Sheldon Rampton wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
O.k., then we're likely so far apart in
political opinions that we'll
have a hard time agreeing on very much. If 90% of a population is
white, and votes in fair and open democratic elections to impose
rights violations ("separate but equal" or worse) on the 10% that is
black, you'd consider that a morally appropriate outcome? I don't
think so, but that's what I mean when I say that majority rule is
morally repugnant.
I agree, that would be morally repugnant, but no serious proponent of
majority rule advocates that sort of thing.
That sounds naive. It's not the idea of majority rule that is
repugnant, but it's application. Unfortunately, people like simple
answers, even simplistic ones. They equate democracy with simple
majority rule, and don't want to consider anything more complex. The
"serious proponents" that you mention are a minority. This is de
Tocqueville's tyranny of the majority.
The standard formulation is that the "majority
rules, but the minority
has rights." The question of how to define the boundary between
majority rulership and minority rights has always been difficult to
define, but that fundamental problem doesn't get any better if you
resort to the only viable alternative to majority rule, which is
one-man dictatorship or rule by a minority elite.
The one-man dictatorship is often more reliable and predictable than a
minority élite.
Eclecticology