When the world gets a little overwhelming

Force as a governing philosophy as a logical fallacy

Aside from the limited circumstances in which force is necessary to intervene when harm is imminent from the aggression of others, force is not just counterproductive, often challenging others and leading to the very kind of behavior that one is trying to avoid, but as a general governing philosophy it is a logical fallacy.

The notion that force, or in modern parlance, regulation, can be used to avoid even very serious mistakes is not a logical possibility. Mistakes are made as a regular matter of judgment, as and until our judgment improves, often by our mistakes.

The notion that even very serious mistakes can be avoided by the use of force is not only contradicted by a long human history of often unparalleled and tragic mistakes, often with and around the use of force, it is not even a logical possibility given the nature of choices by human beings made always and without end with limited understanding and certainty. Mistakes are an important part of our learning process. And the notion that we can force them away assumes that we can learn without them. Which is not possible as a matter of fact of human existence.

Regulators, themselves, lawmakers, themselves, rule-makers, themselves, are subject to this often very serious mistake. In fact, many if not the most serious mistakes made over the course of human history have been made by those in power and around the use of power and the ways that it is wielded over people.

None of this can be eliminated by regulation or the use of force. The one and only source of our choices, our mistakes, our good judgment, our successes and our failures over the course of humanity has been independent conscience and judgment, informed, of course, by the independent consciences and judgments and other signals for behavior of others. This is and always has been and always will be the sole source of our choices, good and bad.

What force has often done is made much human decision-making that does not involve the immediate physical safety of others much, much more complicated and difficult to sort out, especially the way that it distorts communication and understanding by encouraging dishonest communication and understanding to cover for mistakes that might otherwise be punished or lead to harm to individuals.

Force is a tool that is only useful in very limited circumstances in the relationships we have with one another. It can prevent immediate physical harm. Otherwise, it very much complicates and often undermines our relationships and the goals we seek. And one of the most important ways that it does so is in undermining the honest communication and learning curve that people need to learn from mistakes, which are inevitable, and make better choices, with experience and understanding over time.

We are not just romanticizing a governing philosophy that has been the source of the bulk of the most serious tragedy over the course of human history and the 20th century, from which we are emerging, we are romanticizing a governing philosophy that is not literally possible as a means of preventing the kinds of mistakes and problems that we seek for it to prevent. It is not a possibility as a matter of fact, not as a matter of ideology, politics, religion, philosophy, or any other source of governing ideas.

It is not possible to force away even our most serious mistakes. We must learn from our mistakes and make better choices in the future. Learning, facilitated primarily by debate and discussion and other similar sources of serious engagement, can help us understand choices to avoid. But, ultimately, we learn from our choices and such learning and no amount of force can replace that development of independent conscience and judgment by learning, experience and understanding.

We are the most mature liberal democracy in the world. And we are governing by a logical fallacy, at this point. It is a fallacy that is reinforcing the ugliest impulses of the ugliest, most repressive regimes around the world, right now, who are looking to our debates and discussions as justification and reinforcement of their own repression and use of force for their own ugly ends.

And there is most definitely someone who is responsible for this mess. It is me. It is you. It is each of us who, in whatever way we are responsible, have reinforced this fallacious and ugly governing philosophy that has plagued humanity as likely its most serious and repeated tragedy since the dawn of humanity as an aggressive and predatory animal, who evolved into a more intelligent and civilized version of this predator, but carried with us the same aggressive instincts that undermined our most important ability and advantage in nature: our intelligence and the understanding it yields.

The kids and I talk all the time about how homo sapien's most serious predator, outside of bacteria and disease, has always been other homo sapiens. And it is the use of force and the failures of our reasoning and honest responsibility around our more predatory and aggresive instincts that is responsible for this failure more than any other.

The idea that we would romanticize this instinct as the solution for all of our most serious problems is comedy and tragedy embodied.

Our only hope is that we can learn despite ourselves on this matter.

That is how we have always make genuine progress.

Perhaps we are capable of the same today.

Force as a governing philosophy, for real

This guy, this Egyptian Islamist Tal'at Rmeih, is right. The West are such pussies. We don't understand what force as a governing philosophy really looks like. Al Queda does. We're fuckin' amateurs.

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan Clashes with Egyptian Islamist Tal'at Rmeih

We're such morons. We have all this freedom. It's the basis for all of the most serious contributions to our quality of life. And we still romanticize this nonsense.

We're not hopeless. It's not a biological disorder. We are just some serious dumbasses. And this guy makes it clear why.

At some level, we need to choose: are we going to be more like this guy? Or are we going to be more like ourselves and our own liberal democratic values?

I know my choice. If we weren't all rationalizing like this asshole, we all would, I think.

Listening to this guy should make our choice clearer.