Most people in Western liberal societies think that democracy is a good thing, especially when compared to the alternatives. People generally like to be self-determining, and democracy seems to be the governmental structure that is most conducive to these aims, as opposed to various forms of totalitarianism.
This is all well and good. I'm a fan of democracy myself. However, there seems to be a sense in which people take democracy for granted. They just assume that it's a form of government that will run by itself and steer us toward the most optimal state of affairs. It's similar to a laissez-faire perspective on the free market.
This attitude is mistaken. Democracy is designed to execute the will of the people. How well it achieves the best ends for society will depend on the moral and intellectual quality of the citizens participating in the system.
This is the part that many people take for granted. They, either explicitly or implicitly, shirk their responsibilities as citizens. Such responsibilities include more than just going out to vote and paying your taxes. The responsibility of a good citizen also includes being the type of individual that is capable of making well informed and well reasoned judgments, and thus also includes the responsibility of training to become that type of individual.
Without this ability to think independently and to participate in rational discourse, democracy fails and becomes a more subtle form of totalitarianism.
In totalitarian forms of government, either one or a some group of individuals coerce the citizens to behave in some way. Usually the level of coercion, and the extent of activities to which it is applied, is seen as way beyond acceptable. People like to think that they have control over their own lives, and not being explicitly coerced into behaving a certain seems sufficient for having that control.
However, there are at least two ways for someone to not be in control of their lives. There's the explicit, gun to your head type of coercion. However, there is a sneakier to get someone to do what you want, and that's through various forms of psychological manipulation.
Someone who shirks their responsibility as a citizen and fails to think critically about political issues becomes more susceptible to various forms of psychological manipulation. In being psychologically manipulated, they lose control over their lives and are no longer expressing their own will, but rather expressing the will of those doing the manipulating.
The sad thing is that those who being manipulated don't know that they are being manipulated. They still believe that they are in complete control over their lives. There's a term for this kind of phenomena from Jean Paul Sartre called "bad faith" (also translated as self deception). Bad faith occurs when individuals fail to see what is actually true about themselves and instead act on false beliefs about themselves.
Members of democratic societies who fail to participate in rational discourse or deliberation act in bad faith. The believe themselves to be free citizens, when they are likely to be subject to manipulation. In a significant sense, they are no longer really free.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2015
Monday, July 21, 2014
Physical versus Psychological Harm
The concept of harm plays a central role in moral and political theorizing. We generally tend to believe that every person has the right to be free from harm inflicted by other. But exactly counts as harm? This is a tough concept to analyze. I'm not going to pretend to give anything close to a complete analysis here. I just want to think about it a little bit and maybe make a few sketches.
Okay, so let's think of life as dynamic. Either things are moving forward, or things move in circles. Life moves forward by growing, learning, adapting, achieving goals, etc. Things move in circles via some kind of maintenance, like the nitrogen cycle, homeostasis, etc. The idea is that there is some kind of action or movement, and the right kinds of movement are considered good.
So with that metaphor, we might consider harm to be either an impediment to this kind of movement, or movement in the wrong direction. For example, oxygen deprivation is considered harmful because it impedes the respiratory and circulatory process in the body. Degenerative diseases are harmful because it reverses the growth process.
So if we have the notion of harm as either impediment or regression, then we can make a further distinction. For persons, harm can be either physical or psychological. This distinction is pretty self-explanatory. Physical harm is harm done to the body. Psychological harm is harm done to the mind.
In most societies, we try to legislate against harm. For instance, aggravated assault is a kind of physical harm, and it is illegal in most societies. In general, we think that harm is morally bad.
What I want to note here is that psychological harm is worse than physical harm. In fact it seems true that a lot of physical harm is bad only because it also inflicts psychological harm. This seems particularly true when it comes to harm inflicted by another person. For instance, two guys fighting in a boxing ring inflict harm on each other. But we don't think that this kind of physical harm is morally bad. However, two guys fighting in a parking lot is considered bad. Why? Because we think that there is also some psychological harm involved. In this case it the exertion of dominance by one over the other.
So it seems that much physical harm, at least the physical harm inflicted by persons, reduces to psychological harm. If we want to legislate against harm, then we should be legislating against psychological harm. But note that there is not much in terms of laws against pure psychological harm, i.e. psychological harm without physical harm. For instance, there are laws against child abuse, but this is child abuse primarily understood as physical abuse. I'm not aware of very many cases where a child was taken from his/her parents solely because of what the parents said to the child, even though such words can deal irreparable psychological harm to the child. Likewise, there are no criminal laws against adultery. Adultery is another example of psychological harm that is not physical harm.
Why is this? Well the easiest and most obvious answer is that it is difficult to enforce laws against pure psychological harm, especially when such harm is inflicted through speech. If a child accuses her parents of psychological harm through emotionally damaging criticism, what evidences can she provide?
To further corroborate this point, we already do have some laws against pure psychological harm. These are laws related to libel and slander. More recently, states have passed laws against bullying and cyber-bullying in particular. Libel, slander, and cyber-bullying are all instances of pure psychological harm. These laws are considered enforceable because evidence can be mustered for this kind of harm. This is the interesting about technology and psychological harm. As technology advances more and more communication becomes of the type that can be preserved and documented. We communicate via text, video chat, social media, email, etc. All of these can be recorded and saved. Thus evidence of psychological harm can be preserved, and laws prohibiting forms of psychological harm can be enforced.
So it'll be interesting to see how technology affects our legislation regarding psychological harm. What will also be interesting to see is how this interacts with our concern for privacy. Being able to access these forms of communication is often seen as an invasion of privacy, but it also enables society to control instances of psychological harm.
Okay, so let's think of life as dynamic. Either things are moving forward, or things move in circles. Life moves forward by growing, learning, adapting, achieving goals, etc. Things move in circles via some kind of maintenance, like the nitrogen cycle, homeostasis, etc. The idea is that there is some kind of action or movement, and the right kinds of movement are considered good.
So with that metaphor, we might consider harm to be either an impediment to this kind of movement, or movement in the wrong direction. For example, oxygen deprivation is considered harmful because it impedes the respiratory and circulatory process in the body. Degenerative diseases are harmful because it reverses the growth process.
So if we have the notion of harm as either impediment or regression, then we can make a further distinction. For persons, harm can be either physical or psychological. This distinction is pretty self-explanatory. Physical harm is harm done to the body. Psychological harm is harm done to the mind.
In most societies, we try to legislate against harm. For instance, aggravated assault is a kind of physical harm, and it is illegal in most societies. In general, we think that harm is morally bad.
What I want to note here is that psychological harm is worse than physical harm. In fact it seems true that a lot of physical harm is bad only because it also inflicts psychological harm. This seems particularly true when it comes to harm inflicted by another person. For instance, two guys fighting in a boxing ring inflict harm on each other. But we don't think that this kind of physical harm is morally bad. However, two guys fighting in a parking lot is considered bad. Why? Because we think that there is also some psychological harm involved. In this case it the exertion of dominance by one over the other.
So it seems that much physical harm, at least the physical harm inflicted by persons, reduces to psychological harm. If we want to legislate against harm, then we should be legislating against psychological harm. But note that there is not much in terms of laws against pure psychological harm, i.e. psychological harm without physical harm. For instance, there are laws against child abuse, but this is child abuse primarily understood as physical abuse. I'm not aware of very many cases where a child was taken from his/her parents solely because of what the parents said to the child, even though such words can deal irreparable psychological harm to the child. Likewise, there are no criminal laws against adultery. Adultery is another example of psychological harm that is not physical harm.
Why is this? Well the easiest and most obvious answer is that it is difficult to enforce laws against pure psychological harm, especially when such harm is inflicted through speech. If a child accuses her parents of psychological harm through emotionally damaging criticism, what evidences can she provide?
To further corroborate this point, we already do have some laws against pure psychological harm. These are laws related to libel and slander. More recently, states have passed laws against bullying and cyber-bullying in particular. Libel, slander, and cyber-bullying are all instances of pure psychological harm. These laws are considered enforceable because evidence can be mustered for this kind of harm. This is the interesting about technology and psychological harm. As technology advances more and more communication becomes of the type that can be preserved and documented. We communicate via text, video chat, social media, email, etc. All of these can be recorded and saved. Thus evidence of psychological harm can be preserved, and laws prohibiting forms of psychological harm can be enforced.
So it'll be interesting to see how technology affects our legislation regarding psychological harm. What will also be interesting to see is how this interacts with our concern for privacy. Being able to access these forms of communication is often seen as an invasion of privacy, but it also enables society to control instances of psychological harm.