November 08, 2008 07:32 PM UTC

A political paradigm

• 13 Comments
• by: Don Quijote

First, I apologize for the length of this entry. I am trying to find or create a position for myself in a political enterprise that I believe is of great value, but tragically underrepresented in political discourse and activism. Please bear with me as I lay it out in hopefully not too excruciating detail:

As a Coloradan with a background in economics and law, I am interested in becoming a modestly paid, unelected, behind the scenes policy analyst and “political entrepreneur” in Colorado, working mostly on local issues and with local officials and organizations. And I am fanatically committed to a particular political ideology, one which many think they adhere to but few really do. It is not any of the usual suspects: Not Libertarianism, nor Socialism, nor Capitalism, nor Democracy. It is, rather, “Rational Pursuit of Collective Welfare.” That may sound vaguely socialist, but it’s not, at least not in any traditional sense of the word: To the extent that free markets serve our collective welfare (and I think that it is to a rather great extent), then free markets are recommended by my ideology. Policy proposals should be weighed according to the extent that they can be justified by utilitarian arguments. This does not mean that moral arguments can not be made, but they must be made in service to utilitarian arguments.

While the competition between different interests and ideologies cannot be wished away, and certainly define the tensions that must be negotiated, I think we can add to the mix, or perhaps overlay it with, a less blind, more rational ideology, one which negotiates those tensions according to a subtle utilitarian doctrine, and invest our time and energy and passion in the effort to promote it. Stangely enough, it seems to have been rarely attempted in earnest.

Political discourse in America, and in Colorado, remains complacently in the same rut, as if the human spirit has surrendered to its own inertia, though clearly eager to be roused (as recent political events demonstrate). People adhere contentedly to simplistic ideologies, and think and argue in “us” v. “them” political templates. Even (or especially) the most politically sophisticated and knowledgeable participants in public discourse (such as those who post here) focus almost exclusively on the game of politics, on “the horse race,” and pay precious little attention to the challenge of devising intelligent public policies. What if we devoted the larger proportion of our attention to the far more essential and challenging question of how best to organize our collective existence, and only as a subsidiary topic addressed the issue of how to promote such policies through our political process?

First, we need a paradigm within which to operate, one which accommodates the goal of devising rational public policy by creating a set of algorithms to guide the process. This, in fact, is precisly how our legal system operates, because it is the most direct application of human artifice to the management of social affairs, one which attempts, though with very limited success, to be apolitical. And legal analysis, increasingly, employs microeconomic analyses to guide its decision making process. So we need a paradigm which incorporates both legalistic and microeconomic forms of reasoning, but one which does so in a very flexible and accommodating way.

All conceptualizations are “ideologies,” and all are reductions of a reality more subtle and complex than those conceptualizations (and the languages for symbolizing them) can more than approximate. But ideologies are not of interchangeable value: They are more or less supple, accommodating, and useful in their approximation of reality. One characteristic of a “subtler” ideology, for instance, is that it does not reduce well to platitudes, and that, when it occasionally seems to, someone else working within it can always demonstrate the limits of that platitude.

There is an old Buddhist story about two disciples in a monastery, both of which were in contention to be raised to the rank of “master.” One was the favorite, the second an improbable candidate. The final contest consisted of writing verses expressing the essence of Buddha-consciousness. The favorite wrote wonderful verses that seemed eloquently to capture the unabiding truth of “nirvana.” The other wrote verses undermining the poetic platitudes that the first had written. Guess which one became a master.

As all social scientists (especially bad social scientists) know, whatever can be stated, can be as accurately negated. When mere negation becomes an end in itself, this is dysfunctional. But when it becomes a robust tool for working toward ever subtler understandings, it is highly functional. The lesson for us is that our own ideologies are at their best when they do not linger on absolute certainties, but rather momentarily pause on notions that serve as launching pads for their own transcendence. One can see this vitality in modern science: Newtonian physics was a brilliant achievement, which focused the interacting minds of thousands of scientists over the next couple of centuries, uncovering the anomalies within the paradigm, and eventually ushering in its own demise, in the form of Relativity, which in turn was both challenged and complemented by Quantum mechanics, the two being mathematically mutually exclusive, but each seeming to describe a distinct aspect of nature that the other could not. From them has sprung String Theory, which many (though not all) physicists believe will come to transcend (and, in so doing, unify) them both.

In economics, Adam Smith articulated the first powerful analytical paradigm, which became the lens through which successive generations of economists examined economic systems. The anomalies that are consequences of transaction costs and externalities led to refinements, which absorbed an initially unrelated branch of theoretical mathematics called “game theory,” all of which fruitfully articulated with developments within the broad biological paradigm of “evolutionary theory.” For instance, from biologist Richard Dawkins, in a tangential chapter of his book “The Selfish Gene,” comes “Meme Theory,” which compares cognitions to genes, noticing that since the former, like the latter, reproduce, mutate, and compete for reproductive success, they therefore evolve.

Ideologies which absorb all of these developments, but do not tarry on them as final truths, recognizing instead that the process continues indefinitely, that understandings should be the means to their own demise in favor of ever subtler and more complex understandings…, such ideologies are more congruent to the subtlety of nature itself, for in the act of reduction they acknowledge that it is only one step deeper, with endless depths yet to explore and discover.

Such ideologies focus more on process than substance, for the substance emanates from a robust process, whereas ideologies which embrace a substance rather than the process of arriving at it quickly become ossified dogmas rather than supple means of understanding. But a more supple and accommodating ideology does not disdain and dismiss these ossified relics: Rather, it mines them for wisdom. It absorbs what they have to offer, and invites their bearers to feel as welcome participants in a dialogue in which they are heard and respected. Thus the paradigms within which we think and act can both evolve and invite, with gentle reassurance that our collective existence is a shared enterprise. We should continually strive to convert disagreement from a bane of that enterprise into a resource that informs it.

In other words, this political paradigm I am advocating has as its goal the formation of a meta-ideology, one which does not adhere to overly simplistic dogmas, but does consider the arguments made by those who do adhere to them. It is, in a sense, the self-conscious formulation of what already happens in a very haphazard and inefficient way, but adding to it an extra layer, a layer which involves the intentional, rational articulation of these diverse views.

To me, there is only one meaningful political struggle: That between Rational (and Systemic) Global Humanism, on the one hand, against Dogmatic Inegalitarian Tribalism, on the other. That is not to say that those who adhere to part or all of the latter have nothing to contribute to the pursuit of part or all of the former. But rather it is to say that we need a new Political Mecca, a new Strange Attractor, a new Rallying Cry, a new Clarifying Ideology. Frameworks are useful, even when they seem at first glance to be redundant or superfluous. There is much to be gained by providing a more rational framework for our inevitable disagreements and conflicts of interests. There is much to be gained by defining collective goals, and rational means of pursuing them. There is much to be gained by investing in institutions which contain conflict within, and channel it through, cooperation.

As our political landscape shifts, as we embark on a symbolic new beginning, with a President (and, I might add, a Governor) whose attributes seem conducive to the political paradigm outlined above, now seems an ideal time to begin a conversation about meta-politics, about taking charge of the process rather than just endlessly muddling along. For my part, I want to work toward the goals described above, to increase the rationality and utility of our political processes, to increase cooperation to mutual benefit, to increase the permeability of ideological and geographic frontiers, to seek local solutions in a globally cooperative context, and, by these means, to increase human welfare. If anyone knows of an existing insitutional structure through which to do so, please let me know: I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, nor aggrandize myself (though, as I said, I would like to earn a modest income).

Thanks to all who read this far for your indulgence! I look forward to working with all those who wish to combine reason, compassion, and good will in our ongoing collective effort to forge an ever more prosperous, just, and sustainable social institutional landscape.

quijonomist@yahoo.com