Michael Lissack the important things in our lives. We resist having to submit to the author- ity of others. At the workplace, we can forget that we have a boss if our own activities permit us to use our judgment and discretion. And one of the wonderful things about our hobbies is that, usually, there is no one telling us what to do or when to do it. Yet government is not a hobby. Making public decisions should not be treated like refinishing your house. We each know too little. And our experts... well, they may know a lot about their little bit of the world, but not enough about the world itself. "What-is sprang from What-is-not," said Lao-tzu, around 500 B.C. "it is in the spaces where there is nothing, that the usefulness of the room lies .... The more the folk know what is going on, the harder it becomes to govern them." He was saying most people are not centered enough most of the time to make positive use of information; only a few can be trusted to act from deepest intuition. Wait Whitman writing after the Civil War phrased the same thought, "I will not gloss over the appalling dangers of universal suffrage in the United States. For know you not, dear, earnest reader, that the people of our land may all read and write, and may all possess the right to vote-and yet the main things may be entirely lacking?"
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