Author Archives: Rebecca Kim

Erosion of Liberal Democracy

Posted on by
Reply

Fareed Zakaria brings attention to the growth of illiberal democracy around the world, particularly in the United States. He blames the shift in professional groups from closed independence to entrepreneurship. Specifically, Zakaria laments the Congress’s loss of power and its movement from a “closed hierarchical system” to an entrepreneurial system of popular politicians. I believe he is correct in stating that the erosion of liberal democracy is occurring in the U.S. However, as he acknowledges, the Constitution, a document that the American people have come to hold sacred, checks majoritarianism and guarantees certain rights regardless of majority opinion. While I think he raises a major, pressing concern with the current state of affairs in American politics, I am not certain that a regression to the previous closed hierarchy is a viable option at the moment. Would Americans positively view a decrease in the transparency of political parties? And if the U.S. did revert to exclusive politics, how does it do so without significantly disregarding popular opinion? Foa and Mounk are more specific about the erosion of liberal democracy in the U.S. They explain how the American culture of democracy has evolved to allow a disregard toward informal democratic norms. In conclusion, the system is failing, but it may take a great amount of instability to cause a notable swerve off the path toward illiberal populism.

The Grocer and The Chief

Posted on by
1

Daniel Lerner’s “The Grocer and the Chief” provides an interesting case of the perception of power and the process of change. Lerner portrays the Grocer as an unacknowledged prophet who was “the cleverest” of all the villagers because he was able to accurately forecast the future of Balgat while Tosun depicts the Grocer as “this fat and middle-aged man yearning to be comfortably rich in an interesting city.” In either case, the Grocer possessed no power to change his own situation or reputation and he could not speak against the traditions of the Chief, so rather than a cause of the modernizing changes that came later, perhaps the merchant was an example of the desire for change that grows with contact with the city and its economic opportunities. At the time, the Grocer was the only one of his kind, and his occupation required him to travel to Ankara often. However, the village of Balgat only collectively gains access to the city when the men of the Demokrat party build a road between the two. Perhaps the subconscious desire for change already existed within the village as Lerner suggests when he says that some Balgati spoke badly of the Grocer to “keep their own inner voices from being overheard by the Chief–or even by themselves.” Perhaps the transition was so smooth and fast because the Grocer’s ideas had already existed in the minds of these traditional men whether subconscious or not. The concept of a private exploration of the new before public evidence of it continues with the interview of the Chief’s younger son regarding neckties.

Power in “Shooting an Elephant”

Posted on by
70

Although the manifestations of power differ, both the British and the Burmese demonstrate power in George Orwell’s accounting of “Shooting an Elephant.” Burma was a British colony at the time, and Orwell represents British authority, so though he feels that imperialism is evil, he also feels the need to wear the mask of authority that the Burmese expect of him. As a result, the very system that empowers the British also entraps them in a code of conduct that limits British officers like Orwell to acting within their roles. Orwell sums up the dynamics between the power of the Burmese and that of the British when he says, “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him” (3). The British have the power to control the Burmese people’s actions, but they are able to freely use this power to act however they wish as the instruments of their power also trap them into behaving a certain way themselves. Therefore, while both parties hold a certain amount of power, no party is able to use it outside of the rules of the established system.

Response to “Against School”

Posted on by

John Taylor identifies problems in the American system of public education that are very real, such as the categorization of children by academic performance. Taylor states that “we have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of “success” as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, ‘schooling'” (34), and the result is that institutions prefer to provide resources for children who appear more likely to be successful according to their performance in school. This is a very limited method of selection because it excludes people who may excel in areas that cannot be measured in subjects taught at school. Thus, the public education system often promotes the importance of obedience to a set of rules and expectations over creativity and independent thought. However, Taylor does not detail a specific solution to remedy the faults of the current system besides giving general guidelines (34) that one could interpret any number of ways and saying that educated men and women should be allowed to “manage themselves” (38). Additionally, he does not seem to consider the possible benefits of the modern school system. Public schools provide free education, and their respective states hold them accountable for their academic performance, a basic measure against mismanagement. They also usually provide a number of free or inexpensive extracurricular activities for interests outside of the classroom that some children may not have otherwise been able to explore. It is easy to point out the problems with the current public education system in America, and doing so is important to draw awareness to such shortcomings. The difficulty lies in introducing feasible alternatives that would effectively end them.