EXISTENTIAL POLARITIES: Hyper-polarization Must Be Managed If Not Resolved Altogether
PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS I: “Mending the Fragmentation of America”
The “Path to Totality Project (PTP): A Change of Consciousness Challenge” is based on several cultural evolution papers and integral theory books. In the following days, I will be laying down daily installments that form the intellectual foundation that inspired and motivated me to create this first in a series of “National Unifying Purpose (NUP).”
ICE’s POLARITY THEORY:
“Depolarizing The American Mind”
“How America can grow beyond its currently polarized politics” is the subject matter of the second paper I partially cite here from the Institute of Cultural Evolution (ICE) by Steve Mcintosh, J.D. and Carter Phipps but it is fully expounded upon in “Philosophical Pillar IX” of my third book, coming out on November 5, 2019 called, THE DYNAMIC DECALOGUE: A Metamodern Manifesto From The Grand Synthesis Of Integral Theory Applications As The Ten Philosophical Pillars of Neo-Transcendentalism For Evolutionary Transformation.
Political gridlock in Washington is one of the most troubling problems faced by America today. The polarized state of our democracy has been called a “wicked problem” because there are multiple causes but no clear solutions. The costs of polarization, however, are easy to recognize. As a result of this logjam in the legislature action on other pressing problems is stalled. Important issues such as income inequality, climate change, budget deficits, campaign finance reform, immigration reform, and tax reform all remain unaddressed […].
Although the “wicked problem” of our polarized, dysfunctional democracy requires remediation on many levels, our proposed contribution to a solution involves depolarizing the American mind. This entails helping voters think beyond the “thesis and antithesis” of contemporary politics by recognizing a potential future “synthesis” which is latent within the currently gridlocked liberal-conservative polarity of the present. Our proposed synthesis, however, can be clearly distinguished from a centrist position in the way it anticipates a “New Left” and a “New Right” of the future — positions that are now beginning to emerge within the Millennial generation. We suggest that these future Left and Right positions will increasingly exert a pull over current liberal and conservative positions, ultimately providing opportunities for new synthetic agendas and proposals to emerge that are more integrative and less reflective of the polarized status quo […].
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First we examine the historical causes of polarization and conclude that, while much of it has been caused by the Republican party’s move toward the right, the responsibility for overcoming the gridlock rests mainly with progressives and liberals. We then consider principles for working with “existential oppositions” such as the liberal-conservative polarity. These principles indicate that each side of this relatively permanent polarity needs the other for its own further and fuller development. Each side can accordingly improve and strengthen its own position by increasing the quantity and quality of what it is able to value.
We argue that ameliorating polarization requires cultural evolution, which involves a new form of synthesis rather than an old form of centrism. Indeed, from an evolutionary perspective, centrism is not only unfeasible, it is also regressive. This leads to the presentation of our proposed synthesis platform, which describes positions on specific issues that integrate the values of Left and Right. The synthesis platform proposal also includes a method for enlarging the set of values that American voters can hold. As we hope to show, as Americans come to better appreciate and integrate the foundational values of their political opponents into their own positions, new forms of political agreement will inevitably emerge. Fostering this kind of cultural emergence is more like gardening than engineering, which means working to create the necessary conditions that will allow for a new form of life to sprout up.
Principles For Working With Existential Polarities
While polarities are everywhere, it is important to distinguish between two essential kinds. The first kind of polarity is straightforwardly “good and bad.” For example, prosperity is good and poverty is bad; poverty is a problem we need to solve. Unlike this first kind of positive-negative polarity, however, the second basic kind of polarity is positive-positive, wherein both sides of the opposition are worthy of preservation and respect, such as in the polarity of “masculine and feminine.” Positive-positive polarities represent partially opposing yet interdependent principles or positions that mutually enact one another by both contradicting and complementing their opposing pole. For example, in the positive-positive polarity of “individual and community,” opposing interests require continuous rebalancing or reconciling as conditions develop over time.
A common mistake is to approach an existential polarity as a problem to be solved rather than as a developmental system to be managed. For instance, progressives often view the polarity of “competition and cooperation” as a straightforward problem that requires competition to be lessened and cooperation to be increased. And while many problematic situations can indeed be improved through greater cooperation, the attempt to eliminate all competitive tension usually results in the stifling of individual initiative and the drive for comparative excellence. According to polarity management consultant Barry Johnson, “Polarities to manage are sets of opposites which can’t function well independently. Because the two sides of a polarity are interdependent, you cannot choose one as a ‘solution’ and neglect the other. The objective … is to get the best of both opposites while avoiding the limits of each.” [5]
This “evolutionary” understanding of positive-positive existential polarities serves as the guiding principle of ICE’s proposal for ameliorating political polarization in America. We start by acknowledging that the polarity of liberal and conservative is essentially a positive-positive form of opposition wherein the best of both sides are worthy of preservation. And again, human history bears out that some form of this polarity continues to reappear in almost every human political context. These opposing viewpoints may even be genetically based and thus hardwired into our brains.[6] While there are certainly positive-negative versions of the liberal and conservative polarity, wherein one side is in bad faith or simply wrong, overcoming our Nation’s polarized condition requires that each side sees more of the virtue of the other. That is, in the long run both sides need each other and must thus function somewhat interdependently.
Yet while the liberal-conservative polarity is relatively permanent and existential, it does change and evolve, reappearing in new form as conditions change. For example, sometimes the liberals of one era become the conservatives of the next, as seen in the history of the Republican party itself, which once represented the liberal or progressive pole in the 19th Century. So even though the contemporary American manifestation of this liberal-conservative polarity appears to be stuck, preventing any progress whatsoever, history teaches that it will eventually and inevitably continue to reappear in the future in a reconfigured but nevertheless recognizable form.
Our approach accordingly seeks to anticipate the future state of this existential political opposition by describing the form that the “New Left” and “New Right” will likely take in the decades ahead. We then use these “more evolved” political positions to fashion a synthesis platform that can be used in the present to reduce the hardened state of opposition that has made our democracy dysfunctional. Our synthesis platform proposal does not entail establishing a new political party, nor are we proposing a centrist position that seeks to solve the problem simply through bipartisan compromise. Rather, our proposal frames a higher-level form of agreement that invites evolution beyond the thesis and antithesis of our present state of polarization into a synthesis that defines some new, albeit inevitably temporary, common ground.
The higher-level synthesis we propose can be distinguished from the familiar centrist approach in that we are not attempting to “split the difference” between the current positions of the Democratic and Republican parties. As discussed below, we envision future left-wing positions that better appreciate the need for limited government and the preservation of market freedoms, and future right-wing positions that better acknowledge the imperative for social justice and environmentally sustainable economic growth. Synthetic positions such as these are not being adequately considered within mainstream political discourse, so our plan is to describe the contours of these anticipated future positions and help give them the visibility required to garner agreement from a politically significant segment of the American electorate.1
