The Critique of Politics #10: Party of One—Self-activism and Saving Humanity

The Critique of Politics #10: Party of One—Self-activism and Saving Humanity

By Tim Krenz

For the Hometown Gazette

December 6, 2019

We live in a complex age. And like all ages, the complexity only increases, especially in the politics. As in most things in life, politics inevitably multiplies the questions we should ask. Furthermore, people need to know the type of questions to ask, first, before trying to answer anything. I have a question, to start this essay: “How can the United States of America stay free and united, with the most liberty for everyone, protecting all forms of their property, while eliminating the threat or use of force or other coercion that would cause violence and destruction?”

Complex times, and direct questions, require simple answers. In this tenth critique of politics, we will examine the different consequences looming of not satisfactorily answering the question above, and then exploring how rather average individuals hold the key to solving most political problems. In looking at plain people and their ability, we shun any reliance on a leader, a political organization, or a party or a faction. The United States, not too surprisingly, stands at a cross roads, an intersection between its fate as a major power in the world, vis-a-vis China and its clients, and in its form as a republic under a constitution and laws, and in the place of democracy in the future world. We require everyone, every citizen, to bring their convictions, their ethics, their decisions, and their actions in the civic realm. And every citizen must play its role not in a conventional and passive participation of voting on occasion, as it suits them. For the change needed must involve everyone, as individuals.

Several catastrophes or combinations of them, could cause fatal ruptures in the political future of the US: A breakdown of the shared structure of powers, between state and central federal authorities; a massive credit and finance collapse, including sovereign debt repudiation; famine, resulting from any number of environmental and economic catalysts; civil disturbance or insurrection following an election, or another event of unintended consequences; a war somewhere involving the US, which might include nuclear weapons; an epidemic of natural or weaponized origin. Even if seemingly improbable, these events all hold the realm of the possible. All the above events, however, can cause immense harm, especially without a unified populace working together to eliminate the danger, mitigate their effects, or recover in their aftermath. In a complex age, unexpected events also happen. A nation plans for these and other possibilities. But who, actually, suffer them? The very same population that allows the worse of their nightmares to come true, if only from the ignorance and apathy of how their division and hatreds make all things worse—past, present, and future.

The greatest weakness in the current politics comes from the two things people in our connected age seem to hate to do: Staying quiet long enough to listen to others, and second, having to calmly discuss their differences with people opposed to them. In more than one way, listening skills and person-to-person conversations of depth and breadth, both hold the key to answering the question of this essay: “How can the United States of America stay free and united, with the most liberty for everyone, protecting all forms of their property, while eliminating the threat or use of force or other coercion that would cause violence and destruction?”

Most often, people want the government or political factions to solve their problems, in their rather graceless forms as a bad acting troupe dance at a theater of absurd egos. We should have never relied on them. We should never now or again. For in the case of listening and dialog, as President Reagan would have said, “Government IS the problem.” The solution relies on principle, and effort, by the individuals and not on a government creating a task force or spending money it does not have. The core foundation of the listening and dialog starts at the bottom rung of civics: Where you sit marks where you will have to make your stand.

How? As implied above, we live in a complex age and one that seems to talk loud, chatter aimlessly, and voice its indignation at others (especially those in opposition). And, after a length of a short time, that just becomes so much more like noise—a dull, deafening hum, directed at people, and done so forcefully to make them submit. If we diagnose this political disease correctly, without immunity by anyone, we might call it more of a listening problem, a debility to want to hear ourselves talk instead of learning what other might know or wonder. But this civic deafness comes NOT in not hearing other people's opinions. For after all, the opinions make that dull static. What exactly do we not hear? Of what do we not hear enough? Simply, in this complex age, like any complex age, we do not hear the questions that need asking. Without those, we never arrive at the bigger issue of understanding the real questions we need to ask.

In suffering this breakdown in conversation and the art of listening, the division of opinions only increase into more groups that political elites, business giants, social icons, and cultural manipulators can more easily manage to their own, exclusive and profitable advantage. Never mind answers, yet. The questions matter more at this stage. Mine in refrain: “How can the United States of America stay free and united, with the most liberty for everyone, protecting all forms of their property, while eliminating the threat or use of force or other coercion that would cause violence and destruction?”

When Herodotus, the ancient Greek, invented the discipline of history, he labeled it “historia,” partly meaning “inquiry.”And later in ancient Greece, Socrates (brought to us via the writings of Plato) rarely offered opinions in his dialog with numerous pretenders and sophists. Instead, he asked questions of them to narrow down their meanings and beliefs. Shame on those fools who would not stand up to scrutiny. Inter-personal conversation, not any super-media, might make questioning and listening, listening and questioning, the better media for understanding things, especially in the age of complexity. Instead of groups of political-opinionated people preaching to and congratulating each other, perhaps they should approach opposing groups and ask some rather simple questions and then actually listen. They can demand the same courtesy. The questions might come out like this:

“What do you need to happen which we can give you, provided you give us what we need? What do you want from us that we can deliver for a trade from you? If we do this for you, what can you do for us? Can we agree to live together, unified and in peace, or go our own ways, in peace?”

This type of asking questions and listening to the answers, not by politicians but by real people who have to abide by the process, or suffer the consequences, might find common ground. And honestly, it might not. At least then, the little differences between real people (NOT political, business, social, and cultural elites) get narrowed and settled where they can. The dialog, the conversation itself, might reveal more similarity of our plight than otherwise thought. At least, it begins the one thing all individuals need: To identify that elites have little in common with them, at the core of convictions and actions. Common people have common problems. Elites identify with each other. And, in the end, if the individual to individual or group to group dialog solves nothing else, it solves the question of how to disagree amicably and they might find a way of living peacefully despite the division. No one knows until they have the courage of their own knowledge by asking the very, very hard question of consciousness: What do I believe and why?

This process of each person simply becoming a party of themselves in the mix of the complex age might seem unlikely now. It can get done. And it must, and inquiry and its history can then continue.