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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
I'm still on Herzog's Citizen Knowledge. I haven't read far enough to say much, but some opposing intuitions have started to surface. How she deals with the independence of expertise will make or break the argument.
Her overall approach is insightful, so this may be a good read regardless.
Almost finished Eisel Mazard's No More Manifestos. The last few chapters have been criticising the American constitution for falling into tyranny (by the definitions provided by the founders) almost immediately, and asserting that people like John Adams quoted ancient republican/democratic sources selectively to bolster their image of being learned men. For example providing an almost totally different definition of "separation of powers" than was praised by Machiavelli or Polybius (Machiavelli's "separation of powers" was basically a non-Marxist version of class conflict where the poor, middle and rich are vying against each other for political power). Apparently even the beheaded King Charles claimed to be emulating Rome's mixed government so the bar for being a faithful inheritor of Rome was not very high.
I'm not sure how new that would be to anyone here, but I'm very interested in his discussion on what the Founding Fathers could have taken inspiration from and chose not to. Apparently Pasquale Paoli of the Corsican Republic was very popular in America at the time with a number of towns being named after him, and (before the French invaded) it was an example of a healthy republic springing seemingly out of nowhere in an area with no democratic tradition (earlier in the book the author cites the Mongolian revolution of 1990 as another example of this). The contention is that the American republic would become very unexceptional if it were admitted that a bunch of illiterate Corsicans could achieve the same thing. The mythology of true geniuses deeply learned in ancient political thought creating the American republic might have served the interests of the founders, but it misleadingly makes imitation of their achievement in areas of the world not gifted with a generation of geniuses seem like a near insurmountable hurdle, and makes writing a better constitution unthinkable for Americans today (unlike say the Swiss constitution which makes provisions for its own obsolescence).
In his defense, he was engaging in a proud Roman tradition. Just not the one he thought he was!
The American decision to LARP as Romans is not even close to unique. I suppose this book probably goes after plenty of others, too. But criticism of the hegemon is what gets top billing.
For that matter, how different are the Swiss revision process and the American? Popular initiative vs. 2/3 of Congress. I don’t think that’s actually a big gap, and it would be even less if the US had adopted proportional representation. We’ve even ended up with similar amendments, such as vice bans, at similar times!
The Swiss were less likely to use constitutional revision on explicit powers of the government. Presumably, this follows from the very different dynamic between canton and federal. Instead, they’ve enshrined various left/labor causes. That reminds me more of California’s proposition system, which has its own drawbacks. I suspect this works for the Swiss because they have such a homogenous society and environment. If everyone is under relatively similar conditions, agreement is more likely. I would be curious to see how many of the Swiss amendments would also have passed under the US 2/3 scheme.
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