Thursday is usually my philosophy day, so here is a pensée from a little further down the line. Here was the first.
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1 The first question I want to address in the area of social and political philosophy has to do with the ideal form of government. What is it? Most of us do not have much say in the form of government under which we live. Perhaps we could migrate from one place to another. Occasionally, someone lives during a time of revolution and can either participate or resist. But almost none of us will be a Benjamin Franklin or an Oliver Cromwell or a Fidel Castro.
As a sidenote, I believe the United States is currently in a somewhat precarious position, and I have written as much in The United States versus Whatever This Is. There are forces that want to change the U.S. Constitution to make it more into their vision of a Christian nation. This is misguided for several reasons, not least a fundamental lack of biblical depth. But I will hold off my thoughts on theocracies until the next pensée.
In this pensée, I wish rather to address two forms of "government" that I strongly do not recommend and consider to be highly impractical. These are anarchy (rule by no one) and communism, which alleges that all property might be shared in common by a community with no one actually owning anything.
2. There were voices in the 1700s that thought a human in a primitive state would be pure. Thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) believed that society was often a corrupting influence on the good in humanity. [1] The purest human would be something like a "noble savage" that was not entangled by politics or social entanglements. Tarzan, if you would.
He was wrong. Human nature is human nature. A solitary human is a far more vulnerable human. A solitary human is unable to thrive as much as in a positive community.
This is true, by the way, on a national scale. A country that tries to go it alone is a vulnerable country. I think of the villages along the coasts of the North Sea that were delighted to go about their own business until the Vikings came and took their stuff and burned their villages. Think of the way the English treated the Scots, who just wanted to be left alone. Even today, peaceful countries like Finland and Norway are in danger from agression from Russia and need allies.
As the African proverb goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
3. Not dissimilar to anarchy is the naive view of freedom that sometimes manifests itself in democratic countries like the United States. "It's a free country," someone might say.
The problem of course is that no freedom is absolute, without exception. When freedoms come into conflict, they cannot equally be expressed. I am not free to kill you, for example. I am not free to steal your things. I have freedom of religion, but not if my religion involves child sacrifice. I have freedom of speech, but there is a line where my speech might directly lead someone to kill you. It is a very hard line to identify, but it exists and I am not free to cross it. I have the right to bear arms, but presumably not if I am a convicted serial killer.
It is quite amazing to me that some Americans seem quite irrational about such things. I am free as long as my freedoms do not substantially interfere with the freedoms of others. Anarchy is impractical because it allows my freedoms to harm you, which does not lead to a thriving society.
4. Of course, this naive view of freedom also is unbiblical. As Paul says, "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity to gratify the flesh" (Gal. 5:13). I am free to serve the Lord. I am free to love others, the verse goes on to say.
The Corinthians were a good example of the naive view of freedom some Christians have. Paul tells them that everything may be lawful for them, but not everything is beneficial (1 Cor. 10:23). They boast in their freedom -- "I have knowledge" (1 Cor. 8:1). They think that because they know there are no other gods, they should be free to eat at pagan temples. "Nobody's home."
Paul corrects them. It's not about their rights, freedoms, and knowledge. It's about looking out for others. It's no coincidence that the love chapter is sandwiched in this sequence. Following Christ is not about me, me, me. It's about loving God and others.
5. Let me use the lock downs during COVID as an example. I recognize that there are those who question the effectiveness of quarantining and vaccines. Most experts continue to maintain that these were best practices and that, indeed, the slowness of the Trump administration to quarantine made the epidemic worse than it would have been. Those claims can of course be debated. For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that these protocols were legitimate.
If in fact they were legitimate, then arguments that the government was oppressing Christians or violating the freedom of religion are clearly misguided. Assuming legitimacy, the government was protecting the populace as its job is and those churches that insisted on meeting potentially were harming others -- even if unintentionally.
Our freedom of religion does not allow us to harm others. And of course, churches were allowed to meet online -- there was no singling out of churches for oppression. Such claims seem to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of freedom in America. At worst, they strike one as rather selfish. Me, me, me. My rights and everyone else be damned.
I am not free to harm others.
6. Let me here assert two key axioms of the ideal society. First, it is a place that aims to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number possible. This is the utilitarian principle. Second, it aims to do so without violating the core rights of every individual. This is the principle behind the Bill of Rights and is technically called "universal ethical egoism." We set up a system that brings about the greatest good for everyone as much as possible. Within this framework, we aim for maximal human freedom.
More on these principles in a later pensée.
7. A second impractical way of structuring society is communistically. Communism is the notion that a society would not have private property but all property would be shared in common. Under the vision of Karl Marx, each person would work according to his or her ability but would receive back only in accordance with his or her need. [2] Marx naively imagined that all this would happen rather automatically if we could get private property out of the way.
We can imagine a situation where one person is sickly and is able to work very little. However, they require great resources. Someone else is extremely able bodied and is able to work incredibly effectively. However, they may need very little. Marx would say, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Although it is no doubt accentuated by our culture, it feels like there is something unfair, perhaps unjust about this set up. The workers in the Parable of the Day Laborers feel it in Matthew 20:1-16. It seems unfair that those who worked one hour should be paid the same as those who worked all day. (Note of course that Jesus is on the "wrong" side of this one.)
8. In the end, communism doesn't work because of human nature. On the one hand, I will argue that society should take care of the person who cannot take care of him or herself. A great society would.
But a society that does not reward work and effort is not a society that thrives. We are made to strive. We are made to try to excel. From a biblical perspective, we were made to "subdue the earth," not in terms of trashing it but in terms of striving to become the best we can be.
The twentieth century attempts to create a thriving society through communism were all failures. They never even achieved a communist society but were able to get no further than a kind of authoritarian socialism. They ended up debasing humanity rather than elevating it. Eastern Europe was a failure. The Soviet Union was a failure. Cuba and North Korea have been failures when it comes to elevating everyone.
We will have time later to talk about economic philosophy. For the moment, let us simply note that true communal experiments have not lasted for long. The Shakers, Oneida, New York did not last. Usually, the most assertive voices simply run the show unofficially. The Metropolitan Church Association tried to live communally in Chicago and then Waukesha, Wisconsin. But in its latter days, it could only survive off the bequests of individuals joining the community. Eventually it had to close.
Neither anarchy nor communism are effective ways to structure society.
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1755).
[2] Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848).
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