Pointless Politics

I tried writing a political post that would not mention worldview or deeper values. I found it boring and futile. All politics must rest on values, and all values must rest on a worldview. What is the point of talking about measurements to improve the human experience, if it has not been established what that human experience consists of or means?

We could spend our entire lives talking about what taxes are fair and how to best deal with criminals. We could argue about the educational systems and who should fund art. But in the end, what is the point? The point of politics must be to enable all people to have the chance to find meaning in their lives. This might seem like a big jump, but let me fill in the blanks. In order to know what the point of politics is, we must know what the point of a society is. And in order to know what the point of a society is, we must know what the point of an individual human life is. So let’s argue about that first. Let’s argue about the value of human life and the whether she can be trusted with choices. Let’s argue about what a human is, and then we can argue about how to form her society.

If you think a human is a piece of meat that appeared by chance after millions of years of random mutations, then I understand that you think it doesn’t matter much whether she lives or dies, or that her subjective experience is more important than her life, or that a group of such pieces of meat is more important than any single one of them. It seems pointless to discuss these topics, since they all come from your worldview. So I won’t disagree with you on these topics. I will disagree with your worldview.