Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

The insistently affectionate, squirmy, skritch-demanding cat in my lap just stepped fairly solidly on my left testicle. (I'm glad she doesn't weigh much.)

"That was so not an uproar. It wasn't even an upmeow." -- mysticjuicer, 2004-03-04

I was looking at one of those silly personality quiz thingies and got to the question, "For advice, I turn to... a) My friends, b) My parents, c) The experts".

How should one answer if one's friends are the experts?

There might be a few of these dripping out of my brain while I collect my thoughts for the longer entries in the queue.

In The Diamondback (16 November, 2004; p. 5, "All is not lost"), Seth Schraier wrote, "The arrogance that has come out in this election, that you think you know what's better than what the majority of voters do, flies right in the face of democracy. Hollywood and Central Park West residents do not have any right to believe they know what's better for this country than the 53 million who voted for Bush, much to their dismay."

Mr. Schraier is incorrect. Anyone has all the right in the world to believe they know better than the majority. They (we) just don't get to impose that belief on everyone else without first convincing enough other people they're right. Arrogance, both real and imagined, may well be a problem, but disagreement -- and sincerely believing you're right, enough so to argue about it and try to change others' minds -- is a big part of how democracy works. We don't "keep to our place" and allow "our betters" to make all the decisions without "troubling our pretty little hoi poloi heads" over such weighty matters. We all weigh in, make noise, argue, explain, and attempt to convince enough other people that we do know better, and if we're lucky, the side that recognizes an iceberg for what it is democratically wins control of the rudder.

(And it wasn't just Hollywood and Central Park making the noise, either. I ain't "elite"; just look at my neighbourhood.)

Arrogance is a matter of degree. Without some measure of "I know I'm right and I care enough to try to do something about it", only the greedy get to steer. Mr. Shraier does have some legitimate gripes about the way the rest of us framed some of the discussion, but "believing that [we] know what's better for the country" isn't the problem. After all, so did the 53 million who voted for Bush; the difference is that they won, not that they don't think they know better than those of us who opposed him.

(The main thrust of the essay seems to be a call for mutual respect, which I'm not arguing against, but there's a dose of "get over it and wait four years" mixed in which troubles me a bit, because if we don't agitate for our ideas now, four years from now will be too late. The rest did not rise to the "jump off the page and ask for a response" level that the paragraph I quoted did.)