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 This is a downright dangerous principle, and a contradictory one that many proponents of “liberty,” “freedom” and other warm and fuzzy buzzwords will shout down your throat until you stuff another drink down theirs.
These are probably the same people who know nothing about mathematical, scientific, or logical processes, yet are absolutely certain that their “beliefs” are god’s [sic] own truth. I assume this because any skill in figures, the scientific method, or symbolic logic would immediately reveal that this idea is a) semantically loaded and b) paradoxical in nature.
This proposal is, at face value, a lie. Especially in le corps politique, though many are convinced that the principle of “majority rule” is the cornerstone of our democratic system.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned drunk analogy may allow too much leeway—many of the advocates of this mob mentality needn’t be drunk to asseverate such a logical fallacy. In fact, I am dismayed to find some who obviously consider themselves academics, and yet continue to believe this claptrap.
Fearing an epidemic of misunderstanding, I hope to impart to you, dear reader, some concept of the fallacy inherent to such logic. It is incorrect, most exceptionally in the way our world is relayed to us by those who have enough money to pay for mass media coverage.
Consider, for a moment, the very implementation of this concept, which is inherent in the operation of one particular mass media outlet today: television uses “ratings” (i.e. popularity contests) to determine the content of their programming. After those ratings—which are tabulated from a small sample, not the whole population—are accumulated, the results can make or break a show’s future.
This is not particularly fallacious to the operation of a television station, because the most popular programs have the most viewers, and the cost of advertising can increase accordingly (like the Superbowl). However, it is a damaging notion when the majority of a population is inundated with repetitive images of “voting” (American Idol, Survivor), which de-contextualize the process from its actual political incarnation.
Tired of me yet? I will attempt to explain this in a manner which involves no mathematical proofs, though logic is, unfortunately, necessary to understand the semantics of the sentence. Whether it is voting someone off the island, or participating in an actual election—complete with ballots and scandals—it does not take hind-sight to see that any modern election fails to represent the “majority,” regardless of intent.
Five reasons which should be obvious to any modern resident of the United States of America:
1) Any election excludes members of the affected population to begin with: in terms of television, this would be people who do not own a television, do not have access to the channel on which the program is being aired, or simply are not watching at the time the “voting process” occurs; in one of our political elections, the excluded include felons, immigrants with no citizenship (legal or illegal), those under the legal voting age, residents of the District of Columbia, and residents of U.S.-annexed territories (like Puerto Rico).
2) Many eligible to “participate” will not. Those who watch American Idol know that the number of votes received represent only a small chunk of the actual viewing population. Voter turnout statistics indicate that almost half of eligible American voters failed to cast a ballot in the last national election; midterm elections have even fewer participants compared to the number who could register to vote.
3) Within our “single-member district plurality” voting system, in a field with multiple candidates, the candidate who receives the most votes often wins, but is not even required to have the simplest definition of “a majority”: anything more than half of the population.
4) Compiling the problem (wherein these elections fail to even represent the “democratic majority” which they claim are the entire basis of operation) is the explicitly damning evidence that the very sentence “the majority is always correct” is linguistically loaded—“the majority” of us, even if we could be defined that generally, rather than by subjective specific examples, rarely agree on anything, yet has been, and it will be claimed again and again that we “as a nation” have “finally decided” on any number of things. . . not just television shows and candidates, but also the best brand of diapers, “the hottest man on earth,” the best car in America, or any other number of things which no possible representation of the fabled “majority” has even sniffed at.
5) Further, nobody is “always correct,” least of all people who are not educated on the subject at hand—in essence, we’re all human. There is no reason, scientifically, empirically, or logically, to believe that multiplying one fallible person into a larger group of “people” would result in any better outcome.
I’ll attempt to explain that last one. In terms of simple English grammar, the subject of the sentence is “the majority,” and the predicate is the last half of it, “is always correct.” The predicate modifies the subject (if you don’t know this, you have failed to grasp basic concepts of the language you speak and think in; thus, it will be impossible to convince you of any basic logical premise).
The subject (“the majority”) is, by definition, a matter of statistics. Whether the subject is a two-way split or a mish-mash of several options, the inevitability of the definition is that one choice has to be numerically more popular than the alternatives.
The key to understanding this lies in the phrase “more popular.” For instance, the majority is always correct if the question you are asking is one of belief. If you ask, “which religious affiliation do most Americans identify with,” the statistics indicate that we are overwhelmingly Christian—around 70-80%, depending on your definition. However, if you take that data and apply it to the question “which religion is the correct religion,” you are left with no real data to rely upon.
So when you apply this belief to the current incarnation of “democracy,” a two-party system which apparently teeters between the two, but fails to represent even the simplest majority of its national population, what principle are you abiding by? The statement is useless as a basis for testament to fact, semantic hogwash, and is impossible to test by any current standard.
It’s alright, folks. The “democracy” which perpetuates itself through your favorite media outlets (which do operate on this very un-democratic principle) has clearly spent a good deal of time attempting to convince us all of the wonders of “majority rule.”
These are the questions which I dwell upon regularly: what is the “synonym” of “the majority” which actually rules?
Why? And why doesn’t the majority rule, in a country which was founded upon the (equally fallacious) premise that “all men are created equal?”
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