I'm just banking this idea.

But what if the Enlightenment wasn't really wrong in it's foundations, but was flawed in it's application¿ Like, if you take the principles they had towards the individual, and place that instead on "the group" how does that change its form¿

I don't know. Maybe this is just because my brain happens to work this way, and I know that not everyone's does.

But I think the Enlightenment's idea that logic and reason are honorable guiding principles is a sound starting ground.

But the Enlightenment used logic and reason to break everything down to it's component parts, and try to figure out how to best organize a society for efficiency. And then EVERYTHING had to fit inside of that box.

That's how we get the creation of "the individual."

Logically speaking, of course. It makes sense. The "person" is the fundamental unit of a society. Because you can't get any small that that.

It's like first we found the atom, then we found protons and electrons and all that. Now we're interested quarks or whatever.

On the atomic/quantum level, we're not sure if we've reached the "bottom" so we're always digging deeper.

But what is the smallest, intelligent form of the human society/evolution? We've got confederations, tribes, family, one on one relationship, then the "individual."

The thing that the Enlightenment refuses to do (and religion/magic from earlier eras did very well) is account for that weird, unknowable, and sometimes imperceptible thing that we're unable to ever wrap our heads around.

As a framework, the Enlightenment's ideas on logic and reason are really good.

But the NEED to know everything and quantify/calculate everything, while having our understanding of the world become so rigid from that process, was a poison pill from the very beginning.

The scientific idea that EVERTHING going on within this "realm" can be identifiable, replicable, and at a fundamental level, ~known~ is such an arrogant idea for us as humans to even entertain, honestly.

Knowing what's going on out in the cosmos is cool. But how is that improving our daily lives, other than to give us weird tidbits and factoids?

What does non-biological quantum research add to the quality of life for all human beings?

I'm not trying to disparage those professions, but I feel like we should acknowledge that type of endeavor could end up being a wild goose chase. We could be the dog chasing it's tail forever into oblivion, in the search for more "knowledge."

But the answer is right there in front of our faces.

The United States is like the a confederation of confederations. Our competition around the world are the same thing. With varying degrees of differentiation between the power held by the two levels of each confederate group.

[let me tease that out: Texas would be a tier 1 confederation of tribes (towns). Tier 1 in our system has a lot of power, relative to the world. But the "federal" government {tier 2} has power which always supercedes. China and Russia similarly, with less tier 1 power.]

But anyway, as we've evolved under the Enlightenment, logic and reason have pushed us more towards Tier 2 powers being much greater than we as people can comprehend. It's the reason our country can commit war crimes on the other side of the world without us even knowing.

Larger and larger confederations are a way to provide increased "safety" from the "dangers" of the world. And that's a logical goal to pursue.

But like I said before, confederation, tribe, so on.

That's why my belief that we're a "tribal" people is so important.

Fundamentally, in our DNA we are simply a tribal people. We don't ~require~ much more variety than what can be found in a random sample group of ~5,000-10,000 people.

And at a certain point, our brains get overloaded with variety and don't really function properly.

So we can't live with confederations that are too big, because one of those assholes will develop nuclear bombs that can wipe every single living thing off the face of this planet, in order to fortify it's "safety" and security, logically speaking of course.

And we can't live purely as individuals. Unless everyone is living on their own plot of land and not interacting with other people, how can we say that the individual is a truly self-sufficient unit?

(sidebar: I do believe in identifying ourselves as individuals; but we need to see the ways in which our identity as individuals is really just a product of these groups we're a part of. We have an obligation to be true to ourselves. But "ourselves" are wholly shaped by "tribes")

My personal beef is "identity politics" is that we're breaking down into our natural state as tribes based on superficial things.

While race, religion, orientation, gender, etc may have similar experiences, we can't be so dumb as to flatten out all experience with those labels.

If we are truly rational beings who can logic our way out of any corner, doesn't it make most sense to form tribes based on ideology¿

I know I've railed against ideology before, but I do kind of think it's neutral.

Like the Deleuze quote, "A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse … or it can be thrown through the window."

We've just been using ideology wrong our entire existence.

It shouldn't be something we foist on opponents. It should simply be a place of connection.

We've been breaking a lot of windows for a lot of years (read: thousands). And we need to come to terms with that, and make it right. Truly implement "justice" for the world we're currently living in.

If we can get past a place of seeing disagreements as a negative (I question if it's possible), we could potentially restructure society in a way that fits more "naturally" with the way we've evolved.

Even if that structure illogically places the foundation of power in the tribe

Instead of seeing our tribes in competition with other tribes, fighting over scarce resources, we could see ideological tribes as groups which may disagree, but fundamentally appreciate and respect the other's way of life as "best for them."

(note: in this fictional, Utopian world I'm describing, the foundation of these ideological tribes would need to be intense sociology, taken on in such a way as "systematize" human ideas on political ideology …

… and then looked at from so many different angles, as to try and avoid any particular cultural bias; from there, an encyclopedia of ideologies could be developed, and add back in modifiers for region/culture/intensity of belief in X …

… but then the most key point would be to allow people free, unfettered/unregulated movement between whichever ideological group [with it's particular regional/cultural flair] people thought they identified with particularly.)

Whew, that was a long note.

If we can accept that there is more than enough abundance for an enormous carrying capacity on this planet (as long as there is no "hoarding" of resources) then we can recognize that any act of preemptive war is an act of projection.

And then from there, any act of defensive war is deemed unnecessary, because there is no one going on the "attack."

We only fight, because we're scared, at a deeeeep level. And we fear the unknown.

Why do we fear the unknown? Because it is unknown, therefore not bound by logic.

I guess what I'm trying to say (poorly) is that accepting the unknown as unknowable and appreciating the beauty of that, in my humble opinion, might be the key to unlocking the next level of human evolution (if I can be so arrogant as to assume we deserve that luxury).