We all want to live in a society/nation where centrism, moderation and controlled, agreed-upon changes are how we choose to govern ourselves. Centrism does indeed work well in countries and under conditions where external and internal rates of change are modest and can be easily adjusted to. In practical terms, this means a moderate, very slowly changing climate, reliable rainfall and arable land enough to feed the population, a stable population size or population where growth (internal replacement plus immigration) does not outstrip resources, a military/defense environment where we are well protected from external attack and internal subversion, and a relatively egalitarian society, where no one is super wealthy or devastatingly poor. IOW, a nation like the United states in the three decades after WWII.
Unfortunately, we - the US political system - ignored all warnings from 40 - 50 years ago about depleting fossil fuel supplies and the effects of combustion gasses on the climate. We ignored the depletion of ground water and built "everywhere" (e.g., in the middle of a large desert like Phoenix, still massively growing). We developed an industrial agriculture and transportation system totally dependent on cheap oil and gas supplies. We allowed our tax system to engender the creation of a super wealthy 1% and we let the political system become so corrupted by unlimited amounts of mostly dark money.
All of this has created a country where centrism - as much as we may want it - simply cannot respond to the looming emergencies we now face, i.e., climate, energy, inequality, corruption, uncontrolled growth of national debt, etc. Political fights today are not whether to become more or less centrist. Instead they are about whether to move towards addressing issues of climate, energy & inequality (call it the Bernie Sanders direction - more extreme than traditional Democratic policies), or (in Republican/Trump framing) whether to attempt to move back in time to an imagined society of the 1950s (or for some, the 1850s), where white, male conservative Christians controlled the government.
The rightward extremism is much farther right (their goal is now fascism under Trump as dictator) than the leaning Bernie Sanders Democratic direction. But whether we like it or not, centrism is largely dead, and not just in the US. I wish it were not so, but we now live in "interesting times" and appeals to centrism will not get us out.
Formulas are part of the problem. Human nature has history, not formula. For whatever reason, the advanced world is determined to reject the idea that such a thing as Human Nature exists. The Natural world does, with its laws, but Human nature has no such foundation. First mistake.
Ignoring the bonds of family and kinship, the need for physical security, food and shelter, securing trusted leadership, division of labor, belief in something obviously greater than mankind. Add one more: the desire for agency and meaning. Taking all these needs and characteristics and ignoring them as somehow premodern, irrelevant and outdated, thus, to be reconfigured by experts, is a big fat loser. Humanity will out, eventually.
Given our basic universal needs, the only way to harmony of sorts, is to take humanity as a given and channel all its energy and drive to general benefit. Using humility, common sense, realism and pragmatism as guardrails. Theoretical governance has destroyed so much of what is natural to us, abundant and available for problem solving, it is a crime.
We are close to outsmarting ourselves as we sell each other short...or, out. Two criteria to consider: first, why are we doing or going to do something? And, where's the evidence to support that decision? No theories, thank you, being thrown onto the people (let alone our children) to prove. Prove, or at least pilot a theory first in full transparency, before exercising it on others.
Without trust, there will never be peace or progress, and trust has been all but destroyed, having been replaced with lies, greed, corruption and raw, arrogant power.
It's not rocket science. This is what we have allowed to consume our common humanity.
We all want to live in a society/nation where centrism, moderation and controlled, agreed-upon changes are how we choose to govern ourselves. Centrism does indeed work well in countries and under conditions where external and internal rates of change are modest and can be easily adjusted to. In practical terms, this means a moderate, very slowly changing climate, reliable rainfall and arable land enough to feed the population, a stable population size or population where growth (internal replacement plus immigration) does not outstrip resources, a military/defense environment where we are well protected from external attack and internal subversion, and a relatively egalitarian society, where no one is super wealthy or devastatingly poor. IOW, a nation like the United states in the three decades after WWII.
Unfortunately, we - the US political system - ignored all warnings from 40 - 50 years ago about depleting fossil fuel supplies and the effects of combustion gasses on the climate. We ignored the depletion of ground water and built "everywhere" (e.g., in the middle of a large desert like Phoenix, still massively growing). We developed an industrial agriculture and transportation system totally dependent on cheap oil and gas supplies. We allowed our tax system to engender the creation of a super wealthy 1% and we let the political system become so corrupted by unlimited amounts of mostly dark money.
All of this has created a country where centrism - as much as we may want it - simply cannot respond to the looming emergencies we now face, i.e., climate, energy, inequality, corruption, uncontrolled growth of national debt, etc. Political fights today are not whether to become more or less centrist. Instead they are about whether to move towards addressing issues of climate, energy & inequality (call it the Bernie Sanders direction - more extreme than traditional Democratic policies), or (in Republican/Trump framing) whether to attempt to move back in time to an imagined society of the 1950s (or for some, the 1850s), where white, male conservative Christians controlled the government.
The rightward extremism is much farther right (their goal is now fascism under Trump as dictator) than the leaning Bernie Sanders Democratic direction. But whether we like it or not, centrism is largely dead, and not just in the US. I wish it were not so, but we now live in "interesting times" and appeals to centrism will not get us out.
Formulas are part of the problem. Human nature has history, not formula. For whatever reason, the advanced world is determined to reject the idea that such a thing as Human Nature exists. The Natural world does, with its laws, but Human nature has no such foundation. First mistake.
Ignoring the bonds of family and kinship, the need for physical security, food and shelter, securing trusted leadership, division of labor, belief in something obviously greater than mankind. Add one more: the desire for agency and meaning. Taking all these needs and characteristics and ignoring them as somehow premodern, irrelevant and outdated, thus, to be reconfigured by experts, is a big fat loser. Humanity will out, eventually.
Given our basic universal needs, the only way to harmony of sorts, is to take humanity as a given and channel all its energy and drive to general benefit. Using humility, common sense, realism and pragmatism as guardrails. Theoretical governance has destroyed so much of what is natural to us, abundant and available for problem solving, it is a crime.
We are close to outsmarting ourselves as we sell each other short...or, out. Two criteria to consider: first, why are we doing or going to do something? And, where's the evidence to support that decision? No theories, thank you, being thrown onto the people (let alone our children) to prove. Prove, or at least pilot a theory first in full transparency, before exercising it on others.
Without trust, there will never be peace or progress, and trust has been all but destroyed, having been replaced with lies, greed, corruption and raw, arrogant power.
It's not rocket science. This is what we have allowed to consume our common humanity.