Politics As An Unconscious Process

I want to explain a few things. As regular DOTE readers know, I don't believe that humans are exercising "free will" because there is no such thing. Thus I am a determinist. Now, when we think about "free will" we (and researchers) naturally think about individuals—his brain, or her brain or, more rarely, my brain.

On the other hand, I've also arrived at the conclusion that the most important stuff going on in the unconscious mind is social in nature. Social instincts (like harmonizing) are hard-wired and therefore wholly automatic, just like fight or flight, negativity bias and many other processes. Thus it might be more appropriate to think in terms of groups rather than individuals in so far as humans naturally and mindlessly form strong social bonds. It is therefore more appropriate to investigate free will questions at the level of large populations or social groups.

There is a great deal of superficial variation at the level of individuals; at the large group level, there are only predictable behaviors because the unconscious mind has free rein, unencumbered by weak and ultimately deceptive "deliberative" processes in individual minds.

This makes politics the best way to observe human instinctual (unconscious) behaviors. Politics is simply inter-group conflict writ large. This year has been very interesting in this regard. I've written a couple posts lately (here and here) on the Brexit which have a theme similar to many things I've written before. The simplified world view of those posts asserts that there are our ruling elites on the one hand, and basically everybody else on the other.

This simplified view is a caricature of reality, but it's a useful one. 6000 years of historical data makes it apparent that social stratification (hierarchy) in large complex human societies is built right in, so these two broadly defined groups will always exist. By definition, one of those groups (ruling elites) exercise broad but onerous control over the other (everybody else). If that control becomes too oppressive—if there are here & now existential threats—everybody else, if they are feeling threatened or pinched, rebels against the political order.

That is the situation we have reached today in Western societies. And this is where predictable large group behaviors kick in (beyond a more fundamental social stratification). Let's list a few of the things we've been able to observe on a large scale in 2016.

• Everybody else, if they are being harmed by the status quo imposed by ruling elites, and therefore do not identify with them, must find someone to blame for their impoverished existence. It is interesting that this reaction usually (but not always) manifests as racism, or xenophobia or related responses. It is interesting because this kind of blaming (again in large groups) is always misplaced. It was the ruling elites who screwed them, but unconscious processes at the large group level do not permit a more realistic response. Oppressed humans remain docile in this regard, which is the same as saying that our basic instincts run toward hierarchy.

• Thus we see inevitable similarities in the Brexit Leave voters and Donald Trump voters, who blame immigrants or other weak, outlying social groups for their problems. Bernie Sanders' campaign was interesting in this regard because Bernie was able to direct voters' anger toward "the 1%" (the very rich). So Bernie blamed the right people, broadly speaking, but Bernie is also a socialist idealist, which brings me to...

• ... the argument that historical socialism contradicts the observations made above. On the contrary, socialism and related "isms" were (and are) merely post-hoc rationalizations which facilitate the replacement of one set of elites by another. So Bernie was always full of shit from a human nature point of view, but he did manage to present a set of alluring, hopeful fantasies to "progressive" optimists who necessarily embrace that kind of thing. Here we are interested in predictable outcomes based on how regressed humans function in large populations. (By my definition, the more social identities and pressures are in play, the more primitive, or regressive, human behaviors are.) Even if a progressive political "accident" were to occur, as Bernie's supporters hoped, it would not last long historically speaking.

• Regardless of current political details, which do not matter in the larger scheme of things, our fundamental bifurcation (ruling elites versus everybody else) has led to astonishing amounts of self-serving bullshit on both sides, though we hear from ruling elites far more often because those people run things and therefore (effectively and literally) "own" the mainstream media, which socially identifies with elites and therefore serves up elite narratives. (Economists are "owned" too.) Thoughtful, independent commentaries which transcend fundamental social divisions are vanishingly rare. This veritable flood of motivated nonsense has permitted easy observations of unconscious processes at work (group identification, self-serving corn-pone opinions).

2016 has therefore afforded us an excellent view into what I call Flatland, which on one definition is simply the entire suite of unconscious processes which give rise to the predictable behaviors which define the human condition, which changes materially but not ethically. The term "Flatland" can also refer to the tragic human world those behaviors create.

Lots of things follow from determinism. For example, that argument about "too much democracy" versus "too little democracy" is a red herring because democracy itself is simply not compatible with human nature. Social stratification is fundamental. If democracy is achieved for a while, it will not last long. We don't have a democracy now, as intended by the founding fathers, who were the ruling elites of their time, and by far the likeliest outcome is that we will not have one in the future.

If the forces of reaction win in the United States (as represented by authoritarian Donald Trump) we will "lose" a "democracy" we never had, and if the ruling elites win (as represented by "crooked Hillary"), we will keep the current undemocratic status quo. The only open question is whether we will replace our "liberal" elites with another more authoritarian group which reflects and depends upon fundamental social biases (racism, xenophobia, etc.).

Humans can argue endlessly about these fantasies, and do, based on the fundamental illusion that humans determine their own fate, that humans are making choices. In fact, there is only one possible outcome—ruling elites and everybody else, intra-group harmonizing and inter-group conflict, seemingly endless amounts of motivated "reasoning" (bullshit), and so on. Politics in 2016 only confirms my view that free will does not exist.

Comments

[Jim]

Thanks for the links, too. Interesting as always.

Politics are about the jockeying for power and position amongst the various sub-groups in a society. Each sub-group forms an identity, and the unconscious processes kick in to defend and/or expand that identity.

Any time someone starts arguing about politics, one can pinpoint that person's identity and sub-group, and see what they're trying to protect, and how they bend the reality of the situation to do so.

Sadly, the urge to protect one's own sub-group only leads to greater demarcation lines between each sub-group. Demonizing the other only causes the other to fortify their own sub-group's identity. In times of stress, for instance, one starts thinking of themselves more as R or D, or Southern or Northern, or urban or rural, or white or black, and so on - instead of simply American. These fractures work on each other as a vicious circle, amplifying the process.

Just about everyone does this, and in that way, everyone is the same in so far as they are just trying to defend/further their own sub-group's priorities. The elite, as its own sub-group, does win most battles, as they've already secured most of the resources and instruments of power, and can use those as leverage. Additionally, a characteristic of any group identity is to fail to see and understand positions outside that identity. Or, most of them can't see the big picture, and the elites can use that to help instigate divide-and-conquer situations - the "culture wars" in the U.S. being a great example.

Humans can choose their own fate, but only in so far as one sub-group gains temporary advantage over another. But in the end, we can't alter the larger picture, which is a hierarchical one of those at the top, those at the middle, and those at the bottom. That picture never changes, at least in complex societies.