Human nature and future politics

President Obama won 71% of Latinos, 93% Blacks, 73% Asians, 60% of people under 30, and 39% of white votes. What does this really mean for America's future?

It all depends on the view of human nature. Americans were largely taught the universal political creed of “openness to the other,” which now rules all other creeds as political correctness. Cultural and ethnic identities are supposedly relegated down to the private sphere. The problem is, human nature does not work that way.

The various groups do not, in their actual behavior, seek real openness to the other, they seek dominance by their own group and their own culture, even if they disguise it, even to themselves, as openness to the other. This is where the problems in the future develop, which leads to cultural and ethnic clashes, and not openness to the other.

On the other hand, if we affirm the view of human nature seen throughout human history, and validated by the neo-Darwinist science of sociobiology, then the central dynamic of human behavior has been group-selection, where people prefer their own kind, their own cultures, their own regions and localities. This preference evolved over time because it was successful in survival and reproduction. This was the main foundation in the creation of human ethics.

If we want to have realistic openness to the other we must allow groups, states, and regions, a strong measure of independence, separation and variety, and then protect that independence with a light federalism. If we pay attention to real human nature we will not force different people and different cultures to be all the same, or to live together in the same spot---coercion is the only way that this kind of egalitarianism can happen, if at all.

Western liberals never seem to see that they are forcing others, through warfare or economics, to be “open to the other.” This has much to do with the modern disconnect between real human nature and politics. If we care about the other we will allow them to be different in their own way, in their own nations, regions and states.

It so happens that the Constitution of the United States thinks in terms of largely independent states, especially in its affirmation of the Tenth Amendment, which says that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This is the conservative and legal way to allow human nature to be what it is. Neither forced egalitarianism, nor secession of the states, are necessary.

Perfection is never possible, but longer term harmony along with evolution is possible if we pay attention to real human nature. The future depends on how we realize and accommodate real human nature.