On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 3:40 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> In political philosophy there's a concept called the tyranny of the > majority. I believe it comes from John Stuart Mill. It states that in > a democracy, while the majority rules, the system has to protect the > rights of the minority. Otherwise it will cease to be a democracy. > > > This outburst of Woolery reminded me of an article written two years > > ago at The Daily Beast, which wondered why game-show hosts were > > conservative. > > I have not read the Daily Beast article. In his book Next Man Up about > the NFL, John Feinstein wrote that most NFL players vote Republican. > That's more surprising than game show hosts as a fair number of > players come from disadvantaged backgrounds. What the two groups have > in common is that they make a lot of money and are probably most > concerned about paying as little tax as possible. > The idea of the tyranny of the majority goes back a long ways, but I believe de Tocqueville was the first to coin the phrase in *DIA*. Mill uses the term somewhat later in *On Liberty* (pedantry that follows blamed on that most horrid of all occupational hazards, I am teaching a class that covers this a bit this term): Here is an excerpt from a sub-section of DIA actually titled "Tyranny of the Majority" (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch15.htm) ******************** "A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength.3 For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them. (SNIP) Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself or clothed with rights so sacred that I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws." ********************* Here is a quote from Mill's On Liberty on the same subject: ******************** Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities...Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism." p. 7; see: http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/jsmill.htm ****************** de Tocqueville was worried that America did not have sufficient safeguards against the tyranny of the majority, apparently foreseeing the likes of Chuck Woolery way back in 1835. The Civil War, and the amendments to the Constitution that followed its bloody resolution, pretty much addressed most of this concern, though from time to time knuckleheads like Chuck and Newt seem to forget about it. And lest anyone thing this is some kind of liberal rethink of history, conservative fetish object, was against it too (from the Ayn Rand Center: "The tyranny of the majority, as the Founders understood, is just as evil as the tyranny of an absolute monarch." http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12777&news_iv_ctrl=1021). Woolery's rantings are just more CPAC Porn and can be safely ignored. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
