logicallypositive asked: I’m asking this out of genuine curiosity, not to spite you or deconstruct yoru views or anything, so I hope you’ll give a serious answer. Anyways, what exactly are your political views?

Sunday, November 13, 2011

logicallypositive asked: I’m asking this out of genuine curiosity, not to spite you or deconstruct yoru views or anything, so I hope you’ll give a serious answer. Anyways, what exactly are your political views?

This is a difficult question to answer, since to do so requires accepting as true several claims which are not without controversy. Explicating each of these “big questions” is far beyond what I can write here (and probably beyond what your question is asking for), so we’ll have to just stipulate to those concepts for the sake of convenience.

The foundational belief of my politics is the inalienable necessity for human beings to be in a state of freedom. For a state of freedom to be insured, no one may be allowed to infringe on the freedom of another. This categorical necessity places a caveat on individual freedom: one’s own freedom can not deny that of another; for if we are equal in the state of nature, then we enjoy equal freedom, and if we enjoy equal freedom then one person’s freedom can not take precedence over anothers, therefore freedom can not entitle us to any act that would infringe upon another’s. This is why “total freedom” is a Utopian impossibility, and where it may be useful for some (and for this conversation) to talk about “liberty” rather than “freedom” (I know you or someone reading this will probably have an issue with the freedom vs. liberty thing, but that’s a dialect that will go off into the hinter regions, so just roll with for now).

From this dialect of individual liberty arises what we may call “the Common Good”, which I will define as the order which insures the greatest liberty for the greatest number of people. To this end, political power should be distributed equitably among all the members of a society (political power protects the liberty of the person who has it). Systems which concentrate political power in hierarchies, especially hierarchies that those further down in the hierarchy have had no role in shaping, are to varying degrees illegitimate. Thus an absolute monarchy or dictatorship has little or no legitimacy, a representative constitutional democracy may have some legitimacy, but it is still imperfect, a worker’s collective practicing horizontal democracy has more legitimacy etc. The more political power any individual holds by default (that is to say, regardless of the accidental circumstances of their life), the more legitimacy a system has.

Likewise, while legitimate authority may exist, authority must be justified by the Common Good. I’m not a huge fan of Noam Chomsky, but his quote about forcing authority to account for itself is extremely useful. Authority must always be made to justify itself, and if it cannot justify its existence vis-a-vis how it infringes on individual liberty, then it is illegitimate.

If this sounds strange, then let’s use a fairly self-evident example of this principle. Say you’re driving along the highway and a firetruck with its lights and sirens going comes up behind you. Unless you’re a horrible person, you’re going to pull over and let them pass. This is an act of voluntary subjugation of your liberty you would be unlikely to perform for anyone else without coercion. But rationally, you know it’s in the interest of the Common Good to accept the firefighter’s authority (even if you are a heartless Randian bastard operating purely on rational self-interest it’s still smart to comply. For all you know, the firetruck is headed for your house). Because the authority serves the Common Good, you accept the infringement on your liberty. This is of course a self-evident example, but you get the idea.

So, with this all said, my political views come down to a fairly simple calculus: What is in the interest of the Common Good (the Common Good being what serves the interests of liberty for the greatest number of people [Liberty for the greatest number of people being best fulfilled when political power is devolved among the individual members of a civil society])?

I’m probably leaving some stuff out that I’ll feel like an idiot later for overlooking, but that covers the big stuff.

Any questions?

(Source: ghost-of-algren)