Questionable Social Differences

 Questionable Social Differences

Three big ideas in history are Democracy, markets, and the unconscious. When ideas are divided or fragmented into various interpretations, distortions can emerge which negate the fertility of relevant interpretations. One way that social critics have addressed this problem is by contrasting the right way to think and live against the wrong way. John Dewey, for example in 1929 ‘The Public and its Problems’ rejected technocracy or rule by experts, elites and professionals, and emphasized the pragmatic benefits of democracy.



Civil society, as distinct from the state, also interacts and does not just react - it becomes a matter of struggle, force, and competition which is manifested by individuals. Interdependent individuals create social relations which are embodied on the basis of ideas but are these ideas practical, legitimate, or ethical? The idea of Democracy, for example, is an ethos that posits fairness, inclusion, truth in speech, rule-following and reason giving, and sincerity which form the legitimate basis for social relations as distinct from relations of domination - the quotidian shunning, harassing, assailing, and abuse. When antagonisms and divisions erupt in the public, the people often look to the state, leadership, for solutions. One issue that arises is whether markets provide or betray solutions to inflation, recession, and violence - the conditions of social relations. The question becomes whether the state destabilizes the public society or whether there are unconscious, invisible forces which cause discontent - the imputed causes to questionable social movements like fascism and communism, neoconservatism and neoliberalism, Republicans and culture warriors.

Eric Voegelin 1952 “The New Science of Politics” said, the problem of the ‘Public' is that the recognition of the structure of reality, the cultivation of the virtues of sophia and prudentia, the discipline of the intellect, and the development of theoretical culture and the life of the spirit are stigmatized in public as "reactionary," while disregard for the structure of reality, ignorance of facts, fallacious misconstruction and falsification of history, irresponsible opining on the basis of sincere conviction, philosophical illiteracy, spiritual dullness, and agnostic sophistication are considered the virtues of man and their possession opens the road to public success. In brief: the public is a problem as long as civilization is reaction, and moral insanity is progress."

Fracturing of the population is multidimensional: occupational categories, race and ethnicity, income levels, party affiliation, regional locus, and gender. There are the higher powers of capitalism: national capitalists, local capitalists: proprietors, partnerships, corporations, foreign capitalists and investors, and international capital. Economic conditions plus the layers of governmental bureaucracy and state institutions have formed the globalized arrangements of neoliberalism. This context then forms the individualized situations of economic and social winners and losers who tend to form groups, relations of domination, often unconsciously, territorially, to protect their perceived self interests. The resulting fear and shame is easily converted into hatred, into communities of hate, where scapegoating, rivalry and hatred is approved. Who are the offenders and who the victims?

Is the public display of hatred and intolerance nothing but the intrapsychic conflicts of distorted world views diffused across entire socio-economic strata, communities and families? Cognitive deficiencies of ideologies make the change from shame to harassment to violence all too easy!