Generous-looking enfranchisement can produce virtual disenfranchisement.

Evidence

It seems that there exists for each class of human beings, probably for each individual, a definite quantitative relation between the tendency towards individualization and the desire to be merged in the group, so that when the satisfying of one tendency is denied in a certain field of life, he seeks another, in which he then fulfills the measure which he requires. Thus it seems as though fashion were the valve through which woman’s craving for some measure of conspicuousness and individual prominence finds vent, when its satisfaction is denied her in other fields. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 730 (#expands, via linked claim)

Citizens now suffer in many areas from overloads of communication and over- doses of participation. We should address ourselves directly to the overriding problems: the uprooting of people from meaningful communities and the failure to organize politically around authentic issues. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 569 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Yet he is wrong to say that “both person and planet are threatened by the same enemy—the bigness of things.” What is at issue is the interlacing of distance and proximity, of the personal and the large-scale mechanisms of globalisation. “Bigness” is not in itself either an enemy of the person or a phenomenon to be overcome in life politics. Instead, it is the coordination of individual benefit and planetary organisation that has to be the focus of concern. Global connections of many kinds are the very condition of forms of individual self-actualisation, including those that act to minimise high-consequence risks. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 371 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Communication overload and shallow participation mask genuine community uprooting — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 569; Class equilibrium creates the appearance of a neutral, autonomous state; Dominance is maintained through unstable equilibria that concede some subordinate interests (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• When one social impulse is blocked, people compensate elsewhere #expands (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 730
• Communication overload and shallow participation mask genuine community uprooting #corroborates (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 569
• Large-scale systems enable rather than merely threaten individual self-actualisation #contradicts (0.72) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 371
• Ideological forms like wages serve to maintain capitalist domination #expands (0.60) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 903
• Class equilibrium creates the appearance of a neutral, autonomous state #expands (0.55)
• Dominance is maintained through unstable equilibria that concede some subordinate interests #qualifies (0.50)