the political litmus test

perhaps what i am about to say is very basic, and i might have touched on it to some extent in a previous blog entry. in any case, i feel that it is important to elaborate on this topic for clarification's sake. i believe that to start a political scenario, we have to begin with conceptualizing it in the most primitive but also precise way as possible: genes and environment. now, the environment is the earth, or in a theoretical sense, "earth-simulated" environments. genes are the genetic range of the human species, conceived both in practice and in theory. now, there are two ways we can go about testing implementing a political system for humans. one way is to literally place a collection of infants, having just been born, in an earth environment (theoretically, in an infinite number of possible earth-simulated environments), and giving them means for survival during their first few years of life -- either via artificial supplementation or via real parents acting solely as providers. we would empirically test this thousands of times, and theoretically an infinite number of times, and see what kinds of political systems naturally evolved over thousands and millions of years for each scenario as the generations reproduce. so the successes would represent the range of "naturally evolved" political systems, as the failed political systems would eventually result in the termination of the system, leading to a change in the political system or the end of the human species. the second approach would be to implement a political system for a generation -- thus requiring parenting in all its capacities as well as institutions being established, etc. -- and then after the first generation, let go of the "training wheels" and see how the political system fared. we would try this the same number as times as the first approach, except this time, instead of repeating the same scenario over and over, we would try as many possible political systems as one could imagine. this would establish a range of political systems that people could adapt to, and the political systems that did not survive would constitute political systems that people are not inherently compatible with.

so, we have established two ranges of human genetic compatibility for various political systems. now, an additional factor that we must consider is the issue of consciousness. if one believes in free will, then one believes that there is an element of human existence that "transcends" simple gene-environment interactions. however, in an experiment, since consciousness is a natural part of our being, there would be no way to extract it out and be left with simple gene-environment interactions like one could have with ordinary animals that do not possess consciousness. as such, our two ranges must be revised from representing simple human genetic compatibility to representing human genetic and consciousness compatibility (however, the idea of free will will be moot for the remainder of this discussion since in my theoretical simulations, all possible choices will have been exhausted, so examining the nature of the mechanism/cause behind the choices is not necessary or beneficial for my approach. i will maintain the "consciousness" aspect just to be consistent.). now, there is no way for us to actually conduct or simulate experiments for human genetic and consciousness compatibility, so we have no way of knowing 1) if the two ranges (starting with infants in all possible environments -- "naturally evolved" political systems, implementing a political system for a generation before taking off the "training wheels") are the same, or if the "naturally evolved" political systems are a subset of implemented political systems, and 2) if the ranges cover 100% of all imaginable political systems, or just a very tiny percentage of them -- obviously, for the human species to have survived this long in reality, and since reality constitutes one of the many possible "naturally evolved" political systems conceived for an experiment (thus we are living in a "real world experiment"), there is some political system and/or mix of political systems that works, which is why we don't need a theoretical scenario to prove that the range is not 0%.

now, here is the moment of truth: do you believe the ranges cover 100% of possible political systems, thus believing that human genetic and consciousness compatibility is flexible enough to adapt to any otherwise functioning political system (as in functioning "in theory" within its entire structure and components except for the human element), or do you believe that human genetic and consciousness compatibility has inherent limitations so as to not be flexible enough to adapt to any otherwise functioning political system, thus resulting in only covering a certain percentage of possible political systems? if you believe the former, then you are a true liberal; if you are the latter, then you are a conservative in one form or another. in being a true liberal, you thus believe that an ideal political system can be debated in terms of ethics, its economic efficiency (and defining what that is is a debate in-and-of-itself), etc., and you can believe in either a single ideal political system or in a variety of ones, of which you find all to be equally desirable as an endpoint (the reason being that if you find that one system has a more desirable endpoint than another, then you should support the system that is more desirable). at heart, you are also an ideologue. the only thing preventing you from being a complete ideologue is how you believe we should go about changing from our current situation to a certain endpoint. for example, perhaps you find 3 political systems to be equally desirable, but that it is easier and quicker in practice to convert to one system from our current situation than the other two, and that is why you decide on picking that one particular system. that is an example of someone reconciling his/her political ideals with pragmatism at present, thus not being a complete ideologue. complete ideologues either do not have an explanation for how to get from point a to point b, or they have one that is unimplementable (in practice, converting from point a to point b takes a certain amount of time because of factors of the functioning political system independent of the human element minus whatever baseline is required for the political system to function). however, because it is impossible in reality to prove one way or another if not only an endpoint is attainable, but also whether the road to getting there is feasible or not, the best we can do as far as designating complete ideologues from "pragmatic" ideologues is to judge their intentions -- those who do not have intentions of caring whether or not their transition to an endpoint is feasible or not can be branded as complete ideologues. everyone else who has an ideal political system or systems as an endpoint and who is trying to reach that endpoint by effecting change at present in reality is not a complete ideologue regardless of how ridiculous his/her scheme appears to be. to rehash an earlier point, i must reiterate -- this time in with new terminology -- that one can be a true liberal regarding the path of change from the present to the endpoint if one believes that the only thing we have to change are things that are ontologically separate from the human element -- our institutions, resources, etc. (and that's assuming you can made a definite ontological distinction, which is a debate in-and-of-itself, but let's assume here that we can make that distinction). if one believes that there is a human element that must be accounted for in addition to the functioning political system, even if you believe humans are 100% compatible with all systems once implemented, then you believe that in theory there exists a range of plausible plans for reaching endpoints, and that there are some plans that fall outside of this range and are thus unimplementable. going back to my theoretical experiments, one could test for this by assessing all situations in transitioning from something mirroring our current political system to all the plausible endpoints. while in theory, in my theoretical experiments, it is technically possible for humans to have genetic and consciousness compatibility with 100% of possible political systems, if there are limitations on human genetic and consciousness compatibility in transitioning from one political system to another, thus causing a range of plausible scenarios out of possible scenarios for transition, then it would seem to follow that one would also believe that there is a range of plausible endpoints out of possible endpoints for political systems; this reductive reasoning -- if x reduces to z, then y must reduce to z as well. this demonstrates why true liberalism is basically a fantasy and inherently dangerous -- only an insane person would believe that the only thing limiting us from changing from our current political system to a desired political system can be attributed to non-human entities. in recognizing that we would need, at minimum, a "revolution" to implement the change to a desired political system (i say a revolution simply because it is a quicker way to get from point a to point b than through slow, incremental steps), one is acknowledging the power exerted by politicians and the elite class in controlling the masses, and thus accounting for a human element, albeit a narrow and specific group of people. but in order for revolution to occur, the masses must revolt, which means one must take their human element into account, and combining them with the politicians and elite class, you then have to acknowledge the human element as entailing all people. as such, one has inherently, in accounting for the human element for transition, exposed his/her own conservative tendency.

if you are a conservative, then you believe that we can only debate ethics, economic efficiency, etc. with political systems that fall within the range of human genetic and consciousness compatibility even though we have no idea what that range is. you can also have an ideal political system, but because it is in theory grounded in something realizable, then you are not an ideologue per se. of course, you also have to have plan for getting from here to there, and you would believe that there is in theory a range of plausible plans for making the transition from our current state to an ideal *and* realizable political system, and within that range of plausible transitions one can make a claim for the best one based on ethics, economic efficiency, etc. so, based on what i have written so far, you were right if you guessed that i have classified myself as a "conservative" regarding political ideology. now, do i have any guesses as to what these ranges are? i have my own beliefs based on experiences both in the classroom and in the "real world", but instead of explaining those in great detail, i'll be better off making things short and sweet. i discussed in a previous blog entry how "animal nature" consists of the primary need to survive, followed by secondary agendas of power and pleasure. basically, i believe that in spite of how smart we like to think we are and how different humans are from other creatures -- even if a group of intellectuals established their own country on an island independent from interaction with the rest of the world's people -- any form of civilization is based on reducing human behavior to what i have described as so-called "animal nature". what i mean by this is that society is inherently structured based on, at its foundations, power relations and hierarchy rather than sophisticated intellectual ideas, amazing works of artistic genius, or admirable ideals of justice. as such, any political system that is overly-intellectual in any way, shape, or form that contradicts our tendencies towards "animal nature" will be detrimental to the system; the efficiency of the system is maximized by closely modeling itself based on optimizing relationships established by "animal nature" while having just enough intellectualism added to help curb some of the inherent stupidity caused by "animal nature" (brash decision-making, lifestyles of excess and overindulgence, careless risk-taking, etc.), causing it to not reach a point of self-destruction by channeling it in a more effective manner, thus causing the loss inflicted by the stupidity of "animal nature" to be less than the loss inflicted by the conflict between "animal nature" and intellectualism in a society predicated on an intellectualist structure instead of an "animal nature" one. i will end by making an analogy. imagine that you have a situation in which there is a basketball game, and there are coaches and players available. you could make a team entirely of coaches (akin to intellectualism) or a team entirely of players (akin to animal nature). now, in a game, a team of uncoached players should be able to defeat a team of old coaches, but there might be exceptions where people on the team of players start fighting with each other to the point that they cannot co-exist and they end up losing. so what is the optimal solution? the very one that is implemented and has been implemented for quite a long time: have a few coaches coach and have the players play the game. similarly, for society to function optimally, its "animal nature" is analogous to the players, and its intellectualism is analogous to the coaches. in short, players win games just like "animal nature" constitutes how most of society is conducted, but poor coaching can cause teams to lose just like the lack of proper intellectualism can cause the stupidity of "animal nature" to grow so out of hand that it becomes an imminent threat to the survival of that society. the problem with overly-intellectual theories is that they assume that society operates more analogously to a martial arts competition, wherein a small person extensively trained in martial arts can defeat an untrained opponent much bigger than himself/herself. much like a martial artist can maximize his/her physical capabilities through training, sometimes with the end skill set being exponentially better than the untrained skill set, some intellectuals believe people can "overcome" their "animal nature", and in doing so, they can virtually exclusively reside in the domain of their "humanity" (see previous blog entry for definition), and the collective interaction of all these enlightened people will result in a utopia of sorts. while i can't disprove this line of thinking and think it has some redeeming qualities, my own life experiences have taught me to believe otherwise. (or maybe i just watch too much basketball and not enough mma. :P) but seriously, i don't think that "humanity" can exist by itself, alone and isolated from other aspects of humans -- a large part of what constitutes "humanity" stems from conflicts between one's "humanity" and one's "animal nature" and the resulting synthesis. "humanity" cannot exist without some sort of connection with "animal nature", and it is my belief that through this connection, "humanity" embellishes "animal nature" in ways that, although people require a certain amount of social interaction, ultimately the connection stresses people's inherent desires to improve things (and not in a communal sense, but in a selfish, technological fashion, e.g., wanting faster cars at a cheaper price, etc.) and attain a level of greatness (again, championships are won at the expense of the rest of the competitors being losers in the end), both of which do more to promote the goals of the hungry individual basking in the adulation of the masses than those of a community relatively satisfied with the status quo and with heavy, artificial ("artificial" being used here assuming that my belief that people are naturally inherently pretty selfish and individualistic) limits imposed on their ability to exert power and experience pleasure through expanded material means. now, to those who say that humans are by nature communal, i offer this response. at certain stages in our history, humans were forced out of necessity to be communal, not voluntarily. furthermore, these communes were not very democratic and were quite authoritarian within the established power structure and hierarchy, and the main reason (at least in my estimation) these were not overthrown was because of the close genetic relationship among everyone in the commune -- basically, power relations as defined through kinship within a confined state. when different cultures began to interact and technology improved, we reached a point where our world was no longer defined by the limits of the commune, but rather our world was broadened in reality through technology and intellectually through the spread of new ideas. communes were attempted in the 19th century in america with somewhat mediocre results, and over the past century, those seeking refuge from the rest of society have found their place in cliques rather than communes. people who think we are inherently communal fail to acknowledge that just because humans behave a certain way early on in their history doesn't mean that that is inherently our nature and what best suits us at later points in history. in order for us to be compatible with communes again, we would have to abandon technology and censor the history of the world and its ideas, and those are all pipe dreams at best, not only because they are unfeasible, but because they entail severely unfavorable ethical implications as well. now, to finish, i would like to add a disclaimer of sorts that everything i have discussed in this entry and previous entries about "animal nature" and the different versions of "human nature" and things along those lines are generalizations that most certainly include a few exceptions. so when you think of these ideas, don't view them as hard and fast rules, but things that are true for the most part or generally speaking.


(btw, if you're interested in what my political beliefs are, it would take several blog entries at least to do them any justice, but i will say that i voted for obama and if asked right now, would "approve" of him in polls of presidential approval rating. so even though i consider myself a "conservative" as i have defined it, i am definitely not a conservative as it is currently defined -- and there are many debatable definitions -- or was defined previously -- think "traditional" conservativism from the latter part of the 20th century.)