[extropy-chat] Contradictions in Politics: Socialism/Democracy/Libertarianism/Republican

[Natasha Vita-More]

Majority rules makes sense to me; especially if my needs are in the 
majority. That is why living in  America, it is easy to be (a) religious, 
wealthy and educated male; or, (b) Black, Hispanic, White uneducated and 
poor male or female.  This all depends on what mountain top one is peering 
down from.

I'm with Abraham Lincoln when he said that "...I would not be a slave, so I 
would not be a master."  However, according to the encumbrances of slavery 
in the early-mid 1800s I would probably be exactly where I am today, not 
with a or b.  These categories are quickly defusing, blurring, fuzzying, 
fading into the past.  But not everyone recognizes this, or even realizes 
it to be occurring.  Feminists still claim there is a glass ceiling, Jesse 
Jackson still hunts for global problems he can mediate, and the welfare and 
homeless still beg for money on the corner of Los Angeles's freeway off-ramps.

That "politics" will not find solutions to transhumanist problems is a 
pipe-dream - all light up with sugar plum fairies and dancing elves.  As 
Thomas Crown said in the "Thomas Crown Affair, "It's just a game.  It 
provides a venue to roll up shirt-sleeves, pump up our chests and vent, 
blame, and defend.  What better way to keep people off the streets? :-)

The human capacity for fairness or moral rightness makes the idea of 
democracy possible, albeit the human tendency toward obligatory of justice 
makes the idea of democracy necessary. Plato said that some of the 
"features of democracy ... will enable a "footing of equality, whether they 
be really equal or not."  Since when did futurists consider human beings 
and transhumans chattel?

Maybe Mark Twain, a favored American humorist/writer/thinker was more 
honest when he said that "I am a democrat only on principle," as it seems 
wholesome and caring to be democratic.  However, we do not  live in a 
"perfect" world in which people are treated "equally."  A physician of A 
PhD is often given more credence than her fellow "majority" - just listen 
to some soap-box academics.  Further, artists seem to think we are more 
in-touch, more intuitive, more spot on when it comes to visionary ideas and 
frowns upon the social ineptitude of the masses. We can pass the baton of 
disciplinary-snobbery around the Internet and we will discover how most 
humans hold onto their ideas like a lifeboat in the rough seas of political 
turmoil.

"Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice," wrote Gore 
Vidal.  Sounds good.  But then he adds, "like Painkiller X and Painkiller 
Y. But they're both just aspirin."

The common thread between all the political agendas discussed over the past 
many years is the, "I'm right.  You are wrong." principle.

Freedom and equality are contradictions in terms, just as society and the 
individual are mutually exclusive.  How can I be free if my individual 
needs are not part of the majority?  Only if the majority is so confident 
that individuals are allowed to pursue and make their own choices.  In this 
country, it is the Democrats vs. the Republicans, but how is "a political 
order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are 
entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them" 
different than a democracy?  How is wanting the world to be healthy and 
prosperous not draw from the principles of socialism in which everyone is 
equal?  How is wanting to live indefinitely different from wanting eternal 
life in Heaven?  How does a desire to live in a pollution-free world where 
there is land yet to explore not environmentalist? Of course these are 
rhetorical questions used to show that while we may all want what seems to 
be the same thing, we approach it from different constructs for different 
purpose.

I can sum it up in meaningful directive in a one-liner clipped from another 
thread:

Max More wrote:

>However, I disagree that *anything* done to get ideas about liberty out 
>there is good. First impressions have a powerful influence on the human 
>mind. A poor first impression only increases the work to be done.

Why resort to outdated political models and religious views just because we 
want to go "mainstream"?  When did affirmative action find its way into 
transhumanism?  We must not bend over for every political or political 
group-think to soften and erode the values and principles of transhumanism 
just because we want to go mainstream.

BETTER, we must enable a sense of understanding, cooperation and 
willingness to work together.  We must invite others to learn about our 
ideals in ways that are non-threatening.  We must hold our own, stand 
strong, and educate the "mainstream."  Let's us not take our hard-earned 
sense of  the future down to a low common denominator.  Let us work toward 
raising the level of reason and vision to the rest  of the world.

Natasha
__________________________

"Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it 
permits criticism.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970), British novelist, essayist. Two Cheers for 
Democracy, "What I Believe" (1951). Forster thought two cheers "quite 
enough: there is no occasion to give three." The third he reserved for the 
Republic of Love.

"Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa!"
Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926), U.S. poet. Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties, 
"New York City" (ed. by Gordon Ball, 1977), Oct. 1960 entry, "Subliminal."

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, 
as a rule the majority are wrong." Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), U.S. trade 
unionist, co-founder of the U.S. Socialist Party. Speech, 12 Sept. 1918, 
Cleveland, Ohio, defending himself against charges of sedition. Found 
guilty, Debs was subsequently jailed for three years..

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and 
murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit 
suicide." John Adams (1735-1826), U.S. statesman, president. Letter, 15 
April 1814 (published in The Works of John Adams, vol. 6, 1851).

"Nor is the people's judgement always true: The most may err as grossly as 
the few."
John Dryden (1631-1700), English poet

"I swear to the Lord,
I still can't see,
Why Democracy means,
Everybody but me."
Langston Hughes (1902-67), U.S. poet, author. The Black Man Speaks, in Jim 
Crow's Last Stand (1943).

"Democracy don't rule the world,
You'd better get that in your head;
This world is ruled by violence,
But I guess that's better left unsaid."
Bob Dylan (b. 1941), U.S. singer, songwriter. "Union Sundown," on the album 
Infidels (1983).

"When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, 
inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then 
accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations 
their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably 
shrewed and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it."
John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908), U.S. economist. The Age of Uncertainty, 
ch. 12 (1977).

"Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public 
organization cannot live a full-blooded life." Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931), 
Soviet president. Speech, 25 Feb. 1986, to 27th Party Congress, Moscow.

"The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land."
Oliver Wendell, Sr. Holmes  (1809-94), U.S. writer, physician. Poetry: a 
Metrical Essay.

"Democracy with its semi-civilization sincerely cherishes junk. The 
artist's power should be spiritual.  But the power of the majority is 
material. When these worlds meet occasionally, it is pure coincidence."
Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss artist. The Diaries of Paul Klee 1898-1918, 
no. 747 (1957; tr. 1965), Jan. 1906 entry.


Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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