{"id":501,"date":"2007-07-01T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-01T17:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=501"},"modified":"2007-07-01T11:17:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-01T17:17:00","slug":"political-ignorance-and-the-trial-of-wits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/07\/political-ignorance-and-the-trial-of-wits\/","title":{"rendered":"Political ignorance and the trial of wits"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span>eamus McCauley<\/a> has been discussing political ignorance, and in timely fashion US research centre Pew<\/span> has a report<\/a> out called What Americans Know: 1989-2007<\/span>. The clue’s in the subtitle: Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It tells us that people are a little less able to answer a few political general knowledge questions than they were nearly twenty years ago. Yes, Jay Rosen<\/span><\/a> et al, pack up your messianic technology caravan until the next revolution.<\/p>\n

Being a fan of the Phantom Public<\/a> <\/span>myself, I’ve always been sceptical about the political knowledge of voters. But as I grow increasingly Hobbesian in my old age (rule of law first, democracy second) there’s something else I wonder about – the importance of political argument and debate.<\/p>\n

Hobbes<\/span> called it deliberation. Here are his views from De Cive<\/span><\/span>: <\/p>\n

some will say, That a Popular<\/span> State is much to be preferr’d before a Monarchicall<\/span>; because that, where all men have a hand in publique businesses, there all have an opportunity to shew their wisedome, knowledge, and eloquence, in deliberating matters of the greatest difficulty and moment; which by reason of that desire of praise which is bred in humane nature, is to them who excell in such like faculties, and seeme to themselves to exceed others, the most delightfull of all things.<\/p>\n

But in a Monarchy, this same way to obtain praise, and honour, is shut up to the greatest part of Subjects; and what is a grievance, if this be none? Ile tell you: To see his opinion whom we scorne, preferr’d before ours; to have our wisedome undervalued before our own faces; by an uncertain tryall of a little vaine glory, to undergoe most certaine enmities (for this cannot be avoided, whether we have the better, or the worse); to hate, and to be hated, by reason of the disagreement of opinions; to lay open our secret Counsells, and advises to all, to no purpose, and without any benefit; to neglect the affaires of our own Family: These, I say, are grievances.<\/p>\n

But to be absent from a triall of wits, although those trialls are pleasant to the Eloquent, is not therefore a grievance to them, unlesse we will say, that it is a grievance to valiant men to be restrained from fighting, because they delight in it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seamus McCauley has been discussing political ignorance, and in timely fashion US research centre Pew has a report out called What Americans Know: 1989-2007. The clue’s in the subtitle: Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions. It tells us that people are a little less able to answer a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}