Pondering Political Evolution
By Alex Hammer
Does the actual nature of politics change or instead only the political players and political methods?
Is every election cycle a replay of elements that have been recycled in human history in regard to our goals, needs and behaviors?
Politics advances as human nature advances. If it does.
Social evolution, as I refer to it, is not limited to greater adaptability and survival skill, but progress as a species. Intellectual, emotional, spiritual.
That is, advances in our being. Which, if true, would evolve our politics.
In what way?
What is the Einsteinian paradigm shift for politics? Are political laws, like those in nature, dependent upon our perspective?
What is the Copernicusian paradigm shift for politics? Do we need a Columbus to move beyond linear and party-based modes of thinking?
“The More Things Change”
Sometimes it is a matter of two steps forward and one step back.
Or five steps forward and six steps back.
Has our politics and political system really advanced at all?
Some things are paradoxical. In baseball, a runner on first base, as measured by distance, is closer to home than a runner on second. But in regard to sequence, he or she is further away, because a runner on first base must first run to second before eventually going home.
And so it is with politics. I believe that politics is becoming more warlike but in a more civilized way. We’re at each others throats but we are not literally at each other’s throats. Like a spiral staircase, we’re coming back to the same point over and over again, but with a higher vantage point.
And hopefully a higher perspective.
More conscious.
The Complexity of the World
When you have more information and more ideas then you have more points for potential disagreement. What are the organizing principles? How does one make order out of political chaos? Do we do so by integrating information or by discarding it?
If we have an army of one within a global community, how is our politics defined? Are we shaping the media or are they shaping us? What about the blogs?
They say that sometimes becoming smarter is in asking better questions. Sometimes we know more than we are capable of verbalizing.
Some might say that our politics and our world is advancing, even if they couldn’t detail exactly how.
Some might say it is in decline.
They say that there is nothing new under the sun? If that is true, what are we to make of the constant political chant for change? Change to what? More enlightened policies? Can more enlightened policies arise anywhere but from more enlightened beings?
We have met the enemy
If this is the age of political disillusionment then why do we still constantly strive and yes, hope? If we’re on the verge of extinction and breakdown and bankruptcy then why are there in some sense more choices and from those choices opportunities than there has ever been?
Are political parties stronger or weaker than they have been in the past? Do we all fundamentally think and feel in more similar manners or differently?
“The world may never know”
Alex Hammer is a businessman who is active in Maine politics. He has run as an independent for governor in Maine before and this year sued the state in a dispute over getting on the ballot.