As we are social creatures, being born to be social is our default
condition. This sociability of human beings is the start to us
understanding what it means to be human and, and the
questions of human existence such as “how am I to live”
“what am I to spend my energy on”. These simple questions
are question leading us to political science. How are we to
organize ourselves? The answer is found in one simple phrase,
“We the people”
As it is our strength to organize ourselves, we must begin all political
philosophy here. Being social is the human condition and the best
format for us to be social is democracy. We can collectively decide
our present and future as we always have done, in discussions between
ourselves. The very strength of human existence and the reason for
our very survival has been the human ability to unite and discuss
matters that matter to us both personally and collectively.
Individually, we can not survive on our own. As an individual,
no one human can survive or exists on their own. This is not only true
physically, but emotionally and psychological and mentally. Humans
are constructed to live and work and play with each other.
For that is how we became the leading animals on earth.
By our working together as a group. That is the human key to
success. So any attempt to create an ideology or myth that
proclaims that we have success individually is simply wrong.
The myth of rugged individuality is just that, a myth.
The strength of humans is in their collective approach to
existence. One for all and all for one is not just a movie
slogan, but it is the very reason human beings exists today.
So this idea of going it alone and the solitary individual creating
greatness is a myth. Surely we must exist together or we die alone.
So this means that politically and economically, we must organize ourselves
into collective units. As that is what we do best. The social organization
of the hierarchy approach of the modern world is doomed to failure because
it doesn’t address the very strength of the human animal, which lies
with cooperation and discussion of the values that matter to us……
The up and down approach of business must be replaced with a
general leveling out of hierarchy into more of a group leadership effort.
We survive and grew because we practiced more of a group understanding, more
of a group leadership model instead of a hierarchy model. A problem arose and
the leadership didn’t solve the problem, the entire group after discussion
and group engagement then worked on solving the problem. We survive as human
beings not with a top down model of leadership but with a group leadership model.
We want to create a new model of existence and that is really an old model of
existence. This “new” solves several problems that exist in the modern world.
First we have the problem of alienation which is the question of the feeling that
I am apart and separate from my society. If you want engagement, then
you must, must include everyone into the discussion that affects their lives.
This also helps in apathy that people feel in modern life. If you include people
in the discussion of where we are and where we need to be, then
you bring people back into society and away from alienation and apathy
and yes, even nihilism. For our modern society has practice nihilism for
for far too long… where the modern pursuit of profits/money has
driven people into being negated as they are valued less then profit or money.
We don’t need to make the planet the center of the earth as religious types
proclaim. We just need to return people to a place of value by removing the
current model of nihilism that exists, both politically and economically. The answer to
what the solution for our modern life is the return of people into
being able to engage with and be part of discussions about matters
that matter to them and the hierarchically system currently in use,
doesn’t do that, the hierarchically system we have both politically and
economically.
The driver of the Kantian/Kropotkin question is no longer
the top to bottom theory of modern life. The new driver of
the Kantian/Kropotkin questions lies within the communal
discussions and decision making that was the basis for becoming
human. The group in discussions with itself, that becomes
the driver of the Kantian/Kropotkin questions. “What can I do”
is answered in a group context because the real question is
“What can we do” and that is the real question.
Now one might argue that we will slow down “progress”,
with a group leadership model instead of a top down leadership model,
perhaps, but I am not so sure that is a bad thing. It might not be a bad
thing if we took our time and made our decisions a little slower.
It is a rare time when a decision must be made overnight and as
anybody who has made a rather quick decision knows, sometimes the very
act of rushing a decision can lead to rather bad decisions being made.
the modern world can learn to slow down and takes its time.
From this we can make better decisions and we can learn to
enjoy what we have. Today, we rush from here to there without
any understanding of why is it so important that we rush about.
So far the pluses of removing the top down leadership model outweigh
the negatives. With the group leadership style, we can get people
to become engaged with society again, we can remove alienation
and apathy as part of our current modern condition and we can slow
down the rush to judgement that exists today. Rushing to judgement
can often lead us to make hasty and unwise decisions.
This idea of group leadership means we adapt as the leadership model
in all phases of our lives, politically, economically and
socially. Democracy becomes the ideal form of any discussions regarding
the Kantian/Kropotkin questions…… We engage socially and politically
and economically with and through the democratic format.
Our engagement with life is a communal engagement as
that has been the human method since the beginning of time.
Even that most dictatorship of formats, the family, has
democratic tendencies as even the family has voting rights.
One might claim that this new/old method is quite inefficient
but I would argue that the world and nature and humanity
are not models of efficiency anyway. The highest goal of
achievement is not efficiency. Show me anything that has ever been created
that has been 100 % efficient. Nature certainly isn’t that efficient and
any man made system such as the car engine or solar panels are not
very efficient. Stars and planets and galaxies are not very efficient. So why
this emphasis on something that we human cannot ever, ever, ever reach
in any case? This emphasis on efficiency flies in the face of everything
we know about human beings and the universe. Nature doesn’t strive
for it, so why should we?
So what should we strive for if not efficiency? We should be striving
for the means and ways for us to become better human beings
and that is only possible within and by a group of people living together
and working together and playing together and making decision together.
Not the modern model of the up and down leadership but the much wider
model of communal decision making.
Kropotkin