Category: .Shearmur, Jeremy

Falsifying bundles of political goods

[Democracy] has the role of enabling us to change our political regime by means of elections, rather than by violence. Tis seems to me of the greatest importance; but it is also miportant that we see how limited it is in its consequences. Some control will be exercised over politicians by such means, assuming that the wish to continue in office. But it is a very blunt weapon, considering the way in which we can exercise preferences only for bundles of political goods. Fur­ther, it is also ripe for manipulation – by politicians who find ways to bribe us with money taken from our own pockets, and by their advertising agents, who, as in the United States, have found was to present political issues on television through the use of images in ways which make rational discussion almost impossible. [121]

A source of possible criticism

Rationality, for Popper, is to be identified with openness to criticism; and each individual is to be valued a s a source of possible criticism. Objectivity, rather than being regarded as the attribute of the particular, wise individual is regarded as a social product – a product of critical discussion. [111]