CONSERVATIVES WANT THEIR COUNTY BACK

A number of Republicans from the right wing of that party have been saying that they want their country back. Have you ever seriously thought about what that means? As a liberal, or progressive, I believe that we as a country have been making advances from the moment we became a country 237 years ago. We have been struggling with the concept of maximizing personal freedom and liberty and have filled the library of congress with laws to prove it. We could look at the Constitution of the United States as a document outlining freedom for our States and the Bill of Right as outlining individual freedom. The point is that the individual blends into the nation with numerous steps in between—families, neighborhoods, towns, cites, counties, states—not really step but an uninterrupted continuum. What they are asking is backtrack to some point on this line; the question is trace back to where?

Our founding fathers created a federation of states based on democratic principles, which was new and was the most advanced form of government known to man. The switch from a monarchy to a democracy did not happen overnight; in fact, humankind planted the seeds thousands upon thousands and perhaps millions of years ago. We liked to believe that our government provides for the rights of all individuals as well as the rights of “groups” of individuals in the sense of a classless society. We have been trying to protect that format ever since, which begs the question, “Protect it from what?”

Apparently, what Republicans mean, when they say they want their country back, is that they do not see what has happened over the course of time as progress. They want something different for the country from what we have; they want something out of the past that none of them is willing to define, perhaps, because they don’t know what they want. As a caveat, Yogi Berra says, if you don’t know where you are going you might end up someplace else. The object of this post is to suggest they know where they want to go but do not want to say because it would be terribly unpopular in our current social environment. This political objective is not difficult to understand if we treat social organization as existing in two mindsets or concepts of social organization or government that have been shaped from a most primitive origin. Each mindset looks at the same situation and sees it in an entirely different light. Unfortunately, they often use the same words with essentially the same definitions to describe their diametrically opposed positions: selfishness, loyalty, liberty, caring, freedom, and even sanctity.  This approach muddies the water.

Human nature has conflicting innate drives some of us accept as natural competition, “give and take”, or the yin-yang of life. We treat everything ranging from nuanced subtleties in our own behavior (indecision) to international crisis, in this way. Some will object to the idea that I project our individual behavior to the behavior of the Nation but it seems to be irrefutable that is exactly what we do. The charge of social Darwinism as being evil is a classic example of the confusion that comes about when we try to justify or explain how “we” modified our behavior as it evolved from the primordial pools through bestiality and finally put us on the road to our humanization. Many people interject the word ‘moral’ meaning the conscious realization that some behavior is good and other is evil. It is assumes only human beings know what death is, which gives us a solid foundation or reference on which to base good and evil, but also makes “morality” uniquely human. Of course, various societies have twisted, turned, and expanded the definition of morality in every way possible. Biblical historians quote references for the Ten Commandments; however, they are essentially the first written record of what it takes to be a good person in our society short of the raw reality of life or death. Other societies have different “commandments”; for example, the Ojibwa people have 21 such “rules”. Purists object to comparison of sin to secular law, but the concept of morality or right and wrong, in spite of this objection, is the basis of regulations of our society. Traditionally, we tend to put all of this on a personal basis; however, in a world with 7 billion people all of this has meaning only if we understand the reference point, good for you, or good for me, or good for our state, or nation, or good for humankind.

To understand what the Republicans and Democrats are saying we have to consider something else. There is a mindless biological base upon which we have built our humanization. These are innate or fundamental tendencies that have evolved through natural selection meaning they are adaptive and positively associated with survival. These traits evolved over billions of years. We see these things preserved or “conserved” in the most primitive species; evolution is a conservative exercise meaning what comes next is always based on what there was in the past. These are such things, instinct really, as hierarchy dominance, gregariousness, xenophobia, and greed among many, many others; however, greed seems the most fundamental and the most universal trait; the one that even the most primitive organism could not survive without. In addition, there are mindless emotions or senses such as fear and contentment or the sense of absence of fear, hunger, thirst, etc. Our political organization has evolved out of these primitive instincts and/or traits. Our mentality that developed from 2.5 million years ago shaped gregariousness to gives us our sophisticated society, hierarchy dominance gives us politics.

As just pointed out, because of its universality, greed stands out; it is biological not psychological. The term has the same meaning when applied to groups as it has when applied to individuals. For example, I want everything I can get for myself, then everything for my family, then everything for my city, my state, and finally my nation.  Obviously, hierarchy dominance or peck-order comes into play in gregarious species. We treat this as something applied to individuals within groups but it applies between groups as well. Scientists observed this well conserved trait in all biota, from the lowest to the highest in one form or another but only if there is variation among individuals, which is another way of saying it exists in all biota.

Because behavior is adaptive by natural selection and contributes to survival, group selection contributed to survival. Biologists have been arguing for years about whether natural selection of individual behavior happened to benefit the group; the fact that groups exist is overwhelming evidence that it has happened. When someone does something for another group member, it helps that group survive; biologists refer to the act as ‘altruism’. Some insist that the definition of “biological” altruism must include the qualifier that the one doing the benevolent act sacrifices its own chances of passing on his or her genes; the logic of this has to do with reproductive enhancement in the sense of natural selection. Although “social” altruism, act done for kindness, smacks of being no more than the absence of greed, it is much more positive that that and can be selectively adapted. Among the most primitive traits, social altruism, although universally among humans, seems the only one that is unique to humans. Primatologists have described traces of altruism back to the primitive of apes, the orangutan.

The human ego demands that the individual be the center of concern, which is the old trope that self-preservation the strongest of all senses. The same is true for preservation of a “groups” of individuals. Group members will do what they must to preserve their group; obviously, the extent to which individuals will go to preserve their groups markedly varies. The introduction of the group concept changes the definition of the word ‘society’ for humankind: individuals can form a society but also like groups can form a ‘society of groups’, which gives rise to such expression as federation of states or family of nations; thus, we have individual, family, kin, tribe, city, state, and nation.  We have structural organization within these groups but also between these groups; thus, we have multiple overlapping political structures; it would be foolish to think that we have created or customized a new innate organization for each group. It would be just as foolish to think that each unit or group would be identical in organization. Politics are part of our culture. Our behavior shapes our culture and our culture shapes our behavior.

Carefully, consider just one of the obvious “human values” we frequently talk about such as “freedom” or “liberty”. Each one of us has a different interpretation not only for the words but also for its use in different circumstances. As expected, the definitions for “freedom” and “liberty” from the internet are all very similar:

  

1.     The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

2.     The state of being free from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

3.     The power or scope to act as one pleases.

In addition, consider what loyalty means in these same biological and social terms. Loyalty to the group holds the group together while liberty or freedom drive individuals away from a group—yin-yang. Eric Hoffer, the dockworker philosopher, pointed out it is the unhappy not the content person that leaves the group. If we ask ourselves what holds groups together or drive them apart, we fabricate reasons. We even say things such as it is “morally” correct to be loyal to a group or individual freedom is our most important value and as such is “morally” correct. In contrast, from a biological point of view, we crowd together for self-preservation and we act greedy for the same reason. ‘Morality’ refers to rightness or wrongness in both cases but I refer to self-preservation as “base” morality.

In this same sense, altruism is changing the biological meaning of survival of the fittest. Natural selection is cruel. If you are not strong enough to defend yourself, you die. If you cannot feed yourself, you die. If you are born with a defect; it is your defect and you die. Out humanization is struggling to change that, quality of life is replacing survival of the fittest. This sea change in evolution is unique to humans. It apparently started 2.5 million years ago. It is enlightening that Republican politicians use the expression “moral order” in discussion of the subject. For example, family structure is a father, a mother, and an obedient child is a modal of moral order. It is “morally” wrong for the strongest, who is the father, not to discipline an errant child but also not to discipline an errant wife. People in society who cannot support themselves are the equivalent of errant children; it is “morally” wrong to give them unearned rewards and encourages their laziness; thus, the political left as an organization is amoral.

What the Republican right seems to mean when they speak of winning the country back is to the reestablish a fundamental moral order to society, their innate biological sense of right and wrong. If you cannot survive on you own, you are not fit: survival of the fittest. A family structure is an authoritarian modal for the government: the strongest rules. Democracy is fine as long as the economic elite (royalty) are in charge; the person with the most money is the strongest. You no longer have to wonder what voter suppression is all about. We do not want strangers among us; people who talk differently, or worship a different god of speak a different language or wear a different type of clothing: xenophobia. We no longer have to wonder why congress stalled immigration legislation. Freedom is our most important right, but only if agree with the Republican agenda. You no longer have to wonder what the Hastert Rule means. 

The strange thing about all of this is that the conservatives may be correct.
They want to “conserve” the rules of survival of the fittest that has gotten us this far. On the other hand, liberal or progressives want to crash head on with biology; to change the rules of survival of the fittest; thus take the risk that we will end up by becoming extinct in our kindness. I think we are too smart for that. However, as Yogi Berra implied, we don’t really know where we are headed.

      

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