(Economist) 1. Introduction: In the past, liberalism put trust in the rationality of the individual. It took individuals as independent rational beings. It made them the basis of modern society. Democracy is based on the idea that the ‘individual knows best.’ The free-market capitalism believes that the ‘customer is always right.’ But, this is not always true. It is not right to put trust in the rational individual stresses Y.N. Harari. Feminists have pointed out that this ‘rational individual’ may be prejudiced against them. Social scientists have pointed out that most decisions are based on ‘emotional reactions than on rational analysis.
’ Such decisions are inadequate in the modern world. Not only irrational are individuals, but their individuality is also questioned as they are social beings. 2. Literature: Humans are proved to think and act in groups. It is said that no individual knows everything it takes, for example, to build an automobile. Individuals know little about everything where division of labor is taking place. With time they havecome to know less and less. They rely more and more on experts about their needs. People think they know a lot even though they know little.
This is known as the ‘knowledge illusion.’ This makes us feel that we know everything without making the necessary effort. Trustingin the knowledge of other experts, without making ones effort, does not help in the 21st century. The knowledge illusion has its side effects. As the world is becoming more complex, people fail to realize how ignorant they are of what is going on around them. As a result, people who know nothing about information technology (IT), for example, design policies, programs and tactics on cyber war. People ‘rarely appreciate their ignorance,’ because they surround themselves in a circle oflikeminded friends.
They avoid others who challenge them in their beliefs. Providing such people with better and reliable information is a true source of conflict. Experts hope to convince people on hot issues such as global warming. Such hopes are based on a ‘misunderstanding of how humans actually think,’ says Harari. Most of our thinking is based on ‘communal ground rather than individual rationality.’
Group loyalty forces individuals to hold on their wrong views. To convince such individuals by exposing their ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people do not like to feel stupid by being exposed to facts. It is pointed out that even scientists are not immune to the power of group influences. Those loyal to the group believe that they can win debates by replacing the right facts with wrong figures. Group influence is reflected in modern democracy which is full of crowds shouting together saying that the ‘customer is always tight and the voter knows best.’
Collective thinking and individual ignorance confuses not only customers and voters but also businessmen and politicians. Though they have business advisors and intelligence agents, they still do not know the truth on the ground that they are too busy to consider it. Thus, they will never know the truth. Moreover, ‘great power distorts the truth.’ No person with power trusts his advisors and agents. Each person he sees seems to flatter, appease, or get something from him. Newly discovered knowledge cannot make it to the center of power because the center is based on existing knowledge.
The old guards protect the leader at the center from disturbing ideas. So, leaders are in a dilemma: if they trust the old guards, they remain with existing knowledge; if they seek new knowledge they are confronted by the old guards. Under such a dilemma, the best strategy is to acknowledge our individual ignorance. The question is that if we do not understand the world, how can we tell the difference between right and wrong and justice and injustice? 3. Lessons and Implications: 3.1 Reign of Democracy: Liberal thinkers believe that democracy is based on the idea that the ‘individual knows best.’But, in countries where individuals who are deprived of basic social services such as food, shelter, clothes, education, and health services could not be interested in the notions of democracy that is based on individualism.
What they areinterested in is to satisfy their common basic needs. Deprivation and poverty limit the horizon and outlook of people. In Ethiopia, autocratic rulers kept their subjects ignorant of the value of democracy. Liberalism has been considered a foreign notion that has no relevance to the reality of the country. Those who promoted the idea of liberalism, and therefore, democracy had been condemned as treacherous by the powers to be. Those in power wanted to reign for life as rulers elect of God or as powerful warriors or as ethnic despots. These rulers delayed democracy and the rule of law.
They kept equality, equity, fraternity at bay. Such reactionary forces may delay but would not be able to obstruct peoples’ power from taking place in Ethiopia. This is what we see in our everyday life. 3.2 Should we trust individual rationality? No. Rational individuals may be prejudiced like any other individuals. Their opinions may be based on emotions that are not adequate in the modern world. Their individuality is also questioned as people think and act in groups. Individuals do not know everything about anything; they know little about everything.
The implication of this is very clear to some of us Ethiopians who pretendedto know everything about anything. It is said that little knowledge is dangerous, and this is the very mark that identified some Ethiopian leaders in the past. They pretended to know everything for the people they ruled by force. This reduced the country to the status of a ‘nearly failed state.’ The country is backward and its people are made to suffer from hunger, disease, ignorance, inequality and abject poverty.
The current leadership is indeed faced with the tough mission of guiding its people on the path to freedom that may pull them out of misery. This mission calls for total cooperation by all and every Ethiopian. There is no space here for ‘individual rationality’ that dreams of a ‘democratic Ethiopia,’ without meeting the basic preconditions for it. 3.3 Leaders with strong and destructive ego believed that they were the smartest people in the country. They never accepted that they made mistakes.
They did not want to look ignorant. They surroundedthemselves with a circle of friends and officials who admiredtheir leaders’ blissful ignorance. These leaders avoided or eliminated those who challengedtheir beliefs. Until recently, providing the Ethiopian leaders with reliable information was a call for dismissal from ones official post or detention, if not death. It is believed that information is a resource that could be used for making proper and relevant decisions.
A wrong decision by a leader is harmful to the people he leads. Wrong or right, the objective of a leader is to stay in power. The people are only expected to remain good citizens that pay tax, provide national services, and follow the leader even to hell after his death. Fortunately, this situation seems to have changed with the coming to power of PM Abiy Ahmed. He is progressive with great concern for the people of Ethiopia. However, it should be noted that he could lead his people only from the apex.
He needs highly experienced people to implement his plans, programs and projects at all levels and in all sectors. With that condition fulfilled his ideals would be achieved. 3.4 Newly discovered knowledge cannot make it to the center of power because the center is based on existing knowledge. The circle of old guards protects the leaders at the center from destabilizing andrevolutionary ideas. If leadersventure out searching for new ideas, they would be exposed to political risks by the old guards or the ruling class. Members of the ruling class enjoy their prestigious positions and the material benefits that accrue to them as long as the regime is safe.
For the ruling class new ideas mean loss of political clout, prestige and benefits. This class of people does not adjust to the changing environment at global, regional and even country levels. The Ethiopian ruling class, currently known as the ruling party, would like to stick to its party program, which entitles it to absolute power.
The ruling party wastes the country’s wealth on pseudo elections that are designed to establishits legitimacy and to deliver a wrong image of itself to the Western world. Election is a misnomer in this country. Ethiopians had undergone through several false elections during the imperial, the military and the EPRDF regimes. Conducting false elections is an outcome of total ignorance of the true value of democracy, freedom, and respect for people.
Using newly discovered knowledge about ones’ country and people and assimilating it with local, regional and global environments is a true test of leadership. The current leadership seems very keen to acquire true information and knowledge that help to make decision in favor of the people of Ethiopia. 3.5 Accepting the inevitability of change in any system of government is important for political flexibility. Here, flexibility refers to responding to the variable needs of the people. It goes without saying that inflexibility breaks a government from within. The current government of Ethiopia has proved this theorem beyond doubt. It has started responding to the needs of Ethiopians.
As a first step, itrepeatedly promised to lead the Ethiopian people to freedom, democratic elections and satisfying the basic needs of the people. People have great hope and trust in this leadership. But, one should realize that the road that leads to democracy is very rough and time consuming. People that have been suffering under different regimes explode in a kind of hysteria when a leader promises them freedom,democratic election, law and order and prosperity. Peoples’ hysteria could be manipulated by power contenders, by those who dream of the past and come back to power by force.
These opposition forces have proven to be allergic to free and fair elections when they had been at the apex of power. This allergy has been caused by theirblissful ignorance ofthe value of democracy, freedom, prosperity, and unity, which is dangerous to everyone. These ignorant but dangeroussyndical-anarchists should realize that Ethiopians are determined never to be subjected to slavery once again. They must learn that the world is also behind the freedom seeking people of Ethiopia. Thank you.
Herald FEBRUAR 3/2019
BY GETACHEWMINAS
