The Social Animal and Peace

To summarize the thoughts from The Peace Game and Desire and Socialness, tensionlessness and peace are not one and the same thing. Tension is inevitable due to the fact that we have desires i.e. food, shelter, happiness, etc., while peace is a kind of path towards a desire that could be labeled as intrinsically valuable. To achieve this we have to rely on others, because we are social animals. In order to maintain the social cohesion that helps us get what we desire, we have to help others get what they desire. Because time is limited, we align ourselves with those whose ends are similar to ours. As a result, every group naturally has a value system it needs to maintain in order to accomplish it's ends. It's in this environment that politics necessarily arise.

So far, the fact that we desire things, and connect with others to get what we want, all seems relatively genteel. I scratch your back and you scratch mine. How could this go wrong? Politics is socialness in motion and has a significantly negative connotation though. Why is this and why can't we seem to sidestep it? Why does the social animal give birth to the political animal?

A major part of this negativity stems from the fact that people self-edit when it comes to explicitly expressing their desires. One reason is because desire can be exploited. And since we not only have our own personal desires, but are also necessarily entangled with the desires of the various groups we are a part of and opposed to, there are lots of access points for others to leverage against us. Lots of situations where we can become a means to some other end as opposed to a participant. It’s easy, then, to be pushed away from our desired course. As a result, it's not usually smart to completely show our hand, so to say. Doing so could compromise attaining our desire, so we hide parts of ourselves as a resolve.

The line between a healthy self preservation and manipulation or deceit isn't always clear though. We can see this in our instinct to even avoid just punishment. Additionally, if we give indications as to how much we want our desire, we can end up being in the compromising situation of paying more than what is justified. Harvey Weinstein is an example of someone willing to exploit other’s desires. It's possibilities like this which is why we are all innately political animals on some level. It's a way to guard ourselves and our group, but also a way to achieve success for ourselves and those we are connected to. On one end of the political spectrum is victimhood and on the other is the possibility for success.

To compound the issue though, people often lie to themselves to better lie to others. This comes from the instinct to hide or confuse the queues that are given away subconsciously through body language and other nonconscious signals. Since there are people willing to take advantage of any and all situations to simply get a leg up, self deceit is a clever strategy. No one can completely read us and, as a result, we become difficult to exploit.

If we are willing to lie to ourselves though, it makes it nearly impossible to know if our desires are actually ours or if we are simply engaged in a "memetic desire" (to use René Girard's concept) that doesn't benefit us. In any case, we are left with carrying around a value system that isn't completely ours in order to find peace. And since every group moralizes their value system to some extent, especially as they get bigger, we are left with the obligation to adhere. Any deviation or alteration can be considered dissent, since it threatens to disrupt the very foundation upon which the group formed. This can, of course, become another kind of prison that’s different from the fear of exploitation. We are still left to self-edit though.

I feel like I could probably continue or do a better job at explaining the political, but I’ll end this train of thought to try and get to the point of my initial one regarding desire an peace.

Given the seeming inevitability of the unsavory political animal, are we simply left to enact various forms of lying to get by? Though it may seem like a dark or hopeless conclusion, there does appear to be ways (or a way) out, in my opinion.

In order to rise above being merely political we must be able to attain a fearlessness about life. (This is something I talked a little bit about in my post called Salvation.) And part of the way in which we get past the fears that revolve around our socialness is to have compassion. To see others, not as morons or Bond level villains, but as finite and anxiety riddled creatures that don't know any other way to cope with reality. It’s realizing people are imprisoned by their own fears and anxieties, and are trying to survive in the only ways they know how. This doesn’t mean we have to give ourselves over to others in an unbridled way. It also doesn’t mean that we become immune to the affliction of pain and suffering dished out by aggressors. But, it does give us the ability to step outside of having to play the same game. To move past getting caught in the race to the bottom and refocus on our initial desire. Compassion gives us the ability to realign ourselves, so that we may take towards action towards something valuable. Getting past fear, even of our own mortality, may be the only way to achieve compassion though. This is because there is little reason anyone would allow themselves to be exposed otherwise.

If peace is one of our ends, as it is opposed to tensionlessness, then choosing our desire and carrying it out with fearlessness and compassion is one of the only ways I can see to attain it. There are traditions, such as certain Buddhist practices, that encourage one to learn how to overcome all desire, but, in my opinion, this isn't required. A certain amount of self-denial does seem to be necessary on some level though, but not because the world is bad; it's only because we have to concentrate on our values. This means excluding other, even good things, to make that progress. Peace is a possibility, but not an inevitability. As a result, it seems that it can only be had if we, as individuals, adopt a compassion that rests within fearlessness.