We are excessively technocratic these days.
I don’t think our ideas about governing are either accurate or important. As if Pavlov/Skinner took our imagination, we now have decades of policies to repair our failing, until Nash just threw up his hands and called it Game. Years on, results suck.
We like to think our tricks of reward or repetition or reprogramming is sophisticated. We like to think we grew beyond ordinary snarling or swatting. But decades later, no one points to great success building behavior or fixing habits or keeping peace. Sell the billboards back to sloganeers.
We may be more easy than that. There’s no formula to manage us. We corrupt ourselves if secret. We solve if challenged. We heal if among.
R. D. Laing was on to it when he said we are best free, unencumbered, amidst ourselves.
“We can work it out” is a heartfelt truth.
The belief and fashion of intervention has hurt us, methinks. We’re not so poorly human that we require so much to repair us.
To make better progress, just give and be together. Community will solve us.