Generally these low-inquiry people turn out one of two ways:
They either eventually become arrogant, dismissing the points of views they
haven’t already agreed with, or they become prepossessing, believing that almost
any assumptions they make are probably correct.
Typical responses of persons who have been bullied
intellectually to new information are, “I need to ask someone about it,” and, “You’re
only saying what might be true for you.” In other words, strong disbelief, or
distrust of new information is likely to become a personality trait of a person
who is mentally non-acquisitive.
Another possibility is the person who starts out as a normal
acquisitive teenager can make an assumption that acquisition of information
will maintain a certain form throughout his or her life. This thinking pattern
is typical of cult members. One believes that one has found a particular source
of truth that outweighs all others, and that following that truth, or the
source of it, will cause them to become successful and possibly superior to
others who do not have access to the source.
One should note carefully here, that there are almost always
at least two distinct levels of cultism: The first level consists of persons
who believe that the source discloses a pattern for correctness and success.
The second level are those persons who believe that the source discloses
patterns of ultimate superiority over others who are unaware or less
indoctrinated.
In order for cultism to work well, ordinary acquisitiveness
has to be turned off. Either the person who is normally acquisitive is warned
that his ‘questioning’ is counter-productive, or led to understood that in
order for indoctrination to proceed, questioning will not be tolerated. This
can be understood as ‘protocol’, or fairness to others. Another technique which
is commonly used is that only the leader is allowed to ask questions.
Cultism is a form of politics. It describes for people a way
that society ought to be, or how its members ought to be, including how they
should act, thus fulfilling the main role of politics.
In a totally free society, politics would be available to anyone. However, individuals and societies today cannot really be described as free, with various tendencies outlawed, in order that natural political contention can be manipulated by the powerful.
It is important to note that all politics has a dual nature:
While first, and foremost, politics is, by definition, a concern, “of the
people” (which is, after all, only a ‘general’ definition describing a ‘general’
sense of understanding), politics is also the exact concern about the creation,
use, maintenance, manipulation and destruction of all power in society.
I fully understand that my opinion about politics is not the
only one in existence. We often (un-philosophically) refer to other persons who
believe that politics is one of a dozen or so different things as “Idealists”.
This includes people that believe that politics is a way to protect the
Constitution, people who believe that politics is a wedge driven between
different parts of the population, people who believe that politics is a wedge
driven between the people and their ruler, etc. etc.
My point is that politics is not a simple little pretty
thing we can read with their cereal in the newspapers every day, and vote about
every couple of years. It is much more fundamental and serious than that. Regardless
of how excellent or depraved the men who form constitutions are, politics means
only about one thing, the power to act, which can be seen as what powers exist
in contracts, and secondly, what powers exist in laws.
Notice, I am exhibiting a prejudice here: I believe that for
something such as a law to exist, there had to be something that naturally
preceded it. In this case, an agreement, or contract, “If you leave my fence
stand, I won’t tear down your fence,” and “If you don’t kill my family members,
I won’t kill yours.”
The concept of Critical Mass leads to understanding how
governments are formed. Inequality in relations between individuals of larger
and larger successful societies led to the creation of laws, both as a way of
ensuring peace, but also in demonstrating the inherent value of the government.
The Bible, the Code of Hammurabi, and other documents, illustrate for us the
common tendency for civilizations of a certain size to not only institute rule,
but also rule by law.
Much can be said about ‘natural law’, ‘common law’, ‘ancestral
law’, and the like in explaining how our laws operate and came about, but the
ultimate point I want to make is that the laws are either made or acquired, by
man, in a state of governance of one kind or another, and that the laws exist regardless
of what that governance is called, Republic, Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy.
All these forms of government are the same in one respect, at least: They
utilize the rule of law.
Nor are the government types static, or permanently posed
against each other, they morph. (Notice my careful non-use of the word, “evolve”.)
Monarchies take on the institutions and ideals of Democracy, Oligarchies are
monarchical or socialistic depending on the times, Republics, at the time of
their formation, while always Idealist, are either Revolutionary or
Nationalistic in nature.
Why do governments tend to morph into other available
models? Why is there seem to be no evolution? I recognize one exception to this
and that is the Monarchy to Parliamentary Democracy model. Historically, a
number of monarchies did eventually turn into Democracies, however I think the
reason for this was that Spinoza predicted it. When governments change without
a revolution, it is often because of historical force. The War of the Roses in
England, and wars of Independence are a common pattern for the establishment of
Democracies replacing rule by Monarchy. Another pattern which is not entirely
irrelevant is the Lingering Monarchy, such as in Great Britain.
Monarchy and Oligarchy are entirely relevant today. The
word, oligarchy means, “rule by the few”, and it describes Communist or
totalitarian rule perfectly. Oligarchic rule depends on the state taking on the
attributes of a Cult, which involves the leader not just being responsible for
making decisions, but making decisions which are inherently perfect and
unassailable, and showing wisdom that may be attributed to others by
association, a situation where, “close to the leader,” means at least, “smart
and capable”.
The effect of Rule by
Cult makes it very difficult to destroy an Oligarchy, even if a Democracy is
installed to nominally take its place. Over time, due to people’s trust of the
familiar, the political elements representing the Cult will gradually become
the most powerful.
Governments are accepted by the people when they are loved,
they are often revolted against when they are hated. However, that is not the beginning
and end of the story: Real life individuals form their attitudes towards their
government based on many different criteria, including core beliefs, utilitarianism,
the information available to them, comfort and security. All of these
constitute the “Cake” of human political consciousness, a Cake of many slices
and layers.
The Cake of human political consciousness is similar to many
other kinds of consciousness in that it has a “behind-us,” the past, and an “in-front-of-us,”
the future, that it always contends with.
To simplify this cake and how it operates, we must now
annihilate the parts of it that are unnecessary. These include specifics such
as Constitutional Republic, and Dynastic Monarchy and boil everything down to
two tendencies, Oligarchy and Democracy.
Political parties are considered a necessary part of
Democracy, but they are never Democratic, they are merely Disruptive to the
Oligarchy and limiting to the Democracy. When a political party gains ascendancy,
the minority is left in a position of suffering and struggle; in at least some
sense, the Democracy is ruined since it becomes a 50 or 60 percent democracy,
not the 100 percent democracy that was preached and expected. The Republic
attempts to circumvent this possibility by introducing the prospect that the
ascendancy of a single party may merely be a disruption in a continuing democratic process.
Information plays an important part in creating the presentation
of the forms and effects of governance designed to create the proper response among
the governed. A common but distasteful name for this is Propaganda, a word with
religious roots. Attempts have been made to replace this word with Media, but
since a lot of Media makes no attempt at persuasion, the only reasonable synonym
to use would be Lobbying, but since Lobbying is reserved for actions done with
Politicians, there is want for a better word that would also be a politically
correct choice to use in all circumstances.
Persuasive handling and manipulation of information is the
key to understanding how political difficulties are handled, how fine lines are
crossed, and ambiguities erased. The contradictions between oligarchy and
democracy, evidenced by political satisfaction in almost every society is most
often masked by persuasive handling and manipulation of information.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term meaning the
tendency for an individual’s mind to register discomfort with conflicting information
about the World. Everyone has it now and then; it is not just something that
happens to people whom disagree with you. It occurs in everyday situations of
compromise within a family, where one person is asked to sacrifice principles in
order to maintain a consensus, for example, and it also commonly occurs in
political situations where compromise has been sought among politicians. One
knows that the compromise violates principles of his political party, yet one
or more trusted political figures has signaled his agreement with the
violation. Anyone holding his political beliefs seriously may experience
cognitive dissonance until he is able to reconcile the new situation into his
political belief system. In this way our political belief system is a lot like an
extension of our personal belief system. We understand that politics may be
very important to us, perhaps even important to our survival, therefore we are
likely to place a similar level of importance and feeling into the political
issues we see confronting us as we do to the issues confronting our personal
relationships, for example. For some, politics may even be a fully integrated
part of their world view, although for others, the importance of politics rises
and falls along with the amount of noise it generates in their lives.
This is one key to how oligarchies survive, by the way. In a
low-noise political environment, most people care little for politics, so Oligarchy
may seem fully logical and coherent with the world view of most individuals in
that society.
One could say that Democracy both creates and demands a high
level of awareness and participation, which makes life more exciting and
informative. People are always concerned about politics because they know they
have some input and play a role in the process, even though they may have
doubts about why it is such a small one.
Let’s return to the
example of the Constitution of the U. S. A. This constitution hides a
time-limited President (a type of Oligarch) within its structure. A U.S.
president has many of the same prerogatives Monarch’s have during his time in
office. He can direct almost every government agency within the framework of
laws, and even enter into wars that are limited in scope and duration.
Republicanism considers Oligarchy tolerable as long as it falls into a remedial
framework of checks and balances, allowing the Constitutional Oligarchy of the
Presidency to be removed periodically and in emergencies so that the
Pluralistic nature of the society can be preserved. Of course, rule by a
President is not the only possibility of Oligarchy inside of a Republic, and when a
political party is dominant in Congress, you have the free ability for one
tendency to make all laws, and change society in limited ways, as controlled by
the Constitution.
A Plurality is really a kind of special interest. While a
Plurality may be as large as a majority political party, it consists also of
those organizations and groups that navigate local and global power structures,
including the Media, in order to achieve their ends.
These are some of the institutional forms of Oligarchy in
the U.S.A., each enshrined in the Constitution. However, there are additional
non-constitutional ways Oligarchical patterns enter into the government, such
as through powerful agencies of Pluralism, such as Lobbies, including Churches,
and Lobbies that represent Corporations and foreign powers. By lying under the
radar, and controlling Media, Lobbies can deeply influence politics without
gaining notice.
Earlier in this article, I discussed how our natural ability
to question may be truncated or rendered ineffective in various ways. One can
see, how through a variety of social and political structures, individuals ability
to pose the right questions about politics may be affected, oftentimes not.
Anti-war movements, for example: The tendency for governments to plant “false
flags” is often detected by the culture and results in a split society on life
and death issues like war, in the case of Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin
Incident, for example. Not this incident, but the poor manners and statements
by the American President, and military actions as well, gradually led to more
and more people being opposed to the War, leading to its oddly inopportune ending.
There is no particular Human tendency that causes nations to
fight or avoid fighting in wars. Humans are as likely to start war, given a
reason, as they are to pursue a strategy of maintaining peace: It all depends
on the information. The natural enemy of disinformation is the society itself
and its natural inquisitiveness.
