Demonstration of power, and the prestige problem

[Rodion Romanovich]

Interesting replies!

@Louis IV the Fat: True, this is of course problematic. If someone shows you're wrong and you change opinion, someone in a competititive camp will prove you wrong again, but if you then alter your opinion in a way that is based on both the new and the old criticism, you'll eventually have an opinion that won't need change next time there's criticism, IMO.

@Meneldil: yes, a turncoat behavior is not what I desire. When altering opinion to protests, old protests and groups not represented by the protests should also be taken into account. Obviously, if the last group that used violence is favored over others, then you're encouraging violence and unrest. But if a disfavored group gets the situation improved after protests, I think it's a valid behavior from the leader. We must of course have some kind of limitation to what is "being disfavored". If the differences are too small then we can't go on changing opinion all the time for practical reasons. I agree that many European leaders are showing weakness by going too extremely in the other direction, i.e. by changing opinion to the one of those who protested last, and forgetting the others.

@solypist: they're not necessarily paradoxes. Actually, choosing a stabile and ethical position is a good way of making America top dog, whereas seeking battle by unethical behavior is a good way of losing it all. I think the outer threats to America are limited, therefore there's no need to demonstrate power outside. America is still stronger than all of it's potential outer enemies together! Perhaps the biggest threat to America losing it's top dog status is the industrialization of China and other Asian countries, and the risk of getting a maniac dictator as leader, followed by a trigger-happy warmonger who attacks neutral or allied nations. Of course, it's hard to solve the problem with China growing in power through wide industrialization without unethical means, but I think trying to apply unethical means will in the long run create more problems for America, just to take an example.

@bmolsson: this phenomenon has existed long before there were any democracies, and in order to get enough material to make a statistical analysis of it, historical examples are useful to include. A theoretical analysis is still possible without it though. But what you're bringing up is in a way one of the problems of modern so-called democratic societies. If they ARE perfect democracies, so that starting new parties is easy and voters base their voting only on who is having the correct political program, and parties are scandalised if and only if they break promises, and never due to personal scandals of the party members, then rebellion and disorder can be considered 100 percent criminal. However, as we lack that, and in the latest few years have infringed democratical rights in many ways, rebellion and disorder becomes more and more legitimate. Of course, that in itself is a threat to the democracy we have left, but it's not the fault of the rebels, but the fault of governments infringing democratic rights.

@PanzerJager: well, I just read that one third of all citizens at normal age for working in many European countries are unemployed. Many of those who are employed, are afraid to lose their jobs. There are many more jobs than workers. This doesn't make an unemployed person trash. In fact, being only slightly below the average in luck, social contacts, merits and actual skills is what makes you belong to that unemployed third.

[Watchman]

...I do wonder if PJ's post could be viewed as a case-in-point of what Aurelian was saying...?