Towards a Science of Politics

Geoffrey Hamilton

April 6, 1996

Science purports to be an objective study of nature, yet when the human practitioners of science turn their methods towards their own species, there is a reduction in objectivity. The academic discipline called political science has just such a problem. Practitioners, such as Weber, Freud, Horkhiemer, Lukacs, and Fromm, have all developed reasonable theories which fall short of the common understanding of scientism for only one systematic reason, they use ethics to inform their method. The ethics regarding the welfare and treatment of the subjects used for study, such as dogs, are not the ethics I mean. Instead, I mean the ethics regarding the values assigned to the subjects under study. For example, the value of a human life is considered greater than that assigned to a dog, when objectively they are equal.

I propose that ethics be put aside from politics, only then two things are possible: the objectivity contained in the writings of the past, can be more clearly revealed, and secondly, once all political avenues are allowed, the causes and effects of various political undertakings are possible to observe in a fair manner. The concept of context is fundamental in accomplishing this. To be clear, a total objectivity is most likely impossible, it is only the standard of objectivity maintained in other scientific disciplines which needs to be used ana idealized.

I should like to note, at the start, that any motivation towards a goal, in this case towards an objective study of human behavior, involves some ethical system to inform it. In general, for whatever reason, someone must assume that an accurate knowledge of human behavior is a 'good' use of resources in order that the following arguments make sense. So ethics cannot be dispensed with entirely. However, the desire for accurate knowledge is the only ethic informing this paper and the uses of that knowledge are irrelevant.

Various ethics inform political theorists, and rarely is there complete agreement between any two. One theorist may believe that community spirit is valuable, while a second claims that it is destructive, finally a third may add that destruction is a value. This kind of ethical circle can be found on the street just as easily. A white says that blacks are ruining the neighbourhood, a black says the same about Asians, and an Asian says it about whites.

(Let me clarify that an ethic devalues as much as it values. Even the lofty ethic which says that the black, the white and the Asian should live in harmony is devaluing the various ethics which have informed all three racists's.)

These are only a few of the ethical circles that now exist, have existed in the past, and which are possible to discover.

What these circles reveal is that, in practice, humanity values many conflicting ethical ideas, and in that sense all political ideas are already allowed. However, it is the proponents of the particular ethical systems, within these circles, who claim that some ideas are not allowed. The use of the pejorative term "barbaric", applied to another's ethical ideas, within the circle, is the most ancient depreciatory tactic still in use today. It is in the tactics, emblemized by the word barbaric, where theorists often show their failure to be objective in their analyses. Consequently, evaluations of the various world ethics rarely offer grounds to equate Nazi ethics with non-violent ones.

However, if, for example, the evaluation is determined by the strength of the conviction of the individuals, or societies who believe in them, then the equality of these two ethics can be readily observed. However, there is a more efficient way to equate them for the purposes of study, and that is to decide that none have any value whatsoever. To become more objective about the observations made by theorists of the past one must eliminate the influence of their ethic to zero. This ideal is difficult to achieve but helpful to attempt.

In Max Weber there seems to be little interference between his ethic and his investigations, as he did try to separate his values from his knowledge. However, his writings very occasionally demonstrates a proscriptive intent, derived from his ideals, rather than a purely descriptive purpose. For example, he says, "It should be taught in the kindergarten of cultural history that this native idea of capitalism must be given up once and for all". This momentary digression does point in the direction he wishes his readers to go, his own brand of Liberalism.

Freud more subtly demonstrates his political prejudices. While he derides a colleague's (Trotter's) lack of objectivity, he premises much of his investigation on what Eric Fromm characterized: "the traditional doctrine of the evilness of human nature. Man, to him, is fundamentally anti-social. Society must domesticate him". Even the most diligent observer is bound to see his subject with severely prejudiced eyes when coming to it with such an idea.

Horkhiemer, believed in Marx's idea that society must emancipate itself . Lukacs did not see Marx's emancipation as inevitable, instead he believed people had to be shown the way, "The proletariat must not shy away from self-criticism, for victory can only be gained by the truth and self-criticism must, therefore, be its natural element".

Erik Fromm couched his ethic in his enthusiasm for freedom and hatred of oppression. He made the claim,
". . . freedom has won battles", and "If we want to fight Fascism we must understand it".

To reiterated the premise, how can one accurately understand something if one is opposed to it outright? To understand something, in a state of opposition to that thing, is to first of all seek to reinforce one's opposition to it.

The above theorists include an intrusive ethic which says, cumulatively,

1-progress exists,

2-human suffering should be eliminated,

3- ending suffering equals progress,

4-freedom from oppression is also progress,

5-desiring oppression is irrational.

The problem in these ideas is that no evidence is offered. An argument could be made which says that most people agree that the above statements are true. However, even a one-hundred percent agreement only means there is a harmony of opinion. Such a conclusive agreement could be found in the European middle ages to support the idea that God made the world in seven days.

A second argument could be offered that the survival of humanity is maximized by the ethical statements offered above (statements which I will say represent the liberal approach). There are two counter arguments to this.

1- if it is given that the population numbers indicate the success of the liberal approach, the huge explosion of population figures this century, due to these values, could ostensibly destroy the world's ecology, and therefore the growth dependent human economy, eventually resulting in the collapse of the world population by billions of people. The success of the liberal project must also be calculated by its effect on the many future generations which are anchored to it.

2-The question, "why is survival good?" must be answered. As Socrates is purported to have said: death could be the best thing that ever happens to us. It remains to be demonstrated that life is indeed ethically superior to death. As a result, even if the liberal project does aid in the survival of humanity, survival needs to be more than a universally agreed human value, to make it 'good'.

What then is accurate in the work of the above investigators? As the arguments I use to undercut an ethical politic also serve to premise my own decisions in this paper, I will restate them as positive entities. If survival is not necessarily 'good' and the only ethic motivating this investigation of human nature is one demanding an accurate understanding of human nature, then I am interested in observations which are as consistent as possible with scientific observation and reproducibility. Therefore, I will proceed under the assumption that the observations contained in the writings of the above theorists is accurate unless an ethical distortion is shown. It is important to note that, as I equate the value of life and death, I also equate humanity to nature, since humanity has never departed from nature.

At this stage I would like to mention the problem of language in objective analysis in any scientism. It is highly relevant to the search for greater objectivity as often language masks parallel observations. Many aspects of language can mask what is being described. Besides the problem of the different life experiences which each theorist brings to his language, and the different intellectual and language tools each theorist has been taught to use, there is the problem unique to the intellectual explorer, that of identifying discoveries. In the age of geographical exploration it was often the case that more than one explorer would find same new land and give it slightly different positions. Because names often do not reveal the facts regarding the synonymous nature of these parallel observations, one person may name an island apple and another name it orange. Only much later it being realized that what had been two different islands was really one discovered from various angles. A similar problem takes place in scientific investigation. When the discovery has been duplicated it is often named twice without realizing it. I believe that this is the problem with much in the way of philosophy, politics and psychology. The problem is to root out these duplicated discoveries and to recognize the synonyms amongst the competing words. The most obvious link is between Freud's prestige and Weber's charisma. The most important link, for political theory, is around the concept popularly called paradigm by Kuhn, but I call context theory.

There are already many variations of the paradigm idea within different theorists, but the basic idea is the same: a societal context informs the meaning of a person's existence. Where each concept differs there is the chance to view the 'island' or idea stereoscopically. Weber's spheres, Freud's identification, Fromm's emotional matrixes, and many other synonyms for the paradigm idea, all show how each theorist has come to the same idea from different approaches, even though, chronologically, one might have built on the other.

Weber's philosophy conceived of spheres, Freud's observations of personalities helped him perceive identification, and Fromm's elimination of biological factors for historical ones created emotional matrixes. Thomas Kuhn found the island and called it paradigm, while a development of paradigm called explanationism, by Paul Thagard, took that idea further. I believe this passage from Horkhiemer clarifies the parallel discoveries, "Only in a context can particular judgments about what is human acquire their correct meaning". (I wish to note that what his ethic, or context, failed to allow him to think, was the possibility that any and all contexts are equally correct.)

In my past, the more I read the works of other theorists and even authors of fiction, the more I realized that many people, perhaps most people in their daily lives, have discovered that same island and have understood it in their own way. I also stumbled onto this same island, and developed it in my way. It is basically the same as the above ideas of Weber, Freud, Fromm, Kuhn, Thagard, and Horkhiemer, with the addition of contexts of time, position, momentary states of mind, momentary assumptions and all contexts that can be determined. I call it context theory, as the word context is the most frequently used in descriptions of the island I mean.

The reason why context theory is so important is based on the acceptance of the premise I laid out earlier, that life and death are ethically equal and that nature and humanity are one. If these two equations are then also equated to each other, the final sum, to be crudely mathematical, is 1 = 1, or 0 = 0, ethically speaking. Whether there is a positive number or not is immaterial.

However, as there must be a motive in order for this paper to come into existence, similarly there must also be a motive for life itself to desire to exist. So therefore, from the point of view of life there must be at least the sense that life = 1. How does life then equal something when it can equal nothing just as logically? The answer is that some mechanism in all life forms creates that necessary motivation. That motivation is relative; and it is relative to a context. This is the basis of context theory. Without the distraction of an informing ethic all these parallel ideas can begin to make sense.

Once it is understood, questions asked many times in the past, like "why do people have different values?" and "Why does the other act so irrationally?" can be answered easily. Values differ because different contexts inform different value systems. From moment to moment and culture to culture. The irrationality is only visible from outside the informing context. It should be mentioned, if there is no such thing as ethics, than all ethical systems are essentially irrational. Conversely, a "correct" context can make anything rational.

The fact of human existence would imply we are motivated to exist, and motivated by an ethic derived from contexts. These contexts are in turn created by biological, historical and environmental contexts.

Evidence that humanity is driven to form contexts can be found in research into the brain. Recent research into human consciousness, aired on PBS, has demonstrated that the brain gives itself the illusion of free will as a focusing mechanism for dealing with the environment. A second biological factor is that many ethical concepts are set prior to birth and relatively soon after birth. Studies using twins have shown that. After birth another biological factor attempts to relate to the environment: the growth of synaptic pathways used for thinking in the brain continues to grow up to the age of three. Then, as the individual grapples with its environment those pathways, which go unused, begin to disappear. The brain context set by the environment then grows more inert as the years pass making the resultant context almost unchangeable by the age of sixty. Between three and sixty these biological contexts are changing in the environmental contexts. During that decline of the synapse towards the inert stage, language and social concepts become increasingly more difficult to instill. This inertia is related to the historical context. While it is generally the environment which creates the evolutionary and social history of the world, the part this inertia plays in history is vital to understanding why people become irrational relative to their changing environmental context.

A Dr. Stan Corin of UBC stated on CBC's "Quirks and Quarks" April 6, 1996 that the brain seeks meaning automatically in every circumstance. In reference to the 3-D book technology he said that once someone is able to see the image hidden they will then always be able to see it, literally, even if it is no longer actually hidden there. He said that the brain creates the picture before the image can be seen properly if the image is suggested by the general context. What this implies is that, included with any pre-programmeded biological value, and experientially programmed ethic, is a feature of the brain which drives the individual to assume in preference to observation. This is a basis for the irrationality seen. This explains the disparity often found between individual contexts and environmental contexts and perhaps explains why scientists, in general, have such a difficult time with objectivity.

Contexts are vital to survival. There are many examples of the problems created when there is no referent context to work with. While the context of consciousness functions to offer the sense of focus, other things are working to upset that focus by making useful contexts difficult to create: zebras in herds, do this by their stripes. Predators, including humans, need to decide which prey to attack. If they cannot differentiate the prey by creating distinctions/contexts, than a confusion sets in. The German Navy used the same idea in World War One to great effect, and today it is called disruptive camouflage. When disruption occurs, when contexts cannot be created in the mind, then a confusion as to what to focus on, makes survival, in the long run, impossible. What the creation of contexts from moment to moment does, even when it is a false assumption, is to clarify the meaning of the universe to the individual.

If it is a given that human life can mean nothing, but it does mean something, and that this meaning is due to nature's creation of the ability to create contexts, why then can there not be complete agreement, politically, as to what context is meaningful and what is not? The answer is that some people die before others, are stronger than others, are smarter than others, are about to be smothered by volcanic ash, or are generally luckier than others. In other words, the circumstances, biological, environmental and historical, help differenciate the needs of all people and therefore put them all into conflict.

Conflict is almost unavoidable. For example, if a nation found itself in a famine, and unable to trade with its neighbors due to poverty, as North Korea is today, it could create a new rational context which would fall within the existing national context's justification for war. Such was also the case in the early history of humanity. However, this creation of new contexts which justify the modification of existing national, personal and other contexts need not stop at aiding immediate survival. They can be looked at as important for long term survival. The millionaire who hoards huge amounts of money while others starve can be justified in claiming a need to hedge against the uncertain future in store for himself and his children (as the bankruptcies of many millionaires and their offspring can testify). Likewise the ruler who invades an economically successful nation can claim that peace is not a certainty in the future and that a pre-emptive invasion will eliminate that uncertainty. Such is the dilemma in the dealings between China and the US today. The way China/US relations are heading at the moment, the US seems to be considering whether to castrate China as it did to North Korea and Iraq, before it becomes too powerful to deal with. Such was the dilemma for Hitler before the invasion of the Soviet Union. He, of course, miscalculated, but not every ruler does. The conclusion of this line of reasoning is that all contexts are strengthen by flexibility to the environment. Weber's realpolitik is a recognition of this necessary element to a context's survival.

The only reason why political values resemble each other at all, is analogous to why humans resemble each other in the first place - by surviving for thousands of years as a species humans have been channeled through time like a stream down a mountain. Weber and Fromm gave so much weight to history for this reason. It is also why Freud despairs about human nature. The former focused on the environment, history, and the later, focused on biology, but the idea which comes closer to grasping what is happening involves both. Primarily, it is evolution, of which history is an aspect, which explains why we look, sound, think, and contextualize similarly enough to be perceived as a species. So while any ethic is allowed, evolution prevents some ethics from surviving. But as there are always physical mutations being born which may survive to change the course of evolution, there will always be ethical mutations to test the existing ones. Under such a scope, the causes and effects of various ethics are already tested and need not be examined further, but if science can experimentally discover the causes and effects of various political/ethical ideas before evolution shows it, then the usefulness of an politic/ethic can be determined.

What I have attempted to show in this paper is that there is a method which causes the observer to become the observed, and this involves putting aside ethical bias and then taking them up again as objects for study. By this maneuver the study of politics can be scientific, and secondly contexts and there function can be illuminated more fully.

GRH

essays