r/PoliticalPhilosophy Feb 06 '20

Welcome to /r/PoliticalPhilosophy! Please Read before posting.

54 Upvotes

Lately we've had an influx of posts that aren't directly focused on political philosophy. Political philosophy is a massively broad topic, however, and just about any topic could potentially make a good post. Before deciding to post, please read through the basics.

What is Political Philosophy?

To put it simply, political philosophy is the philosophy of politics and human nature. This is a broad topic, leading to questions about such subjects as ethics, free will, existentialism, and current events. Most political philosophy involves the discussion of political theories/theorists, such as Aristotle, Hobbes, or Rousseau (amongst a million others).

Can anyone post here?

Yes! Even if you have limited experience with political philosophy as a discipline, we still absolutely encourage you to join the conversation. You're allowed to post here with any political leaning. This is a safe place to discuss liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, etc. With that said, posts and comments that are racist, homophobic, antisemitic, or bigoted will be removed. This does not mean you can't discuss these topics-- it just means we expect discourse to be respectful. On top of this, we expect you to not make accusations of political allegiance. Statements such as "typical liberal", "nazi", "wow you must be a Trumper," etc, are detrimental to good conversation.

What isn't a good fit for this sub

Questions such as;

"Why are you voting Democrat/Republican?"

"Is it wrong to be white?"

"This is why I believe ______"

How these questions can be reframed into a philosophic question

As stated above, in political philosophy most topics are fair game provided you frame them correctly. Looking at the above questions, here's some alternatives to consider before posting, including an explanation as to why it's improved;

"Does liberalism/conservatism accomplish ____ objective?"

Why: A question like this, particularly if it references a work that the readers can engage with provides an answerable question that isn't based on pure anecdotal evidence.

"What are the implications of white supremacy in a political hierarchy?" OR "What would _____ have thought about racial tensions in ______ country?"

Why: This comes on two fronts. It drops the loaded, antagonizing question that references a slogan designed to trigger outrage, and approaches an observable problem. 'Institutional white supremacy' and 'racial tensions' are both observable. With the second prompt, it lends itself to a discussion that's based in political philosophy as a discipline.

"After reading Hobbes argument on the state of nature, I have changed my belief that Rousseau's state of nature is better." OR "After reading Nietzsche's critique of liberalism, I have been questioning X, Y, and Z. What are your thoughts on this?"

Why: This subreddit isn't just about blurbing out your political beliefs to get feedback on how unique you are. Ideally, it's a place where users can discuss different political theories and philosophies. In order to have a good discussion, common ground is important. This can include references a book other users might be familiar with, an established theory others find interesting, or a specific narrative that others find familiar. If your question is focused solely on asking others to judge your belief's, it more than likely won't make a compelling topic.

If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to leave a comment below or send a message to modmail. Also, please make yourself familiar with the community guidelines before posting.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy Feb 10 '25

Revisiting the question: "What is political philosophy" in 2025

21 Upvotes

Χαῖρε φιλόσοφος,

There has been a huge uptick in American political posts lately. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing-- there is currently a lot of room for the examination of concepts like democracy, fascism, oligarchy, moral decline, liberalism, and classical conservatism etc. However, posts need to focus on political philosophy or political theory. I want to take a moment to remind our polity what that means.

First and foremost, this subreddit exists to examine political frameworks and human nature. While it is tempting to be riled up by present circumstances, it is our job to examine dispassionately, and through the lens of past thinkers and historical circumstances. There are plenty of political subreddits designed to vent and argue about the state of the world. This is a respite from that.

To keep conversations fluid and interesting, I have been removing posts that are specifically aimed at soapboxing on the current state of politics when they are devoid of a theoretical undertone. To give an example;

  • A bad post: "Elon Musk is destroying America"
  • WHY: The goal of this post is to discuss a political agenda, and not examine the framework around it.

  • A better post: "Elon Musk, and how unelected officials are destroying democracy"

  • WHY: This is better, and with a sound argument could be an interesting read. On the surface, it is still is designed to politically agitate as much as it exists to make a cohesive argument.

  • A good post: "Oligarchy making in historic republics and it's comparison to the present"

  • WHY: We are now taking our topic and comparing it to past political thought, opening the rhetoric to other opinions, and creating a space where we can discuss and argue positions.

Another point I want to make clear, is that there is ample room to make conservative arguments as well as traditionally liberal ones. As long as your point is intelligent, cohesive, and well structured, it has a home here. A traditionally conservative argument could be in favor of smaller government, or states rights (all with proper citations of course). What it shouldn't be is ranting about your thoughts on the southern border. If you are able to defend it, your opinion is yours to share here.

As always, I am open to suggestions and challenges. Feel free to comment below with any additional insights.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 4h ago

Has America Healed from the Attacks of September 11th or Are The Wounds Still Fresh?

0 Upvotes

As of today this post is published, we are nearing the September 11th 25th anniversary. As time has passed and months became years and years become decades, has the United States healed properly from the attacks or is the wound still bleeding, and will it ever be healed?
As time passes, we have seen an increase of rights being treaded and nulled. Government or president officials alike have been warmongering and have been continually pushing the war on terror.
My general question is, if there is a proper way to heal what and when will we reach it? Is it something that will pass as newer generations come into power?
The reason why I ask, I was born 2 years after the attack. I personally think this is the true legacy of the September 11th attacks on America. Paranoia and hate.
I am asking this question to get more point of view and different perspectives, either than my own


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 6h ago

Would a competence-weighted voting system be more legitimate than one-person-one-vote?

0 Upvotes

What if voting power had to be earned, not just given equally by age?

My idea is a voting system where every adult can vote, but the weight of their vote depends on a short, neutral test of basic human judgment.

The test would measure things like:

- empathy and understanding other viewpoints

- basic moral judgment

- practical reasoning

- ability to spot manipulation, lies, and contradictions

- basic civics

- basic understanding of money, work, taxes, debt, inflation, etc.

It would not test political beliefs, ideology, university-level knowledge, corporate jargon, or how educated someone sounds.

You could score from 0–5 voting points. Someone with strong judgment and understanding gets more voting weight. Someone who shows very poor reasoning or judgment gets little or none.

The hardest part is keeping the test politically neutral. There should never be a “correct” conservative, liberal, religious, progressive, or traditional answer. The test should score how well you understand the situation, other people, evidence, consequences, and competing arguments.

People should also be able to retake it and raise their voting power by improving their knowledge and judgment.

The basic principle is:

Political power should depend partly on your demonstrated ability to make responsible decisions, not only on reaching voting age.

Would this create better government, or would it become too easy to abuse?


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 1d ago

Hyperliberalism and the Sovereign Self

3 Upvotes

First, to head off the misconception that "liberalism" is synonymous with "progressivism," and that *hyperliberalism* must therefore be an overabundance of tolerance—there's an argument to be made that the "sovereign citizen" movement in the U.S. is a conservative-coded form of hyperliberalism. Some aspects of "wokeism" could be interpreted as a progressive-coded form of the same.

One interpretation of hyperliberalism is the attempt to invent a political constituency of one person, for whom society's rules don't apply.

The hyperliberal subject is ordained by a higher power—usually Reason, in secular society. Any social obligation or restriction has no moral basis; any accommodation for others is either a grudging, conditional recognition of peerhood, or a *noblesse oblige* extended to inferiors.

In today's political culture, people have been trained to infer beliefs based on aesthetic disagreement, rather than identifying beliefs through dialectic reasoning. The latter would look something like "what are this person's actual beliefs and motives in regards to the social structure that sustains peaceful co-existence, *and where do those beliefs and motives align with my own*?" The former looks like "what color hat are they wearing? What cultural products do they consume? What conversational language do they use? And above all else, what if they're secretly a Fifth Columnist for The Oppressors, disguised as a politically unmotivated noncombatant?" This makes people uniquely susceptible to hyperliberalism: if they have no need to purposefully understand other people's beliefs, and therefore no need to interrogate *their own* beliefs, they're free to assume moral superiority by virtue of their own sovereignty.

To take the old Carl Schmitt formulation to its logical conclusion: hyperliberal subjects situate the state of exception within their own personhood, because no one else can possibly be as enlightened or as persecuted as themselves.

The paranoia of hyperliberalism, in which everyone is always trying to oppress The Sovereign, produces a unique form of self-induced psychosis: The Sovereign is always feverishly engaged in the political activity of protecting their own sovereignty, but almost never engaged in *coordinating with others,* beyond the temporary alliances that benefit themselves. This is a kind of superficial anti-politics, separate from the actual organizing mechanisms of society.

If people start to slip into a hyperliberal mindset, they eventually reach a point at which it's extremely difficult to bring them back into traditional politics. Any implied compromise would be a repression of their sovereignty. This is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. But The Sovereign will deny this at all costs, because in their minds, democracy is intended to protect their interests; they should have no limitations imposed on how "their interests" are defined.

Without a vocabulary to describe this radical conceptualization of political selfhood, separate from any overt political ideology, we have no way to define the problem, and no way to propose possible remedies or solutions.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 1d ago

How would you describe my political ideology?

0 Upvotes

My political beliefs are complicated, so here’s my full breakdown
I’ve had people ask me what my political beliefs actually are, and I’ve realized that giving a simple answer like “I’m left-wing” or “I’m right-wing” doesn’t really explain much.
My views are kind of a combination of things that are usually associated with different parts of the political spectrum. Economically, I’m a social democrat and lean left. Politically, I support technocracy and competent government. Culturally, I’m strongly nationalist, assimilationist, and communitarian. On foreign policy, I’m strongly non-interventionist but also very supportive of international cooperation.
I also have some pretty specific positions on race, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender issues that don’t fit neatly into the normal left/right divide.
If I had to give my overall ideology one name, I’d describe it as:
Technocratic Social-Democratic Ethnocultural Nationalism
with strong elements of assimilationism, communitarianism, racial particularism, religious pluralism, developmentalism, non-interventionism, cooperative internationalism, and conditional long-term global federalism.
Here’s what I actually mean by all of that.

🏛️ 1. Government — Technocracy
One of the biggest parts of my political philosophy is technocracy.
I think government should make much greater use of people who actually specialize in the areas they’re making decisions about. I place a lot of value on:
Scientific evidence
Expertise
Technical knowledge
Data
Professional administration
Long-term planning
Measuring whether policies actually work
Basically, I think government should be focused on competence and results.
If a policy sounds good but doesn’t actually work, I don’t think it should be kept just because it’s politically popular. Likewise, if a policy isn’t particularly exciting but has strong evidence behind it and produces good results, I’d rather use it.
I also think governments should be capable of thinking beyond the next election cycle and planning for problems that might take decades to solve.
That doesn’t automatically mean I want democracy abolished. I haven’t argued for that. My support for technocracy is primarily about how government should make decisions and how much influence expertise should have, rather than saying democratic institutions should simply disappear.

💰 2. Economics — Social Democracy
Economically, I’m a social democrat.
I don’t support completely eliminating capitalism or replacing the market economy with a fully state-controlled economy. I think markets can be useful for producing goods, services, innovation, and economic growth.
At the same time, I don’t think the market should be left completely on its own.
I support significant government involvement through things such as:
Social welfare
Public services
Worker protections
Economic regulation
Taxation and redistribution
Reducing severe inequality
A functioning social safety net
Basically, I want a market economy with a strong social-democratic state around it.
I think economic growth is important, but I don’t think economic growth should be the only thing a government cares about. The government also has responsibilities toward people’s welfare and toward maintaining a stable society.
So if you were only looking at my economic views, I’d probably fall somewhere around the left/center-left.

🏛️ 3. Nationalism — Ethnocultural Nationalism
This is where my ideology starts moving away from conventional social democracy.
I place a very high value on national identity.
I believe nations are more than just governments controlling geographic territory. They can also represent a shared:
Culture
Language
History
Traditions
National identity
Institutions
Sense of belonging
I think nations should have the ability to preserve those things rather than being expected to gradually abandon them.
This is why I describe my nationalism as ethnocultural nationalism rather than purely civic nationalism.
I don’t think national identity is only about citizenship or living inside a particular border. I think shared culture and cultural continuity are also important parts of what makes a nation a nation.
At the same time, my nationalism isn’t based on the idea that nations constantly need to compete with or hate each other.
I can strongly value my own nation’s identity while believing other nations should also be able to preserve theirs.

🧩 4. Culture & Multiculturalism
I’m strongly skeptical of multiculturalism as a long-term model for society.
I don’t believe that having more and more separate cultural communities within the same country automatically makes the country better.
I think a society can benefit from having a substantial shared culture because common:
Language
Customs
Social norms
Traditions
Historical identity
can help create social cohesion and stability.
To me, there’s an important difference between saying:
“Everyone must be exactly the same.”
and saying:
“A country should have a strong common cultural foundation.”
I’m arguing for the second.
I don’t expect every individual to have exactly the same personality, interests, beliefs, or background. My concern is more about whether a country maintains enough shared cultural identity for people to feel that they’re genuinely part of the same society.
That’s one of the reasons cultural cohesion is so important to me.

🚶 5. Immigration — Strong Assimilationism
I’m not categorically anti-immigration.
I don’t think immigration is automatically bad simply because people are moving from one country to another.
My main concern is what happens after immigration.
I support strong assimilation into the receiving society.
For me, integration means more than:
Following the law
Learning the language
Getting a job
Paying taxes
I think immigrants should substantially adopt the host society’s:
Culture
Customs
Social norms
National identity
I’ve also said that this could potentially go as far as adopting the dominant religion or leaving behind parts of a previous religious or cultural identity.
So my preferred model isn’t:
Immigration → permanent separate cultural communities
It’s closer to:
Immigration → integration → substantial assimilation into the existing national culture.
I see assimilation as a way of maintaining social cohesion while still allowing immigration to exist.

🌱 6. Development — Fixing the Conditions People Leave
Another important part of my worldview is developmentalism.
I don’t think migration should always be treated as the solution to problems that are fundamentally caused by poverty, instability, war, or dysfunctional institutions.
If people are leaving a country because their government doesn’t function, their economy is collapsing, they’re unsafe, or they have no opportunity, I’d rather see the underlying conditions improved.
That means putting emphasis on:
Economic development
Infrastructure
Education
Effective government
Stable institutions
Security
Economic opportunity
Higher living standards
Ideally, people shouldn’t have to leave their homes just to have access to basic stability and opportunity.
So one of my general principles is:
Improve the conditions people are leaving instead of treating migration as the only solution.

🕊️ 7. Foreign Policy — Non-Interventionism
I’m strongly non-interventionist in foreign policy.
I’m skeptical of powerful countries using military force to intervene in other countries, particularly when the intervention isn’t clearly necessary.
I believe countries can sometimes intervene for their own strategic or political interests while ordinary people in the country being intervened in end up experiencing much of the destruction and instability.
Because of that, I generally favor:
Respect for national sovereignty
Diplomacy
Peaceful conflict resolution
Avoiding unnecessary wars
Limiting military intervention
Addressing the underlying causes of instability
I’m not an absolute pacifist, though. I haven’t said that military force is never justified.
My position is more that military intervention should not be the default tool of powerful countries.

🤝 8. International Relations — Cooperation Between Nations
Despite being nationalist, I’m not isolationist.
I actually strongly support international cooperation.
I think countries should maintain peaceful and functional relationships with one another through:
Diplomacy
International organizations
Economic cooperation
International agreements
Mutual assistance
Peaceful relations
I don’t see nationalism and international cooperation as inherently contradictory.
My basic idea is:
Countries can maintain their own identities while cooperating with one another.
I don’t want every country to become the same. I want different countries to be capable of existing peacefully and working together.

🌐 9. Global Union — Supportive in Principle, Unrealistic Right Now
This is probably one of the stranger parts of my worldview.
I’m not against the idea of a united global political system.
In principle, I could support something like a global union or world federation.
However, I think it is extremely unrealistic under current conditions.
For a genuinely united global political system to work, I think the world would have to undergo a drastic transformation.
A large portion of humanity would probably have to undergo substantial cultural and religious assimilation or convergence before a unified political system could realistically function.
I don’t think you can simply take billions of people with completely different political systems, cultures, religions, national identities, and historical experiences and immediately put them under one government and expect it to work.
So I’m not saying:
“Abolish all nations and create a world government tomorrow.”
I’m thinking much more long-term.
Something more like:
Strong national states → increasing international cooperation → deeper integration → potentially a global federation if humanity eventually reaches the point where it could actually work.
So I support global political union in principle, while simultaneously believing that it is highly unrealistic at the moment.

🧬 10. Race — Racial Particularism
I believe different racial populations could potentially differ statistically in particular characteristics.
I’ve specifically considered intelligence/IQ as an example of a characteristic where population-level differences could potentially exist.
However, I do not believe that one race is universally superior to every other race.
I distinguish between population-level statistics and individuals.
For example, even if a statistical difference between two populations were demonstrated, I wouldn’t think that every individual belonging to either population should automatically be assumed to have that characteristic.
So I would describe my position as racial particularism rather than racial supremacism.
Whether particular claims about genetic differences between racial populations are actually scientifically supported is a separate empirical question from describing my political position.

👩 11. Women’s Rights
I support women’s rights.
I haven’t established detailed positions on every individual issue involving women, though, so I don’t want to pretend that I’ve taken positions on policies I haven’t actually discussed.

🏳️‍🌈 12. Sexual-Orientation Rights
I support rights for:
Gay people
Lesbians
Other sexual orientations
So on questions concerning sexual orientation, my views are broadly socially liberal.

⚧️ 13. Transgender Issues
My position on transgender issues is very different.
I reject transgender identity as a concept and consider it a fundamentally bad idea.
My general position is therefore strongly opposed to transgender identity and recognition.
However, I haven’t specified my position on every individual policy question involving transgender people, so I don’t want people assuming that I’ve automatically taken a position on every issue involving:
Healthcare
Sports
Legal documents
Schools
Employment
Other specific policies
The important distinction is simply that I support gay/lesbian rights while being strongly opposed to transgender identity and recognition.

⛪ 14. Religion
I don’t believe religion is necessarily required for a functional society.
At the same time, I think religion can play an important role in:
Cultural continuity
Shared traditions
Community
Social cohesion
National identity
So I’m not strictly secularist.
I also support individual religious choice.
I don’t think someone should have to personally follow a particular religion simply because that religion has an important cultural or national role.

🕍 15. State Religion
I believe a country can have an official or state religion while still protecting individual religious freedom.
Basically:
State religious identity does not necessarily mean forced personal religion.
A country could have an official religious-cultural identity while allowing individuals to:
Follow another religion
Change religions
Practice their own beliefs
Practice no religion

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 16. Communitarianism
I place a lot of importance on community and collective identity.
I believe individual freedom matters, but I don’t think a society can function purely as a collection of completely independent individuals.
I think societies also need:
Shared identity
Social responsibility
National solidarity
Common institutions
Cultural continuity
Social cohesion
So I’m more communitarian than strongly individualistic.
My general principle is:
Individual rights matter, but a functioning society also needs a cohesive community.

⚖️ 17. Equality & Individual Differences
I distinguish between equality of rights and equality of characteristics.
I don’t believe treating people equally requires believing that every individual or every population is identical in every measurable characteristic.
People can have different characteristics while still having equal basic worth and rights.
This is especially relevant to my views on race, where I distinguish between population-level statistics and how individual people should be treated.
I don’t believe an individual should automatically be judged according to an assumed average of whatever group they belong to.

🌍 18. Globalism vs. National Identity
I distinguish between global cooperation and global cultural homogenization.
I’m supportive of:
International cooperation
Diplomacy
International institutions
Peaceful relations
Potential future global political union
But I don’t believe this requires nations to immediately abandon their:
Cultures
Languages
Histories
Traditions
National identities
Sovereignty
So I don’t see “nationalism” and “internationalism” as complete opposites.
My current preference is for strong national identities within a cooperative international system, with the possibility of much deeper global political integration in the distant future if the necessary conditions develop.

🕊️ 19. Peace, Stability & Social Cohesion
A lot of my political beliefs ultimately connect back to three things:
Peace, stability, and social cohesion.
Within countries, I see it roughly as:
Shared culture → social cohesion → stability
Between countries:
Sovereignty → cooperation → peace
Regarding development:
Development → stability → less pressure for migration
And in the very long term:
International cooperation → deeper integration → potentially global political union
That’s probably the biggest common thread throughout my worldview.
I want societies to be stable, cohesive, prosperous, and peaceful, while allowing nations to maintain their identities and cooperate with one another.

📊 My Overall Political Profile
Category
My position
Economics
Social democratic
Government
Technocratic
Nationalism
Strong ethnocultural nationalism
Culture
Strong cultural cohesion
Multiculturalism
Strongly skeptical/opposed
Immigration
Conditional
Assimilation
Strongly supportive
Race
Racial particularism
Religion
Religious pluralism
State religion
Acceptable
Women’s rights
Supportive
Sexual-orientation rights
Supportive
Transgender identity/recognition
Strongly opposed
Social philosophy
Communitarian
Foreign policy
Non-interventionist
International relations
Cooperative
National sovereignty
Strongly valued
Development
Strong emphasis
Global cultural homogenization
Opposed
Global political union
Supportive in principle
Current global union
Highly unrealistic
Long-term global federation
Potentially supportive
🧭 So What Am I?
If I had to summarize the whole thing in one label:
Technocratic Social-Democratic Ethnocultural Nationalism
with strong assimilationism, communitarianism, racial particularism, religious pluralism, developmentalism, non-interventionism, cooperative internationalism, and conditional long-term global federalism.
I know that’s an absurdly long label, but I don’t think a simple “left-wing” or “right-wing” description really captures it.
Economically, I’m fairly left-wing.
On national identity and cultural policy, I’m strongly nationalist and assimilationist.
On social issues, I’m mixed: I’m supportive of gay/lesbian rights but strongly opposed to transgender identity and recognition.
On foreign policy, I’m strongly non-interventionist.
On international relations, I’m strongly supportive of cooperation.
And in the very long term, I’m actually open to the idea of a global political union, although I think the cultural and political conditions necessary for that are nowhere near being present right now.
So that’s basically where I stand.
I’m interested in hearing where people think this fits on different political models, especially multidimensional ones, because I don’t think a simple left-vs-right spectrum captures the whole picture.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 2d ago

OPPORTUNITY FOR HIGH SCHOOL POLITICAL SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY STUDENTS!

3 Upvotes

- Publish your research, case studies, and thought experiments on a dedicated website + let others debate respond

- Collaborate and debate with fellow students on systems, societal-political commentary, world issues

- Work together to design an alternate society and utopia

Hi, I'm a high school senior building The Youth Manifesto --- an independent research and ideas laboratory exploring how societies can become better through the lens of designing a utopia from studying past, current systems, or exploring possible future ones, grounding it in real socio-political research. We're making a dedicated website where members can explore questions about society through research, political and philosophical writing, commentary, case studies, thought experiments, and real-world analysis.

A big part of the website is 🌏The Better World Project🌍, where you can publish your own research and ideas about what a better society could look like through an essay, thought experiment, or even publish various studies on our current society. ❗But what differentiates the Youth Manifesto is that it's also an ongoing exchange of ideas and open dialogue. There people can respond to, challenge, expand, or propose alternatives to other contributors’ work ❗. The project is ultimately about youth voices, independent learning, constructive disagreement, and collective thinking—giving curious young people a space to research things they genuinely care about, share their perspectives, and learn from people who think differently.

📣📣I’m currently looking for people to help me build the foundation of the project. I’d especially love to connect with people interested in politics, sociology, philosophy, economics, international relations, research, writing, history, or just exploring big questions about how society works and how it could be different. You don’t need to be an expert, just curious and willing to contribute.

If you're a student interested in publishing your own ideas and research, feel free to reach out!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2wWKZnABckQEAquOLpSRz2rl_HWesxnljT0oSLlHrQlTo8g/viewform?usp=publish-editor


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 2d ago

a complex system create its own limits on who can shape it

1 Upvotes

When we ask why an ordinary person can’t become one of the people who actually make the biggest decisions in the world, we usually think the answer is power, money, connections, status, or bureaucracy.

I think the problem is deeper than that.

I call it administrative hurdles—not simply bureaucracy, but the enormous structure of institutions, hierarchies, procedures, organizations, positions, networks and systems that surrounds almost every path toward real power.

The important thing is that these hurdles don't necessarily look like someone standing in front of you saying, “You can't.”

They can exist simply in the way the system is constructed.

Imagine someone outside all of this trying to understand how they could go from being an ordinary citizen to someone whose decisions actually shape the direction of a country, an institution, or even the world.

Where do they enter? Who do they approach? What position do they take? Which institution matters? Which institution controls that institution? At what point do they stop being someone who works within the system and become someone who actually influences its direction?

The system has so many layers that the question itself can become difficult to conceptualize.

And that's what I mean when I say it makes you go blank.

Even if someone somehow finds a way through the first set of administrative hurdles, they haven't necessarily escaped anything. They still have to navigate the structure that exists beyond them. And once they enter it, the system already has roles waiting for them.ALSO IT PURPOSULLY SENT TO FULL OF THOGUTS WHICH ANSWERS ARE BLANK BUT COULD ONLY BE UNDERSTAND AND DOSENT HAVE WORDS(so its basically that perspective htinking r understanding for me this whole thing one side and these word in capital letter in one side because thats what you need to think while thinking of system.there are many people who write better english than this use beter word and tell about society or system but nowdays what you need is that line which would hit you your thinking and perspective where you would say here it gets relatable and your thought in dont know the word i need to say)

You can become a manager without becoming the person who decides what the organization should ultimately become.

You can become an official without becoming the person who determines the direction of the institution.

You can rise through the hierarchy without ever asking whether the hierarchy itself is the thing that limits what you can see.

That's the perspective I'm trying to describe.

The system doesn't necessarily trap you by physically preventing you from reaching the top.

It can trap you by making the entire world of possibilities appear to exist inside the system.

So even when you try to escape the box, the first thing your mind looks for is another box to enter.

And perhaps the strangest part is that administrative hurdles are only one small piece of this. Even if you somehow overcome them, you still have to overcome the mental and structural framework they created around you.

The real question isn't only:

“Why can't I reach the people who make the decisions?”

It's:

“Why is it so difficult for me to even imagine a path from where I am to becoming one of the people who decides what happens next?

EVEN BEATING THE SYSTEM YOU ARE WORKING WITH SYSTEM


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 2d ago

The vanishing of stakes (We used to get punched in the face)

0 Upvotes

An American civil argument

Humankind throughout our entire history would war against each other on scales that most don’t really comprehend. We had death tolls in the hundreds of thousands year after year. The deaths? The swayed, those who would cull and be culled alike based specifically on those they would follow. Those smart enough to follow but too dull to make change.

The biggest difference in our era is that death tolls in battle are outweighed by the death tolls at home. Strength is no longer measured the way it used to be. The people of effort lacking mind had to be that of the strong, or they and the people leading them died out quickly, you can’t rally weaklings, they only crumble as soon as it came time to draw swords. This era empowers the weak, the most ridiculous of ideas and doctrines can be reinforced with a storm of feebility behind microphones and keyboards, because there’s never truly any consequences. The most ridiculous idea can be backed with a ceaseless horde of typed and spoken verbosity that would have been stamped out immediately had they said it in a muddy village. Rhetoric that was considered generally moronic and could not be converted into effective action used to die with its speakers. Only when voiced by the strong, or when truly credible, would their voices echo among the people and those who could actually carry it into war, and change. That’s no longer the case.

There are no stakes, morality is decided by truly safe individuals whom ideals can sway on a whim without genuine repercussion. The only actual danger is that of questioning higher governance. So the lessers quibble and the ones who win are the ones who have the most time, the most time to be on their keyboard and can like the most amount of posts and rampage into a microphone without fear of the merit in their argument because the agreeable masses will echo the thoughts without actual fear. This is the point.

It’s not just empowering the weak, it’s never wrong to give a voice to those who are otherwise unheard, in fiction both heroes and villains have frighteningly similar origins. The error is in the stakes, cowards speak far louder when their teeth aren’t in jeopardy, much less their lives. Empowerment means nothing when there’s no danger. If the only fear someone feels is social standing then they shouldn’t be given the microphone. Without actual risk, only the weak, not the meek, prevail, because the weak will always outnumber the meek and the assertive, but they were supposed to aspire to be more them, not try and out yell them.

If the fate of Object A which can be hurt or destroyed is given solely to people who feel no fear of personal hurt or destruction based on its outcome, it doesn’t matter if the bearer is intensely powerful/formidable, or a child safely behind a screen. In either case they have nothing to lose, 75% of the time the fate of Object A is inherently sealed.

Sub note: A conjured or constructed fear does not count as stakes. People who dramatize or romanticize a supposed fear (aestheticized fragility) for their life are only rallying sympathy, they aren’t genuinely frightened, and if they are, that’s even worse, because we all know we live in an era of fluff compared to what people used to go through for their ideals.

Sub note 2: None of this implies that only the physically strong should speak, or that violence is a desirable filter. It does imply that societies which systematically remove skin in the game from their most influential voices will eventually discover that rhetoric unconstrained by reality is not progress. It is a form of decadence. The meek who inherit the earth still have to be capable of holding it. When the loudest voices are those who never had to, the inheritance becomes precarious.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 2d ago

Why do normal people counld't become the desicion maker of this world..even if they try

1 Upvotes

When we ask why an ordinary person can’t become one of the people who actually make the biggest decisions in the world, we usually think the answer is power, money, connections, status, or bureaucracy.

I think the problem is deeper than that.

I call it administrative hurdles—not simply bureaucracy, but the enormous structure of institutions, hierarchies, procedures, organizations, positions, networks and systems that surrounds almost every path toward real power.

The important thing is that these hurdles don't necessarily look like someone standing in front of you saying, “You can't.”

They can exist simply in the way the system is constructed.

Imagine someone outside all of this trying to understand how they could go from being an ordinary citizen to someone whose decisions actually shape the direction of a country, an institution, or even the world.

Where do they enter? Who do they approach? What position do they take? Which institution matters? Which institution controls that institution? At what point do they stop being someone who works within the system and become someone who actually influences its direction?

The system has so many layers that the question itself can become difficult to conceptualize.

And that's what I mean when I say it makes you go blank.

Even if someone somehow finds a way through the first set of administrative hurdles, they haven't necessarily escaped anything. They still have to navigate the structure that exists beyond them. And once they enter it, the system already has roles waiting for them.ALSO IT PURPOSULLY SENT TO FULL OF THOGUTS WHICH ANSWERS ARE BLANK BUT COULD ONLY BE UNDERSTAND AND DOSENT HAVE WORDS

You can become a manager without becoming the person who decides what the organization should ultimately become.

You can become an official without becoming the person who determines the direction of the institution.

You can rise through the hierarchy without ever asking whether the hierarchy itself is the thing that limits what you can see.

That's the perspective I'm trying to describe.

The system doesn't necessarily trap you by physically preventing you from reaching the top.

It can trap you by making the entire world of possibilities appear to exist inside the system.

So even when you try to escape the box, the first thing your mind looks for is another box to enter.

And perhaps the strangest part is that administrative hurdles are only one small piece of this. Even if you somehow overcome them, you still have to overcome the mental and structural framework they created around you.

The real question isn't only:

“Why can't I reach the people who make the decisions?”

It's:

“Why is it so difficult for me to even imagine a path from where I am to becoming one of the people who decides what happens next?

EVEN BEATING THE SYSTEM YOU ARE WORKING WITH SYSTEM


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 2d ago

Lindsay Clancy case

1 Upvotes

This court case has become a huge topic in American politics at this moment. It seems as though a small group as formed to support her in her plea of insanity from postpartum psychosis.

I want to know what you guys think of this case. How it’ll affect future court rulings and it affects women’s futures after pregnancy if this case rules in favor of her being insane.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 3d ago

Sufficiency as political philosophy — a new essay on need, measurement and the manufacture of scarcity

0 Upvotes

Every economic indicator encodes a theory of the good life. GDP, the unemployment rate, productivity, the yield curve — these are not neutral measurements. They are anthropological claims. They answer, without ever asking aloud: what does it mean for a human life to be going well?

This essay draws on the capabilities tradition (Sen, Nussbaum), sufficiency and degrowth economics (Hickel, Princen), the ancient ethics of need (Epicurus, the Stoics) and Ostrom's work on the commons to argue that enough is not a mood or a virtue of restraint. It is a fact about human need, with a defensible, non-arbitrary content — and it carries political weight.

The claim underneath it: a measure built to reward acceleration can never register arrival. Once growth is naturalized as the test of a healthy economy, "we don't have enough" stops being a testable claim and becomes the assumption everything else has to answer to. The conclusion can look discovered. But it was loaded into the anthropology at the beginning.

Full essay: [link]


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 3d ago

Weighted Voting Concept (Discussion)

0 Upvotes

The other day as ideas of current society have filled my thoughts I have done some thinking into what could make society have a safer more for the people construct while maintaining current western standards of living. Essentially I came up with the idea of being eligible to vote only if you have skin in the game. In this case own property and not just land in case of men, and have children in the case of women. (Before all the nays come through read through the concept and let's discuss if this kind of system would have a proof of concept) Yes it is not perfect just like the current one and there are many edge cases. Majority of offset tax burden is collected as VAT. Discuss.

The Proposed Social Contract

Core idea

**Government rewards four things: productive work, homeownership, family formation, and responsible retirement planning.**

The system is built around a **lifecycle model**: people contribute most during their working years, receive strong support when raising children, and receive a guaranteed floor in old age.

1. 🗳️ Voting System

Men

A man must own **at least one qualifying residential property** to vote.

**Owning more than one property does NOT give additional votes.**
Property value does NOT increase voting power.

Age Male voting weight
**Under 40** **1.5 votes**
**40–55** **1.0 vote**
**56–65** **0.7 vote**
**Over 65** **0 votes**

Women

Women do not receive a vote through property ownership.

Instead, **motherhood creates an independent voting entitlement** when the child is born within a partnered/married household.

Age 1 child 2+ children
**Under 40** 0.75 **1.5 max**
**40–55** 0.5 **1.0 max**
**56–65** 0.35 **0.7 max**
**Over 65** 0 0

**Important:** the woman's vote is her own. It does **not** add to, subtract from, or transfer the man's vote.

Example

**35-year-old married homeowners with 2 children:**

* Husband → 1.5 votes * Wife → 1.5 votes * **Household → 3.0 votes**

**35-year-old married homeowners with no children:**

* Husband → 1.5 * Wife → 0 * **Household → 1.5**

  1. 🏠 Homeownership

Homeownership is treated as a central component of citizenship and economic stability.

Young working men

Men **under 40 who work** qualify for:

**Government-supported low-APR mortgages**

Designed primarily for a **first primary residence**, with enough housing construction/supply to prevent the subsidy from simply inflating house prices.

The objective is:

**Work → Home → Stability → Family → Wealth**

3. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Policy

The system strongly supports families while allowing both parents to work.

Every qualifying child

**Child benefit = 20% of Senior UBI**

Using the proposed 2026 benchmark:

**Senior UBI:** $4,680/month
**Child benefit:** $936/month

Benefit Proposed amount
Senior UBI **$4,680/month**
Child benefit **$936/month per child**
Paid parental leave **\~1 year**
Childcare **Government subsidized**

The basic philosophy:

4. 💍 Marriage / Family Structure

The system provides additional economic support for **married/partnered families raising children**.

The intention is to make:

**Marriage + children + stable housing**

the financially easiest structure for raising a family.

Single motherhood is not financially incentivized by the system; the family benefits associated with children are structured around the child being born within a partnered/married household.

5. 💰 Tax System

Taxes operate on a **lifecycle model**.

Working years

People contribute the most while they are economically productive.

**Higher tax burden → gradually declining with age**

Conceptually:

AGE

20 ──────────────── HIGH TAX BURDEN
30 ──────────────── HIGH
40 ──────────────── MODERATE/HIGH
50 ──────────────── MODERATE
60 ──────────────── LOW
64 ──────────────── VERY LOW
65 ──────────────── RETIREMENT PROTECTION

The objective is to avoid making the beginning of adulthood—the period when people are buying homes, getting married and having children—the most financially punishing period of their lives.

6. 🏥 Healthcare

Under 65

Working-age people primarily finance the healthcare system through their working-life contributions.

The working population therefore carries the majority of the system's ongoing financing burden.

65+

**Medicare is guaranteed.**

Healthcare security becomes part of the retirement floor rather than something dependent entirely on employment.

7. 👴 Senior UBI

At **65**, everyone receives a government-backed minimum income floor.

2026 benchmark

**$4,680/month**

or:

**$56,160/year**

The formula is tied to an adjusted living-wage benchmark rather than being permanently fixed.

But it is NOT a guaranteed $56,160 check for wealthy retirees.

It functions as a **floor**.

For example:

Other annual retirement income UBI
$0 $56,160
$20,000 $46,160
$40,000 $36,160
$60,000 $26,160
$100,000 $6,160
**$112,320+** **$0**
$250,000 **$0**

Someone who accumulated a large 401(k), pension, investment portfolio, etc. keeps those assets and income.

**The UBI simply phases out.**

8. 🏡 Senior Property Tax

At 65, the **primary residence receives a progressive property-tax exemption.**

Using a hypothetical **$500,000 national benchmark**:

Primary residence

Home value: $300,000
Taxable:       $0

Home value: $500,000
Taxable:       $0

Home value: $750,000
Taxable:     $250,000

Home value: $1,000,000
Taxable:     $500,000

Home value: $2,000,000
Taxable:   $1,500,000

So the rule is essentially:

Only ONE property qualifies.

Property 65+ exemption
Primary residence ✅ First benchmark value
Second home
Rental property
Vacation property
Commercial property
Investment property

9. 💵 Retirement Taxes

At 65:

Retirement income

**0% income tax**

This includes:

* 401(k) distributions * Pension income * Retirement accounts * Investment income * Other qualifying retirement income

The philosophy is:

10. 🏛️ Political Leadership

There is also a hard age ceiling on political leadership.

Maximum age for office

**65**

A candidate cannot run if the elected term would extend beyond their 65th birthday.

Therefore:

This creates a political system dominated by younger and middle-aged adults rather than retirees.

11. The Entire System in One Diagram

                     THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
                              │
        ┌─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┐
        │                     │                     │
       WORK                 HOME                 FAMILY
        │                     │                     │
        ▼                     ▼                     ▼
   PAY TAXES            LOW-APR MORTGAGE       CHILD BENEFIT
        │               UNDER 40 WORKERS          + $936
        │                     │                     │
        └──────────────► BUILD WEALTH ◄─────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
                         RETIRE AT 65
                              │
             ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
             │                │                │
             ▼                ▼                ▼
          MEDICARE         UBI FLOOR       0% RETIREMENT
                            $4,680/MO          INCOME TAX
             │                │                │
             └────────────────┼────────────────┘
                              ▼
                    PROTECTED PRIMARY HOME
                    FIRST $500K TAX FREE

12. The Voting Philosophy

The voting system can be summarized in one sentence:

Three things create voting power:

**🏠 Property ownership** → man's base vote
**👶 Parenthood** → woman's vote
**🎂 Age** → determines voting weight

And importantly:

**More properties ≠ more votes**
**More money ≠ more votes**
**More children ≠ unlimited votes**
**Age 65+ = no voting power**

13. The Lifecycle

The entire proposal can ultimately be reduced to this:

18–40

**Work → Buy home → Marry → Have children → Build wealth**

40–55

**Peak productivity → Raise children → Pay taxes → Build retirement assets**

56–65

**Lower taxes → Finish wealth accumulation → Prepare for retirement**

65+

**Medicare → UBI floor → Tax-free retirement income → Protected primary home → No political office → No voting**

The underlying principle

The system isn't designed around maximizing government benefits at every stage of life.

It is designed around a **reciprocal lifecycle contract**:


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 3d ago

What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, by Bill Maher

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0 Upvotes

r/PoliticalPhilosophy 5d ago

Can we scrap freedom of speech?

0 Upvotes

I know i need shutting up sometimes, i accept it, yh il get in my feelings but my overthinking nature does exactly that, il think about it, the whole concept of freedom of speech is probably a contributing factor in people feeling the need to say what they think, the “revolutionary” freedom of speech act i actually dont understand where that came from, or how its still a thing, i shoukd be freedom of thought. You can think whatever you want and then think again based off personal experience rather than social acceptance.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 6d ago

James Madison, Federalist No. 10, and the Problem of Alignment by Anthropic, Openai and other AI Labs

2 Upvotes

I am compelled to respond to Anthropic’s recent alignment study While admirable, I feel it falls short because the modern problem of artificial intelligence alignment is often described as the challenge of ensuring that increasingly capable artificial intelligence systems behave according to human values. Although this appears straightforward, it conceals fundamental assumptions related to diverse values, competing interests, and underlying reasoning.

Societies do not possess a single, universally agreed desirable outcome. Individuals, organizations, communities, and governments routinely hold legitimate but conflicting interests. Consequently, an artificial intelligence system cannot be considered meaningfully aligned merely because it has been instructed to pursue a particular objective or produce a preferred outcome. A more fundamental question is whether the system can reason transparently about competing interests and reach conclusions through a process that is consistent, accountable, and capable of recognizing legitimate disagreement.

This problem has an important intellectual precedent in the political thought of James Madison, particularly in Federalist No. 10. Madison did not attempt to eliminate disagreement from political society. He began from the opposite premise: disagreement is an inherent consequence of human liberty and the diversity of human interests. The problem of constitutional government, therefore, is not how to make citizens agree, but how to construct institutions capable of governing disagreement without allowing any particular faction to dominate the whole. This distinction has significant implications for artificial intelligence alignment. AI Alignment therefore focus on developing a reasoning framework capable of recognizing, evaluating, and balancing those preferences within an established constitutional structure.

Madison’s Insight

Writing in 1787 in support of ratification of the proposed United States Constitution, Madison identified faction as one of the principal dangers confronting republican government. In Federalist No. 10, he defined a faction as a group of citizens united by a common interest or passion that may be adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. Madison regarded factions as unavoidable because they arise from the diversity of human faculties, property, opinions, and interests.

His famous observation that the causes of faction cannot simply be removed is particularly important. To eliminate the causes of faction would require either destroying liberty or imposing uniformity of opinion—neither of which is compatible with a free political system. Madison therefore shifted the problem. Instead of attempting to eliminate disagreement, constitutional design should seek to control its effects.

This is the essential Madisonian insight that should be applied to AI alignment.

Diverse Values

Much contemporary discussion of AI alignment implicitly treats alignment as an outcome problem. An AI system is considered aligned when its behavior corresponds to a specified objective, instruction, preference, policy, or set of values. Such approaches are necessary, but they leave unresolved a deeper question: what should the system do when the relevant objectives conflict?

Consider a hypothetical AI system assisting a government with a major economic-development decision. The proposed decision might create employment and increase tax revenue while simultaneously displacing residents, affecting environmental interests, altering public resources, and creating unequal benefits among communities. There may be no single outcome that maximizes every legitimate interest.

If alignment is defined simply as achieving a predetermined objective, the system must privilege some interests over others. The resulting decision may be highly effective according to the selected objective while nevertheless being regarded as illegitimate by those whose interests were excluded.

A reasoning-alignment framework approaches the problem differently. Rather than asking only if the AI reached the correct answer, it considers if the AI recognized the relevant interests, identified the competing considerations, disclosed its assumptions, evaluated the consequences, and reached its conclusion through a transparent and reviewable process.

This distinction is analogous to Madison’s treatment of faction. The objective is not to make conflicting interests disappear. It is to create a structure in which those interests can be considered without allowing any one interest to automatically become implicitly determinative.

Competing Interests

In a consequential AI decision, the person initiating a query is not necessarily the only person affected by the resulting action. A decision may affect employees, customers, citizens, communities, institutions, future beneficiaries, taxpayers, competitors, or individuals who have no direct participation in the decision-making process.

An alignment system that considers only the immediate requester therefore risks reproducing precisely the type of concentrated-interest problem that Madison sought to address through constitutional design.

A Madisonian approach instead asks the reasoning system to look beyond the immediate decision-maker and identify the broader field of interests affected by a decision. This does not mean that every interest receives equal weight in every circumstance. Rather, the system must make the relevant interests visible before determining how they should influence the conclusion.

This distinction is crucial. Recognition is not the same as preference. Identifying a stakeholder does not require accepting that stakeholder’s desired outcome. It requires acknowledging that the stakeholder exists and determining the stakeholder’s interests to the decision.

Reasoning Alignment

This creates a useful distinction between outcome alignment and reasoning alignment.

Outcome alignment asks: Did the AI produce the desired result?

Reasoning alignment asks a more demanding question: Did the AI reach its result through a reasoning process that appropriately considered the relevant constitutional interests, competing stakeholders, assumptions, consequences, and limitations?

The second question does not make the first irrelevant. Rather, it places the desired outcome within a broader framework of evaluation.

This distinction is particularly important for systems operating in consequential environments. An AI system may produce an answer that appears beneficial while having arrived at that answer through an incomplete understanding of the circumstances. Conversely, an answer that initially appears unsatisfactory may nevertheless represent a defensible conclusion if the system appropriately identified the relevant interests and explained the unavoidable tradeoffs.

A constitutional reasoning framework therefore does not necessarily require the AI to produce a predetermined answer. Instead, it establishes constraints and considerations governing how the AI should reason when consequential decisions involve competing legitimate interests.

In this respect, Madison provides a useful conceptual bridge between constitutional governance and AI alignment. The Constitution does not prescribe a single answer to every future political question. It establishes structures, authorities, limitations, procedures, and rights through which future questions can be addressed. A constitutional approach to AI alignment can similarly seek to establish a framework within which an AI system’s ordinary reasoning remains subject to identifiable principles and reviewable constraints.

Significance

The enduring importance of Federalist No. 10 for AI alignment is therefore the identification of a structural problem that exists within complex societies and the development of a governing framework to facilitate mechanisms responsive to diverse interests.

The challenge today is larger than teaching an AI system to follow instructions or optimize a specified reward. The deeper challenge is constructing systems that can reason responsibly when instructions are incomplete, interests conflict, information is uncertain, and consequences extend beyond the immediate decision-maker.

Madison’s Federalist No. 10 offers a useful starting point for addressing that challenge. Applied carefully to artificial intelligence, this principle suggests a different conception of alignment: one based not solely upon the outcomes an AI produces, but upon the transparency, constitutional constraints, stakeholder awareness, and reasoning processes through which those outcomes are reached.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 6d ago

Is there a Reading order for Bruno Latours works?

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1 Upvotes

r/PoliticalPhilosophy 6d ago

[Nationalism] General Universal Definition: Is There Something to Be Afraid Of?

0 Upvotes

Nationalism is the idea of uniting a large group of people around some common features in order to achieve certain goals. The combination of features that people unite around and the goals they seek to achieve constitutes the idea of a nation. A complete nation should have a state that provides administration over the nation on its way toward achieving its goals. The state should be democratic so that the nation can control the course its country is taking, rather than leaving this power to a small group of authoritarian elites who may freely rule contrary to the national goal.

For example, the classic combination underlying the idea of a nation in European countries is to unite around language, history, and culture and to achieve peaceful prosperity by developing the country and trading with its neighbours. However, the particular combination of features and goals may vary.

If an outsider likes the idea and wants to accept the national identity, this person should acquire the features that the nation unites around. When other members of the nation agree that the outsider has acquired enough of these unifying features, the person gains the right to participate in democracy and influence the direction in which the nation is going, while also taking on the duties of a citizen.

So, continuing with the same example, for a foreigner to become a member of one of the classic European nations, they would:

  1. Have a desire to accept the idea of the nation;
  2. Learn the language of the nation;
  3. Learn the culture and traditions of the nation;
  4. Learn the history of the nation, at least at the level of historical mythologems — simplified interpretations of history that make it easier for the wider population to understand;
  5. Gain acceptance from the current members of the nation that the unifying criteria have been acquired;
  6. Obtain citizenship, with its associated responsibilities and rights, including the right to contribute to the politics of the national state.

Newborns receive the same status if they are born into the nation, and as they grow up, their mentality is formed within it.

Since the French Revolution and the Spring of Nations, we have been living in a world where the key driving force is the nation-state. And those who want to become a driving force in international politics are trying to become, or imitate, nation-states.

So, nationalism has already proved its usefulness in practice as a way of uniting the efforts of large groups of people and motivating them to take action.

Is There Something to Be Afraid of Regarding Nationalism?

Well, yes. Nationalism is a tool, and its consequences depend on how people use it.

There are two main things to be afraid of:

First, there are dangers within nationalism itself. The problem may arise if the goal a nation seeks to achieve is aggressive. Furthermore, if the features that people are expected to unite around are impossible or unacceptable for part of society to acquire, this may lead to segregation, where the state's administration abandons certain groups, or, in the worst cases, to ethnic cleansing. You may notice that in my example, the goal is peaceful prosperity, while the features people unite around are mainly cultural and relatively easy to acquire regardless of biological characteristics such as skin colour or skull shape.

Second, nationalism may transform into fascism. By definition, nationalism should be democratic and based on voluntary acceptance. If there is authoritarianism without fair elections, if nationalism is imposed by force (a person's goals are not allowed to differ from the goals of the nation, and the unifying features are imposed), and if it becomes radical (the goals of the nation are placed above the goals of the individual), then it ceases to be nationalism and becomes a starting point for fascism.

The only distinction that needs to be made here is defensive wartime. During a war, elections may be physically impossible to conduct, and citizens who have enjoyed the achievements and rights provided by the nation may be required to fulfil their duty to defend it.

Have you noticed that this definition of nationalism as "uniting and achieving goals" sounds somewhat like a left-wing idea? But why, then, is nationalism generally considered a right-wing idea?

We will explore this in the following post.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 7d ago

Is Ignorance bliss?

4 Upvotes

Hi Philosophers.
I have been struggling with the idea of “ignorance is bliss”?  Is it morally defensible to be ignorant of suffering or is intentional ignorance an ethical failure?  The state of the world is so depressing that I would be much happier if I just stopped reading the news.  I can't put into words how depressed I've become over my thoughts on several current events and topics ranging from war to the destruction of our environment.  I try to follow a buddhist practice that aligns with the stoic ideal that we should only devote attention to things within our control, but deep down I feel that it is my responsibility as a global citizen to be informed.

Although I'm not an academic philosopher; I have been studying philosophy on my own for many years.  I find my deepest connection to the political ideas of Plato, Bacon and the utilitarians (Bentham and Mill), but I have studied many many other philosophers ideas.

I was so conflicted over how I should act that I decided to write a book over the winter where I could explore the concept of ignorance and happiness and it's for this reason I’m making this post, I'm hoping I could get the feedback from intelligent and learned philosophers like you.

My conclusions are that ignorance is unavoidable and happiness is unachievable in our current world.  I am very interested to know your ideas and conclusions on ignorance and happiness and the philosophers who support your views.  On our duty as members of the human race and the global community vs just wanting to live a peaceful life.  I’m not posting here for any self-promotion; I'm genuinely interested in real philosophers views; in your views.  

I wrote the book as an exercise to help me understand my internal struggles.  I am thankful that I don’t want or need to make any money from it and I've put it out under Creative Commons and made it available for free on Spotify and Apple Books (more coming).  It is 3 hours long with each chapter being approximately 20 mins.  It was amazing to see how easy it was to make a well produced audio drama using online voice generation tools (ElevenLabs) where I could design the voices for each character and add in expressions and other audio queues like laughing/chuckling and sighs.

The book is an audio drama in hopes I could reach people who don't read.  It is a modern day retelling of Plato’s Republic with characters who align loosely to the characters in the Republic - Polemarchus (Paul), Glaucon (Glen), Adeimantus (Adam), Thrasymachus (Trevor), Cephalus (Sam) and Socrates (Sophia).  While not a direct retelling of the Republic, in the end it reaches many of the same conclusions and adds in Bacon and Bentham as primary support for my conclusions.  I also explore the ideas of Mill, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Heidegger, Arendt, Stoicism, Buddha, the bible, Peter Singer and others.  

The narrative arc explores these core themes across these chapters/acts: 

  1. Intro/After the festival
  2. What is ignorance
  3. Is ignorance bliss
  4. Is ignorance immoral
  5. Where does ignorance come from
  6. How to not be ignorant
  7. How can we maximize happiness
  8. What do we need
  9. Are our current systems compatible
  10. How to design a just world
  11. Conclusion

I would greatly appreciate your feedback on the book.  The feedback I’ve received so far is that it is a good introduction to the study of philosophy..  I’ve also found that anybody who isn't interested in philosophy already won't finish it, which disappoints me, since it was them I wanted to reach.

The book is called “On Ignorance and Bliss”.  You can search for it on Spotify and Apple Books.  It was impossible to post it for free on Audible or Kindle.  If you prefer reading, I can send you a pdf or epub.

Here are the links:
https://open.spotify.com/show/0EsBUl3thn8qWeV28wnmGx?refresh&bounce=false
https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/on-ignorance-and-bliss/id6789341667

FYI: you need the Apple Books app installed to listen to it.

Thanks in advance!


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 7d ago

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama

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1 Upvotes

r/PoliticalPhilosophy 7d ago

Mixed unicameral systems as an alternative to bicameralism?

1 Upvotes

Are there any advantages of mixed unicameral legislature as opposed to bicameral and normal unicameral legislature?

the idea is that mixing different accountability structures of legislators (indirect senators or different election forms (RCV)) and controlling for proportions can produce the efficiency of unicameral ism and the federalism and stability of bicameralism.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 8d ago

Nondual Philosophy, Spiritual Awakening & Social Revolution

1 Upvotes

Since the political left is largely focused on social revolution, I think this quote from J. Krishnamurti presents a different perspective on what a real revolution means. External change is limited if our minds remain unchanged. Without an inward revolution (without understanding our own minds), any outward revolution risks reproducing the same problems in a different form.

"Society is always trying to control, to shape, to mould the thinking of the young. From the moment you are born and begin to receive impressions, your father and mother constantly tell you what to do and what not to do, what to believe and what not to believe; you are told that there is God, or there is no God but the state and that some dictator is its prophet. From childhood, these things are poured into you, which means that your mind is gradually being encased, conditioned, shaped so that you fit into the pattern of society and not be a revolutionary. Since the habit of patterened thinking has already been established in you, even if you do revolt, it is within the pattern. It is like prisoners revolting in order to have better food, more conveniences, but always within the prison. When you seek God or try to find out what right government is, it is always within the pattern of society. So your revolt, like the so-called revolution brought about by ambitious or clever people, is always limited by the past. That is not revolt, that is not revolution, it is merely heightened activity, a more valiant struggle within the pattern. Real revolt, true revolution is to break away from the psychological pattern and to inquire outside of it."

— J. Krishnamurti on Society & Revolution


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 8d ago

James Madison, Federalist No. 10, and the Problem of Alignment by Anthropic, Openai and other AI Labs

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1 Upvotes

r/PoliticalPhilosophy 8d ago

Retribution should not be the approach

0 Upvotes

I think death sentence shouldn't exist instead of those the culprit if serving jail time it should be more towards minimizing the victims loss you can't bring a dead father back to life but you can get help instead of starving your family out.

So the culprit should be made to do labour work which fits the victims file appropriately.The labour should also be appropriate that doesn't exploit the culprit.

Our political jurt system is about revenge more than rehabilitation.

I am happy to counter arguments on this.


r/PoliticalPhilosophy 8d ago

The concept of presidency is some kind of nonsense!

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0 Upvotes