovites.” My first concern when reading this is that these interviews are described as unstructured; as someone who prefers more methodological approaches to study, the fact that her interview questions are apparently not standardized in any way seems troubling. I am also curious as to what Parsons defines as an “average Muscovite,” and I am skeptical–like Gessen–of Parson’s decision to interview “the survivors, not the victims, of the [Russian] mortality crisis.” Furthermore, to touch upon a point made in class this week, Parson’s use of interviews as her method of study is tricky/potentially problematic because we never know whether or not people are telling the whole truth.

As Gessen points out, Parson’s approach is problematic because it attempts “to identify a single turning point,” and potentially ignores other factors that contribute to Russia’s mortality crisis, factors which Eberstadt attempts to observe. I find less issue with Eberstadt’s method–and tend to identify it as more fox-like–because he approaches his study more systematically, and, at least from what Gessen writes in her article, he seems to do so without major preexisting notions/theories; he studies various “culprits”: infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, injuries and poisonings, and when he finds that the rates at which some of these culprits kill Russians is much higher than in other countries, he “thoroughly examines” why this is the case.