How to Select an Elite ~ Funding the Media
Hi everyone,
It’s been a while — with the start of term I’ve been busy. Nevertheless, I finalised and published two more chapters on the website, as well as making some notes.
At around 7,300 words, the chapters are far too long for an email, so the overviews and titles are below. If they interest you, you can click through to the website.
Over the next month, I plan to finish two book commentaries I’m writing — one on History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America by Bruno Maçães, and another on After Virtue by Alistair McIntyre. I will also try to publish at least two more chapters online.
The next email will be sent in around two to four weeks.
New Chapters
Two of the most commom modes of choosing elites are hierarchical selection and elections dominated by political parties. But these have flaws: hierarchical selection can lead to a single worldview monopolising an institution, and political parties facilitate the rise of a tribal mentality. Therefore, a new way of selection is needed. I describe a series of rounds which aim to select a conscientious, charismatic, and creative elite. This new mode aims to fulfil the following criteria:
Non-hierarchical selection: prospective elites should never or rarely be evaluated by those senior to them in a hierarchy. Rather, this should be done by their peers or those they serve. This would help mitigate harmful tendencies which emerge in hierarchies, such as flattery, cronyism, nepotism, and the role of the similar-to-me effect in creating an ideological monoculture.
Not organised on the basis of parties: the new elite would in various stages be selected by those who know them personally, so the organisational function of political parties (advertising, printing and distribution of campaign material) would be of no particular benefit.
Ch. 6: Media for a Metasophist Society
The Internet has undermined the business model of traditional media, by making it easier to both to replicate content and to consume it costlessly. Consequently, most quality news and analysis has been put behind a paywall, and the quality of discourse seems to have fallen.
Publicly-funded media could be a solution, but it tends to leave citizens without a choice regarding content.
In this chapter, I try to outline a new model which involves a number of different media chapters receiving a subsidy depending on how informative they are and their level of popularity. The aim is to create a media which covers the entire political spectrum, while remaining attached to reality.
Daily Notes
Here are the titles of some short posts wrote since the last email (see them on one page by clicking here):
That’s it for now!
All the best,
Tony.