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Critique of "Bio-Politics" Article: Argument for Societal Self-Regulation

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I'm always amazed at the amount of writing that Rob Kall puts out virtually every day. I write a lot, but I cannot turn out for public viewing - and will not try - the amount that he does. So the fact that he has made time to include writing on the subject of comparing human interactions to other aspects of reality is commendable. However, I found his article "Bio-Politics; Nature vs Globalism, Conservatism and Libertarianism" quite disconcerting for reasons that will be made clear below, too lengthy for simply entering as a comment directly to his article. The first portion (in italics) is written by my husband, Paul Wakfer, and the last (unitalicized), by me.

Paul Wakfer:

Ignoring the fact that the use of "organism" to describe a nation is a gross distortion of its original and standard meaning:

"an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of parts or organs more or less separate in function but mutually dependent : a living being" (The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online Dictionary)

carrying this distortion even further to envisage a nation as some kind of life-form is highly inconsistent with reasoned thought.


The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online Dictionary defines life as:

"the state of a material complex or individual characterized by the capacity to perform certain functional activities including metabolism, growth, reproduction, and some form of responsiveness or adaptability".

A nation is neither a material complex nor an individual (by any reasonable definitions of those words). A nation does not "perform certain functional activities", only individual humans do, and I know of no nations that have reproduction as one of their goals - in fact the opposite is generally the case.

For these reasons, while Rob's metaphor involving skin is a good try, rational analysis shows that it is invalid and therefore harmful.

Rob next proceeds to state that:

"biological organisms live in an interconnected, interdependent world"

which is a very true and important fact of reality. However, this definition of "organism" is not that which he previously used for nation, but instead the more correct one describing an individual life-form. It seems to me that using two highly different definitions of the same word only two paragraphs apart is not going to enable clear thought, at the least. But then Rob goes on to make an implication that does not follow at all from this fact of reality:

"that biological organisms NOT be left alone".

Rather, what follows logically from the fact of reality quoted above is that for their optimal functioning, biological organisms should not be alone, which is quite different than that they "NOT be left alone". Rob also grossly distorts the libertarian position. I have known many people who called themselves libertarians, but have never met one who wants to be completely "left alone". Rather libertarians do not want to have force or fraud initiated against them. The reason for this is precisely because they want all possible liberty to interact to the maximum extent with others as, when and how they mutually see fit to do so. I have never met a libertarian who wants to be a hermit.

Rob next correctly states and illustrates the regulatory processes that are acting from within and from the environment on all life-forms, but then he unfortunately goes on to once again distort how this applies to society. People who want more liberty and freedom (actually two quite different concepts) are not against either internal regulations or even the natural self-regulations of the environment (due to scarce resources of time, water, land, etc), rather they are against the enforced regulations of governments that constrain their liberty or distort their choice evaluations, and ultimately, reduce the number of available actions they can take (their freedom). Yes, it is certainly true that even for a society

"Regulations are necessary to keep vital balances".

What Rob appears to be unaware of is that society, just like any other natural system, can be self-regulating if allowed to develop the methods by which to do that, rather than constantly being held in an unnatural (and very unoptimal) state of balance by the use of coercion by governments. What Rob appears to not understand is that unlike the notion of a skin, which is only applicable to lifeforms, the concept of self-ordering negative feedback is applicable to any system. So to correctly use a biological metaphor back at Rob - if such government regulation is reduced and more effective methods of voluntary social cooperation are adopted, society can find a much healthier point of homeostasis than the mess that it is in right now. I am convinced that the Theory of Social Meta-Needs is a basis for and its twin implementations of the Natural Social Contract and the practice of Social Preferencing are precisely those "more effective methods of voluntary social cooperation" that will do this job.

Actually "
[t]he idea that a nation, an economy can function without regulations" is a well proven implication of the Theory of Praxeology of which Ludwig von Mises (not Milton Friedman, a very much mixed-economy proponent) was the 20th century's leading exponent. (See Human Action at: http://mises.org/humanaction.asp ) What has made it impossible to actually happen is precisely the coercive government regulations, which Rob promotes in his article, that prevent the natural self-ordering feedback of society as a system from nudging its parameters towards the point of balance where it can function far more optimally for all its members than under a regulated system which maintains it in an unnatural and unhealthy balance state.


Rob is quite correct when he suggests:

"The laws of nature could be seen as "god-given." It seems to me that bible-toting evangelicals might look to the laws of life as a source of teachings, and that they would reject theories and political approaches that fly in the face and contradict nature's laws."

But I disagree with him when he writes:
"We need leaders who can cross disciplines and think about our nation and our world in ways that make sense in terms of the laws of nature."
Rather than seeing the solution to current problems as selecting leaders who will do the thinking "in ways that make sense in terms of the laws of nature", I strongly recommend that Rob and others read Paul Wakfer's foundational essay, "Social Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Human Interaction" A nutshell description of this paradigm shifting concept:
Social and science evidence about human nature is integrated to create a new basis for those InterActions that optimize Society: Social Meta-Needs - those conditions common to all Full Members of a Society which will enable each to optimally increase his Lifetime Happiness. Rights are shown to be neither a complete nor a consistent basis for human Liberty and are replaced by an Executed and Attested Social Contract to implement the part of the Social Meta-Needs requiring formal Stipulations. The nature of Violation and Harm within a redefined concept of ethical egoism, and their reduction and restoration, respectively, by means of Restitution is shown to form the foundation to achieve the Social Meta-Needs.

Note: In the above, capitalized words are, in the original, link to their precise definitions
Paul and I welcome comments and questions regarding this essay and everything else we have written at SelfSIP.org in a public forum. Here at OpEdNews.com will be fine - until the time limit on comments expires 15 days after publication. Our preferred location is MoreLife Yahoo because we moderate that group on a seminar-like basis and require the following of some definite rules for posting to that group, one of which is full identification to us as a minimum, and then use of full names and public aliases on all messages. Anonymity is not allowed except by a member to bring forward argument against that policy which has not already been covered. (Doing a search on the archives will yield a number of messages with our comments - embedded within in the message of the sender before change of policy relative to such embedding on January 27 2007.)
The group's home page states briefly the message content requirements. Full group policies are sent to all members upon joining. Anyone can read the archives, but posting requires membership and anyone can join the group. But as stated, identification to us is a prerequisite for posting to the group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/
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Kitty Antonik Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

I am a professional life-extensionist and liberty promoter who practices what I and husband, Paul Wakfer, encourage. More detail about both of us - philosophically and physically - at http://morelife.org/personal/ When the comment time period has closed at OpEdNews.com, readers are welcome (more...)
 
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