On the Motivation page I describe why I see democracy in crisis. Basically, corporate and foreign interests have bought up the US Congress. On this Theory page, I describe how I understand the causes of this crisis.

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My understanding of political theory follows my understanding of human nature. All social animals, (like wolves, elephants, baboons, chimps, and humans), have an evolved politics, a way of organizing, deciding, and getting along. For example, when an individual baboon is attacked by a cheetah, the whole baboon troop instinctively mobs the cheetah, and, most often, rescues the individual. Just as baboon politics evolved for the good of the baboons, humans have an evolved politics that is good for the humans. Our democracy is in crises because we are far from home, far from our genetic expectation of how things are supposed to be.

 

During homo sapiens' first 100,000 years we lived in groups of a few hundred individuals where everyone had a share of power and there was no such thing as wealth. It was our shared stories, our myths that provided the glue for group cohesion. Our stories evolved alongside of our bodies, most notably our big brains, and taught us how to behave, how to organize, how to share, and how to get along; our stories provided a common morality and a shared sense of humanity. Then, just 10,000 years ago, agriculture happened. Agriculture created wealth, wealth required violence, and humanity was divided into owners and workers. We lost our stories, we forgot how to get along, and we have been at war with ourselves ever since.

 

The mismatch between our genetic expectations and our lived experience exposes two neurological vulnerabilities: 1) power corrupts and 2) trauma debilitates. The danger of the these is the way they reciprocally reinforce each other in wealthy societies. When too many regular citizens suffer from trauma they lose the capacity to hold political leaders accountable. When political leaders are not held accountable they lose the capacity to think morally. When leaders can not think morally, they are reduced to what Sartre called a 'quantitative ethic' and seek only more power. Leaders seeking more power further povertize, traumatize, isolate, and politically neuter regular citizens.

 

I am a physicist by training with a PhD from Brown University. A physicist makes theories about how things work and then tests them out with experiments. Consensual reality is obviously critical in such a process; falsifying observations will not help. Based on this, my political theory starts with: the body politic is healthier when citizens understand reality, when we know the truth.

 

That seems obvious enough and yet is counter to reality and counter to political theory since Plato's 'noble lie;' the theory that, to achieve a greater good, the 'best among us' may have to lie to get the rest of us to 'do the right thing'. Forever wars, and now the genocide against the Palestinian people, call this theory into question. On the news I observe mass graves, torn children, hospitals destroyed, aid workers targeted, and statements of genocidal intent by Israel leaders. Our powerful politicians fight against this clear reality: the State Department doesn't see any evidence of war crimes; the Pentagon has a procedure and that hasn't turned anything up; the White House asked Israel to investigate themselves. These observations refute the 'noble lie' theory: there is no greater good which could justify genocide.

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First humans lived peacefully in small tribes. From agriculture to the industrial revolution, power rested with the aristocratic land owners. From the industrial revolution until yesterday, power followed the means of production. Today, power follows the means of communication.

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Based on these ideas, the first priority of the US government is a healthy and well-informed citizenry. For more on my political priorities, see the Priorities page.