In today's news and social media, I often face someone who is ignorant, who shows constant anger and dissatisfaction, or someone who gets angry. This anger, which sometimes ends in the form of terrible crimes, often tends to be more pronounced when social conditions improve, and it is the "Talkville effect" that is often cited as a concept to explain this paradox.
This phenomenon, first explained by the 19th-century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, explains the paradoxical phenomenon in which social dissatisfaction is greater than before in a modern society where people have developed.
What is the Talkville effect?
The Talkville effect refers to a phenomenon in which people's social dissatisfaction increases faster as social conditions and opportunities improve, especially equality increases.
Tocqueville discovered and explained this phenomenon by observing American society in his books "American Democracy" (1840) and "The Old System and the French Revolution" (1856). He pointed out that "hate for privilege increases as privilege decreases," and explained that as equality increases, dissatisfaction with the remaining inequality becomes stronger.
The hatred which men bear to privilege increases in proportion as privileges become more scarce and less considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most fiercely at the very time when they have least fuel. I have already given the reason of this phenomenon. When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye; whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of general uniformity: the more complete is this uniformity, the more insupportable does the sight of such a difference become. Hence it is natural that the love of equality should constantly increase together with equality itself, and that it should grow by what it feeds upon. This never-dying, ever- kindling hatred, which sets a democratic people against the smallest privileges, is peculiarly favorable to the gradual concentration of all political rights in the hands of the representative of the State alone. The sovereign, being necessarily and incontestably above all the citizens, excites not their envy, and each of them thinks that he strips his equals of the prerogative which he concedes to the crown. The man of a democratic age is extremely reluctant to obey his neighbor who is his equal; he refuses to acknowledge in such a person ability superior to his own; he mistrusts his justice, and is jealous of his power; he fears and he contemns him; and he loves continually to remind him of the common dependence in which both of them stand to the same master. Every central power which follows its natural tendencies courts and encourages the principle of equality; for equality singularly facilitates, extends, and secures the influence of a central power.
Democracy In America Alexis De Tocqueville
Book Four – Chapters I-IV.
Influence Of Democratic Opinions On Political Society
Talkville's serious view of an equal society has more decisive reasons. This is because he thought that material-oriented individualism was bound to produce a 'multiple premise (專制). In other words, democracy rather stifles freedom.
Historical background and examples
Tocqueville explained this effect through the French and American Revolutions. He emphasized that the French Revolution broke down a relatively good regime, not a bad one, which can also be seen in recent cases.
In 2019, large-scale public protests took place in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, large-scale popular protests toppled the dictatorship in Sudan, and 3 million demonstrations in Algeria. Even in socially developed countries such as France, there have been protests in Paris where people wearing yellow vests have brought social chaos.
In addition, large-scale uprisings and protests have taken place in various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Haiti, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, and 1.2 million people take to the streets of Santiago on October 25.
There must be no one cause for the various protests around the world.
In many cases, things such as rebellion against authoritarianism or unfairness that directly affects the lives of citizens would have played an important role. In addition, corruption of various leaders and administrations leading the country may have resulted in such aversion to the government. As a result, this may be because incomplete progress, as Tocqueville said, has generated new social grievances.
Thoughts...
Even in modern society, the Talkville effect appears in many ways. According to research by various scholars in recent years, it can be seen that economic inequality decreases and social dissatisfaction increases even as the middle class grows. In particular, social dissatisfaction is becoming more frequent as the development of the Internet and social media makes it easier for people to access and express their opinions on various social issues.
Social dissatisfaction cannot be explained simply by economic factors.
But people don't know what to do.
As life improves, we expect a higher level of fairness and equality.
According to a study by the World Bank, middle-class growth and economic improvement in Latin American countries are reported to have rather triggered social dissatisfaction and protests.
blogs.worldbank.org
Since the Korean War, our society has also changed very rapidly.
Throughout the democratization of the 70s and 80s, socioeconomic progress brought about by rapid social changes and economic development reduced poverty and inequality in our society, improved access to education from elementary school to university, and improved social conditions and opportunities, such as higher average wages.
However, the various issues of polarization, corruption, and injustice that have emerged along with these socioeconomic developments are currently having a great impact on our society.
In history, certain structures or policies often have unintended or unexpected consequences. In reality, theoretical phenomena such as causes and effects talked about in laboratories and social sciences are difficult to appear.
This is the result of a combination of policy results along with various structural changes in Korea's growth. However, the problem of oppression structure and polarization, which emerged as a paradox of the positive aspect, put our society's ability to integrate society to the test.
Our society has become an era where we can survive only when we are diligent.
"The stream is full of dragons".
It's been a long time since the word disappeared.
It is time to be diligent in order to survive in this society.
But is there any difference if you are diligent and hardworking?
In a society where polarization has intensified, it is not easy to succeed in society if you are born to poor parents or grow up in a bad environment. In addition, AI called artificial intelligence, which has been rapidly developing recently, may come as a bigger shock to low-income people at one extreme of wealth.
Now fairness and equality have become the main issues in our society. Recent national policies such as French pension reform and Korea's pension reform, as well as the unfairness and corruption of politicians and various leaders belonging to the administration, also provide important implications in this area.
Tocqueville says that if you boost good trends and curb bad ones as much as you can, you can overcome the dangers facing an equal society, and that freedom and democracy can develop both. Now we have to explore whether the pursuit of equality by the state benefits the development of freedom and democracy or how freedom and democracy should be coordinated for equality.
Equality for all is not easy.
But what's the best thing.
Not just the economic improvement.
It is necessary to consider what a comprehensive approach can meet the expectations of fairness and equality.
