January 29, 2004

Better ways to choose  

Dan Johnson-Weinberger is quoted in Slate touting the proportional voting system that lets films with a strong minority following get nominated for an Oscar. Of course, Dan's less interested in Oscars than in democratic institutions, and his position hasn't been able to gain wide currency - probably because people don't like to fiddle with the design of long standing institutional structures. But aside from the anxiety about change (which, make no mistake, is a serious issue), it's hard to see why people would oppose this... we already have proportional representation for states; why not extend this to other kinds of minorities?

One question though, about the Oscars. If the system is so good at producing minority canddiates, why are this year's nominations getting so much attention for being different?

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