Teetering

Carrying on the theme of yesterday's post:

Between 2006 and 2010, the political and economic shape of the world changed radically. So did my understanding of it. I was in college during that period, and while my education was genuinely eye-opening, I didn't like everything I saw. Ultimately, the experience destroyed my faith in a number of ideas, values and institutions that I had previously held dear.

The Economist's excellent Democracy In America blog published a post today that highlights a couple of them:

"Unless you buy the Nouriel Roubini argument, and I don't, China is going to be the world's largest economy within ten or 15 years, bigger than America or the euro-zone. And, in case anyone has failed to notice, it's a Communist country. Every year China continues to grow, the case that countries need to be democracies in order to become wealthy and developed becomes more tenuous. In fact, what's happening both in America and in the EU at this point is raising the possibility that democratic governance may in some modern situations be inimical to competent economic stewardship. The incentive structure created by democratic political competition in an internet-era media society may actually be driving countries towards fiscal self-destruction. We're increasingly getting a polarised, viciously divisive, intellectually bankrupt, wildly irresponsible populism that lives up to every negative caricature of multiparty democracy that a CCP ideological hack could dream up. That's certainly what the behaviour of the tea-party-driven GOP and the Party for Freedom suggests."


The first is the institution of democracy. When I was in high school, I was a firm believer in the value, or even the necessity, of representative government of some kind. I've learned a fair amount about the history of democratic republics and electoral politics in the years since, and both their effectiveness and their high moral standing now appear suspect.

The DIA post above goes on to claim that the most important argument in favor of democracy involves the latter, which I've effectively given up on. It seems that democracies are still more pleasant places to live on average, which is the metric I favor. This state of affairs may not last. Our political and economic systems are threatening to grind to a halt, and if they do, the results could be bleak.

I'm also part of the first generation that grew up using the internet, the value of which the DIA quote also calls into question. A great deal of my time and energy has gone into the internet since I was a teenager. But I've always harbored qualms about the way it makes people think and behave--qualms that are arguably being borne out in the headlines.

Sometimes my concerns about these sorts of issues make me feel paranoid or melodramatic. Still, I can't dismiss them, and I think they're a big part of why I've chosen to pursue music instead of a career for the time being.