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V.J. Chalupa On Post-Modern Politics
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CHAPTER 17 CRITERIA OF ENDS
AND MEANS Methodology To
politics (a kind of purposive activities) applies the general principle that a
purpose is achievable only through causal chains whose abstractions form the
"laws of nature" of natural sciences. Thus the investigation into
achievability of purposes and suitability (usefulness) of means consists of
determination whether certain purposes are not outside the laws of nature, in
which case they are unachievable, and whether certain means does not fail to
result in the wanted objective, in which case such means is unsuitable and
useless. Therefore, the methodology appropriate (most hermeneutic) to this
investigation is that of causality. Selection
of aims contrary to nature's laws and of means which according to scientific
knowledge do not lead to the desired effect, is to be rejected.
This is the principal and objectively valid standard of measuring politics. In
order to identify the limitations of purposes or means, the identification of
natural laws must start with those most abstract (with most extent and least
content) and proceed to those more concrete (covering less phenomena, but with
more specifics). Nature of nature The
fundamental nature of existence is change. Constant particles of existence
postulated as an explanatory necessity and divided by the process of acquiring
additional knowledge into ever smaller and less observable phenomena are grouped
into more or less stable, respectively unstable patterns. Science endeavors to
quantify the relationships of the origin, changes and dissolution of such
patterns and to express them by mathematical formulas. Provided it is able to
express them as effects (consequences) of certain causes, it describes such
necessary, inevitable relationship as a "law of nature".
According to the present level of knowledge achieved by natural sciences
the changes are the unfolding of a program located in the cosmic egg from whose
explosion (the "Big Bang") arose the cosmos: energy, matter, time and
space. The principles of this program are natural laws; they are not created by
science, only discovered by it. The
changes that occur in nature exhibit certain common traits, certain
regularities, on whose basis they can be described by abstract terms. There are
two distinct sequences: evolution
and entropy. Evolution
(not to be confused with the Darwinian theory of the origin of species) is the
process of actualization of reality's potentiality, it is the transition
from an undifferentiated homogeneity to an integration of distinct heterogeneous
parts. In inanimate
matter, the process leads from nebulae to formation of planets and suns
integrated into planetary systems and galaxies, from hydrogen atoms to formation
of distinct elements, from balls of fluid lava to formation of oceans and
continents. In life forms, it explains how variability and selection classifies
them into distinct species and integrates them into ecological systems seeking
new balance each time their environment and composition change; in the spiritual
sphere the variability is producing a wealth of thought and art forms of which
only some prevail in the selection process peacefully or violently, and
integrate into cultures and civilizations. This
unfolding of potential into actuality does not proceed uniformly. When
possibilities of attaining integrated heterogeneity are exhausted in one area of
reality, nature as a whole continues this process on a different level. Its
components which exhibit the fastest transition from a diffused homogeneity to
an integrated differentiated heterogeneity are carriers (or agents) of evolution. These are the areas most productive in forming new
differentiated and integrated phenomena within reality; they represent the main
stream of the unfolding of the cosmos. The actualization of its potentialities
thus exhibits degrees which form a continuum accelerating and intensifying
evolution in the sense that they produce more better defined forms linked into a
more complex unity: evolution shifts to a another level. Entropy
is the reversal of
evolution. The area which has become a dead end for evolution, keeps
changing; it does not stagnate, but devolves: the links between its parts
disappear, their complementary differences decrease until they reach a status of
undifferentiated diffuse homogeneity from which a regenerated process of
evolution may, but is not certain to arise. The whole of reality is subject to
entropy which physics describes as a pervasive process of declining of various
intensities of energy until they reach the state of absolute equivalency, of
absolute rest, in which there will not be any causes for movement, events, life.
Physics expects this state to be reached when the entire matter and energy of
the cosmos is uniformly dispersed in the space of the cosmos.. Among the
processes going on in the cosmos, entropy represents dissolution and
annihilation. Evolution
and entropy can be understood as one process in which entropy balances out
evolution, or as two opposite processes where evolution, so to speak, represents
a revolt of existence against decline into non-existence, a revolt which
culminates in the emergence of life; life reverses the decline of energies and
increases their intensity; and mind is its best instrument. Man exhibits
awareness of self and of the cosmos, has reason and free will, and therefore can
accept the revolt against nothingness as his mission. Life Evolution
is uneven; it exhibits various degrees which follow (not replace) each other and
it shifts on new levels from which the unfolding of the creation progresses
faster and fuller. Such an evolutionary shift resulted, on earth, in a
phenomenon which -- as far as human knowledge is concerned -- is unique: the
emergence of life. The nature of life is its expansionism, its interaction with
the environment from which life extracts matter and energy and absorbs them into
its own energy-matter patterns. Each live being is a like a whirlpool in the
fabric of reality, a whirlpool which adjust to its environment and at the same
time affects the environment and sucks from it into itself anything suitable.
The typical and main examples of this process are photosynthesis of plants and
digestion of animals. This character of all live matter -- its vitality, its
"élan vitale" results from its time-space structure whose physical
and chemical properties cause a continuous process of material and energy
changes tending towards an equilibrium whose outcome is the preservation and
growth of its inherent pattern. The manifestations of this process constitute
life. Life is unfolding of genes into
properties through assimilation of elements from its environment. When
a life form achieves a certain dimension, the whirlpool of its pattern produces
smaller ones who continue its original impetus: it multiplies. Propelled by its
innate dynamics, life covered almost the entire planet within an astonishingly
short time - measured by the duration of the cosmos and of earth. Earth boils,
bubbles with life which struggles against all limitations and which created, in
man, a being equipped with qualities enabling life to overcome them. The
central property of the élan vital,
the life force, is to secure its growth. Everything alive grows, and when it
reaches the limits of the growth of an individual organism, it continues itself
under the form of its offspring; reproduction, propagation is the continuance of
the growth of an individual beyond the limits of its own body. To this end, life
assumed innumerable forms in order to ensure survival under most varied
circumstances and to protect itself against all possible disasters. Through
division and budding, seeds, spores, specialized cells in roots, tendrils,
tumors and bulbs, vines and branches, life secures the continuance of all its
forms. A
revolutionary development of the life force divided the reproductive process
into two specialized cells -- one fertilizing and the other fertilized -- and
their bearers, thus increasing its variability, choices for selection and
resulting differentiation. Asexual and hermaphrodite species retreat before
species of two complementary genders. The price for this improvement was the
creation of a new obstacle: life had to made sure that the joining of the two
life carrying cells takes place. This ranges from wind spreading pollen to
waiting stigmas, and insect bringing it directly to opening flowers, all the way
to the formation of special (sexual) organs which place the sperm directly into
the ova holding body of the female, all with the function of guaranteeing the
survival of the species. Scents, colors, shapes, all are put into the service of
instinctive attraction between the carriers of the fertilizing and fertilized
cells. A
similar ingenuity is evident in the protection by which nature surrounds the
developing embryo: chitinous and webbed containers of larvae and grubs, egg
shells, and ultimately its growth within the body of the female; protection
granted to the young not only by their parents, but by all the members of a
herd, flock, hive. In a disturbed ant heap, ants hurry to carry their pupae into
safety, not to save themselves. Thus there appeared on earth seeds of qualities
seen nowhere else: self-sacrifice, sympathy, love, compassion. Live
("animate") matter possesses, due to the fluidity of its structure in
its constant striving for a given equilibrium of energies and matter, a much
greater degree of variability than other types of matter ("inanimate"
matter); this property causes it to be the agent of evolution. The transition
from homogeneity to integrated heterogeneity of live matter results in creation
of specialized organs for the performance of the various functions of life;
because of this characteristic, life beings are named "organisms."
A live being is such a pattern of live matter which performs all
functions required for life to persist and to grow. Matter endowed with life
became the agent of evolution also in the creation of a great variety of
"life patterns" integrated in a self-regulating system -- an ecology.
Life
manifests itself in individual entities which exhibit a varied endowment of
survival qualities. In spite of the variability, there remains considerable
similarity among large groups of organisms caused by their common origin, or
heredity. -- the various species.
Evolution does not progress through individuals, but through species. It is
necessarily so because, reproduction being growth beyond the limits of an
individual's body, all members of one species form a biological unit whose
individual identities are but a transitory embodiment of its life and organisms
resulting from the same parents evidence the same genetic inheritance and form
classes and species. Evolution is consigned to species primarily because
fruitful mating beyond the limits of a species is impossible. Therefore, unusual
survival qualities of individuals flow back into the stream of the life of their
species by mating with its average members, and their extraordinary qualities
become widely dispersed within a few generations; therefore, any individual
improvement of survival qualities is mediated through the species. Species, not
individuals, are agents of evolution; the preservation of the species by
reproduction and propagation as well as protection of the progeny is the
strongest function of organisms; their organs are centered around it and it
regularly overcomes the drive for individual survival. There
are two distinct components in the process of life's evolution: differentiation
and selection. Differentiation
is caused by the variability of organisms. Procreation is accompanied by
emergence of traits different from those of the parent organism(s) slightly
(variations) or significantly (mutations) which they pass on to their progeny.
According to some recent theories, this differentiation is
"programmed" in the very origin of the universe. Selection
occurs between the results of differentiation. The inertia of the environment,
animate as well as inanimate, resists the transforming drive of life forms, and
the final form of an organism is the result of the interaction between its
vitality and the environment: The driving force of the evolution, of the
actualization of potentialities, is not the environment, but the inner force,
the expansiveness of life. An organism either overcomes the resistance caused by
the inertia of the environment. at least to a minimal extent or it perishes.
Where the assimilation of the environment into a living being ceases, life
ceases, live matter dies. Overcoming
the resistance of the environment constitutes the struggle for survival. It goes
on in a contest of the expansiveness of life with the inertia of inanimate
matter, as well as with the live environment. The contest with the live
environment is either indirect (when the infinite voracity of live beings forces
them into competition for limited resources - plants compete for light, soil and
water, animals for nourishment, people for jobs, human organizations for markets
or raw materials) or direct conflict
(when individual organisms attack the existence of others - some animals destroy
plants, other animals devour other animals or fight them in defense of their
territories, people conduct warfare); exceptionally, individuals of the same or
of various species cooperate in this struggle (herds, packs, hives, men). The
results of this process is an integrated differentiated variety against the
diffused uniformity of lower life forms: organisms develop, their various life
functions concentrate in special organs: for movement, digestion, elimination,
reproduction, and so forth. In certain species, differentiation and integration
proceeds beyond individuals to such an extent that only their community, not
individuals, possess all the life's functions. This is true especially among
insects: with ants, bees, wasps the reproduction is limited to one or few
selected individuals in the community. Individual
cells of less evolved species are still capable of independent life, in more
evolved species, they loose this independence, become interdependent, the
individual organs are connected and coordinated, their integration exceeds their
differentiation and ensures longer and safer life to its component cells. If
their integration is impaired, the entire organism sickens or dies. The greater
the specialization and the better the coordination of the various organs, the
greater is the survival potential of an organism. The integration of various
bodily functions and their organs is done by special organs -- a network of
nerves with its centers in the spine and the brain; this coordinating and
directing function, the mental activity increases the potential for survival of
organisms which possess it in a greater measure and more perfect form. Mind
causes the organs to perform life's basic function, i.e., to secure its duration
and growth. Mental activity is a part of life, and to that extent it follows the
same "laws" as apply to all organisms, to all living matter. By
the emergence of mind the unrolling of the universe shifted to a new level of
development and to
a new species as its carrier - man. The
species whose organs are more perfectly adapted for the performance of life's
functions, gain the upper hand over other species which either become extinct
or, more frequently, restricted. Together with the inanimate environment,
organisms form an ecology whose balance tends to be automatically renewed:
species that multiply beyond certain limits, do not find enough nourishment, are
susceptible to epidemics, and the balance of the ecosystem recovers unless a new
species arises with qualities against which the old members of the ecosystem
lack or are too slow to develop defense mechanisms; then a new balance emerges
and a new ecosystem arises. Mind Man
is a nature's undertaking which, as far as science knows, is unique in
the cosmos. In the human species, development shifted
from the corporeal to the mental plateau.
In man, mental activity of the organism exceeds by far the function of
coordinating his organs to preserve his body; on the contrary, human body came
to serve man's mind. As a species, man hardly
evolves bodily, it could be argued that he degenerates, what evolves is his
mind. Since the appearance of man, there is an ever greater unfolding of his
spiritual faculties within the laws governing evolution: differentiation and
selection within each individual (instincts, feelings, reasoning; wants and will) and (by
competition and conflict) between groups (artists, scientists, mystics, etc.).
Certain spiritual activities highly priced by humans, have no direct life
serving function (entertainment, art), and therefore are beyond explanation by
necessity. Human collectives
exhibit an exceptional combination of individualism and collectivism.
Specialization develops in human communities in the form of division of labor,
accumulation of capital, rise of a proletariat, separation of the religious
order from the legal order, of the state from the person of its ruler,
separation of state's powers, the rise of bureaucracy -- all these phenomena are
special instances of the general law of evolution. At the same time, individuals
retain the ability to live independently; this tension between the individual
and the community creates an evolutionary dynamism unequalled elsewhere in
nature (or at least on earth). In
spite of many similarities with other species the mind, spirit, distinguishes
humanity from them to the same extent that live matter is different from
inanimate matter. When compared with the inanimate as well as the animate,
spirituality develops distinctively faster. Live matter assimilates its
environment to its structure; mind does the same to a radically greater extent.
The assertion of one's thoughts, the urging of having one's opinions accepted
and implemented is best understood as a form of assimilation of the environment
to one's acquired properties. Besides direct and indirect contest on the bodily
level there exists in the spiritual world still another form of contest made
possible by the extraordinary variability of mental properties: the subjects of
certain thoughts do not necessarily fight subjects of differing thought, but try
to change the latters' spiritual properties in accordance with their own - a
sort of "cultural imperialism" between individuals. Contrary to other
organisms, man strives primarily to assimilate to the results of his mental
activities -- his ideas, his taste,
his will, his thoughts -- the widest possible nonhuman and human environment by
his work, persuasion and coercion. The dimensions in which the minds of great
religious teachers, poets, writers, artists and thinkers impacted minds of
multitudes and changed cultures, exceed incomparably the assimilative power of
live matter. The dimensions in which Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler assimilated to
their thought and will, through organization, persuasion
and violence the lives of millions of individuals (and destroyed
millions) is comparable to natural catastrophes. Within mere thousands of years
human activities effected on the surface and character of the planet changes for
which geological forces needed millions. Man tamed, i.e., assimilated to his
needs, practically the entire sphere of life and is close to doing the same
things to inanimate matter on his planet and beyond it. With the growth of the
spiritual dimension grows also the size and intensity of conflicts between
humans: the savagery with which humans of one set of mental properties
(religion, ideology, language) fight humans of another set of mental properties
has no equal in nature. In
man, evolution shifted its main stream to the unfolding of his spiritual
faculties. Some astrophysicists seeking to find a principle explaining the
universe, came to the conclusion that the physical properties of the cosmos
result in the creation of life, that the universe is aimed at causing its own
contemplation by intelligent beings, concretely man (the so-called anthropic
principle formulated by Brandon Carter), as the best hypothesis explaining basic
qualities of matter. Of all the
explanations of the universe, the by far most plausible is the one assuming that
cosmos is constructed as it is so that it gives birth to intelligent life. Man
is cosmos contemplating and perfecting itself. Certain
results of physics and astronomy confirm this logic. Cosmology has come to the
conclusion that the universe is the actualization of the potential of a
"cosmic egg" -- an
infinitely small particle which existed for an infinitesimally short period of
time and in which all matter, energy, time and space of the universe were
contained and their becoming programmed. A program, however, must have a
purpose. An answer to this question was summed up by physicist John Wheeler:
"no reason has ever been offered why certain of the constants and initial
conditions have the values they do except that otherwise anything like
observership as we know it would be impossible". There is no better
explanation of the reason why the physical facts of the cosmos are those they
are, except the assumption that the cosmos aims at the creation of intelligent
beings who can comprehend and appreciate it.
An explanation that the cosmos itself brought itself into being and
created its order, that it, so to say strives to extend its existence and that
it created man by itself, ascribes to cosmos reason and will which experience
cannot substantiate.. A purpose, however, presupposes will and reason, and will
and reason presuppose a rational and free Being outside of the cosmos. Life
covered the planet in an astoundingly short period of time; Homo Sapiens spread
all across it in a time still incomparably shorter, and not only inhabited it,
but deeply transformed it. The population explosion of the human race is the
sign of the success of the life force in its experimentation with various life
forms, a proof of the superiority of mind over matter and humanity's triumph
over all kinds of obstacles. The human species appeared in nature as a new life
form which upset the balance of the biosphere, and the seeking of a new balance
is still running its course. One sign of this novelty of the situation is that
man acts differently from other organisms in his relationship to them. While
they do not care about the impact of their existence on other beings, man does:
he uses them, changes them, protects them, selects them even at the cost of
self-limitation. There is no "right to life" in nature; no right for
the mouse to be protected from the cat; only man will feed wild animals,
safeguard them from extinction, keep them as pets. The antithesis man-nature is
real and determines future development. A part of the emerging bio-balance is
that man regulates nature, and not the reverse. Nature produced man as a being
equipped with qualities enabling him to be a spearhead of life in the universe
-- to free life from its confinement to one small world to explode in space in
the same way as it exploded on Earth. Culture The
process of evolution of live matter is carried on by species which are based on
reproduction, on genes inherited from common ancestry. In a similar way, human
reproduction created collectives whose members inherited the same physical and
mental properties: talent, temperament, degree and types of intelligence, and in
addition conserved their spiritual heritage, their culture: language, music,
dances, rituals, religion, type of organization. Such collectives, originally a
band or a family, then grown into clans and tribes, were in certain areas
integrated into larger communities through the strong participation of the power
of a state created or wielded by a dominating group, usually the ruling clan of
the strongest tribe. This process produced nations. In
Europe, nations arose from clans or tribes, or in more abstract terms, from
complete biological communities. A biological community is a community whose
source of cohesion (i.e., the element which characterizes its
components as part of a whole) are inherited potentialities and the
resulting actualities (properties). A complete society is a community which
performs, through its organs, all functions keeping it alive as a whole. Nations
arose from biological communities when one of them through the process of
selection (usually in mutual conflict) exerted integrating and assimilative
pressure on the subordinated entities by suppressing certain independent
functions of the collectives forced into the new whole, by centralized organs
for formation of common will and of executive organs primarily for war deprived
others from performing some of their functions, transformed them into incomplete
societies and thus forced them into a new complete society consisting of itself
and the subordinated collectives on a higher level of differentiation. As
is the case with all animated creatures, the nature of a nation is the result of
mutual influences of genes and environment. A nation's biological heritage
consists of hereditary
potentialities of its component biological collectives. The environment is
inanimate (the geological formation where the nation lives, its weather,
richness of its soil, of minerals and other raw materials) and animate (flora,
fauna) including humans (neighboring and other human communities). The natural
environment of a nation -- his "homeland" (patria, heimat) and its
features produced by nature or by humans exercise such a permanent influence
that the continuance of a nation is bound to this particular territory. Among
the nation's properties, the most defining ones are the mental, spiritual ones:
language, tradition, common history, religion, music, art, philosophy). The
continuity of the mental manifestations of a nation (its "national
character") is the spiritual formation of a nation, i.e., the manner in
which it as a whole expresses itself on the basis of its instincts, feelings and
intellectual reactions in the progression of its generations related to their
biological continuity: its
hereditary conscious and subconscious mental mixture like its physical substance
is the present manifestation of the members of the biological communities which
originally composed the nation in history. Belonging
to a nation is a matter of causality:
one is born into a nation and even if one leaves it by a decision of the will,
one cannot escape its biological and cultural baggage. Reproduction being the
growth of one's body beyond its individual limits, the living generation is the
embodiment of generations past and future. The
common spiritual, cultural environment, the national culture, became the main source of cohesion of a nation and relegated
to a secondary, but still important place the original source of cohesion,
namely the common origin, common ancestry. The culture of all nations consists
of identical or similar elements; all nations speak, sing, dance, paint,
reproduce, cook, arrange relationships among their members, raise crops and
produce goods, think and organize their activities; the differentiation is
apparent in those areas of the common functions of life where they exhibit
originality and difference. The most important element which established the
self-awareness of a nation is language. The web of language goes much deeper
than being a mere instrument of communication. Words express concepts and
concepts carve out of the unceasingly changing carpet woven by experience
certain constants used by man to capture and master reality. The areas of
reality carved out by concepts are different in the sundry languages, sometimes
fundamentally, sometimes slightly, but in both cases the discrepancy is visible,
perceptible and important (as any translator knows very well), and affects the
meaning of words. In addition to the difference in meaning of words there are
differences in their ordering. A brain used to a language which requires the
change of verbs and adjectives with every change of the subject of a sentence
(like Latin or Russian) produces a different kind of reasoning than that
developed in the use of languages that do not require this types of coordination
(English, Chinese). This is the reason why people feel the forced prohibition of
using their language as a gross violation of their innermost self. Once
a national culture is established, it surrounds each member of a nation since
childhood and molds his spiritual evolution; it favors the development of
certain properties and impedes others, and in the flow of generations
intensifies its distinctive characteristics. This spiritual environment receives
the fruits of the nation's outstanding individuals which are in harmony with its
fundamental traits; they become its components, complement and unfold it as
permanent influences on contemporaries and future generations.
A nation survives as long as its cultural environment is not
substantially altered by influx of alien cultural and biological elements. A
nation is an organic collective, not organized in the sense that all its organs
would be centrally directed by one source of volition, resp. one normgiver.
Closest to this function comes the organization of the state -- with the
provision that there exist nations which do not have or have lost their own
state and that many manifestations of a nation's life are independent of the
state even in nations which have their own state. The importance of a state for
the life of a nation lies in the fact that its independence protects the nation
and its members from limitation or deformation of the national culture by alien
subjects of volition who would assume towards a nation a superior position,
i.e., the position of a normgiver. This importance of a state for a nation's
life was recognized by international law as the right to national
self-determination by the outcome of World War One. It became the defining
element of the League of Nations. Although
a nation does not have organs which formally create its will, it is possible to
distinguish which of its parts is representing a nation at various times and in
various situations of its history according to the traces left in the national
culture: sometimes it is the government, sometimes writers or poets, artists,
religious leaders or movements or revolutionary organizations. Although it never
occurs that all members of a nation follow the same purpose, it is legitimate to
attribute collective will to the nation as a whole because its actions are
determined not only by the character of its parts (individuals and groups) but
also by their mutual relationship and because behind the logically perceived
purposive system are found, in reality, beings which exhibit reason and
volition. Because the nation is a whole, the consequences of its actions affect
all its members whether they agreed with them or not. If the actions of a nation
are successful (for instance in foreign policy), all its members benefit whether
they participated in it or not; if they are unsuccessful (for instance a lost
war), all the nation's members suffer for no other reason but that they belong
to it. On the spiritual, cultural level nations have the function of agents of evolution, as agents of differentiation caused by variability and selection molded by integration similar to the role of species on the level of life.
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