Willem IV- If our societies are going to bring benefits to most all the people most all the time, then we must replace tribal bias in public policy, the marketplace, and culture with principles embraced by, and which can be articulated by, a mostly independent thinking citizenry. We propose that principles must replace bias as the driving force behind public policy, the marketplace, and the culture!
What we have is a system of tribal bias that excites partisans but that brings less and less benefits to fewer and fewer people less and less of the time. Most of the time, most people’s needs and interests are not served well by public policy, the marketplace, or culture.
The problem is tribal bias and those who are in a position to exploit it for their own parochial interests at the expense of the common good.
Everyone has bias. Generally, bias is a prejudicial disfavor and unfair favor in one direction but not based purely on reason or merit. Our cheering on of sports teams is classic bias, only we hope the referees are unbiased and call the game according to objective facts and merits.
In American politics especially, and in most countries to some degree, bias by society’s referees, from the press to the courts, and by individuals who vote, resembles the sports team anology. Whatever their team is, be it a Party or a perceived ideology, like the left or the right, it can do no wrong, the other team can do no good, and every situation will tend to be judged on the basis of how that interpretation itself benefits the team.
This shallow kind of cultish identification with a political “team” is the major reason why the actual positions and policies of the team’s all-star lineup, be it the Party or its perceived representatives and leaders, shift so wildly. They are always finding situations where they were for something before they were against it and all their “fans” applaud each shift not on the basis of principle but on the basis of how it advances their team.
Of course, only the other team is biased, your team is absolutely principled, even when the principles followed and/or their definitions shift wildly over the years.
When a political “team” is formed it begins to make its own position of power in relationship to the other team of teams its highest aim. Winning elections and adding seats to a legislature or winning a key office, like a premeiereship or a presidency, is all about cobbling together a coaltion of “fans” whose parochial interests are addressed, often at the expense of the other team’s fans. The actual rock-ribbed principles that may momentarily be invoked are really just putty and window dressing.
Political teams demand loyalty of players and fans and will excoriate any referee who dares rule against them with hyperbolic, nay, histrionic invectives like unto a doomsday preacher invoking the final judgment. The ability to even see past anything more than “what gets points for my team” is completely compromised.
Simply deciding to stop backing your team in a biased way isn’t such an easy solution either, especially if you have real, deeper, principled and/or parochial reasons to oppose the other team’s agenda. If you resort to principles even when it zings your former team, and if it advances the other team, then your own principles and/or parochial interests could be fatally compromised.
Extricating ourselves from the bias is not an easy task once it has been hardwired into the political system and the name of the game is basically this: your team wins seats and power by any means necessary or loses them and loses power. The fact some of America’s founders in the early days despised and feared the appearance of Parties on these stores reveals their deeper, if tragically ignored, wisdom. Parties and partisanship, which is bias writ large, tend to undermine principle and focus on short-term “election wins” which never produce long-term benefits to anyone.
Without addressing, much less proposing, the possibility of abolishing Parties, which may be impossible, it should be noted: the very existence of the Party structure that exists in most “democracies” today makes this kind of tribal bias inevitable.
When the purpose is merely to win votes to gain seats, principles are always the first casualty. No major winning political party has ever been absolutely and consistently true to any set of principles it held, say, 30 years ago! Principles can be changed as new data reveals the need to adjust our understanding, but the rate at which “principles” or their definitions change in modern politics is intense. It reveals either a stunning ignorance of truth which leads to constantly shifting principles and/or changing the definitions of principles or, more likely, blatant dishonesty.
The “players” cheered on by the “fans” almost to a person have no higher principle than to stay in their position, whether it is an elected position in public office or a corporate/institutional position of public trust. This doesn’t mean no players and no fans have any principles, but it does mean that principles are not very important and there is little real devotion to them.
We could explore the real parochial interests pursued by the real shot-callers who are essentially owners of both or all teams and how this makes a hash of any so-called “democratic process”, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say, only the “owners” of the teams, who form one competitive club, benefit from this tribal bias.
Let’s walk away from the bias and examine our principles. What ideals or societal goals do you think are important? What role should major institutions (like governments, family, the church, private associations, businesses, corporations, and etc.) play in your life? What moral, ethical, and/or philosophical guidance should apply to social and other norms, to public life, the marketplace, public policy, or law?
If you don’t have an idea about what your principles are and what priority you place on them, then you are easy prey to whatever “team” captures you with slick marketing and manipulation.
To put put it more clearly; if you desire to not just be prey to others and to be independent, then you should be able to identify and explain both your principles and the ideals, moral and ethical standards, values, or convictions that underlie them.
It bears repeating here that, while may be all the rage to claim to be an “independent thinker”, unless you can articulate both your principles and their underlying ideals and etc. then you are not really an independent thinker. You may not be a strict partisan for one of the teams, but you will tend to gravitate toward people and parties, from time to time, who outmarket the others in relation to your perceived parochial interests.
You may argue that the average person working 40 hours or more per week and struggling to make ends meet doesn’t have the time to do this. Unfortunately, your education from the earliest years to university should have prepared you and empowered you to do this on your own, and on an ongoing basis.
It may not be any accident that all education in the past 100 years is more about indoctrination than empowerment. People who were never given the tools and the time to become independent thinkers and who then become full-time wage slaves may imagine they are independent thinkers, but they cannot articulate either their own principles or the basis of those principles. They were never given the time or the means to do this, which is itself an injustice inflicted by our top-down sociocultural and socioeconomic hierarchies of power.
To become a fully independent thinker one must be able to articulate one’s principles and that which underlies them. Anything less and you are being patronized by powerful forces of manipulated influence and control who simply want you to support their team, often without any benefit to yourself.
Principles must be known and articulated so that you can, in making them visible to yourself, use them as a plumbline to judge any party, policy, or person who holds office or any kind of public trust as to whether they deserve your support or not.
What are your principles and upon what are they based? Know this and then examine every act and actor on the public stage who clamours for your support, patronage, or vote.
If enough people did this, and truly got in touch with the things they deeply believe and support, then the bias of our shallow politics (as well as marketplace and culture) would give way to a more reasoned discourse and to a more results and people focused public policy, marketplace, and culture that brings benefits to most people most all the time.
