Those of you who liked my post Why Every Political and Economic System Eventually Fails, And What You Can Do About It will probably like this post too.
Enjoy!
Update 2022: Uisio is defunct, but I have republished this piece on my site here.
I have published a guest post on Uisio.com. The piece examines the Iron Law of Oligarchy and Baron Acton's famous maxim "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Those of you who liked my post Why Every Political and Economic System Eventually Fails, And What You Can Do About It will probably like this post too. Enjoy! Update 2022: Uisio is defunct, but I have republished this piece on my site here.
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We may believe that some political parties, economics systems or types of government are inherently more moral or pragmatic than others. This essay will not be refuting that claim. Rather, I argue that regardless of the organic value of various economic and political systems, they are all eventually doomed to corruption, oligarchy and failure if the people involved in them are not ethical. In other words; ethics always come first. According to Aristotle, the Nichomachian view is that we must look at virtue and character in politics. Governments, political parties, communities, and economic systems are extensions of us. They reflect our values and our behaviors. Ethics is the lynchpin on which everything in human society depends. If we are unethical personally, and if society is unethical in the aggregate, then of course we will never have a moral system, no matter how authoritarian or anti-authoritarian, capitalist or communist, left or right the system is inherently. Changing the system as a whole won't solve the underlying problem until we get at the root of the specific causes; namely our own behavior. People who are unethical will continue to be unethical regardless of political party, after a revolution, change of government, or in an alternate economic paradigm. We must treat the disease itself, not just the symptoms. We are the source of the problem, and as such, we must change. Consider the following quote from The Matrix, "It is not the spoon that bends, but yourself." The solution is to change yourself. Adopt and practice a balanced code of ethics, educate yourself and others, and act locally in your own community to effect positive change. There is a lot to dislike about the radical, or extreme feminist and men's rights movements. Both believe that they are combating sexism against their respective groups. I argue that by focusing on gender difference as the source of every ill, they are instead promoting a divisive, dominance based paradigm. Both groups tend to have flawed and irrational world views, and to promote a dualistic ideology of dominion and victimization, rather than one of equality, mutual respect and partnership.
The feminists of the the 20th century helped to level the playing field for women in the West. Unfortunately, the gender struggle of the past decades has radicalized a subset of individuals. We need to realize that we will not get equality by pointing fingers and complaining about which gender is or has been the biggest victim of oppression. The result of the present situation, is that both genders currently face sexism in society; women because of troglodyte viewpoints, and men because of feminist backlash. Perceiving everything in terms of gender difference is a method of divide an conquer, which keeps people from focusing on our common humanity, and from having empathy for one another. The problem lies specifically with the age-old dominion and oppression based world view. Both the extremes radical feminism and radical men's rights, matriarchy and patriarchy, imply an unethical domination of one gender by the other, leading to even more misunderstanding. Both matriarchy and patriarchy represent a failure of the ancient egalitarian ideal. Contrary to popular belief, patriarchy was not always the dominant paradigm throughout history, and it need not be going forward. Patriarchy is flawed, and matriarchy is also flawed. Neither men nor women should game the system to their advantage, or try to unethically assert power or superiority over other people. There is another way; egalitarianism. Egalitarians acknowledge that every person, male and female, has equal innate rights. No individual or gender is entitled to special privileges, because that would imply that one individual or group has rights that other humans do not have. The result of true egalitarianism, not one which is forced on people from the top down, is a partnership or equalitarian world view, where each gender's contributions are naturally viewed as equally important to society and part of a larger, all-encompassing whole. Each gender balances and compliments, rather than conflicts with the other. What does this have to do with ethics, you ask? Much! The true source of domination does not emanate from some abstraction, such as patriarchy or society, but rather, it originates from within the individual. I concede that while oppressive societies can limit free will, individuals choose to promote domination or freedom by virtue of their beliefs and actions. People can choose daily to be ethical, not to use their free will to dominate others, and to eliminate any arrogant and irrational beliefs in their own gender's superiority. Then we will have truly equal partnership and respect between the sexes. |
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