Re: Why did the USSR fall?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

If I'm not mistaken, Ted is referring to the problem of the expression of public opinion through plebiscites. If people are isolated, having few or no popular organizations that allow popular discussion and self-education, people tend to veer toward the most individualistic ideologies. In 19th-century France, people voted for Napoleon III in plebiscites not because it expressed their long-term, collective, or class interest but because it expressed their isolated, atomized, consciousness -- especially since there was little choice on the ballot. 

Strictly speaking, the election of Putin wasn't a plebiscite, but it was pretty close in practice. Elections in the US would be a lot like plebiscites except that there are grass-roots organizations for both of the major political parties. Polling results -- as opposed to, say, focus groups -- are a lot like plebiscites. 

Rousseau seems to have suggested the problem with his distinction between "the will of all" (a majority vote expressing individual special interests) and "the general will" (nowadays called "the public interest," based on the shared interests of all individuals, after collective discussion, etc.) Unfortunately, he never figured out how to reconcile these in a meaningful way. (He hoped that an all-wise Legislator could do the job.) 

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ted Winslow [mailto:egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:03 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
> 
> 
> Chris Doss wrote:
> 
> > People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't.
> 
> Earlier he wrote:
> 
> > You were dissing the Russian public, something close to my heart.
> 
> As is true of the "US public" or the "Canadian public," the "Russian
> public" must consist of differing types characterized  by differing
> degrees of rational self-consciousness.  State power and economic
> organization are not  "suspended in the air"; they are internally
> related to this structure of self-consciousness.  The Bush
> administration, for instance, can be connected in this way to a
> particular kind of religious fundamentalism.  You sometimes seem to
> idealize the "Russian public."
> 
> Ted
>