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The Simple Science of Democracy and of Money—Without Consent, We’re Extinct



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Bob Johnson

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2021.05.001

Exhibit A—“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization”. Exhibit B—“That government is best which governs least”. Exhibit C—“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help” (condemned, as the nine most terrifying words). The first comes from a man whose formative years were completed more than 50 years before World War One, itself an inexcusable political pandemic, from which we have yet to recover, but which we seem determined to self-inflict all over again. Exhibit C could only have been uttered by a politician, untroubled by the least understanding of malnutrition, an easily preventable disease from which one in 10 of us suffer, even in the United States.

These three statements are not only incompatible, they are also highly emotive. And however vital emotions are, they do fog the mind. Excessive emotion hinders healthcare. The cooler the clinician, the healthier the outcome. This paper offers as cool a clinical examination of politics, as possible. It points up the parallel between the human body, something every reader has, and the body politic, something every reader labours under. Nor does it seek to persuade one political view over another—rather, as with the best medical opinion, it presents alternative remedies, together with the reasons for them, so that the patient, or the citizen, can decide for themselves. Clarity matters, but Consent matters more.

It also endeavours to follow Amanda Gordon’s invitation to be “brave enough to see it”. The highest ideal in healthcare, is best summarised as follows: “the lower doctor treats disease, the middle doctor prevents it, the good doctor prevents war”. The key to any clinician’s success is accuracy of diagnosis. If it is cancer, being brave enough to know it, vastly improves the prognosis. If it is war, itself a type of political cancer, its roots are deep and even more painful to “see”, but failure to look can cost yet more deaths.

Bankruptcy in commercial settings is commonplace, and easy to understand—it is when outgoings exceed incomings for longer than can be tolerated. It has a direct equivalent in medical practice, and it occurs when, say, oxygen supply is insufficient for too long. The more usual healthcare term is, of course, illness, or in the ultimate, death. But it also applies to emotions—emotional bankruptcy has especial relevance to politics, as this paper explores.

Science, or how we understand the material world in which we find ourselves, is also less robust than formerly. Since the 1900s, Quantum Mechanics has bankrupted the very “Certainty” that was its stock in trade, a point made in a series of earlier papers. For those prepared to see it, we now live in a Post-Einstein-Science, which imposes a peculiarly personal burden on each and every one of us. The term “Simple Science”, in the title of this paper, represents all we are left with, once its more grandiose aspirations succumb to the real incomprehensibilities of, say, the Higgs Bosun. This impacts directly on health, whether political, economic, family or mental.

This paper has seven sections: (1) The air we breathe; (2) The cash we spend; (3) The Consent we earn; (4) The medical bottom line—where does broken-thinking come from?; (5) “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization”; (6) Earning peacefulness, 100%; and (7) Conclusion. It examines how, once Absolute Science degrades into wishful thinking, then it takes with it Science’s most seductive selling point—the yearning that Science or Scientists will (soon) decide all issues—personal, family, economic or political. Each and every citizen, including every reader, faces choice—they and we, are called on to decide, to Consent and so to determine whether we will work together to enable civilisation—and so live longer—or we don’t. And just as no infectious respiratory virus can be defeated, without concerted and responsible behaviour on the part of each and every citizen, government or otherwise—neither can the devastating social toxin of Fake-News. Simpler, yes—easier, no—proving just how invaluable Amanda Gordon’s eloquent inspiration is, in saving not only livelihoods, but lives.

fake-news, war, peace of mind, no free civilisation, our entropy-driven world, no one is safe until we’re all safe, “do-this-or-we’ll-hurt-you”, Amanda Gordon

Bob Johnson. (2021). The Simple Science of Democracy and of Money—Without Consent, We’re Extinct. Philosophy Study, May 2021, Vol. 11, No. 5, 311-326.