Why must every planet be a representative government

[Raven Wilder]

I'd note, Jasnah specifically says they're pushing all these democratic and egalitarian reforms through now because, with the state of emergency that is a Desolation, no one's willing to rebel too strongly against those changes, not so long as there's the bigger threat of the Voidbringers to think about. Whether these reforms are able to stick will depend, in large part, on how long the Desolation ends up lasting.

[Qianweilian He/him]

7 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Our mordern democracies are only a few hundred years old

We have had some form of democracy for far longer than a few hundred years.

[bmcclure7]

2 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

We have had some form of democracy for far longer than a few hundred years.

Yes, but that’s not the type of democracy that we’re talking about.  

[OoklaApologist She/her]

8 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

No democracy is literally designed to be as boring as possible a good thing to because when politicians get interesting people die 

That’s an interesting idea. Can you elaborate? 

[Fractalfire]

4 hours ago, Raven Wilder said:

I'd note, Jasnah specifically says they're pushing all these democratic and egalitarian reforms through now because, with the state of emergency that is a Desolation, no one's willing to rebel too strongly against those changes, not so long as there's the bigger threat of the Voidbringers to think about. Whether these reforms are able to stick will depend, in large part, on how long the Desolation ends up lasting.

Having just read a history of the Tudors, Stuarts, and English Civil war, this is a foolish idea. You cannot just top down replace a government based on monarchical rule -- you are missing all of the institutions, the traditions of self-governance, and the expectations of continuity that make that possible. Realistically, what would happen is that this would immediately cause confusion, anarchy, and poor governance and the kingdom would dissolve into warring factions as the common people aligned with this or that leader and the elites try to grab the largest chunk of the pie. The suggestion that people would not rebel because of increased anarchy due to the desolation is just laughable -- that makes rebellion more likely, not less. Did the Russian revolution happening at the end stages of WWI make it more stable!? You already have armies with generals and troops on the field, many of whom will disagree and try to crush you, and people are desperate for good leadership. This is the worst possible time to cause political chaos. In fact, it is doubly worse since the people instituting it (Renarin, Jasnah) are seen as weak leaders or opposed to the religion of the people (incidentally, the same exact problems Louis XVI and James the II of England had).

People forget that in the U.S. there was already effectively democratic governance (and had been for quite some time) before the revolution (Governors and state legislators). People knew who was in charge. Countries that did not have these traditions (France, England during the Stuarts, Russia) quickly dissolved into anarchy and military rule, which ultimately resulted in military dictatorships followed often by the return of the old monarchy. 

If she and Renarin (or Brandon) knew anything about the history of revolutions, Jasnah probably should have tried to install some sort of parliament first made up of the ruling elites and wealthy commoners, while maintaining power at the top to keep things in order. Then slowly let her ministers and officials take an increasing role while relegating herself to increasingly ceremonial roles. (Easy to do for a female monarch, as they will already expect her not to do much. In fact, this is pretty much how Queen Anne guided the transition to constitutional monarchy in England, although the early wars, parliament, and social conditions had already set the stage for her.) 

I'm sure, of course, that this will all work out hunky-dory, kind of like those old communist sci fi utopias where somehow everyone is okay with being assigned their job by government Bureaucrats, but that just goes to show that this is fiction. You can have people fly or be immortal or smash through walls, and you can also have monarchies seamlessly transition into representative democracies that have never previously existed at the mere word of the distrusted female atheist philosopher-queen and the weak, disliked prince. (Ask some of the real life brilliant philosopher kings and queens how well their enlightened rationalist reforms worked out for them sometime... As Holy Roman Emperor Joseph the II would reply ""Here lies a ruler who, despite his best intentions, was unsuccessful in all of his endeavors." )

Edited January 5, 2025 by Fractalfire

[Nitpicking]

Supporting @Fractalfire, in the 13 Colonies that became the United States, each colony had an elected legislature, and also most cities and towns had elected officials. People were used to the idea of a government that worked for and answered to the people.

Alethkar has Vorinism.

Not that similar.

[Raven Wilder]

I think it's important to remember that, when Jasnah took the throne, Alethkar was already a nation in exile. Continuing their traditional form of governance wasn't really possible anymore - they were a feudal society, where the lords and highprinces derived power from the lands they control, but those lands are all now under enemy occupation. With that backbone of their governmental structure removed, something has to take its place.

[Fractalfire]

1 hour ago, Raven Wilder said:

I think it's important to remember that, when Jasnah took the throne, Alethkar was already a nation in exile. Continuing their traditional form of governance wasn't really possible anymore - they were a feudal society, where the lords and highprinces derived power from the lands they control, but those lands are all now under enemy occupation. With that backbone of their governmental structure removed, something has to take its place.

Ironically, assuming you could establish a legislature that people cared about and listened to, opening up the government to elections is an extremely effective way to give highprinces power again. Remember, when the party system first formed in the English parliament after the English civil war, who were the two parties? That's right, the Whigs (who wanted constitutional monarchy) but also the Tories (the party of monarchists), born directly of the roundheads and the cavalier factions during the civil war.  Similarly in France, various pro-monarchy factions in the legislature have attempted to reinstall monarchies (and were successful with, e.g. Napoleon III, who won the popular vote). It's a mistake to think all of the electorate will be uniformly pro-democracy in a previously monarchical system. Many will miss old stability or have stronger ties to their noble than they do to the rest of the nation, or dislike other policies of the pro-democratic leadership (witness the popular revolt of the Vendée peasants against the French Revolution and for the monarchy, driven in part by horror at the Parisian governments suppression of the Catholic Church and persecution of non-juring priests.)

Currently, Alethkar is effectively in a military dictatorship (whatever it may call itself on paper). With elections, though, the high princes now have the chance to influence people... they have connections, money, loyal subjects, political causes and grievances they can exploit and so forth, all crucial for getting votes of a mostly illiterate and ill-informed, easily manipulated, frightened populace. 

Edited January 6, 2025 by Fractalfire

[Argenti he/him]

12 hours ago, Dofurion said:

I think I already made my points clear in that other thread, but to be clear. I built the nahelcracy based on intercepting the points where each order can lose its spren with the points where they would be a bad public servant.

In political theory, all forms of government generate oligarchies, including democracies and anarchies. The difference lies in how closely the interests and incentives of these oligarchies align with the demands of the governed population and their medium- and long-term well-being.

Oh I know. A monarchy is an oligarchy, technically.

[Ripheus23]

@Fractalfire Jasnah had the backing of Dalinar and Navani beforehand, this is all happening when there is environmental devastation and technological development going on that has almost never happened in IRL political history of a similar type, and even for all that we're shown very dramatically how her attempt to impose her worldview failed in Thaylenah at the end. It wouldn't have been hard for masses of Alethi to look at Jasnah and her reputation of heresy, alongside sweeping revelations from all sides about how humankind was the original invader and the Voidbringers were real and the Knights were now good again and so on and on: it wouldn't have hard to know all that and think, even if many of them were still "believers," that she was posing as a heretic for a greater good, or had been positioned by the Almighty to repent when she realized all her successes she owed to him, or whatever so many think when they think things like this about heretics and the like.

Politics is titanically unstable, so unstable that there are hardly any nontrivial laws we know about it, nor could we when it depends on the fluctuations of indeterministic free will among millions/billions of people. I'm sure it would be easy to find a real-world case where, "against all odds," some kind of political transformation happened that "no one foresaw" or whatever. I mean, take Constantine's turning point, for example. That's even an ironic example because in the one case, it's the new believer who inaugurates the huge, weird political changes, while on Roshar it's the unbeliever. But so still, I bet that's not even the only possible case, I bet if you look into the lore of Arabic, Persian, Korean, and Chinese history (among others) you'll find various unusual kinds of shifts that have happened. And it's not like we're shown Jasnah successfully maintaining her new freedom-loving order very well or for a long time, the whole frickin' planet gets overtaken by the most anti-freedom government possible, one with a literal god of hell at the apex of the hierarchy, and whatever Jasnah was managing was rather small-scale, all things considered, so for the smidgen of time that she did this, it could have persisted to an okay extent.

Like, aren't a lot of the Alethi in the camps, or Urithiru, or other places where they can be managed to an okay extent? And I want to iterate, common Alethi-in-exile aren't going to look at their queen and nowadays think, "There goes the heretic," but, "There goes someone who is working on a day-to-day basis with every being I recognize as either an angel or a god, using powers that I think only angels or gods have," the idea of her being a heretic will have transmuted into some mental background noise. We see this IRL when many people in my land right now seem to think that a certain political leader is working for God despite saying and doing multiple lifetimes' worth of things to the contrary.

Another good historical analogy: Japan at the end of WW2. They just had a genocidal empire burn and melt entire cities, including by using the most powerful kind of weaponry in history at that point, yet the emperor was able to command everyone to just settle down, accept the occupation, and with that not only war crimes tribunals that saw executed the old leaders of the realm (besides the emperor, of course) but also a socioeconomic restructuring including, for example, an enormous impetus/compulsion towards democratization.

[therunner he/him]

12 hours ago, Fractalfire said:

People forget that in the U.S. there was already effectively democratic governance (and had been for quite some time) before the revolution (Governors and state legislators). People knew who was in charge. Countries that did not have these traditions (France, England during the Stuarts, Russia) quickly dissolved into anarchy and military rule, which ultimately resulted in military dictatorships followed often by the return of the old monarchy.

No there wasn't. Most governors were selected by King, and most offices were filled by that appointed governor. Lower assembly legislators were voted for, but all they could do was basically set tax. And on top of that, the only people who could vote were white males, older than 21 years who were property owners.

Also, both French and Russian revolutions were that, revolutions. That is different from top down reform, which is what Jasnah is doing as absolute monarch. Historically, there are few examples of monarch willingly ceding power. Not fully comparable but you can look at Reform Act of 1832 in England, which did widely extend the right to vote and 'democratized' the system at the expanse of pre-existing gentry.

Historically, you can look at Roman Republic, which did start with overthrowing Roman Kingdom and had no prior democratic governance, and ended up lasting circa 5 centuries. So yes, it can work out, though suffrage likely must be limited (like it was in US colonies).

Quote

Did the Russian revolution happening at the end stages of WWI make it more stable!? You already have armies with generals and troops on the field, many of whom will disagree and try to crush you, and people are desperate for good leadership. This is the worst possible time to cause political chaos.

Russian revolution was more akin to civil war, there were even on the side of revolutions multiple sides fighting each other.
Far cry from top down reform.

Quote

I'm sure, of course, that this will all work out hunky-dory, kind of like those old communist sci fi utopias where somehow everyone is okay with being assigned their job by government Bureaucrats, but that just goes to show that this is fiction. You can have people fly or be immortal or smash through walls, and you can also have monarchies seamlessly transition into representative democracies that have never previously existed at the mere word of the distrusted female atheist philosopher-queen and the weak, disliked prince. (Ask some of the real life brilliant philosopher kings and queens how well their enlightened rationalist reforms worked out for them sometime... As Holy Roman Emperor Joseph the II would reply ""Here lies a ruler who, despite his best intentions, was unsuccessful in all of his endeavors." )

Maybe wait how it plays out before criticizing.
So far, the only reform Jasnah did push through (freeing slaves) did not end up doing much, due to economical problems.

[Darvys]

While this isn't an aspect I care much about in Stormlight, the way it's handled caused a few eyerolls, Renarin somehow using power and authority he doesn't even have, as he rejected it, to dictate how the Tower would be governed was especially funny, how he doesn't choke on the hypocrisy I'll never know.

"All individuals are flawed, no one should have this much power. Now let me use that power to impose my will without consulting anyone else, don't like it ? Ha that proves my point." It's so silly in that I expect everyone else to just take it, not much room in the series for this sort of intrigue.

Dalinar's body wasn't even cold, Navani wasn't even dead yet, before they wiped their asses with their will. But trust us, they would have approved, Renarin said so. 

Dami is next in line, seemed like a Dalinar fan, dismissive of Jasnah's authority over Radiants, so hopefully there will be tensions and push back before the prodigal son Returns to teach these fools about the will of the people. That's what I would like, but then I remember that the people of the tower didn't really exist in WaT so who knows.

[Nitpicking]

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Historically, you can look at Roman Republic, which did start with overthrowing Roman Kingdom and had no prior democratic governance, and ended up lasting circa 5 centuries. So yes, it can work out, though suffrage likely must be limited (like it was in US colonies).

Through the Tribunes and Tribal Assemblies, the Roman Republic actually came fairly close to popular democracy.

[coolsnow7]

On 1/5/2025 at 3:28 AM, bmcclure7 said:

1. No most of tower as of now is Alethi

2. While I’m sure some one in azure knows about democracy the fact that they don’t use this system seems to indicate that it isn’t widely known or popular system among them.

3. Even if Jasnah spent all off screen time yapping about democracy it would take years if not generations for the idea to spread and gather enough support to justify this kind of change

4. Edge dancers are the most religious order so I don’t there big fans of Jasnah 

 

5. Actually a effort representing government is far more complex than other systems 

?

From Wikipedia: 

Quote

The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War(1945–1991) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)—humanity has reached "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."^[1]

 

[therunner he/him]

6 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Through the Tribunes and Tribal Assemblies, the Roman Republic actually came fairly close to popular democracy.

Huh, true I haven't considered that. Thanks!

[bmcclure7]

On 1/5/2025 at 12:50 PM, KelsierApologist said:

That’s an interesting idea. Can you elaborate? 

Democracy or at least modern democracy is in such a way that in theory At least problems it could avoid and complications of other systems that often resulted in violence. 

9 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

From Wikipedia: 

 

Interesting sentiment, but one hardly unique throughout many areas in history People have made similar arguments for there ideology or system All were eventually proven wrong with time. I like living in a democracy and appreciate the benefits and it brings me im Skeptical of the belief that it will last forever

15 hours ago, therunner said:

No there wasn't. Most governors were selected by King, and most offices were filled by that appointed governor. Lower assembly legislators were voted for, but all they could do was basically set tax. And on top of that, the only people who could vote were white males, older than 21 years who were property owners.

Also, both French and Russian revolutions were that, revolutions. That is different from top down reform, which is what Jasnah is doing as absolute monarch. Historically, there are few examples of monarch willingly ceding power. Not fully comparable but you can look at Reform Act of 1832 in England, which did widely extend the right to vote and 'democratized' the system at the expanse of pre-existing gentry.

Historically, you can look at Roman Republic, which did start with overthrowing Roman Kingdom and had no prior democratic governance, and ended up lasting circa 5 centuries. So yes, it can work out, though suffrage likely must be limited (like it was in US colonies).

Russian revolution was more akin to civil war, there were even on the side of revolutions multiple sides fighting each other.
Far cry from top down reform.

Maybe wait how it plays out before criticizing.
So far, the only reform Jasnah did push through (freeing slaves) did not end up doing much, due to economical problems.

considering What happened to the Roman republic probably not the best example.

Actually in the American system, originally only white males could vote voting rights slowly expanding, but it wasn’t like this immediate change after the founding of the country. 
 

We Know how this will play out there will be a smooth transition over the time skip to a more modern democracy or something similar enough, it will play out this way because it is fiction and so Brandon can make something like that work. 

 

[bmcclure7]

22 hours ago, Fractalfire said:

Ironically, assuming you could establish a legislature that people cared about and listened to, opening up the government to elections is an extremely effective way to give highprinces power again. Remember, when the party system first formed in the English parliament after the English civil war, who were the two parties? That's right, the Whigs (who wanted constitutional monarchy) but also the Tories (the party of monarchists), born directly of the roundheads and the cavalier factions during the civil war.  Similarly in France, various pro-monarchy factions in the legislature have attempted to reinstall monarchies (and were successful with, e.g. Napoleon III, who won the popular vote). It's a mistake to think all of the electorate will be uniformly pro-democracy in a previously monarchical system. Many will miss old stability or have stronger ties to their noble than they do to the rest of the nation, or dislike other policies of the pro-democratic leadership (witness the popular revolt of the Vendée peasants against the French Revolution and for the monarchy, driven in part by horror at the Parisian governments suppression of the Catholic Church and persecution of non-juring priests.)

Currently, Alethkar is effectively in a military dictatorship (whatever it may call itself on paper). With elections, though, the high princes now have the chance to influence people... they have connections, money, loyal subjects, political causes and grievances they can exploit and so forth, all crucial for getting votes of a mostly illiterate and ill-informed, easily manipulated, frightened populace. 

Exactly why you can’t force democracy from the top down. 

[OoklaApologist She/her]

2 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Democracy or at least modern democracy is in such a way that in theory At least problems it could avoid and complications of other systems that often resulted in violence. 

I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time parsing this. Why do you think democracy must be boring, again?

[Dofurion]

45 minutes ago, KelsierApologist said:

I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time parsing this. Why do you think democracy must be boring, again?

Because the more boring and consistent a democracy is, the better it performs its functions and the less "shocks" it gives its citizens.
This is exemplified by a Chinese curse that translates more or less like this:
"I wish you an interesting life"

[OoklaApologist She/her]

26 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

Because the more boring and consistent a democracy is, the better it performs its functions and the less "shocks" it gives its citizens.
This is exemplified by a Chinese curse that translates more or less like this:
"I wish you an interesting life"

Thank you!

[jamskinner]

On 1/5/2025 at 5:09 PM, Raven Wilder said:

I think it's important to remember that, when Jasnah took the throne, Alethkar was already a nation in exile. Continuing their traditional form of governance wasn't really possible anymore - they were a feudal society, where the lords and highprinces derived power from the lands they control, but those lands are all now under enemy occupation. With that backbone of their governmental structure removed, something has to take its place.

Ya, a monarchy. Isn’t that more of the same? 

[therunner he/him]

7 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

considering What happened to the Roman republic probably not the best example.

It lasted nearly 5 centuries, nearly twice as long as US so far. Why would they not be good example?
 

Quote

Actually in the American system, originally only white males could vote voting rights slowly expanding, but it wasn’t like this immediate change after the founding of the country. 

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying in my post?
 

Quote

We Know how this will play out there will be a smooth transition over the time skip to a more modern democracy or something similar enough, it will play out this way because it is fiction and so Brandon can make something like that work. 

Oh, we do know? And how do we know that? Do you happen to have some time machine?

Because previously in Sanderson's work, when a scholar-turned-politician tried to implement his ideas on democratic governance, it backfired spectacularly. Why do you assume here it will go smoothly? Especially when already there is backlash against more mild reforms.

Edited January 7, 2025 by therunner

[bmcclure7]

16 hours ago, Dofurion said:

Because the more boring and consistent a democracy is, the better it performs its functions and the less "shocks" it gives its citizens.
This is exemplified by a Chinese curse that translates more or less like this:
"I wish you an interesting life"

Exactly 

 

 

On 1/5/2025 at 10:13 PM, Ripheus23 said:

@Fractalfire Jasnah had the backing of Dalinar and Navani beforehand, this is all happening when there is environmental devastation and technological development going on that has almost never happened in IRL political history of a similar type, and even for all that we're shown very dramatically how her attempt to impose her worldview failed in Thaylenah at the end. It wouldn't have been hard for masses of Alethi to look at Jasnah and her reputation of heresy, alongside sweeping revelations from all sides about how humankind was the original invader and the Voidbringers were real and the Knights were now good again and so on and on: it wouldn't have hard to know all that and think, even if many of them were still "believers," that she was posing as a heretic for a greater good, or had been positioned by the Almighty to repent when she realized all her successes she owed to him, or whatever so many think when they think things like this about heretics and the like.

Politics is titanically unstable, so unstable that there are hardly any nontrivial laws we know about it, nor could we when it depends on the fluctuations of indeterministic free will among millions/billions of people. I'm sure it would be easy to find a real-world case where, "against all odds," some kind of political transformation happened that "no one foresaw" or whatever. I mean, take Constantine's turning point, for example. That's even an ironic example because in the one case, it's the new believer who inaugurates the huge, weird political changes, while on Roshar it's the unbeliever. But so still, I bet that's not even the only possible case, I bet if you look into the lore of Arabic, Persian, Korean, and Chinese history (among others) you'll find various unusual kinds of shifts that have happened. And it's not like we're shown Jasnah successfully maintaining her new freedom-loving order very well or for a long time, the whole frickin' planet gets overtaken by the most anti-freedom government possible, one with a literal god of hell at the apex of the hierarchy, and whatever Jasnah was managing was rather small-scale, all things considered, so for the smidgen of time that she did this, it could have persisted to an okay extent.

Like, aren't a lot of the Alethi in the camps, or Urithiru, or other places where they can be managed to an okay extent? And I want to iterate, common Alethi-in-exile aren't going to look at their queen and nowadays think, "There goes the heretic," but, "There goes someone who is working on a day-to-day basis with every being I recognize as either an angel or a god, using powers that I think only angels or gods have," the idea of her being a heretic will have transmuted into some mental background noise. We see this IRL when many people in my land right now seem to think that a certain political leader is working for God despite saying and doing multiple lifetimes' worth of things to the contrary.

Another good historical analogy: Japan at the end of WW2. They just had a genocidal empire burn and melt entire cities, including by using the most powerful kind of weaponry in history at that point, yet the emperor was able to command everyone to just settle down, accept the occupation, and with that not only war crimes tribunals that saw executed the old leaders of the realm (besides the emperor, of course) but also a socioeconomic restructuring including, for example, an enormous impetus/compulsion towards democratization.

OK, let’s go over some of the historical fallacies in this post
 

1. Constantine didn’t completely change the political system all that happened under Constantine was that being a Christian went from being politically problematic to being a political asset. This is a significant, but nonetheless small change. Nothing at all like Jasnah is attempting to do.

2. Constantine had to fight two civil wars in order to make this small change. 

3. Actually, there wasn’t attempted rebellion and coup in the name of the emperor (everything in Japan, had to be done in the name, the emperor, even if you were sitting in yourself up in the direct opposition to his will) that attempted to stop the surrender of Japan. 
 

4. Japan had a foreign army occupied inside it for a generation keeping the peace. The tower doesn’t have that.
 

 

On 1/5/2025 at 6:09 PM, Raven Wilder said:

I think it's important to remember that, when Jasnah took the throne, Alethkar was already a nation in exile. Continuing their traditional form of governance wasn't really possible anymore - they were a feudal society, where the lords and highprinces derived power from the lands they control, but those lands are all now under enemy occupation. With that backbone of their governmental structure removed, something has to take its place.

All the more reason they are likely to favor, preserving some form of tradition and governmental structure rather than go for something completely new that none of them have any more experience in

11 hours ago, therunner said:

It lasted nearly 5 centuries, nearly twice as long as US so far. Why would they not be good example?
 

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying in my post?
 

Oh, we do know? And how do we know that? Do you happen to have some time machine?

Because previously in Sanderson's work, when a scholar-turned-politician tried to implement his ideas on democratic governance, it backfired spectacularly. Why do you assume here it will go smoothly? Especially when already there is backlash against more mild reforms.

My point was you’re acting like the revolution introduced a complete new system it didn’t. White males could vote before hand and white males could vote after.

[Ripheus23]

Just now, bmcclure7 said:

Exactly 

 

 

OK, let’s go over some of the historical fallacies in this post
 

1. Constantine didn’t completely change the political system all that happened under Constantine was that being a Christian went from being politically problematic to being a political asset. This is a significant, but nonetheless small change. Nothing at all like Jasnah is attempting to do.

2. Constantine had to fight two civil wars in order to make this small change. 

3. Actually, there wasn’t attempted rebellion and coup in the name of the emperor (everything in Japan, had to be done in the name, the emperor, even if you were sitting in yourself up in the direct opposition to his will) that attempted to stop the surrender of Japan. 
 

4. Japan had a foreign army occupied inside it for a generation keeping the peace. The tower doesn’t have that.
 

 

My argument was that political science is a soft science, bordering on pseudo-science actually, without much rhyme or reason so if someone's like, "Significant political changes can't be imposed by force and last a long time when distributed throughout a huge population in an ecologically stable area!"  is a confused thought process, because sometimes such changes have been imposed in such a way that they last for a while (who knows how Japan will be governed after the next hundred years have passed, what with all this authoritarianism and nationalism worming its way across the Earth right now, including there), and anyway:

1. Jasnah/Renarin are working in an ecologically and technologically unstable world, administering a population concentrated in a city empowered by the child of gods, another city ruled by a civilization that their predecessor the Sunmaker inflicted a huge genocide on, warcamps in quasi-neutral territory (where their immediate predecessors committed yet another genocide, of the Parshendi!), and I don't remember where else, but decidedly not a huge region of Roshar.
2. We have no proof that Sanderson is going to claim that their new government is perfectly stable for time and all eternity; if anything, we'll see how, 300 years down the road, neo-Jasnahian Alethkar is just as factious as Scadrial 300 years after the emparadised outcome of the Catacendre.

Like, there is zero reason to accuse Sanderson of not knowing "how history works," for starters because history doesn't work and even if it did, things here would be more like, "Well, this is how I interpret history vs. how he does," so again saying that Sanderson is being foolish about this subject is not a realistic criticism.

Also, way too many Euro/American-centric analogies in this thread when we should at least be looking at Jewish, Confucian, and other such analogies as well, and more emphatically.

[bmcclure7]

5 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

My argument was that political science is a soft science, bordering on pseudo-science actually, without much rhyme or reason so if someone's like, "Significant political changes can't be imposed by force and last a long time when distributed throughout a huge population in an ecologically stable area!"  is a confused thought process, because sometimes such changes have been imposed in such a way that they last for a while (who knows how Japan will be governed after the next hundred years have passed, what with all this authoritarianism and nationalism worming its way across the Earth right now, including there), and anyway:

1. Jasnah/Renarin are working in an ecologically and technologically unstable world, administering a population concentrated in a city empowered by the child of gods, another city ruled by a civilization that their predecessor the Sunmaker inflicted a huge genocide on, warcamps in quasi-neutral territory (where their immediate predecessors committed yet another genocide, of the Parshendi!), and I don't remember where else, but decidedly not a huge region of Roshar.
2. We have no proof that Sanderson is going to claim that their new government is perfectly stable for time and all eternity; if anything, we'll see how, 300 years down the road, neo-Jasnahian Alethkar is just as factious as Scadrial 300 years after the emparadised outcome of the Catacendre.

Like, there is zero reason to accuse Sanderson of not knowing "how history works," for starters because history doesn't work and even if it did, things here would be more like, "Well, this is how I interpret history vs. how he does," so again saying that Sanderson is being foolish about this subject is not a realistic criticism.

Also, way too many Euro/American-centric analogies in this thread when we should at least be looking at Jewish, Confucian, and other such analogies as well, and more emphatically.

1. If political science is a pseudoscience that makes Jasnah Decision even more stupid. Why would you introduce such a political, change If you know the results of the change are going to be completely random and arbitrary? Clearly, her and Brandon are working from the assumption at least that it is not a pseudoscience.
 

2. I Have already addressed the example of Japan. And again it does not compare to this circumstance at all Japan had an occupying army that could support the new system. And suppress any remnant of the old system. Jasnah wouldn’t be able to do that unless she cut some sort of deal with retribution that let the fused occupy the tower. I doubt she would do that.
 

 

3. If you know of anything reverent from Jewish or Confucius history on this topic by all means, bring it up.

 

4. I certainly hope it’s not. I would hate for another copycat version of scadrial that would make this even more boring. It would be far more interesting if they had completely different political systems.