Of Question & Consequence
The rise of ISIS, a monarchist American presidency, and a foot in mouth Brexit vote
The world has been impregnated by burning effigies of authority — leaders who are brimming with antiquity, yet hollow to history — societies who are swollen with the potential of life, yet nauseous to the ailment of creation.
We are entangled in a struggle to walk upright without losing our hunched narrative. We are both man and beast, conquerers and vanquished, saved and damned.
That is, what ‘we’ are as a species is both of question and of consequence.
The topic of ‘what does it mean to be human’ has filled many of mankind's best novels, and rightfully so. Therefore, I am only going to focus on a sliver of the story for our generation, that of political leanings and political parties.
There is a significant semantic difference between leftist & rightest and socialist & conservative.
Political leanings, such as left or right, are a political inclination towards the human condition.
Political parties, such socialist or conservative, are dogmatic interpretations of human value.
Dogmatic organizations, whether socialist, conservative, or the Vatican, rigidly define the realm of human experience. There is not room for variance which stands in opposition to their core tenants. You can no more believe in multiple gods as a Catholic than you can believe in Creative Destruction as a Socialist.
It often boils down to this: Political inclinations are a narrative of right vs wrong, dogmatic interpretations are a story of good vs evil.
Well there is little doubt there is evil in the world, it’s often a complex and relative balance between what it takes to survive, to thrive, and to evolve. Thieves and murders are often considered varying acts of evil until it is required for self-defence or conquest.
This is why wars are dogmatic, and require a monopoly of violence, and thus human value, in order to present a story of ‘us vs them’.
It is also why social policies like healthcare require individualised narratives to demonstrate the variance of the human condition, and thus the variance of collective opinion.
For the first time in human history, the human condition is under question & consequence on a global scale.
As an example, the Paris Climate agreement is not only a doctrine of collective action against a deteriorating climate, but a doctrine of a global human value. Separate from it’s statements on Climate Change, it provides a bell weather of which to measure human value on a global scale. The American presidents decision to leave the agreement was as much a statement of the value of humanity, both as individuals and collectively, as it was about climate.
In historical societies, local or regional leaders often challenged humanist questions with strict dogmas that defined the acceptable narrative.
Socialist, Fascist, and many religious interpretations punished the individual variations which tried to draw the lines between expectations and reality. To the dogmatic leaders, the pursuit of collective stability and benefit was far too great to be undone by the unsettled imbalance of mankind.
The rise of ISIS, a monarchist American presidency, and a foot in mouth Brexit vote are responses to growing local fears of the global question — what does it mean to be human if we’re connected on a global scale.
What if the American economy can serve the Chinese upper class better than it can serve the American middle class.
What if the Chinese economy can serve the American lower class better than it can serve the Chinese middle class?
What is the dogma of what it means to be American or Chinese if that definition is integrated globally but domestically contradictory.
We’re witnessing a tangible example of this with the UK vote to leave the EU.
The EU and UK are collectively integrated — yet, sectionally they are contradictory. You cannot rip the two apart quickly without internal hemorrhaging — yet, the polls clearly demonstrated the contradictory perceptions of how to asses the value of an individual.
For many western societies, the reactions of the silver-haired has been a retreat to conservatism, and the young an embrace of socialism.
But these dogmas of human worth, no matter how pure their intentions or worthy their cause, can only support their cause in the short run.
With time, their purity of cause today will become limitations of effects tomorrow.
Therefore, I believe that our generation will be judged by our ability to vote based on the human condition — value that is based on compassion and evidence, not rules & principles.
The problem with political parties that are based on dogma, not political inclinations, is their inability to change with the human condition.
How can you determine what is good based on rules without evidence. How can you determine who is good based on principles without compassion.
We are not in a story of good or evil — of “haves or have nots”, or “first and second class beings”. We are in a opaquely integrated yet transparently contradictory campaign of what we’re worth.
We should not let the moving spectrum of the human condition pervert our model of human value.
As an American living in England, I’ve seen the anger & resentment from both sides of the spectrum and from both sides of the pond. While I undoubted have a personal slant based on my experiences of the human condition, I have worked to keep my faith in all human value.
We are on the cusp of breaking or breaking through as a species — the heaviness of human possibility, both enlightened & entombed, is before us.
We are entangled in a struggle to walk upright without losing our hunched narrative. We are both man and beast, conquerers and vanquished, saved and damned.
That is, what ‘we’ are as a species is both of question and of consequence.
