Sunday, May 08, 2016

How to improve the abstract mistakes of individualism and equality


I think the American Constitution can be redeemed or justified if the group-selection of sociobiology is fully understood and given priority over Lockean equality and individualism. Let me explain:

Lockean individualism is like the surface tip of the iceberg with group-selection the larger part of the iceberg beneath the sea. Human nature according to sociobiology (E. O. Wilson) contains a constant confrontation between the individual and the group, with the group, or group-selection, most successful in survival, creating social behavior, altruism etc.

Individualism and equality originally came from the Christian revelation that all men are equal under God, and the Puritans who founded America affirmed this belief.(discussed in the Spring 2016 issue of Modern Age). It was not understood that this notion would lead to a rejection of the idea of God because individualism tends to trump any conformity to any sort of group revelations from God, or otherwise.

But religious abstractions about Godhood need not lead to the rejection of the group by individualism and equality if Godhood is understood as not a spiritual abstraction but the zenith of material evolution. This is the position of theological materialism. Life evolves to Godhood in the material world and group-selection has not only been more successful than individualism in evolution, it has created our social behavior and was the original source of religious altruism.

It is group-selection inherent in real human nature which supersedes individualism, not the Christian concept of equality under God. We are equal or universal in that we all share a basic human nature which affirms group-selection while keeping individualism as a secondary form of selection within groups.

The American constitutional idea of equality and individualism, as well as the constitutional separation of powers and states, can be redeemed or justified if group-selection is given social and political priority. And this can be done without rejecting Godhood but by accepting the real non-abstract Godhood reached through material evolution, which in turns leads to ethnopluralism---constitutionally separate regions and states for distinct groups, protected by federalism.

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