The Political Animal and Identity

I think the following article really gets at the fundamental problem of liberal political theory:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2

Liberal political theory allows itself two characters:  the individual, and humanity.  As Fela Kuti noted, water has no enemies, likewise, neither does humanity.  Carl Schmitt noted that no war has ever been fought by humanity, only by one subdivision against another.  But maybe that is the point, if we just define the forms of real human conflict out of our political philosophy, then we solve the problem of war.  Hold that thought. . .

The individual qua individual is not a political entity either, only the individual qua interest group or qua voluntary association.  Individuals are all unique, of course, but in so much as we can say anything about an individual, we can only do so in general terms.  We can talk about an individual in as much as an individual has some resemblance to something else.

It is important to recognize that politics is related fundamentally to disagreement and group struggle.  After all, if everyone agrees about the answer to a certain question, then the question cannot be a political question.  One can probably look up the answer in a dictionary or an encyclopedia.  Political questions are about disagreements, and political identity is defined by which group one identifies with in the resolution of a political question.  The groups one identifies with are your political friends, and the one's you dis-identify with are your enemies.  Political struggle is ultimately a battle over meaning and definition.  The group that wins the struggle gets to define the meaning.

Thus, if we understand philosophy as an activity, an attempt to gain clarity about the nature of meaning, it is apolitical, whereas philosophy that is intended to "solve" philosophical problems by producing dogmas is political.  For example, the Friends/Enemies distinction reveals the general form of political disputes, but the distinction itself does not disclose the substance of who our friends and who our enemies ought to be.  The problems of philosophy cannot be solved but dissolved by understanding how they arise.  On the other hand, the problems of politics cannot be solved through autonomous reason, but through the seizure of power.  Dogmatic philosophy does not provide a means of seizing power, but it provides of means of legitimating power.  We define a rule--this is the language-game.

If we understand myth as a collective action principle, we can understand that philosophy cannot be divorced from myth.  If anything, it is discourse on myth, or mythology, broadly conceived.  Clashes over meaning translate into clashes over myths, with philosophy serving to justify or criticize one myth or the other.  In this sense, liberalism must be equated with an anti-mythological process, a de-sanctification of the world.  Likewise, we hear sometimes about people creating their own myths for themselves, or their own sense of meaning.  This is all daft.  I can make up a story for myself, but I cannot make up a myth for myself.  A myth is an ordering principle, and myths order a people, and one person, in and of themselves, does not amount to an order, which by nature entails a plurality.

A person can make up a story, but for my story to serve as a myth, it would have to be adopted by some plurality of people, and in order to do so, it would be by nature of this fact inspiring.  I can, of course, write a story, and I can, of course, exert all effort to be as inspiring as possible, but for all that, my story is not inspiring.  Inspiration requires other people, and I can't make another person find my story inspiring.  In this sense, inspiration must always come from God (or at least from the gods if you are Pagan).  A story is a myth if it brings collective meaning to a plurality, in the sense of importance or value.  The myth reveals the Valuable in the world, and harmonizes the many.  The value does not come from the author, but rather is experienced by all.

Clearly, meaning is indeterminant so that there exist multiple myths, and myths are incommensurable with each other.  The myths have similarities undoubtedly, but also dissimilarities.  If a literary passage has two interpretations, then the interpretations cannot be reconciled with each other, only a third interpretation may be invented.  They can only be sorted out through inter-generational transmission, politics and war.  To banish war, we must banish myth, and banish identity.

But can the need for identity simply disappear?  The application of the indeterminacy of meaning to the human person means that I can never know another person's true intentions.  In the absence of central government, if one incorrectly surmises that the other is not hostile, one will end up dead.  On the other hand, if one incorrectly surmises that the other is hostile, the other will end up dead.  Thus, the cost of assuming the benevolence of the other is catastrophic.  This means that the default between two rational strangers, in the absence of central government, will be to assume the other is hostile and to attempt to kill them off.  Because numbers are power, it is necessary to develop a system of irrational trust between group members, and thus emerges human tribalism.  Xenophobia is rational human behavior, whereas trusting your own tribal group is the real irrational behavior.  Stamping out tribe does not root out fear and prejudice:  it totalizes them.  Family, religion, ethnic identity are irrational systems used to create irrational feelings of trust toward other members of the same group, because a highly unified group is safer and more protective than lone individuals.  Undoing identity groups leaves individuals isolated, afraid, alone, and unsafe, and further vulnerable to joining new identity groups.  Given that human natural history contains numerous instances of humans being eaten by wild animals, or killed by other tribes, alienation creates extreme conditions of mental duress, and probably adversely affects physical health.  Identity groups cannot be eliminated, if one category of identity disappears, a new category appears overnight. 

Rather than view racial, ethnic, and religious prejudice as an enemy that needs to be overcome, I have come to the politically incorrect opinion that these sentiments are for the most part socially beneficial, provided the excesses of these sentiments are tempered by respect for law and order.  The cause of violence and social unrest is not irrational hate, but rational fear, which only respect for law can overcome.  Ironically, a society with weak identity groups is a society that is mentally and physically ill, composed of citizens who feel alone, afraid and unsafe.  It is the very kind of society that welcomes the erosion of freedoms based on fear of the Other.  If you want to promote social conditions that favor the emergence of real fascism, then suppress racial, ethnic and religious identity in the name of anti-discrimination.

Human beings, as organisms, are united in their biology.  Human beings as anthropological units, that is, the human being within a collective group, are fundamentally divided into clans of friends and clans of enemies.  A group of progressives may be capable of overcoming racial and ethnic divisions, but they will quickly break down into warring factions over defining what it means to be a real woman.  Man is a political animal as Aristotle noted.