I don't think you understand that the right and left wing meet at the extremes.
When I say "left/right wing", I'm referring to political ideas completely outside your frame of reference.
Example: would you characterize Communism and Nazism as left or right wing movements? Why?
Boredalt wrote:
The idea that people are going to somehow find common ground, establish a fair and just form of world government, and kumbaya kumbaya in the near or distant future is laughable to me. Equal sharing of power and resources is simply not in our DNA. It doesn't matter what system of control you want to envision, SOMEONE has to call the shots, and that someone is going to favor people who agree with them, and here we go again.
Actually, I completely disagree.
I am cynical and suspicious enough that I am justified in having a high opinion of human nature. I know enough about the back-and-forth of history to appreciate that although things may still suck, progress is possible. Progress has already been made in the past and it will continue to be made into the future.
We have many of the pieces of the puzzle available to us - we have the material capacity to provide for everyone's needs to satiety, and we have slowly learned the emotional need to have at least some respect for the rights of those who are not like us.
With the difficulties on the horizon, we are beginning to recognize the fatal flaws of our modern vision - and we have an opportunity to fix them. When the pendulum of history swings again we will have another chance to apply what we have learned, make a new, slightly better, if still flawed, world.
The current system based on increasing stratification of wealth is doomed. It is doomed because systems based on spiraling stratification can only shrink, never grow, as wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, as the economy produces less and less, more and more people become disenfranchised and turn against the system. You see this now with the disappearance of the middle class - how the previously comfortable are turning scared and desperate. The unfurling of the social tapestry will inch upwards as the few big winners consolidate their gains.
History often consists of a seesaw between extremes. I would agree with Marx that to a great extent it is indeed a tug-of-war between haves and have-nots. Populism is always a progressive force in history, and it always gives rise to the civilizations we consider most enlightened and instructive - France, America, the Classical civilizations, the Islamic Empire, etc. Populism brings the lessons and benefits of a previous era to a wider audience, not only material things, but a way of life based on hope and dignity.
I used the term national socialist. I firmly believe that the legacy of Communism and Nazism has ultimately been to narrow the scope of human thought - to refuse to consider the practical alternatives to libertarian democracy, or consider that freedom and social structure could in fact be reconciled. That there is, in fact, a wider range of options, more shades of grey, than we allow ourselves to believe. With all bets off, people will be looking for fresh ideas.
I believe that with our high technology and newfound awareness of ourselves and the world, I think that we may in fact see a new populism that taps the power of technology and human compassion to, in fact, let us all get along.
The fact is, dog-eat-dog and endless pointless struggle are
not constants of human history. They seem that way only to those who narrow their definition of history to include only those things. There have been enough societies - and still are - where people just get along that I see no reason to believe people can't.
The very scope of the problems of our time - that they affect, in one way or another, everyone on the face of the planet, and that the malfeasance in this world is the act not of one class or nation, but complex problems spanning the globe, is precisely what affords us a glimmer of hope.
As I said, the system is doomed. Solving its problems will be a global effort. It will require us to hammer out political, social, economic and environmental covenants that, to be stable and viable, must take everyone's needs into account.
This inevitability is guaranteed by human nature: if it
must be done, it
will be done.
As to the human propensity for conflict: I believe the answer is to enshrine human conflict in our institutions, through hard talk, education, a regulated free market, and space exploration. I think it's very doable for people to learn to direct their conflict energies outwards and diffuse them into constructive pursuits.
This will require the acceptance of some new answers, but like I said, we're going to have that chance to put those answers into being.
