C759 CC325 Walter Orr Roberts (Walt R.,759) 12/1/85 6:23 PM L:61 KEYS:/PR0VOCATIONS NO. 81/

Memo to: The Climate Club -- C759F r o rn: W a 11 R o b e r t s 3 0 N o v e rn b e r 198 5

Provocations No. 81 _ - . NTa &C-tZACy ( Uaa^ J t )

To save democracy we may have to weaken it. At least this is the conclusion reached by Robert Wright in a fascinating editorial on the impact of tele-meetings on the political process in the U.S. What he says applies equally elsewhere. Wright's commentary is in the November-December issue of "The Sciences,” the magnificent publication of the New York Academy of Sciences. Incidentally I recommend to all to join the Academy and to receive its truly provocative bimonthly journal.

Wright quotes Alvin Toffler in his "The Third Wave" where he states that the problem in America is that we are not democratic enough; legislators, swayed by lobbies, don’t represent their constituencies. The remedy of Toffler is to get these "pseudo-representatives" out of the way by the "direct" democracy made possible by having tele-meetings of the w h o 1 e 2 50 rn i 11 i o n o f u s .To be s p e c i f i c h ere c o rn rn e n d s t h a t h a 1 f t h e votes on a bill be registered by elected representatives, and the other half by a r a n d o rn 1 y s e 1 e c ted g r o u p o f A rn e ri c a n s w h o e x e r c i s e t h e i r d e c i s i o n s electronically frorn their hornes.

All such schemes are ill-informed, Wright contends. He thinks the P ro b 1 em i s t h a t w e' re a 1 re ady " t o o d e rn o c ra t i c f o r o u r o w n good" because of t h e re v o 1 u t i o n i n i n f o r rn a t i o n t e c h n o 1 o g y a 1 re a d y i n p 1 a c e a n d i n e v e ry d a y use. As an example, he cites the budget deficit. If the U.S. were an individual human being, he argues, it would already be locked up, so irrational and self-destructive is its behavior. He says everyone knows we must tighten our belts, all the way from the aged woman on social security to Casper Weinberger. Yet, so democratic are we that we won’t do anything. The nation "oscillates between periods of impotent honesty...and successful self-delusion," he claims.

The tele-conference enthusiasts, he believes, would only make things worse by their schernes for "direct dernocracy" even if they worked perfectly from the technological side. Space here is too short to enter his arguments that the founding fathers consciously opted for a "democratic republic" as preferable to direct democracy. In so doing they acted as cyberneticians as well as devoted scientists at heart, children of the optimism of the Enlightenment. He quotes Madison, in the Federalist Papers, "a pure democracy is no cure for the mischiefs of faction/ but "a republic opens a different prospect and promises a cure..." The wisdom of of "chosen citizens" will "refine and enlarge the public views" and protect

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against the oppressive effects of a majority faction. As Don Straus (in C l621 CC86) pointed out, we generally profess belief in the principles of the founding fathers, but often have a pretty fuzzy idea what they were.

Too rapid and undamped feedback can lead to instability in steering mechanisms. Both the words "government" and "cybernetics" derive from the Greek word "kybernan," which means "to steer." Our national policy oscillates too rapidly and uncontrollably between impotent honesty and self-delusion about the national debt, between desire for detente with the USSR and determination to "get tough with the evil empire," between getting rough with criminals and seeking to avert the root causes of crime.

Direct d e rn o c r a cybytele - rn e e t i n g s w ill oril y rn a k. e it w o r s e, in Wright’s view. To be sure, he says, changes in the Constitution may be needed because of what technology has wrought. If we understand better the principles that guided the founding fathers, Wright maintains, we may reach "the odd conclusion that we will have to weaken democracy to save it."

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