Our minds are truly astonishing. Knowledge and ignorance, good and bad, are both physically and normatively so close to one another and intertwined that telling them apart is difficult. Yet, they are conceptually so far away from each other that it is baffling how we can mix them up. We ask about the sense of our being, answer the question and proceed to violate the very principles we outlined for ourselves. We long for clarity, progress and answers but do everything in our power to reach those things. The longer the human remains research subject for philosophers, the more authoritative the truth gets that we are weak and limited beings. While reading this, you are projecting those negatively connotated words to others. It is never you who is at fault. It is not you who disregards the principles of a good life. It is not you who turns away from seeking the truth. So, how come that mankind is reproducing the same problems repeatedly? How come politics remains a circus in the eye of the public when the public is the force that upholds this circus? In other words, are we betraying ourselves? Yes.
While you are reading this, even though you were told not to, you are surrounded by the political problems of your nation. You are also perceiving a variety of socio-economic problems that are born out of your ideological thought structure. You are also in the false belief that those ideas, views, wishes and preferences are the product of your conscious decisions. Probably, you perceive a desire to solve those problems, and in order to do so, you would like to utilise those mental properties that you believe are your own original products. Humans are generally physically limited to one or two core talents. Due to the variety and colourfulness of life, those talents can be very different in nature. Even though we can explore the surface of many of those facets of life, our ability to dive into the depths of life is limited to those one or two talents. Everything else is influenced by our environment. Putting this into the context of the many people who are seemingly interested in politics, we need to acknowledge that the majority of people hold political views that were externally induced to them with the promise that these are their own original thoughts. The promise of freedom in the political realm is a lie that can survive because the general public is too comfortable to master the science of politics. Whether you would like to see a zero-emission economy or a foreigner-free nation, the probability that your core talent lies elsewhere, and those political thoughts are just a hodgepodge of filtered information, your education and socio-economic upbringing is very high. But why would you care about it anyway if your talent lies somewhere else? The political ideas provide you with something that you were not able to produce for yourself: an identity.
We often do not want the change to happen but rather enjoy the feeling of dealing with the problem itself to feel relevant. By defending a political ideology that you cannot even superficially dismantle, you hide behind the strength of the group of your socio-economic peers. Conveniently, you then have other socio-economic groups you compete with and define your status in society through the power relations between those ideological groups. Your representative politicians gather to leave problems unsolved or create new problems for you to fill your identity gap with the ideas created by other men. The reason why you defend capitalism against socialism or socialism against capitalism is that you want to claim the knowledge superiority over the other group on a matter of highest importance: the organisation of societies. The success of your political representatives defines your societal status and, thus, provides you with the feeling of having an identity. For no other reason are we supporting sports clubs or certain groups at our workplaces. At the same time, the political group, initiated by those few who had their talents in this political realm, needs you, too! The group allows you to believe it was your idea to alter the tax code or restructure welfare policies. It was your idea to create a free trade zone rather than pursue a mercantilist course of action. It was also your idea to privatise infrastructural companies but let the state retain golden shares to reduce systemic risk. You do not want to read that you are not free in choosing your political ideology – it would take away your societal identity. This would happen anyway when all political problems are solved. This would also happen if the whole society would work together to develop into a better place because then you would not have an opposition to enter into ideational competition with and artificially create a measure of your societal status. You must prevent the solution of political problems. And the best way to do this is to hold on really tight to the belief that your one political ideology that someone else developed with a different vision in mind.
However, there is one thing you should read: You can change all of this. Imagine you would be so confident in your ability to pursue your talent that you would devote your life to it. All of a sudden, there is no competition anymore because you are the best in your field. There is no need to measure yourself against anything or anyone anymore. Your societal status is not in danger because you have found your place in society, which happens to be the exact place where your talent lies. Imagine being free from the need to be acknowledged for what you reiterate and to hold onto these views. Instead of defending yourself, learning from others becomes a habit because you want to develop your field further. What you can give society is happily received, while you happily receive what society offers you. Imagine understanding that politics cannot be limited to a universal ideological frame but is an organic management system that needs tailored responses from excellent craftsmen, somewhat like you in your field. But you do not want to read this. After having agreed on the above, you will not seek to find your talent and shake off the need to betray yourself for your lack of identity. This is only true for others, not for you. In the next political discussion, you will not dive into the scientific technicalities but will still defend your point and hold on to it as it provides you with a mental safe haven. You will not be affected by this writing style because it constantly tells you what not to do. Our minds are truly astonishing.
