Tune in to some mainstream cable shows and you will likely hear panelists discussing daily threats to our democracy while also musing about post-Trump America. Commentators warn those breaking the law will pay a price later when things get back to normal. And yet, normal is what got us here in the first place and we need to decide whether to learn from in history or repeat it. We have been here before. Carl Becker, in a 1941 essay entitled The Dilemma of Modern Democracy, wrote that “Common men, when sufficiently distressed, instinctively turn to the inspired leader; and dictatorship in our time, as in past times, is the normal price extracted for the failure of democracy to bind common men by their hopes and fears.” As this statement suggests, we have again failed to bind our fellow citizens to a common purpose and vision. Something more basic than MAGA fanaticism needs to be considered before speculating what a post-Trump presidency would look like – assuming, that is, there is accountability, which would be a novelty for this country regarding the rich and powerful, and a desire to actually put in the work necessary for change.
What we need to do is consider all the ways we have disrupted our connections to others and to nature. We are all social animals. There was a time, not long ago, that our social needs were met through community, an amazing and powerful social construct that provides for and supports personal development, agency, growth, and power. These connections are responsible for binding personal capacity with the potential for collective power. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, written by Max Horkheimer and Theodore W. Adorno during the Second World War and published in 1947, they explain that prior to the period of Enlightenment, nature was the source of mystery explained through and understood only by sorcerers and shamans. Claiming to understand, even control, that which was beyond the understanding of common people, fabricated doctrines and predictions instilled common folk with superstition and subjected them to control by others. Enlightenment purported, with evidence, to allow for power over nature. “Enlightenment’s program was the disenchantment of the world. It wanted to dispel myths, to overthrow fantasies with science” [and to] “establish man as the master of nature.” This dominion over nature eventually extended to power over people. The elite become the new sorcerers, with knowledge and power possessed and managed by the few. For most, subjugation remained a reality. “Adaptation to the power of progress furthers the progress of power.” This is a reality we see with a vengeance today as AI takes control over more and more aspects of our lives.
The point is, there is a direct relationship between our separation from nature and our subordination to those who claim to have mastered, as they continue to master, it and us. This suggests the need to reclaim our legacy within the natural world we purport to control but is controlled to our collective detriment. Reconnecting with one another must also include reconnecting to the environments we rely upon for life itself.
In terms of reconnecting to others and reviving community, we can take some cues from nature itself. I imagine community as being similar to mycelium networks – hidden from sight but critical to a healthy and thriving forest. This intricate fabric of underground growth is not something we think much about and mostly take for granted. What child has not walked across a yard or field and, on seeing a mushroom, immediately took to smashing it underfoot or kicking it aside? Our attention was focused on what we saw, but the magic and majesty is what lay beneath the surface.
Mycelium networks are underground fungal systems that do not only anchor the mushrooms we see, but serve as communication links and defensive mechanisms shared between and among trees and other plants. If a tree is threatened, the threat can be communicated across the network so other trees can build their defenses. If a young sapling is in need of nutrients, older trees can provide them. And the relationship is symbiotic. Trees feed the systems from which they benefit by supplying the mycelium with the carbohydrates (sugar) needed to grow and thrive. Mycelium also breaks down organic matter in the soil and assists trees in absorbing water and essential nutrients. Eliminate mycelium and the entire ecosystem collapses.
Extending this analogy to community, we are the trees, but with the ability to attach and detach from our roots at will. Our networks, community networks, serve us in many ways. Self-discovery/self-realization, a process that occurs over time (and ideally over the course of a lifetime), develops from within and from without us in the context of our living circumstances. We are who we are based upon a combination of genetic codes and our experiences within the physical and social environments we inhabit. Socialization in a supportive setting, which is diverse and challenging, is critical to self-actualization. It is also an indicator of happiness. To paraphrase Aristotle, happiness comes from the operation of the soul (that which animates us – living) in accordance with our virtues (talents). Basically, we are happy when we have the opportunity to grow into the full realization of our capacities and talents and have the opportunity to utilize them in our lives, thereby leading to self-fulfillment.
Community also gives our lives meaning and purpose. Some define the meaning of our lives and purpose as God-given. This can work until recurring, unresolved stress enters our lives. At that point, from a religious standpoint, the most convenient explanation for the emergence of troubles is that we have been removed from God’s graces and all is hopeless. Others define meaning as the joy derived through access to leisurely pursuits – engaging in triviality and passive distractions. Eventually, the vacuous core of such activity comes to the fore and reflects upon us as a mirror. In the 1960s we were told we are what we eat. But in the 21st Century, as always, we are what we do. And if what we do is without substance, over time that emptiness will emerge as a projection of ourselves.
From an existential perspective, the purpose of life is to live, and the meaning of life is what we make of it. And to make the most of it, we must make the most of ourselves. To do that, we must develop our individuality in the context of others and the environments we share. The highest good exists when there is respect and dignity for all, as well as for nature. To paraphrase Spinoza, since we are nothing without exposure to external causes, we are most perfected through our relations with others and nature. This should make social ecology (unity in diversity, both regarding people and the environments we share) an imperative, and cause us to see love of others as equivalent to self-interest: “it follows not accidentally but from the very nature of reason, that man’s highest good is common to all…”
When existence is complemented by mycelium networks, each tree is able to realize its full capacity for growth and contribute to a diverse, interdependent environment. A tree is still a tree, resplendent in its individual attributes, but safer, more impactful, more meaningful, and more useful in the context of its surroundings. Through communication, carbon-sharing, and support of the underground systems that provide needed nutrients, soil control, and water management, thriving forests emerge. Community allows each of us to rise above our individual limitations and accomplish through mutual effort and support that which would be impossible to do on our own, all while creating a social environment that provides us with meaning and purpose. Outside threats are confronted through unity. Cooperation and mutual aid help to ensure survival and communal success. Our forest is a thriving, interdependent, collectively powerful community.
Without communal support, we are isolated; we are adrift, we are lost; we are vulnerable. We are also prone to doubt our worth. Eric Fromm, in Escape From Freedom, writes that a person’s doubt of his or her significance “will not disappear as long as man does not overcome his isolation…” He goes further to explain the complementary nature of how to become oneself, while also becoming one with the world, “There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world…as a free and independent individual.”
Germans were taught during the Hitler’s reign that they cannot rely on themselves, and must submit to a higher earthly power, namely the Fuhrer. It seems we are currently in a similar situation in the United States with Donald Trump who, along with the masters of Artificial Intelligence, lie, manipulate and exploit, then demand allegiance, favor supplicants, tolerate lackeys, dismiss the commoner, and show preference for algorithms and machines over human input and volition.
Starting with Donald Trump:
“Only I can fix this!”
“Don’t believe what you see with your eyes, or hear with your ears.”
“Fake news! It’s all a hoax!”
Trump TV as: “Essential news”
“I can do anything I want as President”
“They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you – and I’m just standing in their way.”
“Vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it again – I’ll fix everything.”
And as for the techies:
“Freedom and democracy are not compatible.”
“Many people who try to do big bold things in the world find out it’s not about the money or the technology: it’s about the regulatory hurdles that will try to stop you”
“Failure is not an option. If you are not failing, you are not innovating enough”
“Artificial intelligence will be the most powerful technology ever created by humanity, and it has the potential to improve every aspect of our lives.”
“AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I dunno, electricity or fire.”
Of course, some of the above is true, but there are those who can plainly see the dangers as well. Before his death, Stephen Hawkins noted: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”
If community is analogous to mycelium networks, what does the future hold based upon the uninterrupted continuation of current political, economic, ecological, and technological developments? Somewhat metaphorically, I visualize each of us alone and isolated, sitting in a chair, with IV parenterally feeding us with what we believe we need to get through our pathetic lives. In my vision, there are numerous IV bags hanging from one or more stands. Each of the bags is labeled, with six of them labeled, News, Social Media, Movies, Shopping, Shows, Games, and Politics. Passive consumers of them are we all. In this metaphorical vision we are all effectively in the Matrix, feeding a machine we have no control over.
How Do We Get Out of This?
One of the tech quotes above is from Peter Theil. He believes that democracy and freedom are incompatible. Of course, by freedom he means freedom for himself and his tech-buddies, and slavery for the rest of us. But if we were to look for apt contradictions, like Theil decrying his lack of freedom in a democracy, it is more aptly found in the contradiction between democracy and capitalism. Democracy and Capitalism are not compatible.
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt makes the case:
“Hobbes was the true, though never fully recognized, philosopher of the bourgeoisie because he realized that acquisition of wealth conceived as a never-ending process can be guaranteed only by the seizure of political power, for the accumulating process must sooner or later force open all existing territorial limits. He foresaw that a society which had entered the path of never-ending accumulation had to engineer a dynamic political organization capable of a corresponding never-ending process of power generation.”
This power generation requires that we become and remain insecure and isolated – as consumers, as workers, as voters, as neighbors, as learners, as believers. We must relinquish our agency, abandon critical thinking, and submit to the demands of those who are in charge. We are in the late stages of capitalism (some would say capitalism is already dead and we are in a new phase of techno-feudalism, but more about that later). In this late stage of capitalist exploitation, we are required to abandon ourselves and submit to higher authorities because “the functioning of the economic apparatus demands that the masses be without the hindrance of individuation.” [Dialectics of Enlightenment] Individual agency is a threat to a system dependent upon manipulation. In the end nothing is left for us – we are told what we want, what we need, and when we should get it. Every aspect of our lives is dependent upon outside control geared towards resource extraction, wealth concentration and the endless accretion of power. As stated by Murray Bookchin in The Ecology of Freedom, “Capitalism…has absorbed every cultural, ethical and psychological issue into a material system of needs and technics.”
From his privileged perspective, Peter Theil is correct. Exclusively elite, unencumbered freedom is not compatible with democracy. That is because, in a democracy, freedom consists of both negative and positive dimensions. Negative freedoms, which are mostly how we understand the concept of freedom, represent the absence of constraints. We are basically free to do whatever we want, except to the extent it (legally) hurts or negatively impacts others. Positive freedom has to do with both our duty to ourselves and to others. Our personal duty is to realize our potential through the process of self-actualization. Our duty to others is to facilitate their growth and self-realization. This aspect of freedom is far removed from the elitist viewpoints of our billionaire class and their minions. True democracy is an impediment to free market capitalism. As stated so directly by the American educator and philosopher John Dewey, in Freedom and Culture, “The idea of a pre-established harmony between the existing so-called capitalistic regime and democracy is as absurd a piece of metaphysical speculation as human history has ever evolved.”
And to be clear, for those who believe that techno-feudalism or techno-fascism has supplanted capitalism, that is a mistake. The systems are the same. The only things that have changed are that factories have been, and are being, replaced by data centers; “living labor” (in the Marxist sense) has substantially been replaced (or soon will be displaced) by Artificial Intelligence. Capital, defined as current surplus value that is available for further exploitation to create more surplus value, is now more independent from labor, more self-generating and even self-enhancing. Generative AI-based production is simply the next phase of capitalism. And given that AI now represents our political economy’s upper tier, the imperative of endless growth, universal sectoral dominance, and the appropriation of social, cultural, creative content, and all other forms of innovation is more important than ever.
Considerations for a More Humane Future
In order to secure a future that promotes humanistic cultural progress, we need to address those things that have created or facilitated our inhumane circumstances, fostered tribal rivalries, and promoted civic discord. What follows is a list of conditions that must be addressed if we are to transform a culture of hatred, jealousy, insecurity and greed into a culture of inclusion, diversity, sister- and brotherhood. Those things include:
Isolation – In isolation we are without power, and vulnerable to manipulation and control. It is in the interest of elected leaders, government officials, commercial enterprise, employers, elites and all others who benefit from our complacency, incapacity, distraction and weakness that we are and remain as isolated and marginalized as is politically feasible. As Arendt states in Origins: “isolation… is impotence… insofar as power always comes from men acting together…”
Disposability – In Marxist ideology, surplus labor is critical to a capitalist system to keep the employed docile and in constant fear of joining the forces of the unemployed. With the emergence of AI and its job-busting capabilities, that segment of the labor class will expand considerably (covering nearly 47% of all jobs, according to some estimates) and many in the workforce will become what Yuval Harari in Homo Deus describes as: “a massive new unworking class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to prosperity, power, and glory in society. The ‘useless class’ will not merely be unemployed – it will be unemployable…”
Rugged Individualism – As a baby-boomer, I, like many of my generation, have been socialized to idolize the independent, self-sufficient, “I don’t need nobody for nothing” American. We were taught to believe we lived in a meritocracy and that anyone who studied and worked hard enough could become a millionaire, and even be elected President. Of course, there are those who have come from less than affluent backgrounds and done just that. And yet, although there are discrepancies among different studies, one recent study by Oxfam claims that about 60% of the billionaire class derived that wealth not from sheer talent and grit, but from either inheritance, cronyism, corruption or monopoly power. But even if this is overstated, the fact is that in this free society of ours, the super-wealthy (top 1%) own nearly a third of all wealth, while the top 10% own over 2/3 or all wealth. On the other end of the spectrum, even with so many working multiple jobs, over 40% of Americans don’t even have $400 available in the event of an emergency. Rugged individualism is a con and most of us are modern day versions of Tantalus, the underworld repentant for whom fruit and water was seemingly available, but as he went to grab fruit the branches would extend beyond his reach, and whenever he bent to drink, the level of water would recede.
Zero Sum Economy – One of my favorite memes shows three people at a table. At the head of the table is a well-dressed man with a plate overflowing with cookies. To one side of him is a White guy in a hardhat with one cookie on his plate. On the other side is a worker who looks like an immigrant. His plate is empty. The guy at the head of the table looks over to the White worker, points a finger at the other guy and says, “That man over there wants your cookie!” This is a great illustration of why so many of us believe we live in a zero-sum economy, such that I can only get ahead at the expense of another, and if someone else does well, it is at my expense. It does not have to be that way, but it is our reality – at least for those of us who have seen upwards of 80 trillion dollars (that’s $80,000,000,000,000) transferred from the bottom 90% of us to the uppermost 1% over the past half-century. We seem to have progressed well beyond LaSalle’s or Ricardo’s Iron Law of Wages (wages always tend toward the bare minimum for a worker to meet his or her most basic needs), graduating to a not-so-new economic theory, the Iron Law of Greed, which I learned in my first year of law school has no limit.
Human Value Based on Wealth – Go into most any courthouse and somewhere there will be a statue of a blindfolded woman. That statue represents Lady Justice, and stands for the proposition that justice is blind, which follows that fairness will prevail regardless of a person’s race, ethnic origin, religious background, or wealth. However, if I prevail in a liability case where I am no longer able to work, am 30 years old, and historically earned about $50,000 a year, that history and its projection through my working years will form the basis for the compensation I will receive in damages. If all the facts are the same, but some other person has earned $500,000 a year (whether realized or unrealized), his or her damages could very well be 10 times my damages. This reality is indicative of a society that sees value mostly to whatever extent it can be monetized.
Profiteering From All Forms of Basic Human Needs – From food, housing, and health care, to fashion trends, cultural expressions, religious holidays and ethnic celebrations, there is no human activity or belief safe from being monetized and profited from. There are no boundaries that cannot be crossed. There are no resources safe from confiscation from the public domain. If a profit cannot be made from it, it has no value unless its provision is a political necessity and then the government must subsidize the profits of those providing the goods or services, all while they pay wages that require public support of their workers.
Passivity – We are consumers all, even of politics. Products are pushed at us daily, as are candidates for office. We consume information from sources of our choosing. We consume the values that form the bases of that information. We consume entertainment. We consume metaphysical guidance, whether from astrology, soothsayers, or religion. We consume culture. We consume citizenship. As our main concerns as citizens are motivated by our supposed rights, with little or no concern for responsibility, we take little or no responsibility and are happy to be excused from the burdens of citizenship. Thomas Piketty in Capital and Ideology writes: “The economy is at the heart of politics; responsibility for it cannot be delegated any more than democracy itself can.” To have it and to keep it, we must work at it and actively be a part of it. Too many of us conflate freedom with leisure. That is a trap. Murray Bookchin, in The Ecology of Freedom, explains that freedom (for the ancient Greeks) does not mean freedom from work. “Freedom existed for activity, not from activity. It was not a realm but a practice – the practice of being free by participating in free institutions, by daily recreating, elaborating, and fostering the activity of being free.” And yet, with each passing day we delegate more of our work, attention, capacity, control, and desires to indifferent algorithms operated by artificial intelligence, which enrich a class of tech billionaires who seek an outcome that either makes them the rulers of a new Civitas Dei, or the sole surviving exiles of Armageddon. We continue to sleep at our own peril.
Relationship to Others and to Nature – Benedict de Spinoza wrote that we are all bound together, and because of that what we want for ourselves we should want for others. He stated that our union with others and nature is a goal both for self-preservation and for “perfection obtained by the association of people united as one.” Alone, we are weak and vulnerable, but together we have power, the power to address wrongs and achieve mutual goals. Erich Fromm writes about the stress and anxiety one experiences when a person “stands alone and faces the world in all its perilous and overpowering aspects.” He goes on to write that too often the response to this stress is submission. Whether consciously or unconsciously, submission is how most of us today seem to be dealing with the real possibility of this country heading towards totalitarianism. However (Again from Fromm) – “the only way which is productive and does not end in an insoluble conflict, is that of spontaneous relationship to man and nature, a relationship that connects the individual with the world without eliminating his individuality.” To apply this remedy, it is necessary that we start by reclaiming our own individuality, and not through tattoos, body piercings or other illusory forms of distinction. We reclaim ourselves through the development of our capacities and talents, expressed through our concerted integration with the world around us. Once accomplished, we can then operate within the world with intention and purpose. Those who would subjugate us have succeeded in removing the connections we have had to one another, connections that were rooted in community.
Paternalistic Hierarchy – I agree with Murray Bookchin (The Next Revolution) who explains that “issues such as gender discrimination, racism, and national chauvinism must be recast not only as cultural and social regressions but as evidence of the ills produced by hierarchy.” He goes on to explain that a true libertarian would look to eliminate all such delineations not specifically justified based upon group needs, as opposed to presumptions of status. There is also a downside to hierarchy that many do not see when experiencing it. In Thick, Tressie MacMillan Cottom writes “what Black feminists promised all along was true: to know the most present marginalized oppressions is to know the future.” I believe this has specific relevance to many in the MAGA movement. Deprived of preference and presumed dominance within a fabricated racial hierarchy, many White working-class Americans who once felt (with good reason) that the system worked for them, are now feeling many of the same pressures of a marginalized existence once reserved for Black Americans. That is one reason why they may be Trump enthusiasts. And why are they still hanging on? One might find further reasoning from Isaiah Berlin (Crooked Timber of Humanity). Here, he explains the hold religion has in controlling people and how, in difficult circumstances, politics can develop the same appeal, even when objectively it makes no sense. “Having lost the belief in its own rationale, it elevates the cult of the irrational to the status of a modern religion.” There you have it. “They’re eating the dogs; they’re eating the cats,” is now, for too many, as believable as transubstantiation.
Property Ownership – The great switcheroo of our nation’s founding occurred in the span of about eleven years. The Declaration of Independence named “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” as the hallmarks of a democratic society. But by the time of the adoption of the United States Constitution, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness transformed into “life, liberty and property.” That is a change with immense implications. How we view property needs reconsideration. We could learn much from indigenous people, including the history of our own Native American. For them, property was mostly held in common for the benefit of all. And when land ownership was permitted, it was temporary and any form of such private ownership had to function for the common good. Western philosophy has even touched upon this belief, even if without effect. Thomas Aquinas believed that private property could only be justified to the extent it served the welfare of all. He also believed all ownership should be temporary. In more recent times, Thomas Piketty makes case that to have a shot at a decent life we need to be provided with an ongoing share of accumulated wealth “so that the top 10%, and especially the top centile of the population will not continue to be unfairly advantaged.”
What Would Such A Society Look Like?
If we, as a people, agreed that capitalism was anathema to democracy and were to choose democracy, this would be the basis for new forms of government and a restructured economy. If there was basic agreement that the topics listed above represent ways of living that dehumanize and denigrate, there would need to be countless discussions on what alternatives should be promoted and where they would likely lead. I do not presume to predict the outcomes from such discussions. However, I would hope that such deliberations would lead to a kind of hybrid political economy that basically operated on two levels. On the federal level, matters of national and international importance would be handled, such as responsibility for the military, intra-national commerce, foreign relations, the interstate travel, monetary policy, and international diplomatic relations. Beyond this, the federal government would control large scale industrial production, major research and development, all technologies related to artificial intelligence, space exploration, and all other matters with national and international importance and impact.
The rest of the country could be organized into communities. There would likely still be States, but they would function primarily as coordinating and conflict resolution bodies. Under this model, the economy would be decentralized, its members engaged in operating small retail, services and small manufacturing business, providing community service, producing food in open spaces and, in cities, through vertical farming. Localities would essentially function as cooperative democracies. Consumer and producer cooperatives would be incentivized. Alternate currencies would be encouraged. Inter-communal trade would be facilitated. Permanent private property would be prohibited and all temporary private property and any private business would have to be operated for the general welfare.
Again, it is not the purpose of this piece to predict or propose something that should develop organically. Looking at the incomplete list of items that lead to inhumanity, this is what I came up with. Others, working collaboratively, could very well come up with other models, all of which would hopefully lead to humanistic outcomes where all have civil rights as well as civic responsibilities, where all are treated with respect and dignity, where there are no fixed hierarchies, no preferential status, and where a culture of diversity, inclusion, cooperation, and respect for others and the environments we share are paramount. Otherwise, continuing on our current path will undoubtedly lead to a very dark era. Hopefully we will overcome the Roman poet Ovid’s pessimism of humanity, writing: “I see better things and approve, but I follow worse.” The path is ours to choose, but the need to choose and then we need to act .