A New Era for the Center-Left

That dreaded word - "Theory" Part 2

Part One is here.

Part Two is here.

Part Three is here.

Part Four is here.

Part Five is here.

Part Six is here.

Part Seven is here.

Last time we talked about how literature and contemporary theory moved the world, however, it is quite clear that there is more to postmodernism than simply a rejection of the unified world of modernism. this part of postmodernism, for that it is though not continental European literature is both joined at the hip to the tumults of postmodernism in the way it rejects a Western Canon and is different in that it has bestowed upon us a more unified theory of mathematics and science, even as it admits that it news this theory to be fundamentally disjointed.

This may seem absurd to a nonscientist, but it is also very much the truth. It stems from the fact that Quantum Chromo Dynamic and General Relativity are correct, in fact, QCD is the most correct theory known to science, and are mutually incompatible with each other. so on one hand the science and philosophy we have of science is more correct than at any point in history and is also, at the same time, incorrect of itself. but what is more than that, many disciplines that were separate and distinct have been brought together so that the whole of science reinforces itself because each one is based on the others. which means that we can now say, in a way we could not in 1950, that there is a logic to the cosmos that reinforces itself. and that means that other sciences that do not dissipate in this mutually reinforcing synergy are looking to join the unified sciences so that they can participate in this synergy.

What this means is that:

1. At the same time that the public is holding the idea that there is no truth, the sciences are closer than ever to discovering new ideas that affect the entirety of sciences.

2. While the public is holding to the idea that their version of the truth is correct the sciences know for a fact that the sciences are a simulation that is in some fundamental level wrong at the very core of it.

3. This means that in America we have a divide between the popular conception, which is pervaded by multiple versions of the truth and feels itself to be correct, and the scientific conception, which knows that it is fundamentally incorrect but has a more unified notion of the truth than has ever before been possible to attain. In other words, the popular conception and the scientific conception are fundamentally opposed.

4. We have had an election that elevates the popular conception in ways that are fundamentally wrong but has given it almost unlimited power to enforce that wrong-headed structure even when we know it to be wrong.

This tension has been building for some time. The last time that the electorate gave the popular conception a chance to govern it was thwarted by a scientifically run bureaucracy that did not want to give in to what was, effectively, the scientific worldview. but this time the electorate has said that they want to be governed by the popular conception rather than by the scientific conception. We are nearly at the breaking point and for the moment the electorate has chosen the popular conception irregardless of the consequences.

This means that we are in a constitutional crisis: there are certain things in our government that are harder than others. We can distinguish these by those that are passed by law, whether civil, criminal, or administrative, and those that require a higher level of electorate approval. That is there is a meta-constitutional line win which actions must fall above or below. This line however can be crossed because there are laws that are on the books that are treated as if they were constitutional but are not. A simple example is the number of seats in the House of Representatives. There is no amendment that sets this number, it is passed by a simple majority of both houses of Congress with the signature of the President. There are also Supreme Court decisions that again are not bound by the constitutional standard but are very hard to change because one has to change the Supreme Court. But again nine justices is not in any place in the Constitution, it is simply a law. A law which can be amended the same way any other law can be. At any time.

I will submit that the Democratic Party must come down on one side or the other, and it must convince the whole of the Democratic Party that it should be the scientific consensus and not the popular consensus. This means that the Democratic Party must convince its followers that though it holds firm to the idea that every individual’s conscience is of no concern to the government, the government must allow for the fact it runs only on the scientific consensus. That is, the government must not interfere with popular prerogatives, especially on the choice of religion and all that comes with that, but it must operate in the scientific consensus because that is the only way to run the government in a world where there are threats that can, at any time, direct actions against the United States. We must make this choice remembering that the world can operate under a different standard than the United States whatever certain outlets of the media wish to have otherwise.

This means that the popular consensus can run individuals’ lives as before without any interference except for those actions which would otherwise be crimes in themselves but they only give the state the power to regulate their lives under the scientific consensus. This division is very similar to the division when taken up at the close of the Civil War: the government must treat all people as equal before the law even though it has no opinion about what individual people thought about each other. It is the division that was reached at the end of the Great Depression: each person must come to his own understanding without prejudice from the law but must treat all people as equal. This division between public and private is very much in accord with the way the United States government and the laws that it operates on are structured. But that means that some of the actions that have been taken have not been in accord with the public/private consensus. It is this way that the Democratic Party can place on every single ballot the choice between how much power do you want the government to have? And the response of the Democratic Party is that you should not want the government to have unlimited power in private affairs.

It seems, however, that the scientific consensus must be put on the constitutional level, and our allies must be assured that it would take a tremendous change in consensus for this to happen. Because after all if another politician decides to change the laws which are erected to prevent the private consensus from running the government then they will not trust the United States again. That is even when the Democratic Party is out of office, and remember that is one of the tenants of being a party inside the United States, there are certain boundaries and rules of consensus that must not be broken.

This then means that in addition to a Republican form of government,¹ a Democratic means of election, and a universal minimum of rights that are respected everywhere, an additional consensus must be that the government must run on a scientific viewpoint but that does not mean that every person needs to do the same thing because of the inviolable contract between the government and the states most importantly the contract of the Bill of Rights and other amendments.

This divide now crosses the major media and some outlets such as the Washington Post have decided to go a different way taking the power of the president over the means by which the president can act. Again this is not the first time that this has happened, a few can remember Watergate or describe the machinations which caused Pres. Nixon ran afoul of the laws he was supposed to be bound by. But in this case, the Supreme Court has decided that Pres. Trump does not have to be bound by the same laws. This creates a conundrum that can only be settled in the realm of politics: because the contradiction is too sensitive to bend to theoretical means or two constitutional means. In other words, the country must come to a consensus as to how it wishes to do business, but it must remember that other countries may make decisions that will not be in alignment: Greenland, Panama, and Canada have their own way of doing things and it is not under the United States Constitution.

It also means that certain long-held assumptions must be washed away because they were taken as a political necessity rather than as part of a constitutional framework. I will take a simple example: marijuana should not be on Schedule I, which reads:

Schedule I

Schedule I drugs, substances or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote.

That does not mean that marijuana should be legal like caffeine is, merely that the scientific consensus be reflected in the law. It also means that the states can regulate marijuana to different levels without looking over their shoulder as to the very high level of regulation which the federal government currently abides by because at a lower level of regulation, the government need not restrict marijuana to the same level as is currently the case.

It also means that several parts of the Democratic Party’s framework must be out of reach to the overturned, an example here is that Health Care is a human right and that while the means may vary the human right must be maintained. This is because there should be no one who faces bankruptcy over having a Human Right. It also means that climate change is a human right as well: we cannot in the present take scientific facts and ignore them for immediate profit. It also means that other actions of the Democratic party fall below the standard and are simply laws to be overturned at the next election in the same way that other laws can be changed.

This means that the contract with the people and the Democratic party needs to change from an old way which is bound by the postmodern consensus in favor of a new consensus. But that consensus needs to have teeth, and that means that it requires a new tax policy and industrial policy which could not be done under the old consensus even if many individual representatives wanted to make the change. This is because the old consensus believed that the fossil fuel economy was the standard. This is not the scientific consensus, instead, the scientific consensus is that polluting the air with carbon dioxide means that future generations will have their will to act constrained by what we do in the present. But that is a contradiction in terms: we do not have the right to restrict future generations from making choices under the law only under the Constitution.

This distinction is very old and is contained in the very words of the Constitution: we cannot have a government without a President. The President’s powers must be constrained by the Constitution and such amendments that are given and he must act within the law. It is a call to return the constitution and a spirit that we are a nation of laws not a nation of people.

The last section is devoted to the tax policy that now governs the land and why from these cold hard equations it must be destined to change.

1. Set forth in IV.4: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,”