Aporia: Polis

Some thoughts from Poiesis, to start this work: Value may be innate to the universe, but this does not lessen the problem of constructing pragmatic moral rules. Some moral principles seem to be derived from aesthetics – fairness and equality, for instance. These can be understood by our ‘mammalian’ brain. Some moral principles require rational thought – via the uniquely human aspect of the brain. This split between mammalian and human – body and rationality – causes quite a bit of confusion for us, as embodied agents. We will often hear the body’s response, but we will then try to rationalise with our minds – not noticing any contradictions. Our sense of the sacred – even for ‘unbelievers’ – also has an impact on our sense of right and wrong – not necessarily connected to our bodily or rational responses. Finally, there is our human fixation with power – as explored more fully in what follows. (It would be nice if people obsessed with power were also people who are less attuned to their bodies. But this does not necessarily follow. The most that could be said is that the powerful – or would-be powerful – are less in tune with their emotions – often lacking empathy and compassion.) Let’s begin then with what might reasonably be described as the root of politics and government – natural justice. If someone attacks you then you have the right to fight back – even to kill your attacker. That’s the starting point for natural justice. And it doesn’t really get much beyond this. Because, on the back of this first principle, lies the concept of government. Now, if someone attacks you, the government comes to your aid. The government takes up the legitimate use of force on your behalf, and in theory, your life is thereby a bit safer and easier. Let’s be clear what happened here. You have given up a little bit of power and autonomy – a little bit of agency – in return for the government taking over some control of people’s lives. A transaction has taken place – an exchange of power – the ‘social contract’. As government grows, institutions are established and hierarchies of power emerge, these transactions between citizen and state continue. Gradually, the agency of citizens is diminished whilst the power and reach of the state grows and grows. Well, perhaps the citizens have some say in this. Perhaps there are elections, perhaps there’s ‘direct democracy’ in the form of referendums on big decisions. Perhaps there’s even ‘participatory politics’ in the form of citizens’ assemblies or peoples’ parliaments, elected by sortition. But, in all cases, your individual voice has to compete with the will of the majority, or the opinion of your government representative or the opinion of the monarch or the will of whatever ruling elite may be in place. The tiny agency your vote gives you – if you get any kind of vote at all – is dwarfed in comparison by the enormous sacrifice of freedom, autonomy and agency that has been forced upon you simply by being born. Looking back again at the discussions in Poiesis, we had that serious split in the way we live our lives – the split between our mammalian, bodily, emotional response and our rational response. This, indeed, makes governance difficult. People are driven to ask for things that are in their immediate, local, short-term interests, whilst expecting the government to look after the wider, national and global concerns. The two demands often don’t sit happily together. But notice something even more significant here. Everything the government does affects us citizens on or emotional and bodily level. For the citizen, all politics is the politics of the body. But, at the same time, everything the government does is, to them, a rational process. It is like that central dichotomy of the human individual is being played out at a cultural, societal scale. And all this has deep implications. Let’s take that ‘legitimate use of force’ thing first. Gradually, that use of force – which, you remember, originally was solely with the individual – has been farmed out to wider and wider swathes of society. The tribe, then perhaps the city state, then a whole region, until today it is held by nation states. At every stage the amount of force that is used or threatened in order to ‘keep the peace’ has increased. Now, it seems, some nations would be willing to bring about a nuclear holocaust that could spell the end of civilisation should anyone dare attack. There are no ‘victors’ in this, of course. It’s just that those nuclear powers somehow think that ending civilisation would be preferable to being a conquered state. The citizen of such a nation is clearly at an immense distance from all this destructive power – wielded, allegedly, for their ‘safety’. And perhaps the average citizen does not think too much about this situation, about which they can do absolutely nothing. But there is a huge message from the government back to its people in all this – we are willing to cause unimaginable devastation and suffering on innocent people, just to hold onto our position of power. The way to settle arguments is to threated overwhelming force. That’s their bottom line. And it only goes to underline the loss of autonomy of the individual. We might not express it openly, but all around us we see our agency shut down, curtailed or compromised – in theory, for our safety and security – in practice, for our almost total subjugation. So forget about right and left, communist or capitalist, autocratic or democratic. It’s all transactions – transactions of power – where the citizens turn out to be on the losing side. Going back, once more, to earlier writings: We believe some things to be scared, so there are things we seek to honour. We are embodied agents, a means of grace in the world. We respond to the cosmos in are, wonder and enchantment. We might even consider the human soul to be a drop of the Great Spirit – part of the Ocean of God. And, if you are so inclined, you may contemplate these great mysteries of the cosmos on a regular basis – considering such matters to be at the very pinnacle of human life. Dear reader, you are probably thinking, at this juncture. That the two views I’ve presented of human societies are a million miles apart. And indeed, I agree with you. So we could ask, how could those noble aspects of human life inform our governance? How could governance – and society more generally – be less about the awful transactions we’ve explored and more about gift – the gift of grace? How can we promote an ‘emotional economy’, a caring economy, a convivial society, a culture rooted in love? Just asking such a question though, simply puts us back onto the same treadmill. It is like trying to bring about change by swapping one set of transactions for another set. Sooner or later – if any ‘progress’ towards change was made at all – it might actually be for the worse. How could such high and noble ideas actually make things worse rather than better? Just one more paradox of human nature. We could only be swapping power for power. The individual would once more be swamped by well-meaning control – abdicating our agency in the process. So what to do? Only this. If you believe some or all of those loftier notions of humanity I’ve described above and elsewhere then the first thing is to live them in your own life. Somehow, then, we must live outside the hierarchies of power. Yet somehow, who we are as a person and who we might be becoming – that is our primary message, that is the grace we might give to the world. Nothing more. Okay, you’ll maybe consider this not so much of a solution – in fact, probably, no solution at all! And I don’t mean to suggest that we should not be politically active – seeking ‘social justice’ – whatever that might mean for you and your community. But, even so, I suggest that the still centre of our highest aspirations – that must be our root. Civil society is therefore about clearing the ground to allow for the flourishing of individuals and communities. We need to clear the threat of war, climate disaster, ecological collapse and pollution. We need to have stable government and institutions. And thus, a reliable health service, good education and public transport. We need to ensure equity, civil liberties and justice. In short, we need to take care of all these technical matters so that people are left free to find their way to reach their full potential. As I’ve mentioned, there are some existential threats to our lives that are with us right now and which I think are worth examining in more detail. Once we’ve touched on already – nuclear war. The others are climate change and AGI – Artificial General Intelligence. These matters are taken up in the next writing – Praxis.