The Evolutionary Path

Sometimes I feel like I am becoming cynical in my dotage. Fortunately there are still enough pleasant surprises to foil my falling into a cynicism laced miasma. Recently I was chewing the fat (which is maybe my best skill) with a Mennonite gentleman for whom I had done some work. When you do work for a Mennonite you can rest assured that he has already done everything he knows to do and only the hard stuff is left. Anyway, our conversation turned to matters more esoteric and I said to him that I had decided my true calling was to be a philosopher. He looked at me seriously and asked why I thought that and I told him that I thought about things a lot and that it didn't require a degree as far as I knew. He asked me what kind of things I thought about and I told him that my philosophical musings took me far and wide. He nodded sagely and said, “me, too.”

Many of you know that my musings often take a political tack. I don't think of them as overtly political but more of a social consciousness nature. Being of a certain philosophical mindset those dissonant thoughts often coalesce into a form that is misunderstood by many and ridiculed by quite a few too.

My entire life I have believed that humans are innately capable of being rational people and if one's arguments are cogent and persuasive enough that one's mind could be changed. I have begun to call that premise into question. I have encountered quite a number of people who refuse to accept rationality and instead cling to a notion and seem incapable of being swayed. When I present a premise or argument it is as if I have said nothing and when pressed for facts to support their premise they seem to be able to offer either nothing or something easily refuted. The percentage of minds I have been able to change is so small as to be infinitesimal. Now I know that you may say that I always think I am right and that is absolutely true. But I also believe that I am capable of changing my mind when faced with irrefutable facts that demand a different position.

There has been a lot written about the human mind and how our minds reach conclusions that are strongly held. Much of it is attributed to an ancient inclination to tribalism which was at one time an evolutionary survival trait. We banded together to increase our safety and to repel others who would endanger us. We are unaware of it usually but we still retain many of those traits it being that we simply have not had enough time to begin to lose those traits. The evolution of inherent traits can often take much longer than we have had time to change. Given that argument, and it seems reasonable, our notion of free will and our ability to make rational choices in self governance can be called into question. I suspect that in time our inclination to tribalism will wane and we will become evolutionarily more equipped to tasks that involve making decisions beyond those that affect us directly and which may require us to view benefits of a society as a whole.

I am faced with this dilemma in our current political discourse. To me one position is logical and supported by facts and the competing argument is ruled by emotion. It is never as simple as that but it seems that many are unable to bring cognition to bear and will reject any attempt to query them about their references.   Often only by asserting the falsity of the other. My lifelong assumption of innate rationality seems to be in error and if it is then what are we to make of our lauded ability to decide our own paths? Is it simply evidence of an evolutionary path that will eventually lead us either to a better existence or return us to a prior state? An evolutionary dead end so to speak.

Often I speculate on the FOUNDERS. I place that word in all caps to emphasize the reverence in which we hold them. They were mighty thinkers, products of the relatively new period of enlightenment but it should be remembered that much of their discourse took place in taverns over copious quantities of ale and that is fertile soil for grandiose thoughts. However, they led us to revolution which we celebrate as the throwing off the yoke of King George but which was in many cases just rattling over philosophy. It is estimated that at the beginning of the Revolutionary War only about a third of the people really wanted to separate from Great Britain. Most thought things were pretty good if the Brits would just let us ply our trade as we wished and have a little self governance. We all know how that turned out and the grand experiment in self governance began. No matter how we gussy it up it still comes down to opinions strongly held whether valid or not. We have made decent choices as often as not and I suspect it is the moribund state of bureaucracy that keeps the wheels from flying off. Self governance seems to be guided by the law of averages that allows us to be right as often as not. How I wish there existed a means of debating these great questions in order to winnow out the chaff and bring revelation to light but we have yet to develop the political will to do it.

My Take is that it takes great perseverance to pursue the path of vision and not succumb to the comfort of tribalism. What are your thoughts on this matter?