Written for Issues Magazine
Unlike
the magazine you're reading, the world is not always black-and-white.
As history develops, we are learning, more and more, that many
concepts exist on a continuum or a spectrum, and not always in
starkly-opposing binary pairs.
Being
colorblind to the “gray area” can make it harder to perceive the
dichotomies and false dualisms that limit our capacity for abstract
thought. But through seeing those false dichotomies for what they
are, we can transcend
them,
and understand the world around us a little bit better.
A
dichotomy refers to a cutting-in-half, and to something being torn
asunder; while a false
dichotomy
is the illusion
of separation, difference, or disagreement. Right now, the two major
political parties are perpetuating a false dichotomy. They jointly
wield a “two-party duopoly”, literally meaning a state of two
sellers. And what they're selling is, of course, bullshit. But they
need a public who's willing to buy it.
It
is no secret that the Democratic and Republican parties are “two
wings of the same imperialist war-hawk”. Through complicity with
the Electoral College and first-past-the-post systems, and through
the Commission on Presidential Debates, candidates and parties are
vetted, to make sure they lie within “Overton Window”. This term
refers to the narrow range of debate which the controllers of free
speech deem appropriate for the public.
“Gate-keeping”
is a term often applied to such a vetting process. Additionally, each
party looks for “controlled opposition”; people in the other
party who are similar enough to the original party, that they're
willing to tow the party line of their opponents. An example would be
a partnership between the Republican Party and the “Blue Dog”
Democrats who are moderately conservative on social and/or economic
issues.
The
purpose of all this is to create an illusion of disagreement, while
avoiding the instability which that tends to cause, by “compromising”
on what matters most: the best way to ignore everyone's freedoms and
confiscate all of their earnings. This maintains an appearance of a
house which is “divided against itself”, yet somehow still
standing. Simply put, if the parties fight too much, the country
could get invaded, but if they don't fight enough, then people will
vote for the other party.
Aside
from keeping We the People in a state of perpetual terror and
complicity, these tactics achieve the goal of suppressing dissent;
through suppressing free speech, free debate, and free elections.
What we have now is the illusion of a voluntary society, while every
day we are presented with binary choices and ultimatums, and
wondering where all of our other choices went, and why. Whether on
the street, in politics, or both, each day we're pressured into
answering questions like “Your money or your life?” and “My way
or the highway?”, and then we're told that we're responsible for
every decision we make.
While
there are clearly too few choices in our elections, democracy and
markets both
suffer from the choices being too similar to one another. In the
market, the feeling of being overwhelmed by having too many choices,
has been termed “overchoice”, “choice overload”, and
“analysis paralysis”. However, the real
problem is not that we have too
many
choices at the grocery store; it's that the “alternatives” we
have to choose from, are all too similar to one another. Preserving a
multiplicity of distinct
choices
is essential to fostering open markets and open elections.
With
all the false dichotomies and false binary oppositions, the stress of
trying to make an informed decision when the choices are limited
and/or similar, and the limitations on speech and debate, it is
getting more difficult to feel that our “choices” are actually
our own. The state being profoundly illogical, and having abandoned
the people, the people turn to philosophy. That's because it's only
through philosophy that “multi-dimensional” abstract thinking
becomes possible.
While
it may be helpful to develop schema
or systems through which to understand and categorize ideas and
things, it is binary, one-dimensional thinking to continuing seeing things in terms of black and white, good vs. evil, Left vs. Right. To see above and beyond the
Left-vs.-Right
line,
on the other hand, is to transcend the planar realm (think Nolan
chart) to the third
dimension. It is to observe multiple dimensions of political and
ideological “space”, and to discover just how limited your
world-view once was.
The
works of German philosophers Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel, and Rudolf Steiner, all exemplify radically
self-aware attempts to confront and overcome dichotomies through
reasoning, leading to the creation of third solutions, and sometimes
even more. Although Fichte was the first to develop a “dialectical
method”, the most popular method is the Hegelian dialectic. These
are methods of philosophical discourse which aim to expose and
resolve contradictions.
To
describe an initial idea, its opposite, and the idea which results
from their resolution, Fichte coined the terms these,
antithese, synthese
(thesis, antithesis, synthesis). In the dialectical method, the
resolution of the contradiction between thesis and antithesis, is
referred to as aufheben
or aufhebung.
These are usually translated as “sublate” and “sublation”,
while they literally refer to a “moving” or a “picking up”.
Perhaps it helps to think of sublation as “picking up” the parts
you like out of two broken philosophies, and putting them together to
make a new one.
The
goal of sublation is to suspend, cancel, or abolish two ideas, while
at the same time preserving
them, thus overcoming and transcending – and perhaps, hopefully,
even resolving -
the
apparent contradiction between them. The dialectical method has been
used successfully to expose contradictions and false dichotomies, and
to “synthesize” new ideas, through making the thesis and
antithesis interact and engage in a discourse with one-another.
Whether
the reader needs more help understanding the dialectical method or
the political spectrum, it will be helpful either way to assign the
“thesis” and “antithesis” labels to socialism and capitalism.
Whichever one chooses as the thesis, these two economic systems –
just like the two major parties – are popularly perceived as polar
opposites, and through taking away all other options, the people are
“given” the binary choice between them. A sublation of the two
ideas should take equally from both – whether it takes completely,
half from each, or not at all – and result in a synthesis,
a man-made idea whose novelty (newness) exposes just how similar the
first two ideas actually are to one-another.
The
problem, of course, is figuring out how
much
– and what -
to take from the thesis and antithesis; in this case, deciding what
we like best about socialism and capitalism. And naturally, if we
want to synthesize a new political philosophy, we must take
precautions, so as to avoid the historical problems associated with
each. If what we like about socialist and capitalist regimes is their
ability to keep order, cling to power, and run people's lives, then
our synthesis will tend towards fascism, command-and-control
economics, price controls, and rationing. But if what we like about
these systems is their histories of promoting freedom and equality,
then our synthesis will be more radical, activist, freedom-loving,
and perhaps even anarchist.
Oddly,
what this fact exposes, is the possibility of the creation of two
syntheses
which are polar
opposites of
one another. This should tell us that the puzzle has not yet been
solved. Each the dialectical method, and the lessons of Steiner's
“social threefolding”, is helpful when it comes to ensuring that
we have more than two bad choices. But if we stop after a single
synthesis, then all we have done is replace a false dichotomy with a
false trichotomy.
The
“four-fold
truth”
can only be created through opposition to, and contradiction of, the
synthesis. We must develop two
or more
syntheses, and compare and contrast them using the same dialectical
method which gave us the first synthesis. This will result in an
antisynthesis;
an idea that negates the original synthesis. This forces the first
synthesis to look itself in the mirror, so we can know which one is
the real evil twin, and shoot it. Synthesis is like Hell: “If you
find yourself going through [it], keep going.” Synthesis is not
just a one-step process; if you haven't found an antisynthesis,
then you haven't finished synthesizing.
While
logic tells us that totalitarians and anarchists hate nothing more
than each other, this could very well be just another false
contradiction. The public perception of anarchists as bomb-throwing
radicals - and some misogynistic, petit-nationalist,
and even anti-Semitic statements by radical theorists such as Marx,
Proudhon, Bakunin, and Makhno – have caused some people to suggest
that anarchists and fascists might unite to spread terror and chaos,
disrupt stable democracies, or even infiltrate national politics so
as to threaten minorities.
Going
forward, anarchists must avoid the mistakes these men made, and avoid
the pitfalls of synthesizing towards power. Synthesis-anarchists
(like the “anarchists without adjectives” of the Alliance of the
Libertarian Left) have every reason to be wary that organic
nationalism, social nationalism, national syndicalism, and
National-Anarchism, could channel Right-nationalist sentiment. Anyone
who wishes to form a nationalist movement, re-define nationalism, or
find a “Third Way” or “Third Position”, should avoid
ultra-nationalism, statism, and territorialism, or else it is
practically inevitable that people will be forced to participate in
it against their will, or else submit to it.
It
is only through philosophy and etymology that we may understand what
terms like nationalism, socialism, and private property even are,
in any sense other than how they have been historically practiced.
While results matter, the intentions and ideals of a philosophy
matter every bit as much. Only when we understand the intentions,
ideals, and goals of the systems we're describing, may we
conscientiously synthesize new ideas that are truly freeing, and
neither burdened nor haunted by past failures.
And
once we've formulated these new ideas, we must develop them, so that
we may represent and explain them well, so as to differentiate them
from their competitors. Only then may voters and consumers make truly
voluntary choices, from among
distinct, distinguishable alternatives.
Then, the market for political half-truths can at least function
fairly.
The
modern world is complex; it is no longer enough to simply say “caveat
emptor”
(“let the buyer beware”), and assume that the market will sort
this all out. Some continuing education is imperative. Think of
philosophical discourse as a sort of consumer advocacy organization;
for people who need help understanding how to stop buying the
government's lies.
Written
on January 11th,
2018, and
Based
on the Original “Extended” Version,
Which
Was Originally Written on January 8th
and 9th,
2018,
Originally
Published on January 10th,
2018,
Edited and Expanded on January 9th, 10th, and 12th, 2018,
Edited and Expanded on January 9th, 10th, and 12th, 2018,
and
Edited on January 11th,
2018
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