The normal decisions about what is acceptable and what is forbidden by a society tends to be made, on the whole, by the society. However, in many instances throughout history, individuals for one reason or another were able to dominate those societies for very short periods of time (historically even 100 years seems an incredibly short period of time).
The general trend suggested from history though seems to be basically something like this: The oppressed put up with small amounts of discomfort in order to avoid the large discomfort of changing governments.
People in general don't want to have to go to the effort of a revolution if all they gain is some small profit, as the cost of a revolution is substantial. However, when things do get bad enough they are willing to undergo the cost of a revolution in order to make their lives easier.
The reason few people today seem to care about revolution is that our lives today are really frickin good. Nobody cares that Cheney outed our CIA agents because they have food on their table. People cared that gas prices went up, because that hurt their standard of living. Now that they're coming back down, look for poll numbers to rise in a few weeks.
The reason we have a "compromise system" as you put it seems to be this: We want a system that can wiggle enough to accomodate our changing needs, but not enough to ever cause us to want to overthrow it. The goal is to have a slow moving government that has capacity to adapt, but at the same time not so much capacity to adapt that it can ever get really bad for the people not in power.
Of course people won't be happy with this. People will never be happy unless the world is the way THEY want it. This is nothing new. However, significant problems (like war) only result when the cost of not having the conflict appears to be larger than the cost of the conflict.
For example, the cost of the conflict in Iraq is relatively low. Sure, we lose a few thousand troops. However, if there had been one more terror attack on the scale of 9/11 in terms of the loss of life had we not invaded, the outcome would have been roughly even in terms of life, and a lot more expensive. (9/11 cost far more economically than the Iraq War currently has. I'm pretty sure that could be conclusively proven.) Had there been two such incidents (or one incident then a similar war), the cost would've been clear.
Of course, if there was no such threat (because, for example, there were no WMDs), then the cost of avoiding the war is much lower, and the cost of going to war remains fixed. People who believe this scenario is the truth (read: sensible people) think that the war in this case is wrong. Though they might not be able to articulate why in any meaningful way (just because you're right doesn't make you smart).
So what is the point? The difference between the Avatars' actions and us being ruled by other people is that there was in the case of the Avatars' rule no actual downside for the people. Everybody is happier in their new situation. So this is significantly different from the British in America because people didn't like the British ruling as they did.
Re: Point ThreedasheiffNovember 17 2005, 01:48:38 UTC
So this the episode a matter of our heros, not liking how the avatars were ruling and so changed it? To the point did they do it logicly/rationally/good?
The general trend suggested from history though seems to be basically something like this: The oppressed put up with small amounts of discomfort in order to avoid the large discomfort of changing governments.
People in general don't want to have to go to the effort of a revolution if all they gain is some small profit, as the cost of a revolution is substantial. However, when things do get bad enough they are willing to undergo the cost of a revolution in order to make their lives easier.
The reason few people today seem to care about revolution is that our lives today are really frickin good. Nobody cares that Cheney outed our CIA agents because they have food on their table. People cared that gas prices went up, because that hurt their standard of living. Now that they're coming back down, look for poll numbers to rise in a few weeks.
The reason we have a "compromise system" as you put it seems to be this: We want a system that can wiggle enough to accomodate our changing needs, but not enough to ever cause us to want to overthrow it. The goal is to have a slow moving government that has capacity to adapt, but at the same time not so much capacity to adapt that it can ever get really bad for the people not in power.
Of course people won't be happy with this. People will never be happy unless the world is the way THEY want it. This is nothing new. However, significant problems (like war) only result when the cost of not having the conflict appears to be larger than the cost of the conflict.
For example, the cost of the conflict in Iraq is relatively low. Sure, we lose a few thousand troops. However, if there had been one more terror attack on the scale of 9/11 in terms of the loss of life had we not invaded, the outcome would have been roughly even in terms of life, and a lot more expensive. (9/11 cost far more economically than the Iraq War currently has. I'm pretty sure that could be conclusively proven.) Had there been two such incidents (or one incident then a similar war), the cost would've been clear.
Of course, if there was no such threat (because, for example, there were no WMDs), then the cost of avoiding the war is much lower, and the cost of going to war remains fixed. People who believe this scenario is the truth (read: sensible people) think that the war in this case is wrong. Though they might not be able to articulate why in any meaningful way (just because you're right doesn't make you smart).
So what is the point? The difference between the Avatars' actions and us being ruled by other people is that there was in the case of the Avatars' rule no actual downside for the people. Everybody is happier in their new situation. So this is significantly different from the British in America because people didn't like the British ruling as they did.
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