Are all politicians corrupt?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

Are all politicians corrupt? I don’t think they are. I think you’d have to be a fool to think none of them are, and that conspiracies never happen, but I think the general public has an over-inflated sense of paranoia over the intentions of men in power and what they are conspiring about.

For the most part, I think most men in power are too stupid to pull off anything on the scale of what conspiracy theorists predict or suspect is going on in politics. I think it does happen, of course, but I think to pull it off successfully requires unparalleled intelligence, and more importantly, very organized cooperation amongst large networks of individuals, each with different and necessary powers and wherewithal. The challenge is in both the ability to be that organized and secretive about the operation, and I don’t think one can pull something that complicated off without something leaking.

But even given the difficulty with which conspiracies can be successfully pulled off, I think most politicians don’t have corrupt or evil motives. I think most people look at politics in the wrong light. I think they look at politics in a us/them way. Politicians are an entirely different breed of people–corrupt people, power hungry people, selfish people–not like us, not like “ordinary” folk who have a healthy, down-to-earth sense of morality and how to get around in this world. But how quickly we forget that unless your living in a monarchy, politicians typically come from the people (and even then, monarchs are human too and really aren’t that different, genetically speaking, from other human beings).

I’m not oblivious to the fact that power can have a corrupting influence over a person. My theory behind how this happens is that what it means for one to enter into a position of power is to enter into a position in which no, or very few, negative consequences follow from one doing whatever the hell one wants. Negative consequences for “bad” behavior, or just the awareness of such, has the effect of keeping us in line morally, and prevents us from becoming “corrupt” in the eyes of others. But I don’t think this entails that should such consequences be suspended, one would immediately engage in selfish and immoral behavior, or behavior that would cause great harm to others or to one’s society. I think there is a mediating entity here–something that stands between our latent desires to do whatever the hell we want and our actually doing so, and it isn’t the negative consequences that we predict will come about from our acting immorally–and that entity is our conscience. I believe that this awareness of negative consequences, or perhaps the actual experience of negative consequences keeps the conscience alive, but I believe it is the conscience, depending on our awareness of negative consequences to be kept alive, that prevents us from becoming corrupt and engaging in immoral behavior. The conscience isn’t just an awareness that negative consequences will follow bad behavior but truly is a feeling or insight into pure “right” and “wrong”–if you’re cynical about morality, you can consider this an illusion, or a distraction, averting your attention from the actual causes of your so-called moral behavior (namely, the negative consequences I’m supposing keep alive your conscience)–but even so, I maintain that the conscience is there in most healthy (or “normal”) people and functions as a simple feeling or insight about what counts as “good” behavior and what counts as “bad”.

But given that the conscience depends on the recurring experience or awareness of the negative consequences that would follow bad behavior, if one enters into a position in society characterized by a significant decrease in such consequences (or a complete lack thereof), then slowly over time, one’s conscience will atrophy. This is actually typical of the human brain–it’s a basic principle of neurology–use it or lose it. If the guilt centers of the brain (or social control centers, if you like) are not periodically exercised, they will atrophy from disuse (or at least be put into hibernation until such time as to be revived). If one experiences less and less negative consequences for his/her actions–or becomes more and more aware that such consequences are not forthcoming in response to such actions–then those brain centers will not be exercised as much, and one slowly loses his/her conscience. That accounts for the corrupting influence of power.

This is precisely why democracy works. Democracy pivots on keeping men in power accountable. It hinges on there not being any such position in society characterized by a total lack of negative consequences for immoral actions, and it functions better the more we minimize any decrease in negative consequences for immoral actions (something I fear the people, especially Americans, are letting slide). Yes, it is true that men in power, even in a democracy, have unparalleled levels of power (relative to the common citizen), and they face far fewer and less intense negative consequences that others (this is primarily a result of their ability to play the system, however, as opposed to a formal granting of fewer or less intense negative consequences), but it is still a system in which there is a formal cap on how much we take away or reduce the severity of negative consequences for those in power (the simple fact that those in power are aware that they will one day become a common citizen once again is quite a significant example of this).

Having gotten all that out of the way, I want to put forward my main reasoning for thinking that corruption in politics is far less than most people assume. All the foregoing isn’t wrong per se as far as I’m concerned, but it’s more of a digression from my main point. My main point is that there is another significant reason for thinking political corruption is far less frequency and intense than most seem to assume, and that reason ties directly into a point I made above: that at least in democracies (or republics), those in power come from the people.

I think the number one principle on which to explain the personality types and motives of politicians is a biological one–not an sociopolitical one or one based on class distinctions according to which we can divide ordinary citizens and politicians into an us/them categorization scheme–but a principle of bio-diversity. Given a population of human beings, there is going to be a wide diversity of different types, different kinds of people with different personalities, ideals, aspirations, levels of drive, orientations and focus, beliefs, values, dispositions, etc. It would be kind of like ILP. Every crazy philosophy that has seen the light of day is held by one or another person here at ILP, plus a whole bunch on the middle ground. It’s diversity. I think of the political arena as much the same: a whole smorgasbord of different types of people, each one carrying his or her own crazy views and values and political agendas. It’s still hella scary because many of them are quite eccentric and bordering on insanity or mania, but the word “corrupt” is misleading I think. There is about as much corruption or “evil” in politics as there probably is here at ILP–which isn’t to say there isn’t any–look at Joker, look at Eternal Savagery, maybe even insightfool ( :astonished: )–but they’re far from the majority. The only difference I see between members of ILP and the political arena is in the ambitions: as philosophers, we want to express or argue for our crazy views; in the political arena, they want to put their crazy views into action, to change the world (and of course there’s plenty of overlap, but the emphasis is obviously different).

This is just the nature of the beast: we do fancy ourselves as civilized and in a sense “higher” than other animals, but we are still biological organisms–we haven’t escaped our place in the process of evolution; there is still a principle at work here, a principle of diversity–not just within the species as a whole, but any sub-group–any branch, any sect, any club, any sub-culture, any industry, any organization, any network, etc.

But Gib, wouldn’t those in political power necessarily have to possess the traits of ruthlessness and hunger for power? Yes, I can see how that would get you far in the game of politics, and you would think that those who don’t possess such traits would be weeded out–bio-diversity may be one principle about populations of organisms but survival of the fittest is another–and in this type of environment, those who are not ruthless and are not hungry for power will not survive. But I want to suggest that “ruthlessness” and “hunger for power” be regarded as strategies for survival rather than character traits of individual personalities; this would be a more accurate description, after all, of what it takes to survive: strategies, outward manifestations of behavior and approaches, not inward personalities or values or thoughts. Being “ruthless” for example, may be understand by an ambitious politician as simply what it takes to get through the system. But what are the ends he’s trying to meet? Is it possible that the ends justify the means? Is it not possible, for example, that Al Gore, in trying to save the planet from global warming and the destruction of the environment (a moral and selfless cause as far as I’m concerned), might understand that he must cut a few corners in order to get the job done, that he might have to lie and cheat sometimes? Could he not calculate in his decision making that these are necessary evils without having to compromise his moral values and the ideals he is, in the end, striving for? Is he really hungry for power for its own sake, or simply because he’s no dummy and realizes that he can’t make the world a better place unless he has sufficient power to do so? Remember, all kinds of personalities here: yes, some of them are corrupt, but there are just as many who are simply ambitious and idealistic, just as many who are intelligent and driven, who honestly want to change the world for the better and simply understand what that entails. With diversity, I don’t see why it is not just as likely that there will be just as many of the latter as there are the former.

And there will be every persuasion in between. Of course, this means that the bulk of politicians will probably only make it so far, only so high up on the food chain–they will not often be seen in the public eye, their impact on the world not that influential–but this too supports my point: that there are fewer truly corrupt politicians as we usually assume. They are the unsung heroes–unsung because they go unnoticed. I had a friend once in university who was like this: the nicest, most well-intentioned person you’d ever meet–wouldn’t hurt a fly–and he went into politics (he jokingly tells me he’s a spy–really, this just means he reviews certain activities of certain politicians… but he doesn’t have to steal this information or kill anyone :laughing: ). I don’t see why the political arena isn’t fraught with these types of good-meaning individuals. I don’t know if they get very far, if they climb into the limelight, but one can’t say of my friend that he is a manifestly corrupt politician.

And if this is so–if the bulk of politicians are these uncorrupted, yet unsung, individuals who are just trying to do some good in the world by whatever measure they can–then it means the truly corrupt ones are the minority… and this adds another twist into the dynamics of corruption. If you had one guy out of ten who was a real bully, what are the chances he would really be able to dominate over the others–I mean, yes, his aggressive, intimidating scare tactics might suppress some into submission, but wouldn’t that be temporary and only to a certain extent? Usually, when this dynamic happens in social groups, it doesn’t take long for the others to organize together and do something about the brute. People usually gain more power through numbers than a single individual or a minority can gain through ruthlessness or bullying. So if the bulk of politicians haven’t been corrupted, there is this other factor to be added to the dynamics of power: they will, through the power of numbers, exact certain negative consequences upon those few in power who abuse it.

Anyway, tonight is movie night–watching an old classic: Honey I shrunk the kids–it’s an oldie for the wife and I, but will be the first time the kids have seen it–so I gotta cut this short. My point is: the reality of the political world is probably a lot more mundane, and chaotic, due to basic principles of biology and evolution, than most cynical conspiracy theorists would have it.

2

I Think once you get past the local level, yes. Not in some binary way are they corrupt and not in a legal way are they corrupt, but I Think once you have to fund raise and/or compete with someone else who will do this and market themselves, corruption takes Place pretty much as a rule. This does nto mean some partially corrupted politician cannot do some good once they get there, but there is a taint and some degree of Control non-democratically over what they do.

3

Power doesn’t corrupt, it gives intelligent psychopaths the opportunity to express what they always knew they felt, deep down inside. Intelligent psychopaths flock to positions of power and prestige, naturally, the way pedophiles gravitate to priesthoods, or vultures to the smell of carrion. Are all politicians psychopaths? No, but because some, many of them are, there has to be a ton of checks and balances in order to keep them in line. It never changes, give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Republican or democrat, it’s always more taxes, more spending, on themselves first, on government itself, on the military industrial complex, on the big business and corporations, and everyone else last. More debt, more laws, when do you ever here of repealing laws? It’s always more, never, less. There’s always a crisis in the media, a new problem to solve, something drastic has to be done in the name of keeping everyone safe, secure and sound, and the solution they propose is always the same - bigger, more fascistic government. No I agree with Moreno, politicians and more importantly, the men behind the curtain, have an iQ 20-40 points higher than the general populace on average, are more psychopathic than the general populace on average, which is not to say we’re a bunch of saints, on the contrary. And yes they do get together, at Bohemian Grove, at Bilderberg, at Jekyll island, etcetera, and places that’re so top secret, no one but them will ever know, and yes and they do plan the fate of the world, or portions of it, which is not to say it always goes according to plan. Yes they’re absolutely obsessed with wealth and power, no different than a gambler is obsessed with winning the lottery or playing slots. Yes they will often sell their country out in order to feed their addiction. A little while ago, I heard this filthy, stinking rich man, had 500 000 000 dollars or so, and he committed suicide because he lost half of it virtually overnight on the stock market. That’s the level of greed, narcissism and vanity we’re often dealing with here, the guy still had 250 000 000 dollars, enough to give him his hearts desire for 100 lifetimes, and still. Yes, power over other men is still very, very alluring, enthralling, enticing and seductive. Society changes at a rapid pace, but human nature does not, the same thing that motivated pharaohs and kings to erect monuments to themselves, to conquer the world, to risk life and limb, or the lives and limbs of their soldiers, is still a factor, and will always be a factor, so long as man is approximately as he is, and there’s nothing magical or mystical about it, it’s merely greed, the same thing that compels and motivates us all, manifested differently, to a greater/lesser extent, the same thing that can destroy us all if expressed excessively in unhealthy doses. It’s so fucking common sense man, wake up! A lion stalks and hunts its prey. That’s precisely what’s going on here, except on a far, far grander scale. These men hunt the biggest, most lucrative prey of them all - manimal, and they’re very adept at it, they’ve had centuries, millennia of practice.

4

Setting aside the issue of whether Power corrupts, it seems to me the problem is often a lack of Power combined with the only means of getting Power - developing informal contracts and debts to people with a lot of Power, generally in the form of Money, in context. You can then get Power, by making these informal contracts, and each accumulation of Power is reflected by a similar loss of independent Agency.

5

You’re looking at it in a different way than me. You’re talking about politician who are corrupt (psychopathic) from the get go–like Kevin Spacey’s character in House of Cards. These types exist, of course, but I don’t think they exist in any greater number amongst politicians or government than they do in the general population.

But getting back to my view, what do you think of my theory about how power leads to corruption and why democracy has a dampening affect on it:

I have a nagging suspicion that intelligence and psychopathy might be inversely correlated (look at Bush Jr.), but even if there is a larger percentage of psychopaths in government, that still could be account for by my theory above.

You’re just as asleep as the rest of us–you’re just having a different dream (a nightmare, it seems).

You see, Anti, what it comes down to for me is evidence. I hear the kind of rhetoric you spout all the time, and not just here at ILP. Thinking that someone is automatically corrupt just in virtue of being a politician or being in a position of power has almost become a superstition not unlike the idea that being baptized will absolve you of sin. But I have seen absolutely no evidence to support any of the conspiracy theories anyone has ever put forward. So who am I supposed to listen to? The politicians on TV who, with a glimmering smile and a sparkle in their eye, tell me I can trust them and that they and their party are hard at working trying to make the world a better place for me and my children, or should I listen to you who is telling me they’re all psychopaths and that I shouldn’t trust a single one of them. Feels like hot air coming at me from both side. So what should I do? I don’t know, maybe I should make up my own mind. That’s what I did in my OP.

It’s funny that you appeal to how survival works in nature because that’s precisely the leverage point on which my argument turns. There seems to be a common way of skewing the nature of animal interactions: nature is divided between predator and prey, people seem to think. But actual biological science shows that the animal kingdom is first and foremost characterized by diversity–and among that diversity you do get the occasional predator (and I do mean occasional–predators are actually a minority amongst the vast array of species in the animal kingdom). So yeah, you do have predatorial-like men in positions of power in society, but you also have environmentalist, people who are interested in reforming education, those who want the state to become more religious, those who want more secularism, those who want to legalize marijuana, those who want more rights for women, those who want better health care. There’s almost an infinite list of motives behind why someone might want to get into politics.

I saw Obama in an interview the other day (I forget with who or about what) saying “Not only is there no mass corruption in my cabinet, but not a smidgeon of corruption.” I thought to myself “Not a smidgeon?” Now, that had to be false. There’s always some corruption. But was Obama lying? Or couldn’t it be the case that he himself believed it. I mean, I don’t see why, out of the vast pool of human beings who could aspire to office, there won’t be any who are, on top of intelligent and socially competent enough, idealistic about what they’re doing. Bio-diversity, right? Psychopaths? Sure. Idealists and moralists? Those too. Why not? And there could be 10 other ways of interpreting Obama’s statement. You could think of 10 other ways–10 other non-cynical ways. No one knows for certain which one of those is right.

It’s safe to believe that all men in power are corrupt and predatorial–so long as they can’t hear us and are miles away, we can lash out at them all we want. We don’t feel in any immediate danger by doing so. And what’s more: we feel that as long as we do so, we aren’t being duped. Just in case they turn out to be corrupt, at least we can tell ourselves we didn’t fall for their lies. This can give us a sense of integrity. And if we’re wrong? Well, it would be good to be wrong about something like that. Just as long as we don’t risk looking like fools swallowing something that just might turn out to be bull shit ← that’s what motivates this modern day cynicism and the conspiracy theories that come out of it.

6

Gib, i am little confused.
Who is this second Gib?
Or, were you talking to yourself?

Back to the main issue-

First of all,i also agree with you that all politicians are not corrupt.

It is not mere politicians, but people, in general, are corrupt.
In other words, we can say the politicians are as honest or corrept as normal people are.

But, the problem with geneal public is that they do not want to look at themselves but only point fingers at politicians.

Clinton had oral sex with Monica so he was a devil. But, if we cheat our spouces, it would be called freedom of choice.

In democracy, people use to get the same type of representatives as they themselves are.
So, if politicians are corrupt, it imples that people, who are choosing them, are also corrupt, by and large.
How can an honest society lack honest representatives and also hesitate in choosing them?
If that is not happening, something must be wrong with the general public as well.

It is useless to blame politicians for everything, which has been become a fashion nowdays.
Correct yourself, politicians would be corrected by default.

with love,
sanjay

7

Gib

House of cards, never saw it, any good?

From my research, politicians (and I’m talking the big movers and shakers, not small potatoes) come from a long line of psychopathy, going back decades, sometimes even centuries. They are born, bred, raised and reared with different sorts of morals and values than we’re born, bred, raised and reared with, morals and values that’re suitable to people who have absolutely no regard for anyone weaker than them, or not immediately related to them by blood and marriage. They wear many masks for different occasions, which can lead to DID/MPD.

Here’s a taste -

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7QXz6hDtxI[/youtube]

You can choose to believe her or not.

I do, because it fits in neatly with everything else I’ve proven to myself/researched.

Conspiracy theory is a misnomer, academics and insiders have been exposing this shit for ages, shortly after the takeover of America by wealthy internationalists began. There is, absolutely, a plot to takeover the world, that’s a fact, one world government, one world religion, one world, it’s happening before our eyes, the UN, EU and others increase as national sovereignty declines, the only question is, are the men behind this psychopaths, and with a little digging, it’ll become readily apparent, they are.

They do, for the reasons you yourself provided -

Now, can you not see how psychopaths would be more attracted to such a position than others? A psychopath has to go through his or her whole life living and being in ways that’re diametrically opposed to his or her nature, which, if he or she lacks discipline and foresight, can result in mental breakdowns, leading to instant gratification, relinquishing their inhibitions - drugs, alcohol, crime. For the ones with mental aptitude, would it not be wise to apply for one of the few careers in the world where one would be nearly free to be oneself, a psychopath, a politician, a soldier? Crime and law go hand in hand, the smart thieves are the ones wearing the blue uniforms, suits and ties, instead of sporting bandanas and shit.

Right, it depends on the sort of person you are.

We’re all more selfish than we appear to ourselves and society to be, but we’re, as in most people, not entirely selfish by nature, there is such a thing as empathy/sympathy, I’ve experienced it, but if we’re honest with ourselves, in tune with ourselves, there’s many, MANY times we’re expected to feel it when we don’t, necessarily.

Yes, but your conscience isn’t this supernatural faculty, it can and ought to be explained in biological terms. Empathy/sympathy evolved because it can pay, psychopathy too evolved, or rather, empathy/sympathy didn’t evolve in others because it didn’t pay, or a matter of happenstance (it’s both, things come to be or they don’t come to be, because a combination of happenstance, roll of the dice, luck (mutation) and survivability (natural selection). Everything in nature is conditional, and so too is empathy/sympathy. We tend to care more for this person than that, people we can identify with, people we can relate to, people who have potential to help us and others, people we have potential to help, people who would do the same for us if we were in their circumstances, etcetera, compassion isn’t blind, can’t be blind, shouldn’t be blind, the way Christians think it is, can, or should be. If you’re having a shitty day, you may be a lot less compassionate. Compassion can be affected by mood, it’s a biological phenomenon, part of the natural world.

What you’re talking about doesn’t sound like empathy/sympathy, more like habit. You’re used to refraining from bonking people on the head, because such behavior will be reciprocated. You continue not to hit people, even when the potential for consequences has been largely eliminated, because it’s become 2nd nature for you, you’re used to it, not because you give a shit about anyone but yourself. However, eventually, overtime, without negative feedback from negative actions, depending on how much of a robot you are, eventually, overtime, you’ll probably slump back into your natural inclinations, sooner or later. A lot of psychopathic politicians, as I’ve been explaining, have been taught dualistic morality from a young age, double-standards, and they are not in the slightest way inhibited from inflicting torture and torment on others, in the “appropriate”, for them, circumstances.

Yes, but thanks to the Bush and Obama administrations, and the many, many fuckers who came before them, and in Canada too, democracy, not that we had a shit ton of democracy to begin with, especially in Canada, democracy is being eroded. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, history is cyclical, there were democracies, republics and aristocracies with rather large memberships in the past, in Rome, in Greece, in Carthage, in India, and in many less civilized places, and they all fell to dictatorships sooner or late, and liberty was seized. In modernity too, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Chinese and Japanese republics fell to tyranny. So the people who’re saying never, to them I say, never say never.

George Bush Jr. has an iQ of 120.

I read that somewhere, in several places… forgot where.

I think half the time he was acting like a dumb ass on purpose, because they don’t even give a fuck anymore, the public has long since been bought and paid for, totally sold out to football and MTV, that it doesn’t even matter anymore. If you can’t see psychopathy written all over George’s face and in everything he and his administration has done, like most Americans, than there’s little hope for you, and they know it.

I’ll deal with the rest later.

8

How much diversity really, truly exists on this forum?

For example, how many people who regularly post here are born again Christians who believe the world is 6000 years old, and that the Flintstones was an accurate representation of how man lived 5 millennia ago?

How many people who regularly post here have double digit iQs?

How many people who regularly post here are ESFJs?

How many people here are heavy drinkers or drug abusers?

How many people here get laid by a different girl every other night, other than Smears?

How many people here think sports is more exciting than quantum physics?

How many people here would rather watch football than play a game of chess?

You see where I’m going with this?

As individualists and thinkers, we tend to focus on what divides us rather than what unites us, but I suspect we have a lot more in common than we acknowledge. My point is - different careers, hobbies, interests, jobs, attract different sorts of people, mitigating diversity.

Furthermore, psychopathy is far, far, by far and away more commonplace than the opposite disposition - a Gandhi, a “mother” Teresa, and how much of Gandhi’s disposition was artificial is contentious, disputable, he could’ve very well been a narcissistic psychopath. This is so, because it always pays from an evolutionary standpoint to lookout for self, where as compassion is often unsustainable.

Furthermore, what differences?

There’s virtually no difference between the only two parties worth a damn in American politics - republicrats, none whatsoever. The same could be said of Liberals and Conservatives in Canada, and so on. I’m not seeing this difference in disposition or politics Gib is referring to, I’m seeing conformity where it counts, in everything except superficiality, triviality, in emblems, in names, in slogans.

What don’t they have in common?

They don’t give a damn about your opinion, they constantly and continuously go in the opposite direction the people tell them to go in. One administration merely expands the implementation of the previous admins policies.

Politics is spectacle, one big act, like professional wrestling.

A circus and nothing more, a distraction.

Everything happens at Bilderberg, at the CFR, at the trilateral commission, at bohemian grove, at skull and bones, at freemasonic lodges across the country, but only a select few of their (freemasons) members are in the know.

But who cares, we got the Olympics to worry about, and dancing with the stars…

9

Oh and by the way, predator/prey is The essential, fundamental relationship between organisms in the natural world. There is no birth without blood. Organisms derive their sustenance nearly exclusively by depriving other organisms of theirs. Herbivores consume plants, carnivores consume herbivores, omnivores consume all, plants consume all, for everything that has its time in the sun, returns to the shade at some point in time. When a deer catches a glimpse of a figure rustling in the bushes out of the corner of its eye, does it inquire, friend or foe, or does it assume foe, erring on the side of caution? The only difference between organisms is how they prey on one another, or how they flee from one another, or how they ignore one another. Competition trumps cooperation/symbiosis, which is not to say cooperation/symbiosis never occur.

10

I don’t really see a democracy. I see the public being offered a choice between candidates, both or all of whom, are beholden to and approved of by big Money. Once in office they are pressured by big money, though often they simply want to make big Money happy. Big Money Controls the media, the major outlets, so we are swamped with reasons why things have to be the way they are and why the only rational choices are between the democratic candidate controlled by big Money and the republican candidate controlled by big Money. Anyone else, if they somehow miraculously get on the radar without big Money Control are called spoilers or loons or both. Once the information is controlled, bad can be called good. Of course marginilzed counter information is there, but the masses are not being shown it and lack the training or drive or curiosity to challenge the flood of mainstream accounts of the truth.
[/quote]

11

I’m going to put a big [size=200]?[/size] on that, as I do to all the hearsay and rumors I come across. Like I said, for me it comes down to evidence (Oprah has never been a strong basis of evidence for me).

It reminds me of the Skull and Bones society that Bush Sr. was allegedly a part of. But this could just as easily be a concoction invented by someone trying to smear Bush’s image. I just know and neither does anybody else.

When you say there’s a “plot”, do you mean the members of organizations like the UN, EU, oil cartels, etc. are saying to each other behind closed doors:

“How much longer before we have world domination, boys?”

“What’s our strategy for convincing the world that we’re really working for peace and the elimination of hunger and sickness? How are we going to hide the fact that all we really want is to have total control over the whole world just for our own personal gain?”

“Everything’s going according to plan, boys, and soon the world will be putty in our hands, mwahahahaha!”

The reason why we have these global organizations emerging is simply because the world is a lot more interconnected and world leaders are able to organize with each other more effectively. It does not mean it’s all a “plot”.

Yes, but again, this doesn’t mean that everyone who enters politics must be a psychopath. It’s just as likely that those who wish to make a positive change in the world, and have the intelligence, the social skills, the connections, etc., and the drive and conviction will also make their way into the political arena.

I don’t think I denied any of this.

I don’t deny this either–except that I don’t have a concrete definition of “conscience”. For me, it’s just any kind of sense of right and wrong that isn’t deduced or rationalized. I mean, you could analyze some situation logically, pull out Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, and come to the conclusion that act X is wrong. But I’m defining the conscience in contrast to that–you just “know” that something is right or wrong. This may come from sympathy or empathy, or it could be from habit, or a sense of guilt, or it could even be from a sense of pride or inspiration to do the right thing. My point is that the negative consequences for bad actions is what keeps it alive, without the subject necessarily knowing this (consciously, he just has a “sense” of right and wrong), and that it will usually stay alive for a while after the negative consequences are removed.

This is what I’m afraid of.

Still dumber than me :smiley:

But seriously, I would think surviving in the political arena requires a very high intelligence, and an IQ of 120 is probably average if not below.

Well, I don’t see psychopath written all over his face–I see dumb ass. That’s not to say there weren’t any psychopaths playing the game–if I were to point my finger at someone, It’d be Dick Chaney. The culprit isn’t always the guy in the limelight–often, it’s the person behind the scenes.

Yeah, I see where you’re going. When I say that there’s diversity within a population, that doesn’t mean there’s everything in that populations. Of course, there’s limits–there’s limits defined by what can exist in that population and what can’t. Same principle applies in nature. You’ll never find a lion living at the bottom of the sea because that kind of environment requires gills, or enormous lungs that only need to be filled every so often, or some other mechanism besides ordinary mammalian lungs. But you still have a huge amount of diversity therein.

The kind of diversity that’s relevant in ILP is just as I said: “Every crazy philosophy that has seen the light of day is held by one or another person here at ILP, plus a whole bunch on the middle ground.”

It’s the diversity of philosophies I’m talking about. And though I could have been a bit more clear in my OP, I think the only difference between actual philosophers or academics like us and those who are active in the political arena is that the former feel more compelled to express and argue for their views whereas the latter feel more compelled to put their views into action–but it’s still a huge diversity of views. The only thing defining the limits of the political environment, as far as I’m convinced, is that one has to be driven, motivated, ambitious–and to get far in politics, one has to be intelligent, socially adept, and to know the rules of the game. Corruption and total self-interest can be useful towards this end, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to survive. Just like in nature, there are always going to be a wide range of strategies for surviving in a given environment.

If that’s what counts as corruption–this drive that every life form has to acquire as many resources and mates and forms of shelter and means of survival as possible–then we’re all corrupt. But that’s not what I call corruption. Specifically in the context of politics, I’m talking about politicians and men in positions of power doing whatever the hell they want because there is no accountability keeping them in line. What you seem to be talking about is some inner selfishness, some inner greediness, that we all have. I have this drive at work (I’m satisfying it now as I write this instead of actually working :smiley:), but I can’t just do whatever the hell I like–I’m still accountable to my boss and I’m still kept in line by the threat of being fired. It’s true that as one climbs the political food chain, there are fewer and fewer consequences for stepping out of line, but I still think that in a democratic system, this decrease in negative consequences pales in comparison to some of the totalitarian dictatorships or monarchies we’ve seen in the past. So long as our elected officials continue to do the jobs we expect them to do, I wouldn’t call them corrupt.

Well, you bring up an interesting twist. I said that so long as men in power are kept accountable, their corruption will be kept in check. But accountable to whom? And consequences for what actions exactly? The point you bring up seems to indicate that sometimes the accountability is to Big Money, and the consequences would be withdrawal of funding for non-cooperation.

I think big time capitalists and CEOs can be much like politicians in that they are driven and ambitious, but it’s harder to argue that they are just as idealist or that they would fight for a higher cause than their own self-interest.

But again, I think this concept of controlling the media is being painted in too much of a black and white manner. Sure some of the small time players in the game won’t get much air time, but insofar as they are there in the front lines, witnessing and researching the actions and activities of some of the bigger players, they can report back to the people–perhaps limited to smaller, more local social networks (their own communities), but they can get the information out there. There isn’t a sharp divide between “us” and “them”, no thick and impenetrable wall. They can only control the media to a certain and extent, but at the end of the day, information by some amount is going to leak.

12

Suer, if they can find out that the Vice president had sex with a Hooker it will hurt the Vice President. Or if they can get direct evidence of corruption - though, I mean, look at Iran Contra. A few lower level people did a tiny bit of time and despite evidence that everyone knew, nothing happened. But on most issues the corruption is not simple. It’s not about law breaking - except as far as the influence itself was illegal. They do something that benefits a huge Corporation, and this is public knowledge, but the reasons they give are nice sounding and the main media is not critical of this. That they used to work for that Corporation and will again and own shares in it just gets swamped by other information. Most median actually use White house press releases for a lot of their reporting.

So even when actually felonies are committed, not much happens to key players.
But most of the time the only crime is the unfair influence - if it is a crime anymore - and this is easy to obfuscate with the combined media control, public service press releases and Corporate Moneys and legal teams and pr teams.

And the sad fact is incredibly amounts of non-demoncratic influence is legal. Lobbying and Campaign financing. You Think your needs carry as much weight as ANYONE who has a lobbyist? Not a chance. Companies are not paying lobbyies billions because it doesn’t work. It works and that is non-demoncratic Power over government. And it is legal. Of course they also do illegal types of lobbying and a lot of this they get away with. Likewise Campaign finance.

13

I can only imagine the ideal mind to weigh in the checks and balances of populations at large. Consider the playing field the work with. This is not a consort of honorable and chivalrous knightships that cater to a society of rational and obedient subjects that just need to be told what to do.

This is a game of individual objectives, inhibitions, desires, confusions, distortions, and so forth - amongst the “rationals” or “irrationals” - neither of them really being clear which one is which. With wars and hatreds lurking everywhere, with odd assertions and confused notions plaguing them, think of the kind of mind that is required to not only (1) manage to dominate the masses, and (2) manage to maintain primacy, but (3) somehow bring a semblance of agreement and justification that achieves collaboration in a creative way. The ideal person to do this is not just going to hammer out the “thesis of all theses” and get everyone to accept their brilliant rationale.

This ideal mind to rule the masses has a somewhat psychopathic sense. If I cannot look at the deaths of millions of innocent children cold and callously, then I am not prepared to take that risk for a greater goal. If I want to take a malleable and superfluous moral objective, then I must be prepared that all sorts of rapes, murders, tortures and so on could be implemented by my decree. If I take an unyielding, static moral objective of “rights” and “wrongs” - then it’s great that I can clear my conscience that I am unwilling to be a monster . . . but I am also now predictable in the political game. Predictable players are not very good at competition.

A few morsels of food for thought -

The moment we accept that conspiracies do exist (they exist on pretty well every schoolground, do they not?) - then we challenge our epistemology not only in the measurable qualities of science, but that the measurements eschewed by sciences are also “influenced” in many ways. What do we “really” know, and how much do people “really” tell us and not tell us? You can’t just drop the measuring stick and say “there is a 65% level of conspiracy in society” - I am prepared to accept the possibility that perhaps we have a bunch of charlatans that do not actually possess very advanced technology (other than good strategy for deceit) - all the way to the possibility that yes there’s mutant interdimensional aliens and yaddayaddayadda. The fact is I don’t know. And I’m not going to find out by youtube. I’m not going to find out by walking outside with a flashlight. I’m not going to trust that our god “the newspapers” has the real big answer. We can try to learn more but ultimately we simply don’t know.

Second, it would be naive to think that there is a “moral good” group, and the “chaotic masses” or the “bad group.” The natural world is filled with vicious predators, unconcerned for the pain and death that they leave in their wake - and yet their actions become necessary by default because the ecosystem has adapted to their existence within it.

My conclusion: Yes, there are monsters at the top. Are they there because they said “I hate humans and I want to kill them all”? Somehow I doubt it.

I believe the occham’s razor of politics is to have ready some fairly cynical, humorous answers to political problems - and reinforce them to say that although they are tongue and cheek . . . we really do mean it with some seriousness. It might not expose “the real enemy” or state “the real solution” but like the Emporor’s New Clothes, we can at least point out the utterly ridiculous, despite it being laced in an aire of sophistication (/ sophistry) amidst the supposed geniouses. For example-

*CNN says the world owes 6 trillion dollars. To who? Jupiter?
*Money is the measure for what? Money?
*Americans pour billions of dollars to “defeating Afghani terrorists” against what? Dynamite goats?
*We train soldiers in tactics and marksmanship to do what? Protect people?

14

At least in a democracy, most of that is setup for him beforehand. Part of what makes a democracy work is that it instills a sense in the people that they have chosen their leader, that whatever happens, they–the people–are responsible. This is part of how you get consensus. Even those who didn’t vote for the president/prime minister at least concede that since they chose to participate in the electoral process, they will abide by the results. All the leader has to do, once elected, is take the helm for four or five years.

Yes, I agree with this. But a couple things:

  1. It doesn’t quite make such a leader a psychopath in the clinical sense. In the clinical sense, a psychopath is one who’s guilt levels are pathologically low–so low that they fail to perform their function of protecting the individual from succumbing to the backlash he/she will incur from carrying out heinous acts. The conscience is sort of a mental mechanism that acts like a warning signal: do this and their will be serious negative consequences. The clinical psychopath does not have that warning system. Now switch over to the politician who has to make hard decisions in times of war–if he doesn’t feel guilt over the prospect of killing multitudes of innocent lives and causing mass harm to others, it isn’t necessarily because his guilt or conscience isn’t working properly–it might simply be because he won’t incur serious negative consequences upon himself.

  2. Even given 1), this doesn’t mean he enjoys the thought of killing or hurting legions of innocent people, nor does it mean he doesn’t care; my hunch is that in many cases, they do care, they do take it seriously, but there is nevertheless the cold and calculating mindset that is all too similar to the psychopath’s–this can be necessary in a strong leader, not because he must be without guilt or conscience, but because sometimes war is necessary in order to ensure a greater good in the long-run. Cold and callous calculations can yield results like that–and if the harsh truth of reality is that some must suffer for the great good (or to avoid a greater evil), then it requires this cold and calculating mindset to see it. This isn’t to say they always get it right–like I said about Bush, he was more of an idiot than an evil genius in my estimation–but making mistakes is not the same thing as being a psychopath.

True, but the same could be said of those who want nothing but power or money. Wanna control them? Just promise them more power or money.

That’s right. I’ve even considered the possibility that all our sciences are the product of a group of 10 individuals sitting around a table in some hidden underground catacomb asking: what kind of bullshit pseudoscience are we going to feed the masses next? They come up with a new theory of the universe, a new explanation for some not-perfectly-understood physics, hand it over to the government for approval, and then hit the media and the education system with it. I’ve thought things like this when pondering quantum mechanics: did they simple invent it just as means of opening the possibility of free will? I mean, there are now scientists who take seriously the notion that free will can be accounted for by quantum indeterminism in the brain. And what would the motive for this be? Why, of course, to re-introduce culpability, guilt, to get rid of the defense of criminals that “they couldn’t help it, it was the chemicals in my brain!” Maybe the theory of evolution was completely made up in order to justify some of the cut-throat methods that capitalism thrives on: dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, etc.

You see, the problem with paranoia is that there is no end to it, no extreme that’s too extreme. If science is all a grand conspiracy, then literally anything can be possible. Most of what we trust, what we rely on to make rational sense out of how our world works is based on the science that we’re taught. If science is wrong, then you could suppose the world works any damn way you want. And no matter how much proof you think you can get to falsify one or another conspiracy theory, you can always question that proof–you can raise your paranoia up a notch and be suspicious that someone (or some force) mocked up that proof, maybe because they knew you were looking for it, or because they planned well in advance for people like you who would attempt to unveil their secret plot. In the end, nothing disprove a paranoid conspiracy theory.

And that’s exactly what I’m trying to argue in this thread. Well, I’m doing a bit more than that. I’m trying to offer up counter-arguments to the cynical and paranoid views of political leaders, but only in the service of this goal–the goal of getting us to recognize that we know far less about what happens in politics than we tend to believe.

Yes, I agree, but I’m also adding that I think it’s more of a mix. Yes, there’s monster, but there’s also some leaders with a fair degree of moral integrity. What the exact ratio is is anything but clear, but I do think we can be more optimistic than we tend to be.

15

With all due respect, gib, I think you’re trying to make two different points that don’t really go together all that well. I apologize if I’ve misread or misinterpreted your original post, in which case feel free to correct me.

Your first point seems to be a variation on the rather conventional argument that many/most conspiracy theories depend on logically inconsistent premises/presumptions. With regard to that prong of the argument, I very much concur. Much depends, of course, on how one defines “conspiracy”, but your broader point that the sort of massive, government-wide conspiracies that some people propose or accept are, on the whole, implausible (not impossible, but implausible), is well-taken. I agree.

However, it seems to me that you’re resting that argument largely on the idea that politicians are, by and large, “just like us.” I disagree. To quote George Washington, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force.” Politicians, broadly defined, are those who seek to use government (i.e. force) to effect their goals.

Thus the question naturally arises. What sort of person prefers to use force to achieve their goals? I’d like to think that most people prefer to use persuasive reasoning and other non-coercive tools to achieve their goals. I could be wrong, of course. Perhaps I’m painfully naive and I’m way too optimistic about people in general. But if I’m not, then it means that politicians are not in fact normal but rather a subset of the population which actually prefers to use force to achieve their goals. Do I think that all, or even most, people who get into politics think of it that way? No, probably not. But at the end of the day, these are people willing to use force to make other people do what they think is right.

I’m rambling, I can tell, so I’ll stop.

16

Thanks. Just one minor adjustment though: I’m not quite saying that most conspiracy theories depend on “logically inconsistent premises/presumptions” (although I wouldn’t be surprised), I’m saying that they are usually too simplistic.

In a sense, yes, but you talk as if force is totally incompatible with reason. Reason is a kind of force; it’s the one that democracies all around the world (usually) pivot on. I mean, I’ve never heard of a democracy (although there may be examples of such) in which the president or prime minister (or whatever their title might be) decided to lay down the law by saying “I want the people to do X; they don’t like it? Fuck em’! I’ll bring out the army on their asses.” Usually, leaders in a democracy, if they want to lay down the law, go through the usual processes: proposing a bill, voting on it within a “house of commons” or a “legislature” (or whatever the term is in your country of residence), but not before pushing it through many heated debates and angry yelling, and then once it’s passed, maybe put it to public vote (this of course depends on the minutia of the political system you’re dealing with and/or the classification of the law you’re trying to pass), at which point there is more heated debates and angry yelling, and finally there is another (this time public) vote to decide the matter on whether or not this law will be recognized as officially binding. That’s the “force” you’re talking about in a democracy.

But of course, once the law is passed, it is forced by coercion–now this is not to be interpreted as the coercion of the “secret police” or the “gestapo”–it is not the force of terrorism and the end of a gun barrel–it is the force of the law itself. Take running a red light, for example. Now, we are obviously “forced” to obey this law, and by coercion no less, but all that “coercion” amounts to in this case is the coercion of having to pay a fine (or even go to prison :astonished: ) for running a red light. Now I’d hardly say the politicians who put this law into effect, and who fill the pocket of the law enforcer who ensure that this law is obeyed, are “corrupt” just because they used “force”. In fact, I’d have to say that if we’re going to talk about those who had a hand in establishing the force of this law, I’d, once again, appeal to some legislative body or even the people themselves. At some point in our history (I admit I don’t know when), we (as a united people) decided that, when it comes to regulating traffic, forcing people to stop by means of a red light (not a gun) would probably benefit us all and save many, many lives and avoid unnecessary physical harm. If you want to call this corruption, by all means do so, but then you’re calling the majority of people corrupt.

Finally, I do want to make one last point about the difference between using forcing and being corrupt: the fact that politicians have to use force in order to govern a society is neither something new nor something misdirected–it’s just a brute fact of reality. Of course, if you’re going to govern a society, you’re going to have to use force to some degree and by some means–but all this means is that politicians, the real effective ones, simply aren’t dummies. I mean, it’s one thing to argue a point in a “house of lords” or the “senate,” thereby using reason to get your point across, but it’s quite another to argue that point, by the same means (i.e. reason), to an entire society. That’s not to say that in the latter case, reason and civilized discussion has no place–indeed if it didn’t, I’m not sure how one could ever get a majority hopping on board certain laws and policies that you want passed–but that you’ll never get everone in society agreeing with you (and there will be, even among those who disagree with you, those who will disagree to the point of being actively defiant)–and that’s why some measure of legal force is always going to be necessary. This has nothing to do with corruption–it’s just the way the system works.

Well, in that sense, nobody’s normal–you can split and divide people however you want: there are those who are into sports, and those who aren’t. Those who aren’t into sports are “not normal,” not if you consider those who are into sport as the norm. Dualism is like this–you can split a diverse group of entities in any way you want–there are two kinds of fruit: tropical and non-tropical, brightly colored and dull, those that weigh over 100 grams and those that weight under, those that are bananas and those that aren’t. At the end of the day, dualism, this dividing between groups, can become trivial to the point of being meaningless.

To take action, to change the way their society does things, yes, but I don’t think we can equate this with corruption or “evil” (especially since, if you think about it, we are all trying to enforce, in one way or another, what we think is right–otherwise, how could we think of ourselves as willing to do the right thing).

Sorry, jagermeister330, I’m rambling now. You caught me on one of my caffeine days and my thoughts are running a mile a minute :smiley:.

17

This thread inspired this other one:

Reforming Democracy