Feet In Many Worlds

Isn’t recognizing complexity without being overwhelmed or confused by it a worthy goal? Or is the human desire for comfort zones and simplifying our lives so strong as to make distinctive and semi-exclusionary social groups the norm?

Having recently returned from a wonderful conference on financial management (it really was, surprisingly) in Orlando, it got me thinking a bit about, well, me. The people I was at the conference with were truly great, a wonderful mil community. We went out and had fun doing karaoke one night (with some very intimidating singers—when was the last time people filled the dance floor when the karaoke singer was belting it out?). And I left for that conference the morning after a wonderful and wild end-of-school party with my twenty-something friends (hot tub, pool table, convertible rides, beer pong, fire pits, Hungarian horseshoes, fun drinks, etc.). And that after graduation with the “establishment” of the area and my fellow instructors and a fair amount of haute socializing. And that a week coming off an airshow meeting many representatives of the vendors and the Blue Angels and the city and many traditional folks with good values. And that after meeting with a wonderful environmental group and the striving for a better world they represent, and a different, although equally good, set of values.

My thinking out loud: They don’t associate much with each other! And don’t want to! Am I just an oddity of life in that I get along so well with all of them, that I actually enjoy and value all their company? That I recognize their strengths and drawbacks and yet don’t dwell on them? Most of them ASSUME I am completely and wholly one and the same as them, but of course I’m not. The few who know I’m different needle me that I don’t stand for enough (I do stand for plenty; they just have to razz me).

Well, reading over the above two paragraphs scented a bit of arrogance, I see. But I really do want an opinion from the blogkin (that would be you)! Are we as a society fated, except sometimes in moment of crisis, to be divided, to be inward looking at ourselves and our own groups? Everyone cries for cooperation, but holds so strongly to their own beliefs and desires that it makes cooperation the near-impossible goal.

Certainly, our political system, while it often forces compromise, is not really designed much for actual cooperation. Our Framers designed a system of fractionated power (they learned the need to do that from history!) because they believed in one thing above all: maximum roadblocks to tyranny. If that is the case then, it is almost the fire-sign that we should not design or build really complex political/governmental institutions that require cooperation, because the system will damn them to inefficiency or failure, even disregarding the natural enervating properties of bureaucracy. And that would mean that the case for limited government is almost built in as fated to be the only rational choice. And that local government itself should not only be limited, but the primary body that does exert some governmental influence.

And if that is the case, given the difficulty of cooperation, should we the observant merely wait until the built-in predispositions of the system return things to how they should be (perhaps after much pain)? Or is the power absorbing reach of the modern nation-state so strong as to necessitate some action, any action, to force it to face its incongruent and self-destructive strivings?

I think I have a hint of what your answer might be, but am not sure. You have been full of thought provoking gems!