Message-ID: <AWjBmHtOW7@mb.sorostm.ro> Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 19:18:05 +0400 From: Florin Jurcovici <mailto:fljurcovici@MB.SOROSTM.RO> Subject: Re: Boring - reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Stan Sandler wrote: > I am pretty much in agreement and think that it is curious and sad that
> governments of developed countries do not look upon the planet and our
> environment with the same attention that they give economic and "political"
> matters. Altruism is not common in people and is almost non existent in
> governments. But one would think that governments would wake up to the fact
> that air, water, pollutants... do not recognize national boundaries. In
> this I think that the "average U.S. citizen" is ahead of his/her government
> and I think that Rio and the alternate conference demonstrated this.
How do You come to think of any ethical considerations going on in politic brains? In my experience, politicians are *never* moral. The only reason they are doing something acceptable is they need the votes. Besides, many research (successfull) effort has been put into demonstrating that people usually do not respond to reason, but to momentary emotions, so how do You think that really honest politicians would come to the top? These people are far too ethical in order to use the feelings of fear, hatred and so on of people to get votes, so they won't get them. Think about electoral advertising - does it have much in common with reason? At the Stanford University (Professor Philipp Zimbardo) you may get some more confident opinions on how easy it to manipulate people and how often this is the way politics is done. It's even not abnormal, this situation. Since competition in politics is very tough, and since winning is the main goal - and not the wellness of the society - politicians put all efforts in winning ellections, and not in other directions. Something is wrong in the structure of the system not in the people that are part of it. Anyway, I wasn't able to imagine a better system till now than democracy.
-- Jurcovici Florin mailto:fljurcovici@mb.sorostm.ro