Sunday, April 10, 2005

The File: "Oligarchies With A Populist Face"

In the face of this evidence, three theories have arisen. The first is that electoral outcomes, as far as "the will of the people" is concerned, are essentially arbitrary. The fraction of the electorate that responds to substantive political arguments is hugely outweighed by the fraction that responds to slogans, misinformation, "fire alarms" (sensational news), "October surprises" (last-minute sensational news), random personal associations, and "gotchas." Even when people think that they are thinking in political terms, even when they believe that they are analyzing candidates on the basis of their positions on issues, they are usually operating behind a veil of political ignorance. They simply don’t understand, as a practical matter, what it means to be "fiscally conservative," or to have "faith in the private sector," or to pursue an "interventionist foreign policy." They can’t hook up positions with policies. From the point of view of democratic theory, American political history is just a random walk through a series of electoral options. Some years, things turn up red; some years, they turn up blue.

A second theory is that although people may not be working with a full deck of information and beliefs, their preferences are dictated by something, and that something is élite opinion. Political campaigns, on this theory, are essentially struggles among the élite, the fraction of a fraction of voters who have the knowledge and the ideological chops to understand the substantive differences between the candidates and to argue their policy implications. These voters communicate their preferences to the rest of the electorate by various cues, low-content phrases and images (warm colors, for instance) to which voters can relate, and these cues determine the outcome of the race. Democracies are really oligarchies with a populist face.
-- Louis Menand, A Critic At Large: The Unpolitical Animal: How political science understands voters

Third theory omitted--see the article for it (about half-way down the page). These theories have a typically elitist feel. Eligible citizens who choose not to vote have done the mental arithmetic of deciding that the people who do vote are informed enough and sensible enough to make the right decision, and to have confidence that no matter who is elected, their lives will not be significantly affected. This works for the same reason representative government works: The People are too busy to make all the decisions of governance themselves, so they appoint or entrust others to handle it for them. Of course these are all commonplace observations. John Keegan's opinion, as stated in The Mask Of Command, seems to be that the real benefit of democracy is the ability to kick the reigning elite out of power when they become too obnoxious--the trappings of power which inevitably corrupt and lead to all sorts of outrageous abuses. It is true that we will always be ruled by the elite, but we can at least choose which klatsch.

2:13:41 PM    comment []

The File: Cerenkov Radiation

There is a visible phenomenon - Cerenkov radiation - a beautiful blue glow produced when fast moving particles strike water (speed of light in a transparent medium is a function of refractive index -- if particles have to "slow down", that energy has to go somewhere - it gets shot out in a cone of radiation).

If you're seeing Cerenkov radiation at the bottom of a reactor pool [umr.edu], it's beautiful. If you're seeing it because the neutron flux through your eyeballs is enough that your vitreous humor is glowing blue, it's probably less than beautiful, given that if you know what you're seeing, you realize that your lifespan is probably best measured in hours/weeks, rather than years.
-- "Tackhead" commenting on "Latest Chernobyl Motorcycle Photos", March 27, 2004.

I once got to watch a small nuclear reactor fire up, and got to watch the Cerenkov radiation at the bottom of the reactor pool.

That picture does not do it justice. While I was somewhat disappointed that the whole nuclear reaction was fairly anticlimatic -- no rumbling, no vibration, no nothing discernable except the blue light -- that blue light at the bottom of the pool was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. There's just no way to describe the color. It's so vivid and so intense.
-- "einTier" comment from the same story.

Picture from UMR, Cerenkov Radiation and the "Blue Glow".

1:48:28 PM    comment []