A Dangerous Mix

Human beings have a strong affinity to fit in, to be part of a group larger than themselves of those who feel the same as they do. Any observer of human nature or of history can recognize this as a trait which we all are susceptible to. In general this is beneficial as it leads to organization and cooperation of people, which was necessary to accomplish the many great achievements in our society. But this same drive, when applied to idealism and beliefs, can lead to a divisiveness and irrationality that can undermine a modern society's operation.

 Today it takes the form of two major aspects of people’s lives: politics and religion. Unfortunately in society today these two things are combined into a single ideal. Where politics should be the discussion of the operation of a nation, based on bettering your life and the lives of those in your society, it has been more and more infected by the belief that politics should be an extension of a person’s moral beliefs. Often such strong moral beliefs are inevitably based in religion or spirituality.  The idea that any human being on this Earth knows the true way a society should be run seems absurd. Many, many leaders in history have told their public that they know this supposed truth and then tricked them into given them wide ranging powers over the free lives of individuals. The most common source of this truth is a higher power, the idea that God decided to tell a select few people how to run society. The other source is a perversion of science, when someone dictates that their select pseudoscience can save a nation and lead it to glory (the obvious case of this would be the Nazis). It does not make sense to assume that anyone does know the exact way a society should be run for it is much too complicated. A good example of this is the current total confusion over the economy, the main reason for this being no one completely understands how it works. Perhaps one day when we possess the computing power to completely simulate (and get a simulation that is exact) we will be able to say we know how to run it better, but until that day we must rely on what scientists, engineers and businessmen rely on day in and day out: rationality and pragmatism.

 Yes we have basic human rights which must be upheld, and although this can be thought as a type or moralism, most people on Earth can agree on the basic fundamental human rights. We do not need to come up with them, as the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights already has. Beyond those tenants we must rely on observation of society, and a pragmatic approach of applying those policies which improve human life for all of those in a society and ignoring those which do not. This means leaving behind beliefs which may be a luxury for those living in a perfect society and perhaps even allowing some human vices legality, but always applying policies which cause the least harm. This idea of lesser evils and least bad options differs from the ideas which have preceded it, in that it is based rationality and disbanding personal beliefs for the greater good. Perhaps once we’ve abandoned our partisan beliefs and stop fighting with each other over the ideal way to run society and just compromise and agree to run society as best we can, we’ll all be a little better off.

 -DG