How did our political system get to this point?

As Paul Krugman put it in a recent NY Times op-ed: How did our political system get to this point?

Could it be that the central challenge in a mass market consumer society is to fulfill the very human need to experience belonging to something greater than oneself? Interestingly, the act of belonging implies participating which requires something more than simple consumption. The "something more" includes elements of creation, distribution and control of our personal environment. "The Darknet" is the leading wave of the tsunami of change that is about to sweep over us. For example, J. K. Rawlings latest book is now on the darknet in both electronic book form and as several forms of audio.

From a post of Dave Farber's IP list:

J.K. Rowling could make more money and help the cause of literacy if she authorized electronic versions of her works. Already e-pirates are spreading around the just-released "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" without a nickel reaching Rowling.

What's more, "Harry Potter Radio" this weekend began streaming a highly skillful but totally unauthorized reading of the new Potter to accompany the almost instantly pirated text--scanned from the p-book. So much for the potential of Draconian DRM as a protector of best-sellers.

Along with publishers and policymakers, J.K. might want to check out J.D. Lasica's Darknet to understand the folly of Luddite copyright law as an anti-piracy measure for e-books.

Copyright is okay, but we need balance. If J.K., 40 this month, lives past 70, it will be a century or so before her work enters the public domain. Oh, well. The Darknets are ready if certain stubborn publishers think they can overprice e-books or refuse to release any at all.

David Rothman

Fundamentally, consumerism is like junk food. It feels good but its empty calories have no value as sustenance for our vital human needs. In fact, too many of them may be harmful to your health.

The impulse towards a membership in a greater community, be it membership in a club, association, singing group, bowling league, or a church affiliation, is matched by a seemingly equal drive for the individualism of the solitary hero achiever. These two basic impulses appear to be in conflict. But are they?

Perhaps the answer is simply that we lost the genius of Benj Franklin's Junto.

Franklin described the Junto this way in his Autobiography

"I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy [physics], to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positive opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties."

The results of the original Junto are still evident today as an integral part of American society. The Junto gave us our first library, volunteer fire departments, the first public hospital, police departments, paved streets and the University of Pennsylvania. They recommended books, shopkeepers, and friends to each other. They fostered self-improvement through discussions on topics related to philosophy, morals, economics, and politics.

Franklin's beliefs deeply informed his life. He never sought, for example, to patent his many inventions -- such as bifocal glasses, metal stoves, and the lightening rod. He understood the value of increasing the common good as a goal as important as creating private wealth. His contributions of his Intellectual Property to the common good make him, arguably, the father of the American Open Source movement.

I suspect the Junto was a key element in the genius of America's success, the key to America’s creation of a thriving middle class, the powerful synergy released by integrating the native impulse to rugged and competitive individualism with the impulse towards cooperative efforts and communitarianism. It created a context and an implied system of constraints for capitalism, exactly as Adam Smith saw as a required condition. [It is, by the way, very interesting to speculate on the relationship between Smith and Franklin. Could it be that the intended audience for Smith's writings was the new American environment, not the established business elite in England?]

The Far right has, for the past several decades, recast this as an either or choice between the two impulses we all harbor. They have reduced America's genius to a zero sum game with no synergy: either you are for unfettered free market capitalism, God fearing fundamentalist Christian at that, or you are some form of politically incorrect sub-human.

What an impoverished solution to the emptiness of consumerism as the main ingredient of the culture of our times.

Historically, this conflict between the closed fist and the open palm has been addresses in literature. Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain (1924) is a but one example. The integration of the snowflake and the snow drift is his symbolic integration of the seemingly impossible contradictions. The challenge is whether the Dionysian and the Apollonian are mutually exclusive or subject to the possibility of integration. As we all seems to have some measure of both these impulses in our make up, the question of integration is very personal to each of us. Can we, as individuals and as a society, benefit from the powerful energy released by the synergy of integration rather than dissipation of opposition?

The Democrats can articulate a vision that recaptures the energy of the synergy that Franklin's integration released. This will create a true contrast with the Far Right's shallowness. It will also address our hunger for success with both impulses. Today, we all feel the pain of the trashing of our communitarian desires by the run away excesses of the consumer society. It is time to restore the balance and to develop a politics that honors not just both impulses but has the goal of integrating them as well.

In the end, neither a meaningful life nor a meaningful politics can not be arrived at by consumption alone. Meaning, in life and in politics, can only be realized through active participation in a creative process.

Posted by Jock Gill at July 17, 2005 11:43 AM | TrackBack