{"id":251,"date":"2017-09-24T12:17:48","date_gmt":"2017-09-24T16:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/?p=251"},"modified":"2017-09-24T12:17:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-24T16:17:48","slug":"shooting-an-elephant-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/second-blog-power\/shooting-an-elephant-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting an Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

In George Orwell\u2019s \u201cShooting an Elephant\u201d what strikes me is the strong will and unity of the people Orwell ostensibly has power over, while the citizens in both Wedeen and Havel\u2019s models of authoritarian rule are driven in some way to perpetuate the system through either social self-preservation or drawing upon a public transcript. It seems to me that the citizens in Orwell\u2019s story have found a way to alter their political system such that unspoken social threats drive Orwell to responds to their needs. This is reminiscent of what many would think of as the ideal democracy, as it gives the leader no option but to act in accordance with the will of the masses. I\u2019m positive that a large percentage of the public wishes that they had this degree of influence over our government\u2019s proceedings, yet at the same time the story highlights the ways in which direct responsiveness can be dangerous by depicting a scene in which Orwell is essentially forced to destroy what he believes is a potentially useful tool. This has proven to be the case in many referendums, one example being Brexit. However, this also highlights how leaders must have both a public and private transcript when put in a system where they are in some capacity reliant on social relations. In this sense, it seems as though most, if not all, governments that appear to act in the interest of the people will simultaneously be making personal judgements that might come into conflict with the public\u2019s condoned course of action. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In George Orwell\u2019s \u201cShooting an Elephant\u201d what strikes me is the strong will and unity of the people Orwell ostensibly has power over, while the citizens in both Wedeen and Havel\u2019s models of authoritarian rule are driven in some way … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-second-blog-power"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}