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Comment by hrktb | Hacker News Reader

I see how it can sound ridiculous if we take "symbolic" into any other context. But in this case the symbolic part is a really big deal, just as the pope has a symbolic role that affects a ton of people.

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Not a very good parallel. The pope has real power in a large organization with genuine real world influence. (Not nearly as much influence as it used to have, but still.)

Pope can actually make decisions with consequences.

There is a big difference though. The power of the Pope has been restricted over a period of centuries. The power of the Emperor of Japan has only been restricted for about 70 years.

At this point, neither party can really "make decisions with consequence", especially the Pope. They can mutually make declarations, and people may or may not respond to them. In that regard, they are as equally weak as all of the various monarchies of Europe and Southeast Asia.

However, Japan is fairly unique in this set of players. They have a highly homogenized population and culture. The changes to their cultural leadership are only 70 years old.

When I visited there in 2010, I left with a feeling that I visited a sleeping country/culture that was literally missing some polarizing goal to reignite it. That doesn't necessarily mean warlike, but it does mean ambitious.

Don't be quick to think of Japan as some tamed tiger or lion. It definitely is not.

> When I visited there in 2010, I left with a feeling that I visited a sleeping country/culture that was literally missing some polarizing goal to reignite it.

Isn't this similar to the whole Western world? I mean, my impression of modern democracies I know is they're similar to headless chickens - running around without a point or a goal, but oh how fast they run.

EDIT: to be clear, I'm not criticizing democracy here per se, this is my observation about the Western societies. I understand it's not the role of a government to dictate a goal for people - it's to facilitate pursuing goals in a stable and orderly manner. But wouldn't it be nice if our societies had at least a little bit more of a sense of common purpose?

It is the western democracies' various unelected professional bureaucracy that keep those democracies working, however imperfect those organizations are.

Let not pretend that a democracy is a great way to choose people for office.

It's a terrible way, but I am not sure how one would do better.

Plato's Politicus has an interesting comparison of different political systems in 302b-303c, putting democracy as basically ineffective, saying a corrupt democracy is the least harmful among corrupt systems, and a good, working democracy is the worst among good, working systems.

See the text, starting from: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Stat.+302...

In my interpretation of Western democracies, it is the job of the private sector to make life better for people (if a bit unevenly), whereas it is the job of the state to keep lives from getting worse.

Yes, the pope can actually make decisions with consequences, but as Stalin put it, "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?"

Well, he doesn't have any, the power comes through his symbolic position.

Stalin was probably undervaluing religious zealotry.

Yes, though zealotry is perhaps the wrong word here - zealots were a Judean movement that rebelled against the Roman Empire and sought to expel it by force of arms; zealots are associated with violence.

Pope's influence has over the recent centuries come over non-violent conviction of followers.

Daesh has lots of zealotry, Catholics less so.

I meant potential zealotry: Catholics seem to be quite peaceful nowadays, but my opinion is that this is a temporary state of affairs.

Religions are totalitarian, since they are the holders of the One Truth.

I doubt it. The modern Catholic church is fundamentally different from what it was even a century ago. Ever since Pope John XXIII started Vatican II in 1962 and it reached its conclusion in 1965, the church has completely reformed almost every area of its existence including political influence, missionary work, it's relationship with other religions and governments, and even its core liturgy. Ever since then, there has been a huge gulf between most Catholics and the conservative branch of the Church, the extremists who would normally go to war but now have little power.

> The modern Catholic church is fundamentally different from what it was even a century ago

And can change very quickly again. The goal of religions is to achieve total control. The current strategy of the Catholic church is to show a low profile, since the sociological environment does not allow for a more pro-active role. The minute that the Church senses that they are back in control of the political discourse, or whenever the fundamentalist minority get vocal enough, zealotry will get back to the official agenda.

He’s got one army: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard#Pontifical_Swiss_G...

Yes, I know, though I wonder if there will be a day when the halberds are taken away for "health and security" reasons.

(Yes, I know they also have actual handguns hidden somewhere.)

They only have consequences because enough people imbue the symbol with significance.

He's a CEO of an organization with more than 400 000 people in middle management (priests) alone (and they have to listen to his orders or lose their status or even be sued before a special court).

He can make state decisions (small state, but still).

Not comparable to strictly ceremonial function of Japan's emperor.

Things like state decisions are direct but limited.

But decisions like the Roman Catholic Church's policy on contraception has only devastated as many lives as it has because those people choose to believe in the symbol.

But, all power is, at its root, symbolic. Stalin only slaughtered as many as he did because people believed in the symbolic power of the state and in him as having some right to lead such an abstract entity with total authority.

Not all power. The Pope, Stalin and the Emperor have the symbolic power to a greater or lesser extent.

The soldier aiming a gun at you or healthcare professional denying you access to contraception on the say-so of one of the above does have real power.

Excellent point. I suppose I was speaking to power structures, specifically, rather than power in the sense of personal ability. In the end, however, if you want to have power on the scale of civilizations, some, if not most of that power must be symbolic in nature. There's no way to hold a knife to a nation's throat for the long haul without at least a little loyal help.

It's not that small if you think of all the property they own around the world. In San Francisco we have quite a few old churches that are basically shuttered.

I'd love to see these sold. Their blemishes on a city that could use them for things like housing for our homeless/low income issues.

The Pope does not have a symbolic power over the Roman Catholic Church.

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