Democrats: The future Republicans?

First off, this is a thought experiment not a proof. You can take my conclusions with a grain of salt, but you never know... stranger things have happened e.g. the Watergate break-in and (cough) "Monica-gate". You might think that I'm interested in elaborating how the Democrats are going to try emulating a past Republican President. Admittedly, if we returned to the likes of Ronald Reagan, then there would be some advantages. Naturally, I would prefer someone like Barry Goldwater to be a possible archetype of choice, but then you know how that campaign went! I'm actually going to try to setup a potential situation where someday (...maybe at the time of the next generation after the next) there could be a new alternative that takes flight from within the host of an old alternative.

At this point, it should be crystal clear where the two major political parties stand. The Republicans have various factions, but they are driven by Christian conservatism. The Democrats have various factions, but they have no real direction and have shown signs of imploding. (Don't let the recent Congressional changeover fool you on this point! The Democrats can say that they aren't Republicans all that they want, but that isn't a forward moving platform or strategem.)

Like other Objectivists who are interested in new philosophical ideas and formations, I've been listening to Dr. Leonard Peikoff's DIM hypothesis lectures. (Caveat: His theory was only made available several years ago, and he's indicated that it may undergo some revising, so anything anyone says about this theory should likely be considered tentative until the related book is published. Also as a side-note, Dr. Peikoff was looking for possible refutations in 2004.) DIM is an acronym that represents _all_ of the possible views of conceptual application with respect to subsuming concretes and/or concepts into higher-level concepts: Disintegration/Integration/Misintegration. Dr. Peikoff also mentions the epistemic "zeroes" and the eclectics, but they do not have an essential view of conceptual usage that leads anywhere directly.

He indicates that the DIM trichotomy comes from a two-step process. First, people choose whether to integrate or not. This is represented by D(isintegration) vs. I(ntegration). The next choice people have is to integrate based on reality or not. This is represented by I(ntegration) vs. M(isintegration). In other words, Disintegration is the default or starting position for a person when faced with the prospect of conceptual integration.

Now, at this point in time, The Republicans are being lead by Ms. In fact, Dr. Peikoff refers to the President as an M2 aka an extreme misintegrating agent. On the other hand, the Democrats are being lead by ideological Nihilists. In terms of applied theory of knowledge, the Democrats are being steered by Ds. (It was suggested during the lectures that Ds and Ms appropriate and actually require each other's thinking methods though they do this to a lesser degree...)

If the Republicans have failed to realize a proper view of Capitalism, and they are intransigent in their interest in religious metaphysics, then they are simply going to derail over time. The Democrats are obviously going to also need a few years before their destructive approach resolves. If the Republicans are "derailing off the train" of political philosophy, then the Democrats are currently doomed to "running out of steam" in the midst of their theoretical travels.

What occurred to me is that: If facing reality with a disintegrated mind is the starting point, and misintegrating reality is a failed attempt, then the Democrats could _potentially_ do the otherwise unthinkable. That is, the Democrats could over time rediscover the basis for political philosophy i.e. rational selfishness. In turn, they could "re-lay the train tracks" and become agents of political integration. The Democrats could eventually discover and employ Capitalism. The problem is that there is this one little thing getting in the way....

Now, for some background material..... DIM is a HIGHLY essentialized theory, and any essentialization involves loads of abstraction and temporary concrete-dropping i.e. what Ayn Rand called "measurement-omission." Examples of measurement-omission are readily available in mathematics, although the technique can be applied across human endevours. Let's say that home building contractors are hired to build a new home. They have to run measurements along the ground to figure out how to install a foundation. They have to make measurements as far as the size and weight of their building materials go. They have to also generate total quantities for those materials. When they communicate and otherwise work with those materials, they do _not_ use the full reference to the measurements, and they certainly omit more detailed descriptions of the items which are measured. For example, let's say that part of a wall requires a dozen boards. Workers are likely to talk to each other along the lines of saying, "Hand me 3 of those boards." They wouldn't continuously say, "Hand me 3 boards which are x feet long, y inches wide, and z inches deep." Could you imagine how long a project would take if every time a contractor needed materials he said, "Hand me some boards which are x feet long, y inches wide, z inches deep, weigh w ounces, are made of such-and-such material, coated with this-and-that material, etc. etc."?!?!? Obviously, people have to use measurement-omission and other conceptual techniques if they want to ever be productive. ...so using DIM as a tool for projecting a possible future won't automatically generate much of the details. Instead, I do think that it can be used for outlining a trend.

Of course, what people should remember is that the DIM theory is contextual, and I don't mean to suggest that any Objectivist would patronize relativistic positions either. In fact, it's the principles that DIM depends on that allow for what would appear to be reliable results. Again, it's the essentialized nature of the theory that makes prediction workable. There are certainly some qualifying factors to consider when it comes to how my idea could be manifested. One of the more obvious stipulations is that the Republicans and Democrats have been keeping each other in check by way of a process of nullification i.e. "gridlock". For the next couple of Presidential terms, we'll likely be fortunate to only be able to keep this tenuous holding pattern. Dr. Peikoff actually reminded students of the 2004 Integration course that an unstable philosophical situation has to eventually be either reconciled or it will break down. In terms of politics, that simply amounts to Capitalism vs. Anarchism. Also, Ayn Rand noted that Anarchism leads to a "power vacuum", so we certainly have yet another reason to fight for Capitalism otherwise America could find itself facing dictatorship down the road. In other words, there won't be a substantial transition to Capitalism without periodic stalling points and other non-essential periods of the trend.

This also may seem like a curious experimental idea given what Objectivists (and other Capitalists) want to do. Objectivists want to actually train enough people in philosophy at least to the point of influencing the culture in a positive and more liberating way. Also, it will always be tempting to want to do away with some aspect of the current political system. In fact, non-Objectivists seem to be much more impatient as far as political change is concerned. I can't remember whether it was Sen. Clinton or someone else, but after the Bush vs. Gore voting debacle, one Democratic Senator called for the elimination of the electoral college. This isn't the direction that my hypothesis is meant to suggest. I certainly do endorse what Objectivists are generally fighting for i.e. the spread of the right philosophical ideas throughout venues of academia and press communications. By the way, none of the recent election commentary was meant to take away from the importance of influencing culture by way of transforming intellectual tendencies.

What I am now suggesting is that it could be that something else will happen at the same time some people will develop into political agents after studying and applying Objectivism. It could be that enough people will become more familiar with Objectivism (or maybe just its effects) around the same time that they comprise the future current political force at the time of a major paradigm shift. If this happens, then there could be a new version of the "inside-outside" question. That is, the ideological changes within Congress might actually begin to keep up with those in academia.

...oh, you wanted to know that little problem for the Democrats, huh? They have to be able to learn to "(re)connect the dots" i.e. they have to first get a motive for learning integration.