Conscientious Politik: Real Politik, Aimed at Healthy Goals

Niccolo Machiavelli, Weebly, accessed 4/24/2018

Humans are amazing social animals. Most work best in a group, as a group. We gossip, jockey for relative position, access to resources, and influence within our hierarchically nested societies. Indeed, all species of animals (at the very least) depend on and carry out relationships with other members of their species, or with other species that they may encounter. Anyone who has watched multiple domesticated animals in a room together for awhile will notice the evolution and execution of complex dynamics among them. All of this can be considered in the realm of politics, if one defines politics as the relations and dynamics between two or more organisms working to maintain or improve their subjectively defined lot in life relative to each other and the environment.

Sometimes politics plays out negatively or destructively for the individual, group, or both. In human groups, this can create a lot of destruction, and harm in a group of humans. Epidemiologists Pickett and Wilson point to the physical and psychological damage that such competitive and exploitative behavior can cause in their book, The Spirit Level. But because politics cannot be avoided in any society of beings, especially in human societies, how then can we improve our individual and collective lot relative to each other and the environment? We cannot ignore real politik, which is the defacto product of that antisocial behavior. But perhaps, if enough of the right people get together, and get organized, we can potentially redirect that kind of politicking towards more fruitful outcomes for everyone in society, including those antisocial elements who would be losing seats and influence in society. This is what I would call, "conscientious politik".

Conscientious politik is essentially real politik, but aimed at promoting a healthier, happier, and more functional human society. It is the utilization of organic human tendencies to politik to undermine demonstrably anti-social individuals, promote proven pro-social individuals, and generally make society be more responsive against those who would profit at others' expenses. Groups of modern day hunter-gatherers, such as the Inuit of the Arctic, or the !Kung of the Kalahari use conscientious politik to keep anti-social individuals from taking too much from the group. This can include everything from light penalties, such as gossip and teasing, to the offender being ostracized and banished from the group (which is essentially the death penalty in those harsh environments). The harnessing and directing of internal and external politics to keep anti-social individuals, or smaller groups of anti-social individuals, from achieving positions of influence have enabled these groups to survive in some of the world's harshest conditions for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, years.

Societies who are settled arguably have an evolutionary edge over those hunter-gatherer tribes. Our groups' sizes, plus our technological advantages and abilities to resolve problems with new technology helps us achieve a population in the hundreds of millions, rather than a population of a few thousand. However, with the settling of some humans in agrarian, followed by industrial and service oriented economies, we have lost the immediate need to maintain group cohesion. We still need to suppress the anti-social individuals who would attempt extra status and wealth at the expense of the rest. The problem seems to be in trying to coordinate, organize, and articulate that suppression of greed well in a larger group. Conscientious politik is likely a solution to that problem. It recognizes the anti-social nature of the individual(s) it is attempting to face down and exclude from social significance. Unlike real politik, it has defined objectives and goals for the whole group that can be measured, observed, and compared for effect relative to their claims. Conscientious politik recognizes that the means affect the ends that are actually accomplished. The group who is attempting to do conscientious politik must work on behalf of others in support of the larger social group. To that end, social sensibilities must be taken into account, and the legitimacy of a given action set must be on solid social grounding in order for it to be carried out. Explicit, honest, and effective two-way dialogue with the public is key for conscientious politik to be successfully executed. A leadership cadre cannot sell people an objectively lesser and ineffective product for long without receiving significant and inevitable push-back from the citizenry.

So what would conscientious politik look like? The closest example I can think of from American politics is the suppression of Bernie Sanders' candidacy for President in the 2016 elections. While true conscientious politik would have supported Senator Sanders because of his more active and pro-social stance in society, the exclusion of Senator Sanders and his supporters by the Democratic National Committee, and the corporate press demonstrates conscientious politiking going against the demonstrable good and well-being of the public. Imagine if the roles were reversed, and the Democrats chose a progressive reformist stance against Hillary Clinton. Imagine if corporate media did not report on her (smaller) crowds, and gave favorable air-time to Bernie Sanders. The conscious choice was there, and it was being carried out. The problem is not that it was an ineffective strategy at derailing Sanders' campaign, far from it. The problem was that the ends that were trying to be achieved flew in the face of many Americans' sensibilities, and the means of achieving those sub-optiimal ends were illegitimate in a society that honors, respects, and needs genuine democratic inclusion and participation. Real politik alone, without the pro-social aim failed to win. As such, Hillary Clinton and the DNC Establishment won the primaries, but failed to carry the general election in 2016 against an unqualified reality television star.

We can see that having an intentional and conscientious choice can help direct and coordinate action very effectively against political opponents. Conscientious politik takes it one step further, to have the ends and the means align for maintaining and enhancing pro-social outcomes. Human groups do not work well when an individual, group of individuals, or individuals as an abstract concept are deified at the expense of all others. This much is demonstrable by the psychology and sociology literature. What this means is that those with influence and power need to be very careful about whom or what they support, and whom/what they choose to suppress. The objective of government is not in satisfying your personal ideological itch, or policy preference. The goal is to design and develop better policies and programs to demonstrably benefit human society at large, and to staff the government with people who are qualified, competent, and effective at carrying out those pro-social ends and means. We can circle the wagons, jail or potentially treat those who would gut the human society for their personal profit and gain. We need to first do a better job at identifying them accurately when we encounter them, and then coordinate among the local and contextual network of people to prevent those individuals from achieving office. We can test and show which policies and programs work better than others. The challenge in implementing these kinds of reforms is getting the right people in those offices and positions to affect those positive changes.