Thread by @EveKeneinan

I have something to say about this one. Peterson is, of course, correct.

The statement "Representative democracy should be representative" is, in fact, unclear.

Jordan Peterson is Genius //#shorts youtube.com/shorts/qT5Gx2J…

There is, as there often is in claims that SEEM tautologous, an EQUIVOCATION at play.

I assert that "representative democracy SHOULD NOT be representative."

That is "Representative-in-sense-1 democracy should not be representative-in-sense-2."

Representative-in-sense-1 or R1 for short means that the people choose from among their number those they wish to represent them in the business of making laws and running the polity.

Representative-in-sense-2 or R2 means "having persons who make the laws and run the polity not chosen freely by the people, but chosen according to quotas to attempt to create a demographical mirror of the polity as a whole."

That is, the thought here is that blacks should only be "represented" by blacks, whites by whites, women by women, Jews by Jews, gays by gays,

In the first case, an elected public servant "represents" you because you have delegated him with the responsibility of advancing what you think should be advanced, because you picked him for his values and political philosophy and his character.

In the second case, the person "represents" you in a manner much like a voodoo doll or effigy of you does: it *looks like* you, so it *is* you by proxy, magically.

R1 is an imperfect but good system, since they people may be represented by those they have chosen.

R2 is a bad system, since it depends for its "goodness" essentially on voodoo and magic, which don't actually work/exist

I know that "representation" and "looking like X" (e.g. "looking like America") have become fashionable buzzwords in the past decade or so, but they are not particularly desirable goods, and definitely not in the political realm.

Not in the political realm I say because in order to bring about R2 representation, it will be necessary to severely limit the people's freedom to R1 select their representatives.

Shall women by forced to vote ONLY for women, by law?

Should a half-black, half-asian, disabled, lesbian, Muslim be ALLOW ONLY TO VOTE FOR ONE OF THOSE, by law?

What if there aren't any?

"Your vote doesn't count because there's no one who CAN represent you."

The same problem with persons also occurs with places.

Should people living in a place be forbidden to choose representatives from that place because we "need" to do R2 demographic engineering?

Are all people in the same city required to vote for a single race?

What about the others in the city?

If a city is "you can only elect whites" by law, how is fair to force black people only to vote for the white people who cannot, by hypothesis, "represent" them?

In other words, not only is R2 "representation" not desirable, since it depends on voodoo-thinking, it isn't achievable without sacrificing the freedom given in R1 representation to vote for who you want to.

The only way to cause the legislature to "look like" the cross-section of all demographics—if it is possible AT ALL, which is doubtful—would be to present a full legislature and have people simply vote "yes" or "no" on it.

MINIMUM FREEDOM OF CHOICE, in other words.

This is obvious if you think about it for 1 minute.

The more you maximize freedom of choice to the people, the less you can guarantee an a prior outcome you desire as a target.

If you want R2, you have to sacrifice R1 to get it, if you can get, which you can't.

Another reason you cannot have R2 representation is due to intersectionality.

A black woman cannot represent black men nor non-black women.

Only black women.

But she has many, many more demographic markers, which will exclude more and more people.

The people at the very top of the "progressive stack," the pinnacle of oppression (we are told) will not be allowed ANY representatives, since we cannot make a ~430 person legislature THAT FINE GRAINED.