American society is broken in terms of politics. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be so broken like it is now. America can do lots
better.
1. As a default proposition and with maybe a very few exceptions, and many degrees of intensity, most people are highly morally judgmental, intolerant and narrow-minded.
2. Human mental activity is mostly unconscious and intuitive for most people and those biological processes can be easily tricked, misled and manipulated, e.g., intentional deceit routinely happens in politics.
3. We can consciously reduce unconscious personal fact and logic distortion if, and only if, (1) we become aware of our biological mental situation and (2) we want to change from being mostly intuitive-subjective in our thinking to becoming more open-minded and rational-objective (here's a short story that nails this perfectly).
4. It isn't yet clear if our cognition or mode of thinking is biologically constrained to humans being 99% unconscious and intuitive-subjective (i.e., only 1% conscious and rational-objective) or something less, e.g., 90% or maybe even 75% - DP's personal bias is that for most average people conscious and rational-objective thinking can have at least 10-20% of the influence or power over our judgments and behavior and maybe even 50-70% for some people.
That's just a taste for where human civilization can go, if people have the will to change. At the moment, there is no such collective or societal will. In fact, powerful currents in American society are pushing people away from conscious rational objectivity and toward self-deluded unconscious intuitive subjectivity. That is a major factor in (i) what is tearing American society apart and (ii) increasing the odds that humans will kill themselves off in some avoidable act of violence or by lulling them into complacency about a latent existential threat - the human mind is not equipped to react to certain kinds of modern threats because we didn't evolve with, and have to survive, any modern threat.
That's just a taste for where human civilization can go, if people have the will to change. At the moment, there is no such collective or societal will. In fact, powerful currents in American society are pushing people away from conscious rational objectivity and toward self-deluded unconscious intuitive subjectivity at least in politics, if not most everything else. That is a major factor in (i) what is tearing American society apart and (ii) increasing the odds that humans will kill themselves off in some avoidable act of violence or by lulling them into complacency about a latent existential threat - the human mind is not equipped to react to certain kinds of modern threats because we didn't evolve with, and have to survive, any modern threats.
How to fix what's broken
This is the fix: With a will to do so and lots of sustained
effort, we can change from a species, society or individual that is
overwhelmingly and unconsciously morally judgmental, intolerant and
intuitive-subjective to one that is less driven by those unconscious
personal biases. Humans can train themselves to be at least somewhat
more driven by our conscious capacity to reason without all the
astounding fact- and logic-distortion that goes on unconsciously in the
human mind.
Moral courage
That kind of mind set change isn't easy and for some
or many (most?) people, the transition will be impossible. Changing from
an intuitive-subjective to a rational-objective mind set requires
self-awareness and blunt, honest questioning of one's own personal
morals, values and ideologies. That exercise takes moral courage and
most people are not up to the task especially (i) if they have to try to
transition alone and without help and/or peer pressure and (ii) when
society is pushing them hard to move in the opposite direction of being
more intuitive-subjective, which is the case in modern America and most
or all other countries on Earth.
It's about biology, not philosophy, religion or ideology
All of that is based on cognitive
biology and social science, not philosophy. Philosophy, like other
things, including politics and religion, is a direct manifestation of
our cognitive biology, which is a direct manifestation of how we
evolved. Science has finally figured out how our brains work to the
extent that reasonably accurate or meaningful generalizations can be
made - the details are still a work in progress:1. As a default proposition and with maybe a very few exceptions, and many degrees of intensity, most people are highly morally judgmental, intolerant and narrow-minded.
2. Human mental activity is mostly unconscious and intuitive for most people and those biological processes can be easily tricked, misled and manipulated, e.g., intentional deceit routinely happens in politics.
3. We can consciously reduce unconscious personal fact and logic distortion if, and only if, (1) we become aware of our biological mental situation and (2) we want to change from being mostly intuitive-subjective in our thinking to becoming more open-minded and rational-objective (here's a short story that nails this perfectly).
4. It isn't yet clear if our cognition or mode of thinking is biologically constrained to humans being 99% unconscious and intuitive-subjective (i.e., only 1% conscious and rational-objective) or something less, e.g., 90% or maybe even 75% - DP's personal bias is that for most average people conscious and rational-objective thinking can have at least 10-20% of the influence or power over our judgments and behavior and maybe even 50-70% for some people.
That's just a taste for where human civilization can go, if people have the will to change. At the moment, there is no such collective or societal will. In fact, powerful currents in American society are pushing people away from conscious rational objectivity and toward self-deluded unconscious intuitive subjectivity. That is a major factor in (i) what is tearing American society apart and (ii) increasing the odds that humans will kill themselves off in some avoidable act of violence or by lulling them into complacency about a latent existential threat - the human mind is not equipped to react to certain kinds of modern threats because we didn't evolve with, and have to survive, any modern threat.
That's just a taste for where human civilization can go, if people have the will to change. At the moment, there is no such collective or societal will. In fact, powerful currents in American society are pushing people away from conscious rational objectivity and toward self-deluded unconscious intuitive subjectivity at least in politics, if not most everything else. That is a major factor in (i) what is tearing American society apart and (ii) increasing the odds that humans will kill themselves off in some avoidable act of violence or by lulling them into complacency about a latent existential threat - the human mind is not equipped to react to certain kinds of modern threats because we didn't evolve with, and have to survive, any modern threats.
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