In this post, we will talk about the purpose which is driving the Government’s operating system.
Many of us are ready for significant change – the desire for a more useful system of government is something that people from all political parties are yearning for… Our government is currently
dividing us… making us have awkward to emotionally intolerable experiences with family, friends and community members. Additionally, there is a radical lacking in efficiency, progressiveness, and flexibility.
In my last article on this subject, I outlined the reasons for why the current system is not working ( https://www.thoughtsfromatherapist.com/2017/03/01/democracy-failed/ ). In this post, I will begin a conversation about the impact of purpose on creating the government’s operating system. In order to create a new system of government, we must 1st begin a dialog pertaining to what the new purpose of the government will be – what is a purpose that the government can have to which we might all agree? (of course we don’t need to rewrite the book – there will be significant integration from what is already working. For example, we are likely to continue to agree that government should provide and maintain usable roads.)
1st we must start with the foundational question – What is the purpose of government?
The answer to this question changes as the needs of the population evolve – for example, an answer to this question thousands of years ago may have been “to provide guidance to trade for the community, to store harvests, and to protect the borders”. There was a long period of time where the purpose of the government was to expand the border (still arguably the purpose) – to expand into new territories so as to spread a belief system and to gather more resources.
So what is the purpose today? and does that purpose fulfill the needs of our population as a whole?
Now we arrive at a fundamental problem with our current operating system – the purpose of the government is defined by the 2 most influential political parties (the Democrats and the Republicans), and not necessarily by the majority of the population. What is perhaps most frustrating to the more philosophically inclined is the reality that the purposes of both parties have many inherent contradictions. Without going into to much detail, the purpose of the conservative movement is in many ways incompatible or incongruent with the purpose of the Republic party (which houses them) and the purpose of the liberal movement is largely incompatible with the purpose of the democratic party.
Republican party’s purpose – to advocate for a smaller federal government so that the rights of the individual and the state are not unnecessarily hindered by an over-involved and expensive central government.
Conservative Movement – to define ethical and legal codes for the collective that are regulated by a centralized organization, which (such as a religious center or a government) which is to have ultimate authority over all individuals.
Democratic party’s purpose – to establish a centralized regulatory government which ensures the liberty and safety of the individuals and states by providing federal services and regulations.
Liberal movement – to liberate the individual from the potential oppression of the collective (ie. it is a philosophical movement which favors the individual over the collective). The liberal movement is also concerned with emancipating the individual from suffering in general (from poverty, oppression, illiteracy etc.)
perhaps you can identify from the above (very over-simplified) definitions that there are inherent problems with the idea of a “Conservative Republic” or a “Liberal Democrat”
the ‘purposes’ of these two parties have become so polarized that we arrive at a very significant problem after an election = almost 50% of the population will believe that the government’s purpose is incongruent with their subjective needs from the government. Worse still… many will feel that the government’s covertly and abstractly defined purpose is in opposition to their morals.
Then there are all of us who don’t truly feel represented by either parties ideologies. What do we do?… we grow apathetic, and many of us practice an intentional avoidance of political rhetoric as we have already deemed the process hopeless and emotionally dysregulating.
To de-political party, this conversation let us now try and define the purpose of our current government by looking at how our elected officials spend their time. Let me start with the positive so that we don’t spiral into negativity. The government has been decently effective at providing the foundational services that they are responsible for (parks and roads are maintained, schools are open, health services exist etc.)
But…
What is the motivator driving a great abundance of behavior from our elected officials (who often have more power than other government employees)… what is their greatest purpose?
Well, unfortunately, I would answer – “to get elected” – now let’s not dichotomize the issue – in the process of trying to get elected many ‘helpful’ things are being done along with some ‘unhelpful’ things.
from my perspective this purpose of ‘getting elected’ is evident in the fact that you never really hear about successful project completion – instead, success seems to be more about ‘winning’ – as in “I won because my bill was passed or I won because I was elected or I won because I slandered my opponent.” As opposed to “we won because we successfully protected more of the environment or we won because we successfully integrated a more useful and cost-effective health care system or we won because our population has better access to healthy foods.”
to deconstruct this further, perhaps our current government’s operating system is based on the egoic need to ‘win, hold power, and dominate’ – which is done by being the most powerful/influential, having the most territory, and controlling resources.
We may be quick to judge this purpose as ‘bad’ – I would encourage us to look at the issue more dialectically and perhaps arrive at the conclusion that we need a new purpose as the old purpose has served its purpose 😉
If you don’t have a clearly stated purpose then it is near impossible to create goals with corresponding objectives… If you have no goals we have no means of objectively analyzing the efficiency and effectiveness of the current governments operating system. This leads to the subjective debates that have created an ‘us and them’ or heavily polarized collective.
Now let me cautious us by applying the insights of spiral dynamics – many of us want a highly unrealistic operating system (i do 🙂 ) – but perhaps we can allow that some of these ‘purposes’ can come from mediums other than our government.
I would be content if our government’s operating system simply jumped from egoic to pragmatic – from the purpose of ‘power’ to the purpose of ‘strategically sound methods used to effectively solve problems of the country.” This would require us to humbly accept that our government is not yet suited to offer effective moral leadership, and is currently best suited to offer remedies to social needs using empirically based methodologies. This requires the removal of the power of”my” “me” and “I”… so instead of This is “my” education plan that is better than “hers”… we transcend to this is “our” education plan which was implemented as it was empirically validated to best serve the needs of the population in this specific area.
So that’s it… my suggestion is that we may do well to develop a new form of government based on deduction and pragmatics
They would be responsible for identifying the most effective means for solving a community need and success would be based on how successful the solution was in meeting the community need. So basically the government would function more like most companies in a capitalistic society – your job is clear and there is a clear method of deducing effectiveness. This would require an end to elections being popularity contests where “winning” is achieved by offering subjective opinions while psychologically manipulating the population with methods such as moral shaming.
let me reiterate – I would love for our government to help the human species to transcend… I too can be an idealist… I want the government to rememdy the social justice and spiritual issues facing our nation, but perhaps it could be helpful to humble ourselves and offer patience while the operating system evolves in complexity. The 1st step may be to ascend from egocentrism to pragmatics… and in the future, we can hold hope that the government may evolve again into a new purpose with a new corresponding operating system.
this new ‘pragmatics purpose’ would necessitate the government being removed from a huge number of issues that their operating system is ill equipt to rememdy so that they can focus on measurable goals such as:
- access to education
- access to recreation
- access to nature
- access to nutrition and exercise
- access to arts
- access to community
- access to emotional support services and education
- maintenance of shared resources and infrastructure
- health, safety, and other support services
- protection from international and domestic aggression (egocentric systems run most governments)
- etc