As the gloom gathers and the follies(?) of international power politics, and the disinterest of the ruling class (everywhere) to protect life and this living planet steer us towards the lip of oblivion, the saddest phenomenon for me is seeing how even the better, most promising, more insightful, formerly courageous and sane of political commentators rush towards the ignis-fatuus of cheap celebrity and irresponsible (even to the point of endangering life) contrarianism. This phenomenon reminds me of how Noam Chomsky described the false-prophets of the Hebrew Bible as being those who merely babbled solemnities in support of whatever the king was up to. In present context, there’ may be no kings, but there are various factions of vulgar power squabbling, and cohorts of would be prophet(eers) stapling their egos to the surge and counter-surge of popular trends. Plastic-cultural trends and sometimes devastatingly hurtful conflicts such as those between woke/anti-woke, trad/futurist, national identitarian/nihilist etc. All the shallow, misleading - and unnecessary -dross of pretence. All foo-fires in a perilous marsh. But I’m not a doomer, at least not in the common sense in which that neologism is used. I try to summon what powers and resources I have to be helpful. I'm not an enlightened being, a god, a prophet, or a saint, but perhaps what I say might have some value for others. And so - some thoughts.
Human beings want a happy and fulfilled life. Humans are social beings. We need resources both to survive and to thrive. To characterise this situation, we could beneficially apply a Japanese understanding (see Watsuji Tetsuro) of the human person as “inter-person” (ninjen): in other words, there is no ‘human being as person’ outside of ‘human beings as people'.
What has been called in the west ‘the individual’ is this ‘inter-person’. Both ‘individual’ and ‘inter-person’ are abstract concepts, but the latter is (I propose) more descriptive of our concrete reality. No individual person has ever appeared independent of other human beings.
We are born from other humans, we naturally live and develop amongst other humans. Our body is the body we find ourselves in, but this entity, this ‘inter-person’ contains it’s context. The everyday ‘self’ as a centre of relations is, if anything can be, the essence of ‘our inter-person’. It’s declaration of identity might be thus “they are, so I am. I am, so they are”.
Our political life is therefore an activity concerned with these relations. The context is simply ‘humanity as the population of human inter-persons alive on Earth’.
That context together with humanity itself could be regarded as forming a matrix termed ‘Life’ or, ‘Natural Life’.
This matrix is not as ephemeral as human institutions and political/cultural constructs are. It is immanent in humanity. Neither is it disclosed as dialectical in the way that history can be understood, but experiential. Not intellectual or logical, but intuitive. Not merely phenomenal, but as it were, a threshold to the noumenal.
So here, within the consciousness of the ‘inter-person’ is where the successes or failures of political projects are to be ultimately weighed. Weighed according to what? Obviously human happiness and well-being, vague as those terms might be, can be the real measures of the success of political activity.
If we want to spin out laborious theories investigating, speculating, critiquing those above mentioned assumptions and terms, fair enough. That might be intellectually satisfying. That might even be interesting. (It certainly is useful especially when attempting to garner attention and influence).
But is it necessary in such a basic enterprise as politics: public discourse for organisation of society and resources? Is politics really anything more than that at base? I don’t think so.
To conclude with some of my own solemn-sounding woo (woo maybe, but sincerely oriented)
‘Evil seeds sprout evil flowers, bear evil fruit, return to sprout again.
If the vices of greed, joy in wrath, worship of human power lead to a death-dance around atomic fire, the shame will be ours alone. The guilt will be ours, and the working off of the great crime will be ours too.
If humanity devours itself, for a long age, summer may still arrive, though with no children to make play there, it will not really be summer. Earth may turn still, but it will not be the World anymore. Perhaps then a great fire will consume it, the deepest black digest it, the darkness brings it’s memory home. Humanity has risen to dance at the ball, and over all now, death holds greedy sway.
The Mind of Heaven habours countless thoughts and not all take human shape. Ceaseless are the turnings of being-time and space.
If we fail, we must take the test again: in another dreamtime, another turn in the dark of space’
Those born of woman who believe themselves to embody a greatness overshadowing others of the same origin are in for a very rude awakening.