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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