Assumptions of Ideality

I was recently listening to a podcast discussing the merits of several popular political and economic ideologies when I realized everything they talked about, had a common underlying assumption which they made without scruple; in each theory, they assumed ideality manifested in some form or another. Whether that was assuming greed is not a fundamental human trait or could be easily muted, or if the author thought humans had little to do save climb hierarchical ladders completely isolated from social interaction without the undercurrent of individual benefit, I soon stopped listening to the podcast altogether and wondered if I could think of a philosophy which did not assume ideality, and if that philosophy were even practical in any sense. Of course, I've only dipped my toe into the vast world of philosophy and economics, and so the theories I will discuss here are quite small in the scheme of all there is to know, but I hope that talking about what these assumptions are and why they exist will help me, and perhaps you as well, identify and work through them in the future. Keep in mind that within the parameters of this short essay format, I can't discuss all the nuances to each model, but I may delve into them in later posts.

First, let's discuss presuppositions pertaining to greed. Socialism is the most obvious philosophy with which to start; in the simplest terms, socialism champions the even distribution of assets across a society to eliminate inequality and free the working class from under the thumb of wealthy corporations and/or people, which in turn would lead to an explosion of culture. A socialist may cite early human tribes which were often egalitarian, as men and women hunted together when game was prominent, and picked fruits together when it was not; there were almost no hierarchical structures pertaining to gender. However, society is far more complicated than it was ten thousand years ago; we're richer and less hungry than we ever were, and the market of skills has exploded in the last hundred years. Whereas an early-human tribe necessitated that every member be proficient in every survival skill, modern society requires some people to be extensively trained for very unique skills - training which can often take large amounts of time and capital investment to obtain. Furthermore, the exponential improvement in communication and transportation technology over the last century means economies are more interconnected than ever before; layoffs in a company from a distant country can cause another company's bottom line to plummet, and a sideways cargo ship can greatly exacerbate a global supply chain crisis. In a world this complex, can we really expect people to distribute goods evenly, even if it means toppling economic oppressors? Speaking strictly in terms of money, why does one person's quarter-of-a-million dollar degree qualify them for the same salary as someone who didn't have to invest anything into their education? Why does someone working an extremely taxing job deserve the same outcome as someone who only has to work a few hours a week? In a communistic sense, why does a central authority determine the distribution of resources when it was a small group of people who worked to provide those resources?

These questions are not new criticisms of socialism, and I don't want to come across as someone who is unsympathetic to the nature of that ideology. However, within the answers a typical socialist or even communist may give to these queries, I often find the assumption that the natural state of human beings is egalitarian and lacks greed. Now, that may be true, though I suspect it isn't, but what is the safeguard against individual corruption? What if one person decides they want more than what the government allocates to them? What happens when the frustration mingles with old bitterness and yields ressentiment? Communists will say there needs to be a strict governing body which squashes these corruptions, but as of yet it isn't clear that the governing body itself will not become tainted with greed.

Now, pure capitalism in its current form also suffers from this same assumption. As the world gets wealthier, it seems to be the case that the wealthiest people gain more than the middle class or the poor. Is it possible to reallocate this wealth without travelling through the trenches of socialism or communism, both of which would radically alter the world's economy and have previously shown themselves to be ineffective at managing the wealth gap? Those who would say the key is to free the wealthy from the burden of tax are often seen as the most devout capitalists, and in their ideology there again lurks the assumption of ideality as they do not account for the greed to which some wealthy people succumb. Of course, with the accumulation of wealth there is the responsibility to use it wisely, but that territory gets muddy quite quickly when you factor in Epicureanism and general hedonism. Can we really expect people to be perfectly responsible at redistributing their wealth when our society seems bent on promoting affluence through a fantastical lens? Without getting into the hairy details of living wages, increases in executive salaries, and philanthropy, ideal capitalism seems to lose touch with reality just as quickly as its oft perceived enemies of socialism and communism.

Straying away from greed, another idealistic assumption occurs in the objectivistic works of Ayn Rand, an author who I've written about warmly in the past but whose writing has major flaws which remove her ideas from being actionable. In The Fountainhead, the book of hers with which I am most familiar, she portrays the lone-wolf life of Howard Roark as he, a snowflake in a sea of oil, slowly climbs the hierarchy of commercial architects. She shows him to be unshakable in his faith, most often directed towards himself and free markets. His "enemies" are all one-sided collectivists who are almost cartoons of themselves, and yet Roark has no "enemies" as he claims to never think about anyone other than himself. Accordingly, he meets his love interest through a cold, individualistic attitude which begins with him forcing himself upon her and abandoning her on several occasions because her mind isn't ready for him, as much as she (for some reason) longs to be with him. Rand's hero is completely unrelatable, so her philosophy suffers credibility; Howard Roark has no family, he works in a creative field which seldom requires collaboration, and while he suffers setbacks his piety is so intense that they never phase him. His buildings are perfectly unique, and of course there's not one other architect in the world who designs the way he does, as all others build bland skyscrapers lacking individuality. I learned from The Fountainhead that objectivism may work, but only if you're an artistic orphan who lacks a lot of social skills required to function in today's society. 

I could go on about more philosophical ideologies with grave assumptions, but I'd like now to highlight one which may not have any. Max Stirner was an influential philosopher whose ideas are as dangerous as they are strange. His philosophy centers around the ego being the ultimate platform from which all metaphysical principles and base morality derive; in his dogma, all decisions a person could make should stem from their own ego and what is best for them. Disturbingly, this means Stirner's egoism justifies all sorts of heinous crimes, from murder to outright genocide, as long as it is motivated through an individual's ego. What are the assumptions in egoism? Well, if one is to make a useful and progressive society, or even a tribe, the presupposition must be that the ego is pure, or that through harnessing the power of the self, a group of people can push forward and innovate while expanding and broadening culture. However, Stirner does not seek to create a society at all; in fact, he rejects the notion of the state entirely since its servitude exists in conflict with the individual ego. Perhaps the reason for his obscurity is his nonchalant depiction of something like infanticide being acceptable as long as it is derived from the ego. There are no assumptions in anarchy, but likewise there is no progress.

Now, only one question remains: why do we make these assumptions? The answer, not surprisingly, lies in complexity and the nature of why we engage in philosophy, which is to determine the purpose and nature of our being. With a scope so vast, it's no wonder the complexity of the answer needs to be reduced. In my post "We Are God (And God is Lost)", I discussed the juxtaposition of the power within the human mind and the limits of our physical perception; the latter necessitates simplification in our philosophy, though as we've seen with Stirner, sometimes radicalisation forgoes that necessity. The question to which I do not currently have the answer is how to move past the need for these ideal assumptions. Barring any evolutionary leaps of humankind, as in Nietzsche's Superman, the only recourse seems to be an understanding and acceptance of them not as flaws of a given philosophy, but as constraints which need to be considered when espousing them. Essentially, assumptions are definitions of what one can ignore, and simply being aware of them can lead to a new depth of thought and understanding for which I will now strive.