[WikiEN-l] Re: Things that bother me

Thu Jan 23 04:17:27 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>O.k., then we're likely so far apart in political opinions that we'll
>have a hard time agreeing on very much.  If 90% of a population is
>white, and votes in fair and open democratic elections to impose
>rights violations ("separate but equal" or worse) on the 10% that is
>black, you'd consider that a morally appropriate outcome?  I don't
>think so, but that's what I mean when I say that majority rule is
>morally repugnant.

I agree, that would be morally repugnant, but no serious proponent of 
majority rule advocates that sort of thing. The standard formulation 
is that the "majority rules, but the minority has rights." The 
question of how to define the boundary between majority rulership and 
minority rights has always been difficult to define, but that 
fundamental problem doesn't get any better if you resort to the only 
viable alternative to majority rule, which is one-man dictatorship or 
rule by a minority elite.

I'm a little reluctant even to post this comment, because I don't 
think we want to launch into an open-ended debate here about 
political worldviews. Suffice it to say that the areas on which I 
think we all agree are:

(1) Violation of the rights of a minority is morally repugnant, even 
if it takes place under a system of majority rule; and

(2) Wikipedia's current informal system of self-governance has worked 
pretty well thus far.
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------