Via Toby:
Everyday Authoritarianism is Boring and TolerableIt turns out that most people express democratic values, but living in a complicated world in which people care more about more things than just their form of government, it is easy to see that given an orderly society and a functioning economy, democratic politics may become a low priority.**
The essay has a point and meshes for a basic explanation about why people are OK with authoritarianism in China: Because they're personally OK economically.
I feel like a big theme covering a lot of what I've learned in the past five years is "People don't care about things as much as they say they do." This applies to:
- Democracy
- Racial equality
- Music