honorentheos wrote:I mean that there is rigorous, developed and connected thinking that underlies most if not all of the differing political theories that we recognize. And that this thinking, taken in total, provides solid reasons for giving them consideration that also justify why a plurality of views is generally better for society over a monocultural society or single party dominance. Reality is unimaginably complex and we reduce that complexity out of necessity into our various symbols and placeholders to make sense out of it. But this means we are losing something in the process. Having access to different ways of organizing can help fill in those gaps. These differing views often hold key insights into solving problems that no single ideology has a monopoly on, but it is useful to understand the theory's grounding in order to make those evaluations.
What we seem to see more and more is a move away from both acknowledging the validity of underlying theories broadly, but especially of those views which we have aligned against. To the point we can't even caricature them well. But even worse, this seems to be the case for the political "side" people believe they are aligned with where we seem to lack an informed understanding of the underlying reasoning in favor of simplistic, perhaps even misapplied representations.
In your case in this thread, I don't need to guess at your opinions on certain issues such as military spending and action, or broadly if corporations and big business is a net positive or negative for our society. But I can't ground your opinions into rational, organized theories about how society ought to work in a way that coheres. I think that's common, and it probably applies to me as well. I'm speculating this is so pervasive, and now seems so obvious entropy would impose itself in this way, that I would be surprised to discover it isn't studied by someone somewhere. I'm wondering who, and what they've put out if anything.
My thinking comes from the fact that everyone has a selfish agenda. I have some experience with politics and politicians and their donors. The donor agenda is always front and center. Otherwise, why contribute if the politician is going to cave to the public interest? Academics and think tanks seem to have been captured by the donor class and political theory seems to bow to the donor's interests as well. We see this time and time again with military contractors and the billions they get through the defense budget every year. Big military spending depends on endless war and the terrorist threat seems to have waned. The cold war was good for business and so why not recreate it by poking the bear?
Trump, the uncontrollable, me-first, I want to use the art of the deal to broker peace with everyone, comes along and spoils the party by wanting to have better relations with Russia. This is what he campaigned on. Wikileaks gets damaging emails on Clinton and so Russia is conveniently blamed. She loses and so the excuse continues. Republican, democrat, and media neocons join the fray. It turns out to be great for media business speculating on how this created spy thriller will end. So, the media, especially Rachel Maddow, endlessly hype the story. Too bad it ended with a thud.
However, perhaps it ended because converting Trump to endless war and piracy was the goal all along. He is trying to overthrow Venezuela right now. Check. He is supporting genocide in Yemen. Check. He is arming the rebels in Syria. Check. And he is pushing for war with Iran. Check. So, no need any longer to have the investigation.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen