On Life, Family and Community
What Grounds Us
One of the most disturbing features of modernity is the way in which the spiritual component of human existence has given way in some areas, to an abstract rationalism infused with political ideology. Whereas we once hoped (in the theological sense) for a better world beyond this one, either in terms of an afterlife or an eschatological end point to history, we now struggle to make heaven on earth.
While this struggle has indeed led to improvements in health, science, economics and quality of life for countless millions since the enlightenment, it has at the same time born the wicked fruit of totalitarian and extremist movements that have themselves killed or oppressed millions. As Eric Voegelin put it, they have “immantized the estachaton”, which is to say they tried to actualize the end of history through utopian political, social or economic schemes.
Each one of these schemes were based and continue to be based on the notion that we can apply abstract principles to human existence in a concrete way, that life can be made to reflect the ideas we come up with in our heads.
Thus Marx proclaimed a future “equality” between people, without oppressive government and without greed inspiring private property; because in his mind it seemed like a just and moral outcome to history. Essentially he envisioned a heaven for himself and the rest of humanity based on his particular values. History had to end with communism because for Marx the injustices of the capitalist system were intolerable, and the beauty of selfless communal living was undeniable. He thought the working class people of the world would eventually come to agree with his vision, after all it was “scientific” socialism, who could argue with that?
Yet even with all its “contradictions” capitalism did not give way to socialism or communism; perhaps because human beings can never conform to the ideations of a particular man, no matter how smart or innovative he thinks he is. In fact, many actively rejected the policies of Marx’s disciples, to the extent that very state he thought would “wither” had to be made more monstrous than even he could have envisioned, and its dark tentacles used to endlessly pick at the humanity he hoped would flourish.
Whether we speak of Russia after 1917 or Venezuela after 2000, what the common people really wanted was property of their own, property that they could work to provide a better life for themselves and most critically; their families. They were opposed to the tyranny of the Tsar or the cronyism of oligarchs that controlled all the wealth, but not so they could all live in a mass commune surrounded by barbed wire, it was so they too could have the right to profit from work and pass that profit on to the only thing that really mattered to them.
It was the grounded reality of their own love for spouses, children, relatives and neighbors that moved them, not the abstract ideas of some isolated and lazy intellectual. Yet they were denied that, and the notions of family and community that bound them to one another were not just challenged, but actively repressed because ultimately they represented the biggest threat to planners and would be saviors of mankind.
Our experiences in life are so often shaped by those around us, and they can either make us better or drag us down for life. Our parents, close relatives and siblings in childhood, and our spouses and own children in adulthood, each help us develop into what we are as individuals. Yet we are bound to those around us not because it is “good” in some abstract philosophical way or because some scientist or evolutionary psychologist thinks it has “social utility”, we are bound to others through the concrete experience of love, through a deeply buried instinct that forms the core of what we are as human beings. Our own desire to live, to exist, is transferred onto those with whom we share affection, with whom we have intimately shared the trials and tribulations of life. Save those with deformed souls, we are willing, without a moment’s hesitation to give our lives for those we love. This connection to another is what motivates us; this is what truly drives us.
Only when we can see a larger benefit for ourselves and our families do we even begin to express loyalty towards things like a “nation” or a particular state. This is why dysfunctional states, where small groups of elites control everything for their own benefit are often secretly despised by the vast majority of its citizens, even when they overtly cheer on the national soccer team in superficial acts of patriotism.
When push comes to shove the police officer will take that bribe from the criminal, the judge will bow down to pressure from above, and every businessman and professional will break laws and dodge taxes whenever it suits them. They don’t have a stake in the country, it does not benefit them in a concrete way and so it is something to be tolerated rather than fought for. In such countries only the desperate poor serve in the military and only the cynical self-interested get into politics.
Throughout the world we still observe extended family clans and tribes form the basis of society, often presenting themselves as challengers to our own utopian schemes, as we have seen through our experiences in trying to transform Iraq and Afghanistan. All the PHD generals and sociologists can’t see the simple truth that for people in areas of the world where government has never been anything more than a glorified protection racket, and where colonial empires have come and gone like seasonal sand storms; the only thing you can really depend on is your tribe.
The beauty of the American experiment lies in the possibility of simply being left alone to carve out an existence for yourself and those you care about. That does not mean being left out in anarchy to fend for oneself because government is necessary to provide a facilitating framework for the pursuit of happiness (through peace and security via rule of law). But its goal cannot be to provide the happiness itself. If that becomes the goal of government, it will most assuredly fall prey to the dangerous ideological abstractions we spoke of before. When we engage in a grand governmental crusade, when we decide to have a “war on poverty” or a “war on drugs” for that matter, the flesh and blood human beings caught in the middle become nothing more than inconveniences for “top men” who deal only in abstractions.
For government to be truly worthy of our respect, for it to truly serve the needs of the people and not the other way around, it must be built from the ground up, with concrete relationships between actual human beings, not through mindless and massive processes built around ideological suppositions. Of course you can’t do that from Washington D.C. it can only work in a decentralized fashion. In that sense, if we are to draw inspiration from foreign systems as so many these days are apt to do; we must look to Switzerland rather than France.
Government, like family must be grounded in the concrete, in the real rather than the abstract. We must love our country not because it conforms to our ideology but instead because it reflects the reality of our lives. Those who we choose to represent us should base their decisions on facilitating our lives and strengthening our families by creating an environment in which we can prosper through our own efforts. They should not base their policies on fantastical notions and ideals they think we need to conform to. To a certain extent this means choosing “pro-family” representatives, but not in the fake superficial sense of trying to pander to “family-values”. We need them to support families by letting people raise their kids the way they see fit, by making it easier for people to start family businesses that bring wealth and prosperity to those around them, by simplifying taxes and deferring decisions about as many things as possible to the smallest possible unit, by no longer harassing people over petty nonsense.
I do not know what is best for you, it is hard enough knowing what is best for me and my family; I expect you would feel the same way. So why then do you allow others to decide all manner of things for you and your family? The family man or woman knows instinctively that it is almost impossible to know the mind of another, even those bounded by blood itself. It takes years of hard work, effort and living together to even begin to comprehend what the person next to needs in in any given situation. Therefore those closest to a problem are the one’s best equipped to handle it.
Politics should extend outward from this basic principle, not downward from the ideals of over-educated mongrels that see people only as a means to an end. The sad thing is, with so many young people now being sold a false idea of happiness as isolation and liberty as being free from duty, I fear the future will only become more abstract and ideological, as these become substitutes to the real fulfillment of family. Only by being grounded in the family, however that happens to be constituted, can we hope to strive for a future free from top down control and all the human wreckage it causes.
