*1804
I can't help but think dueling would make politics more honest. I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
I can't help but think dueling would make politics more honest. I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
We’ve literally tested this theory and it did not.
> I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
Willingness to risk death for material gain is not, historically, hard to find among humans, and, anyhow, corporations and other interests groups already use the tactic of mass propaganda to build genuine belief in their desired positions and then funding candidates that are true believers, including to the point of being willing to lie about details to advance the broader cause that has been defined that serves the interest group sponsoring the propaganda; the fact that a position is ultimately corporate propaganda doesn’t mean that the politicians see it as just that (even if they recognize it as a lie, they may see it as a lie useful to advance something else they deeply believe in.)
Often, when some company as a whole does something bad, there is a crowd that yells "jail time for the CEO", and this is the reason I think it is not the solution. If CEOs risked jail time for every bad thing the company does, it would select for scapegoat CEOs more willing to risk jail time (or even death) than more honest/competent CEOs.
Note that like with anyone else, if the bad thing is question is a crime and personal responsibility is established, the CEO can go to jail, it has already happened. I am more thinking about company-wide problems, like labor law violations, anticompetitive parctices or misuse of personal data where everyone involved in the company is a little bit responsible: management for giving orders, employees for following them, the board for choosing that management, investors and customers for supporting that with their money.
We might bring back more explicit ideas of classes… but I mean, at least any congressperson would have to be able to challenge any other, right? So we’d have candidates successfully running on “I’ll duel <lightning rod congressperson of the day>.”
I mean, that, on top of all the other reasons the idea of dueling is ridiculous, hahaha.
Duelling was a matter for gentlemen; men of honour. If you have no honour to defend, duelling is inappropriate.
A "gentleman" in England, at least, was a man with land, but no aristocratic title. Aristocrats often duelled, so I guess it's "gentlemen, and men of higher rank" that were thought honourable enough to duel with.
Most politicians deserve only to be horsewhipped.
This not-so-subtly hints at the levels of abuse that average people suffered at the hands of privileged classes.
I think there's something in that; if an insult causes you offence, you are implicitly granting that your abuser's opinion deserves consideration. A true gentleman would rise above it - a man of rank need not concern himself with the views of plebs. Plebs always insult gentlemen; if you horsewhipped them every time, you'd need a new horsewhip every week.
Swords were expensive things, you needed money to own one. And there were many laws restricting who was allowed to carry a sword and who wasn't.
Generally, a conflict is resolved with words and arguments. Only when that doesn't work, it's taken before a judge, where it's still resolved with words and arguments, but with a neutral and binding arbiter deciding who's right. After that, the conflict is resolved. No violence necessary. Only when one party violates that already legally binding resolution, come a lot more steps before violence may come in, but at no point do the people involved in the conflict themselves have to resort to violence.
There's nothing admirable about having to resort to violence. It's a sign of failure.
People put their lives at risk for very little.
Adding on to what you said - I think it also depends on where you start. If you inherit wealth and/or good opportunities then why risk it, but if not then it would make a lot of sense. After all, lots of people voluntarily enlist in the military, and one factor is not having (m)any other options. (This isn't the only reason, nor is it a factor for everyone)
Plus, dueling / fighting is a skill. If you need people who are good at fighting in order to get legislation passed then the rich will hire skilled fighters to go be legislator-duelists for them.
I'm going to be honest: considering the smorgasbord of possible dystopias, this one sounds pretty rad.
Can we do cyberpunk corpocratic gladiatorial parliament? Anyone?
this is literally 50 % of fascist ideology