Heidegger

An internet correspondent, Dr. Dan Watkins, confessed that he loves
democracy for the wrong reasons.

I realize now that all my critique of democracy on this and other lists is
morally neutral. Seeing the faults of a system does not necessarily mean one
has to hate it. In fact, by enlarging the area of one’s understanding, one’s
ability to love increases. Reading George Orwell’s 1984 I realized that if
you understand Big Brother, you may love Big Brother. Understanding the
inner motivations of important political decisions makes us understand our
leaders, and thus we get closer to forgiving their faults and we get closer
to loving them.

I could not understand reading it if Orwell was pro or against
totalitarianism, for I saw in his book reasons to support both the thesis
and the anti-thesis. He is anti-totalitarian in the literal meaning of
what’s written there and in the sketch of the plot, but in the subtext he
cultivates a deep understanding for the motivations of the totalitarian
politicians.

Political groups which are cloned one from the other, hate each other’s guts
without realizing how much in common they have. E.g., neoconservatives and
fundamentalist Islamists are not that different as they seem: both groups
fight against the anarchy due to exacerbated individualism.

The cliché in politics is that one is told to do the good and advancing the
interests of his/her own group is a form of doing the good. The evil has to
be unmasked, mistakes have to be corrected and the guilty ones have to be
punished. What this argument ignores is that Plato’s good is amoral. One
cannot “do good” as ones “does his/her homework”, the same way one cannot do
the Tao. You are one with Tao if you let everything be, let it flow like a
stream of water. Tao which is done purposefully, that is ersatz.

Democracy will eventually rot away in a couple of centuries. Signs of its
decay are all around us. The Orientals think that if you have patience and
wait, you will see the corpse of your enemy flowing down the Ganges. Why
haste things? That could only lead to further trouble.

So, what’s the main cause of trouble? Impatience and lack of understanding.
Realizing this is for me like an experience of religious conversion. I feel
now what I should have felt when I got baptized. I am happy for becoming
wiser, for enlarging my understanding. It feels exactly like receiving God’s
message in a revelation.

This makes me understand the true meaning of the Socratic thesis that evil
is due to ignorance. In the IT world there’s a saying: if it isn’t broken,
don’t fix it! This is wisdom.

Formatting political thinking in terms of good and evil, that is childish
and irrational.

Greetings,

Tudor

Posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback