Good v. Power

A Political Dichotomy

There is, today, two fundamentally different ways to view politics broadly. No, I am not talking about Democrats and Republicans, nor about any party at all. I speak of something much, much deeper than that. What is the point of politics? Not the practical point, but the philosophical point. As all actions flow first from ideas, and all ideas are the realm of philosophy, we ought to be quite concerned with this question – especially since we Americans tend to view it in two fundamentally incompatible ways.

We’ll begin with the predominant modern method of distinguishing political intentions: power politics. This sort of view of politics flows from the philosophies of Rousseau, Hobbes, Hegel, and Marx, and says that all human interaction, and therefore all politics, is merely about power – specifically, power to enact ones will over others (libido dominandi, or will to domination). This frame is fundamental to the overwhelming majority of modern political philosophy originating in institutions of higher education, as they are fully enacting a Marxist education model.

This power politics is second nature to those who adopt the lens of Critical Consciousness, and even permeates through to traditionalists to varying degrees. This is simply the water we swim in. It is in the air we breathe. We can’t help but to absorb some of this view no matter how wrong it is because it is the culturally normative mode of thinking. This view is based in Conflict Theory, as adapted, that says all human interactions are about gaining an upper hand over somebody, and the creation of tyrannical hierarchies of power. This view presupposes the relativity of ethics, and therefore their pliability in service of a greater good. Nothing is fixed, so nothing can be said to be universally good or bad. This is the philosophy of genocides and eugenics.

The mode of thought on which America was founded was quite different than the above. This lens was that of a politics representative of an ethical ideal as enacted through government by fallible men. Where the above views ethics as relative the American founding viewed ethics as static, and absolute, as based in natural law and reformed theology. When the ethical ideal is unmoving, and always, reliably consistent, the mind naturally turns to government and politics not merely as a tool for exercising power over others, but as a tool to enact conformity of the polity to that ethical ideal, as balanced against countervailing considerations inherent to the fallibility of government. In other words, the American government was founded to institute, and protect, in perpetuity, an ethical ideal in society, while guarding against too-powerful government.

The implications of this broken dichotomy – of which the overwhelming majority of leftists are Marxian, but, so too, are so many rightists due to adoption of cultural relativism – are extreme and reflected in so much of the brokenness that we see all around us. When those who profess to believe, as the founders did, in a natural law dictated by nature’s God, yet put up artificial barriers between that faith and politics, we have little hope for revival.

If politics is properly viewed as the exercising of an absolute, unchanging ethical system in the sphere of government – as the American founders clearly intended – and one believes in such an unchanging underlying ethical system as a facet of faith (of any sort), to fail to exercise that faith publicly through politics in seeking to moor society broadly to that ethical system is downright sinful, rebellious behavior.

If you, as a person of such faith, have placed such an artificial wall up between your faith and your politics you have adopted a postmodern frame of relativism and nihilism. The wall is not real – it is a social construct designed to fabricate whole cloth taboo around living faith, and rebuking rebellion. No amount of winsomeness without works will make up for this.

There is no wall between faith and politics. There is no wall between metaphysical presuppositions and politics. There is no wall between absolute ethical ideals and politics.

Politics has evolved from persistent war to persistent argument due to these principles. The adoption of postmodern frames will, inevitably, take us back to a politics of persistent war. That’s where this all leads. Find a backbone. Mr. [insert your name here], tear down this wall.