If the verities of our spiritual life are things like our-selves and God and divine creation; then by contrast politics is ultimately arbitrary. In the world as it is now, and ourselves as we are now; wherever and however we draw boundaries around our categories, there is a strong element of arbitrary imposition.
Nothing is now obvious and spontaneous; everything is contested and a matter of choice. Hence ideology has displaced nature.
What was once unconscious and happened naturally - isn't any more.
In the past we found-ourselves and grew up immersed in a communal situation - which became primary.
Our values were inculcated by mechanisms that were unconscious, spontaneous, natural - this was almost unavoidable.
Not Any More.
At least from adolescence, if not before - we experience our-selves as individuals in a world of many options. Nothing is "given" because everything can be (and sooner or later is) brought to awareness, consciousness - so that we find ourselves standing outside of questions; questions that once were simply the-way-it-is.
The problem with all politics as-is; is that it is based upon arbitrary - ideological - categories.
However we cut-up reality in order to discuss it and make plans - we are confronted with the need for conscious choices about what is valid, what is good, what ought to be the aim.
Hence ideology; which imposes these top-down, consciously; and then claims that doing-this has been necessary and real.
Consider the apparently sensible maxim that it is better for us to "mind our own business" and not to meddle in the business of others.
Once we move from the business of our own spiritual life in the context of the everything, we are confronted by intermediate levels of analysis - and questions.
Is our family our business? Is our street, village city, nation, region, civilization our business? There are arguments for each of these levels as genuinely impacting on our own business - so why stop at our civilization - why not include the world, the planet, the universe?
Soon it seems that either everything is our business - or else nothing but our selves... and maybe our self isn't primarily our business; since plenty of people assert that our business is to "serve" other-people (or God).
We might therefore conclude that we our-selves have no business at all; or else that our business is everything - or we may conclude that our business is our race, nation, or ideology!
My point is that this matter of categories, drawing lines, making qualitative distinctions Just Is a matter requiring discernment, choices, commitments - such that in 2025 and the West the categories can no longer serve as the basis or justification for values...
So, it used to be possible to have one's clan or tribe or (small) nation as the basis for values - but it isn't any more; since before we can be "a nationalist" (or whatever) we have had to decide to make this our business.
And this also applies to our religion.
Yet in the past it certainly seems like these categories (clan, place, religion) really did have a primary reality - they were that from-which we argued, from-which our values emerged.
Indeed; if we assume that our primary loyalties used-to-be unconscious, spontaneous, natural and communal - nowadays, for many people, this is lost - and the opposite is true!
Politics (in its many manifestations) is a reality, but a negative reality.
In the past xenophobia was unconscious, spontaneous, natural - and (apparently) a necessary part of our natural and unavoidable positive affiliations to peoples, places, religions...
But nowadays xenophilia - love of the "other" is more common, more valued, and apparently more influential.
And indeed difficult to avoid! Nearly everybody, me included, has a tendency to "idealize" some or another "foreign and hearsay kind of place, religion, grouping... (And often something about which we have only superficial or hearsay knowledge.)
So; instead of the unconscious and spontaneous values of human history; we find-ourselves in a situation of multiple-choices and chosen-ideologies.
We therefore ought to embrace and make-the-best-of the inevitable!
We should choose, take responsibility for our choices, and remain aware that we have chosen.
Good politics is impossible in such situations - since all possible politics entails dishonesty about the nature and implications of its conclusions and assertions; it entails hiding and denying its own roots.
It is therefore up to each of us, as individuals, to make these choices in the best possible way that we can envisage and attain; or else - since good politics is become impossible - we shall be the ones who suffer the consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment