The Purpose of Government
Often, I am given the opportunity to discuss the high-minded topics of Equality, Justice, Truth, and sometimes Love. But on the efforts of Government, I rarely pen these thoughts, as they tend to devolve into the useless anger and vitriol I am unfortunately sometimes knows for, yet this is not without good Reason behind it. In nearly every conversation I have had with those that disagree, there is a common thread of those that wish for more governance, for less control from the individual, and for more ‘social cohesion’, as it were, around such influences and windswept desires of ‘centralized authorities.’ In the United States of America, I do honestly believe those that argue for this outcome do so with a good heart, with the idea of creating a safer and more prosperous Experiment, where the disclarity of life can be marginally satisfied with greater authority in a central power, rather than a republican approach to the unfortunate servitudes we must bind ourselves to within civilization. Indeed, I believe these fateful Americans are decent at their core, and of respectable character, albeit mislead, in my humble opinion, by a short few whose goals are all the more nefarious in spite of the upright nature of their colleagues. Throughout this essay, I will explore and endeavor to more fully communicate the basic nature of Government, as well as the underlying Nature of those that comprise such a system, as I believe these two concepts are indelibly linked.
And so, in an effusive manner, I express my thoughts on this subject with great clarity, as I have spent many decades considering this subject with a curious and ever-developing mind, to the point most of it seems fruitless as having explored it to such lengths, much to the chagrin of those closest to me, that they should suffer the continuance of a discussion long continued past its effectiveness or candor. And yet, I find myself with the unstoppable need to continue dissecting this subject with ever-increasing detail, as it becomes more and more realized in the modern world with each passing conflict. Perhaps it’s the notion that government becomes so commonplace in every aspect of a civilization that it inevitably invests itself into areas where it ought not to be devoted. As an aside, a decent example for this would be the institution of marriage. As a government (assuming it begins non-theocratic) should never concern itself with the unions of two parties should those parties both be of willingly consent, neither forced or forged, though the governments of history have always been concerned with their citizenry achieving and striving endlessly for the couplings that make the individuals more resilient. The topic of marriage within government becomes a divisive one, as religious fervor for older ideas and the progression of comforts within a society replaces older, more hardened realism within the same society, due to a disconnect from one time to another. I use this example for the illustrative point of the ridiculous argument: Two consenting and willing parties ought to be able (in the moral sense) to form a union recognized by their government, since this is truly fair, and treating the individuals as such, rather than subjecting them to biased ideas of false reasoning or the aforementioned fervor. Those that would argue differently simply cannot see the individual for what they are and would rather accept some utilitarian approach for the ‘betterment of society’ rather than the deontological adherence to the ‘rugged individual’ which comprises said society. Whether they be man or woman, their desire to form unions which benefit their personal lives is a greater power than the top-down obedience to a different moral direction. Yet, let us not become burdened with this example over the more important and larger philosophical importance of this essay, which concerns itself with as much of the power of the individual as it does with the power of institutions and the grander picture, both of which cannot have their relevance ignored.
Part 1: Government, and the need for Governance.
It may seem foolish to some, those that give themselves over to the anarchic and chaotic tendencies of destruction, the need for a system under which to live. For in their minds, the abdication of even a single iota of Freedom is tantamount to slavery, as those that attempt to forge a path into the unknown are often blindsided by the very real threat of the danger’s Nature foists upon them, having lived in a life of luxury, pandered to by a civilization forging a great wide swath upon the uncivilized world. I call out the anarchists here to illustrate an important point, if oversimplified, about what government is, or what it ought to be: It is our natural fight against uncivilized behaviors which are deemed destructive to a point of nonuse. We call upon government to put an end to anarchy through Justice, the creation of a delegation of ‘intelligent enough’ individuals who can restrict a sufficient number of anarchic tendencies of various individuals in order to collectively build a path into the future, in a way that is constructive, rather than destructive. We create government for the framework it provides for the average person within each society, that they may have a coalescing force in which to cohere with, that they would not be tossed aloft the violent waves of uncertainty without a small island of Reason with which to point their raft in the direction of. This is, as previously stated, the oversimplified reason for establishing government in the modern age. Stateless solutions are an impossibility, and thus will be skipped over in this essay, perhaps explored further in future essays.
To make an overly complex story quite short, let us define what government is firstly. It is a collection of individuals within a society that band together for a purpose. While each culture has a different purpose in mind throughout the course of human history, let us concern ourselves with the current age, and the current mindset. When the United States Constitution was written, it was preceded somewhat by the Federalist Papers, a collection of essays concerning the ratification of the Constitution and the ideas surrounding it. The shared vision of the authors of those essays was simple: that America would be founded by, of and for the people of the nation with which the individuals of that nation tasked those few to represent their best interests in the formation of a new government, under the auspices to fight the tyranny of the monarchy under which they had no representation. Why is this important? For the straightforward idea that the Rights of Man have no place under a government which has no true representative nature for those Men to express the deepest sympathies or grievances about those who are tasked to ‘govern’, for the word ‘governance’ is that unto itself, that not a single Man can truly have more Rights afforded him by the natural world than another, and any administrative state which would place into separate classes the individuals of that society would be considered an Evil institution. Obviously, even within the history of the United States, there was a time when this was the unfortunate reality of the society, but let us explore something unique in the writing of the Constitution.
Within the original text of the Declaration of Independence, an idea of ‘all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’ arose in a time where many disagreed with this statement, opting for a more hierarchical view of the many races of humanity, which obviously was born from malice rather than reason, but illustrates the most crucial difference in the founding of the government of America. We were born from the idea that all of us truly are Equal, with Rights afforded to us by a Creator, rather than a government of men, or a Kingship of the Lord, or any of the other explanations for a ruling class. Why is this crucial, you may ask? It sets up the very simple but intractable precedent, that we as individuals are not ruled by a government, or another man, but by our own natures, and perhaps the nature of our Creator. We have the power within us to forge a future, to respond to threats, whether they be from our neighbor or a far-off enemy, without the express consent of a master that we did not appoint (obviously War is conducted and managed by the government in this case, but the Rights associated with self-preservation are unique to those that recognize individual sovereignty.) Upon this notion, we understand Rights are not granted to us by a government, or any governing legal or constitutional body. They are inherent within us, only enumerated within a constitution for the express purpose of recognition. In fact, some of the founders of this nation feared that enumerating such rights would then cause the government to find way to restrict such rights, as the right of Man were seen to be so basic they needed no enumeration at all. They feared the growth of government would inevitably lead to the death of freedom. Personally, I would agree with them.
Unfortunately, the scope of governing grows with each millennium, as the generations preceding always attempt, and often succeed, at creating a more robust society through the restriction of pure Freedom, discussed in previous essays. The unintended consequences of restricting Freedom, indeed because Freedom is essentially Chaos, paves the way to authoritarianism, where the idea of Individualism, and concurrently, personal responsibility, are given a distasteful latitude, wherein the society views the individual as a detriment to the collective: the individual desire as an injurious actor against the collective benefit. And it is really within this frame of reference where government begins to take root into the power struggle between, ironically, other individuals. For what is a government but a collection of individuals that strive to gather and consolidate power for purposes, either nefarious or otherwise, but at the expense of those who do not have it (‘it’ being ‘power’)? Due to the volatile nature of Freedom, and its antithetical actuality to control, or those that hold more power within a given framework, it becomes an imperative, nearly a biological directive, to begin restricting Freedom within the arm of Government, for the sake of preserving said Government. While it may seem conspiratorial at first glance, upon some historical reflection and careful examination of human nature, this becomes more true with each passing century, as advances in technology begin to separate us from the everyday humanity on which we survive and depend upon to continue growing. Without delving too much into the weeds of the French Revolution, we can see the power struggles between classes who had differing ideas of rights, privileges, and duties. The very idea of the role of government was questioned for years, with the hope of creating one that served the people more directly rather than a monarch. The idea of self-determination, of a substance of the individual, was finally being given the latitude it so rightly deserved when discussing the role of government, rather than a God-given edict for a king to lord over subjects. Contrast this with the Russian Revolution, which saw the government being given the greatest power to wield against its citizenry, the power to dictate to many aspects of an individual’s life and choices, ultimately leading to ruin.
We ought to think of government in the way we think of the human body, with a great many smaller components of atoms and cells and organs working in tandem to create life, rather than hierarchical structures where some are granted more power simply due to a station and nothing else, whilst others are dismissed by order of a dominate class. No Man can stand atop another without acknowledging the foundation upon which he was built, for it would be the greatest travesty of all to pretend as though one has more claim to the oceans without acknowledging the opposing shoreline in the distance.
Part 2: The Search for Progress, and the Violence of Perfection.
I believe the idea of progress is necessary, even laudable, to the degree it creates a more advanced society in terms of survival, not necessarily human nature or understanding. But even more so, the reality of progress, and the violence associated with it, is where the appetite of Man knows no bounds. The desire of achieving perfection for so many has created a path to authoritarianism far too many believe is the only path left to stave off Evil. Those that blindly chase progress inevitably build a bridge to nowhere, a bridge that is never finished, and thus can never be utilized for the intended purpose. I invoke the violence of perfection not as hyperbole, but as an application of the history surrounding regimes that would prefer to purge the inferior mindset and stations of their societies rather than attempt to assimilate or understand such mindsets, to elevate them to opinions of which the honest can repair. Those that have ever built their own shelters know quite well you have a limited amount of time to construct it before the sun goes down, or the rainstorm comes, or the hunger sets in. Prioritization becomes the order of the day, for the sake of protection from the elements, as well as a modicum of comfort. You have to choose to solve problems in an order of necessity, rather than personal affectations, for your very survival depends upon that. The same can be said of any civilization, where the focus of problem solving, and indeed, problem identification, must consistently be reorganized and restructured based upon new facts as they arise, rather than whimsical desires as we would want them to arise. Simply put again, a society that progresses so constantly they cannot stop to reorganize the most important tasks to handle is one ill-equipped to solve problems in any capacity, for it loses the most crucial understanding of why perfection is a waste of time.
As an aside, in the era of public health crises that seem to overtake the better thoughts of most people, I am struck with the idea that many are so overcome with fear that any reaction is justified, to the greatest degree, without a second thought, and this cannot be dismissed out of hand. As our lives have improved with the advancement of technology, the ability for us as both individuals and as a society to determine and adjudicate risk in situations, whether they be mundane or exciting, has diminished greatly. I could venture educated guesses as to exactly why this is, but my greatest hunch lies in two areas, comfort being the greater and excess being the weaker. As the limits of comfort have become too minuscule to measure in the modern age, and the amount of excess reaching to a seeming infinity, the human mind at some point becomes addled from a lack of problems to solve, in layman terms. Without tasks such as finding and cleaning water, hunting for our food, growing our food through crops (farmers notwithstanding), preparing, and maintaining shelters, or keeping a fire going constantly, we are left with so little to understand about how our world is built, and how we interact and change such a world. This creates a dangerous disconnect with the natural world, where our understanding of both its gifts and its dangers are so foreign to us that we become like children again, so curious and filled with ignorance that we attack without a second thought, choosing to react out of fear instead of to act out of necessity.
Thomas Paine once wrote with great passion, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace”, ostensibly with the thought that troubles ought to be avoided when possible, and peace shall make the next generation stronger in prospering. While this may be true to some degree within the society prospering in terms of building physical structures, growing a population, or spending time advancing technology to improve the quality of life, even answering questions previously set aside due to conflict causing disruptions within our more sane predilections, something about this phrase causes me some true pause. A generation without strife is one ill equipped to handle strife; a generation without turmoil is more apt for war than peace, for they understand nothing of the value of peace, or the cost of war. Those that have slept in perfect comfort have no reality with discomfort. And so on and so forth; these metaphors are meant to convey a simple truth about the human experience, one that is not so easily written down or unraveled within the minds of the bored. I have always imagined the human mind, the heart and emotions, and by extension, the human experience, as a muscle. Those that have never flexed it, those that have never lifted the heavy weight of the world upon their shoulders will suffer the atrophy of dullness. Truthfully, this would not be a problem if such an experience within an individual were to exist in a vacuum, never to be realized upon the world surrounding him. Unfortunately, we tend to live within groups, where our experiences and our livelihoods, our stories, our families and our troubles are shared between one another, and for the benefit of us all I might add. Man was not meant to walk alone. Yet, when we consider the idea that those who have not experienced troubles are more likely to misunderstand the comforts of having avoided such things, when we allow ourselves to live with magnificent comforts that changes the very nature of how we interact with the world, we remove a part of the human experience vital to avoid such troubles in the future.
Government feeds off this destructive cycle, describing to us a necessity of having a group of ‘equals’ (though they would consider themselves ‘better men’) that gather and control more power over others in order to stave off the troubles, rather than empowering the individual to do so. Of course, this is not a foolproof argument, as there are situations where a governing and centralized body can indeed respond to such threats in effective ways, war being the most apt position. What brings me the greatest pause regarding government is the necessity of empowering one individual with the duties and responsibilities of 100, and that authority, whoever it may be wielded by, ultimately corrupts not the individual necessarily, but those that seek such power. It is the most natural cycle of any human made creation within civilization, and it is an observation that any student of history can see time and again without the need for exhaustive study. Ultimately, the reason some take issue with government stems not from the individuals flaws within the system, but the system itself, as it becomes a vehicle for further corruption rather than an institution for virtue. Therefore, we ought to empower government with only as much responsibility as an individual cannot reasonable assume themselves, and execute confidently within an acceptable timeframe (forgive me for the broad statements). Government ought to have the responsibilities of creating a Justice system, advising and pursuing War with foreign adversaries, establishing and maintaining Borders with other nations, establishing a universal Currency, and perhaps, the most basic Infrastructure to maintain a Civilization. Government is the compromise we make with Disorder, for the purpose of creating a more stable life, a more perfect union, and the potential for Peace throughout time.
G.S. Frank