It's the Philosophy, Stupid

A lot of people get hung up and depressed with politics thinking the world is going to hell in a handcart and although this is partly true in many ways we really have never had it so good and this can be overlooked if we focus soley in on politics which admittedly is dire to the exclusion of everything else. The modern poor live better than kings of old and are surrounded by opulence with their I pads and widescreen TVs courtesy of foreign imports of cheap goods which the Donald seems to want to put a stop to with high tarfiff walls and concrete ones as well.

We live longer,healthier lives today, have vast arrays of foodstuffs from all over the globe,cars and material goods are cheaper, more fuel efficient which gives us more disposable income.And we have short memories. Anyone who looks misty eyed and longingly back to the 70's was clearly not there or is suffering from a chronic case of amnesia and selective memory syndrome. The technology was crap,cumbersome,ridiculous, primitive unreliable unwieldy. The politics were dire,violence was far greater etc etc.

No one in their right minds would rather live in the 70's or even the 50's if given a choice. So why all the lament? It is being stirred up by the intellectuals who want to foment and fabricate discontent for their narrow sectarian Machievellian ends, to effectively convince us that we have never had it so bad so they can introduce even yet more government interference in our lives and thus gain total control over us. So they wheel on economists who insist that things are as bad as the 1920's that capitalismk is in crisis even though we palpably do not even have capitlism in any true sense or definition of the word but rather live under a hobbled compromised mixed economy that is tilting towards further statism and government hegemony over the market. Yet despit this business thrives,despite all the controls taxes and hyper regulation the American spirit is unbowed and Silicon valley continues to lead the world in technological innovation and creativity.

Yes politics is awful and dire but what drives politics but philosophy and it is this that needs to change for if people have the wrong philosophy they will perforce have wrong politics so it is the culture and philosophy that we should be focusing on not its end product politics. To attempt to change politics whilst leaving the prevailing philosophical culture unadressed is like trying to treat a cancer patient with aspirin.

And we get hung up on the political process too! Thinking that if we just abolish the electoral college or have proportional representation all will be fine and dandy and the system will then be kook- (Donald) proof. But the electoral college was set up expressly as system of checks and balances but it did not protect the people from Obama being elected or Roosvelt, the first socialist President proper. Only philosophy -good philosophy will protect the people from tyrants,not political process.But what philosophy? That I shall leave for another post.