← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · neoclassical
Thread ID: 17318 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2005-03-15
2005-03-15 06:53 | User Profile
Lack of Direction
The modern American political landscape baffles any attempt at analysis because it is so cleanly divided into separate realities. On one side, the reality is that a vast corporate right-wing conspiracy somehow controls the country for the purpose of suppressing minorities and people of non-conservative lifestyles. The other side sees a rising horde of people demanding entitlements while a left-wing conspiracy of media, entertainment and oligarchs robs the people in order to pursue an illusionary utopia. Both are possibly correct, insofar as these things may exist, but neither has grasped the reins of leadership enough to propose - heaven save us! - a new direction.
They are too busy defending their trenches against the other side, and selling products and services to their constituency, to address the question of how to drive the ship of state. At this point, if any enemy which did not associate itself with one of these camps were to prepare for assault, it would probably be unopposed, as the country is so divided that we would be busy fighting amongst ourselves to see who would formulate a plan against the invaders who -- well, while we were busy, they seem to have occupied the country. But at least the other guy - democrats, republicans, whoever - didn't win! The battle for power has no decisive outcome in sight, and never will, since it is a matter of identity politics more than a desire to actually fix problems.
Identity politics occur when morality is mixed with political power; this is exclusively the domain of liberal-democratic societies, who by deriving their authority from mass appeal, must appeal to the masses. Since such justifications require claiming that one system is absolutely better than another, they require a moral message to be assigned to political functions, such as a belief in the supremacy of democracy or personal "freedom." It is not enough to claim that it is a more efficient system; this cannot be "proven," nor can any concept of it being traditional or affirmed by the wisdom of centuries. For this reason, people latch on to the best absolute of all: the system is better in the nebulous world of feelings, including those about what is right and what is wrong, and for that reason is beyond question.
This establishes the system as necessary; what fragments it is interpretation, but ultimately this is not important in regards to the perpetuation of the system itself, as a divided electorate will never disrupt the status quo, much as they might fight over its details. Much as the need for some unquestionable reason for a political system rapidly turns into moralism, the motivation for fighting over details of an unchanging and unworking system becomes equally polarized, this time into identity. Identity takes the form of self-image; people feel better about themselves for supporting what they feel to be right. In the case of political systems, this means they take one of two basic sides - idealized good intentions or pragmatic function - and use it to justify themselves. "I am right because I do what is right," they might say. This partially explains why in such factionalist times, most political agendas demonize their opposites.
What identity politics do not do is address underlying cause. Since each person associates self-image with success in promoting a certain doctrine, that alone becomes their focus, and the question of the goal for which that doctrine would be a means, such as the overall direction of state, falls by the wayside. Psychologically, this is not far removed from a group of robbers arguing over the spoils of a heist: the major task is viewed as over, and so people compete on a personal level, oblivious to the opposition creeping ever so patiently through the woods. In essence, identity politics surplants politics as a tool of the people as a whole; no outcome will emerge, at least for any enduring period of time, thus there is a big public show while behind the scenes, moneyed interests manipulate by controlling media, the appointment of candidates for leadership positions, and public opinion through the endorsements of celebrities and other people of perceived importance.
Such an aphilosophical approach is bound to end in disaster, since with everyone arguing over the power that exists, few are thinking of the long-term future, and fewer still are willing to speak up about it, as without an identity one is drowned out by those who are eager to assert their own rights and right-ness in the political conflict. Luckily, this does not matter to people in modern government, since they are a revolving cast of characters who remove profit and then bolt for retirement homes far away; revolutions, mass famines, pollution and class warfare barely affect them. The rest of us must endure if for no other reason to provide profit for whoever comes next. Yet as the public situations worsens, there is more talk among the few who are not deceived by the smoke and mirrors, and this talk is of change.
Most of these words take the form of either (a) immediate, dramatic action now or (b) changing the political process to be a better version of what currently exists. The former tends to lead to violent revolutions that kill figureheads and then, as impetus fades, replace them with nearly identical figureheads; the latter is almost always assimilated by whatever partisan interest can portray itself as closer to the new movement and thus absorb it, much as the Greens are overshadowed by more populist liberal parties in every election. Both of these approaches fail. It is the opinion of this author that any political approach will fail, in that such an approach grants legitimacy to the system and thus is prone to absorption; what makes more sense is to rectify the major fracture of modern times and to create a philosophical consensus, and then to use it to influence politics such that a replacement system can be created.
Philosophical consensus achieves one major victory, and one smaller one. The smaller victory is that it stops our society from fragmenting into secessive "realities" composed of those who have picked a political identity, and thus select media, products and a social group to match - guaranteeing they never see an opinion contrary to their own or, if they do, they can banish it by lumping it in with the rest of the world, who are in error. Philosophical consensus crosses party lines, and personal boundaries, and gets people to address the actual issues instead of defending an interpretation of a platform that in theory tackles those issues. Its major victory is that, with consensus, we can dispense with a political system based on constant conflict, and instead achieve consensus on what issues we have in common, thus building a new system which, instead of being founded on the idea of political competition, is built around political unity. Between these two changes, philosophical consensus brings to a modern society, for the first time in many years, a dose of reality.
Naturally, to most people, philosophical consensus of any kind seems impossible, and this tendency is exploited gleefully by all members of the political spectrum. Why struggle for a comprehensive system, when you can become a one-issue voter and hold up a single emotional political identity as right where all others are wrong, thus feeling good about yourself and perceiving that you're helping change the few wrong parts of a basically working system. This appeals to our laziness, to our fear, and to our belief we don't have much in common with our neighbors. However, we live in the same world, and while more than one solution exists to any problem, there are only a few plausible designs for a civilization that guarantee its long-term survival (none of them, incidentally, are the modern technological liberal democracy). Understanding the philosophical issues behind politics enables us to see not only what must be done, but why, and thus these ideas have a deeper root in our individual interests that the somewhat shallow easy answers of identity politics.
It would be another lengthy essay to delve into what form of philosophical unity we might find in a modern society. It will suffice to say that, when modern society replaced traditional society, it changed a world of personal discipline and fulfillment through intangible things into a world of self-interest, and attempted fulfillment through material things, and ever since cancer rates have risen alongside the degree of neurosis in our society. Modern society offers us easy answers - products, political identities, entertainment - but it does not address our inner needs, nor our long-term future. If even one percent of the American electorate woke up and agreed on the ideas of the previous sentence alone, we would be much closer to change than even four centuries of opposition movements have been able to achieve. This food for thought should keep us chewing as we watch the political landscape fragment into separate and incompatible visions of reality as the overall condition of humanity worsens.
[url]http://www.nazi.org/nazi/policy/direction/[/url]
2005-03-15 07:11 | User Profile
Lack of Direction
It's possible the title alone said it all.
But who needs direction when one's true purpose is to encase like amber the so-called Holocaust such that time stops and -- through the glass darkly -- it all looks as though it happened just yesterday.