Conscious Politics - Part 2 - Foundational Insights About Political Ideology

• Understanding Politics and Government in Relation to Self-Actualization: Politics and government are not side subjects but integral to self-understanding and personal development. Engaging in conscious politics helps to understand how to commune with others at a larger, superorganism level. It provides insights into the difficulties that arise in smaller communities, workplaces, and families and are magnified at larger societal scales.
• Role of Consciousness in Determining Political Beliefs: An individual's level of consciousness and development dictates their values, morals, and political beliefs. People vote for politicians that they resonate with or who reflect their values. Acknowledging this can clarify why certain political events or decisions take place.
• Political Ideologies as Survival Strategies: Political beliefs are survival strategies based on one's upbringing, culture, and environment. The ego wants to maintain its worldview and identity, which is why people resist changing their political ideology, making it challenging for politics and government to evolve. People's resistance to change contributes to the strength of the status quo in culture and society.
• Interplay between Culture and Politics: Culture plays a significant role in determining political ideologies and maintaining societal patterns. Powerful and selfish individuals tend to resist cultural change to preserve their power. Collective cultural evolution is necessary for political growth, leading to a complex interplay between cultural and political change.
• Understanding of Political Beliefs: Political beliefs are based on societal and environmental influences, not truth. People often use logic and reason to rationalize their ideologies rather than base them on truth. An individual's cognitive structure, particularly their sense of identity and worldview, shape their political beliefs.
• Moral Development and Expanding Circle of Concern: As people's cognitive structure develops, their sense of self and circle of concern expand from merely self-survival to include family, group, civilization, other human beings, and eventually all of reality. This view aligns with developmental psychology and stages of moral development. Where individuals fall on this spectrum greatly influences their political ideologies.
• Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development: Kohlberg's stages include preconventional morality (obedience and punishment-oriented), conventional (authority, conformity and societal norms), and postconventional (social contract and universal ethics). The stages reflect a growth from individual-based to collective-based morality.
• Role of Ego in Politics: Personal ego can play a significant role in shaping how one views politics. Many use logic, reason, and facts to substantiate their beliefs, further entrenching their existing perspectives taken on faith rather than challenged and grown through reasoning or evidence. This lends itself to stagnant or narrow viewpoints.
• Understanding the Structure of Beliefs: It's essential to differentiate between content (specific beliefs) and structure (underlying cognition). While differing beliefs can cause rifts between individuals, understanding the thought processes that led to these beliefs is crucial for deeper understanding and effective communication.
• Stages of Moral Development: Leo Gura outlines Lawrence Kohlberg's six stages of moral development, which explain how people's values and morals evolve over time. This evolution moves from avoiding punishment, acting out of self-interest, seeking approval from authority figures, conforming to social norms, striving for the greatest good for the greatest number, to acting based on a personal internal sense of justice.
• Transcendent Morality: Gura adds a seventh stage - Universal self-love, where an individual's sense of self becomes infinite and they perceive the entire universe as consciousness and love. This level is attained by less than 1% of the population.
• Moral Evolvement: According to Gura, moral development moves in an upward direction, with each higher stage replacing the previous one. Once a person evolves to a higher stage of morality, they never regress to a lower stage.
• Moral Beliefs Influence Political Views: People's level of moral development impacts their political ideology. For instance, those at the lower levels of morality tend to conform to authority and societal norms, hence reflecting these values in their voting decisions.
• Moral Evolvement and Abortion Views: Gura uses the views on abortion as an example to illustrate how moral evolvement changes one's perspective. While someone at a lower stage of morality might view abortion as universally wrong because an authority figure says so, someone at a higher stage might consider the complexity of the issue, weighing the mother's suffering against the potential suffering of the fetus.
• Ego Development and Selfishness: Selfishness decreases as ego development increases. People with less developed egos are more selfish and thus more likely to be motivated by greed, fear, hatred, and bias. Such individuals vote for leaders who reflect their selfish interests.
• Susan Cooke Gruyter's Ego Development Model: Leo refers to Susan Cooke Gruyter's scientific research on ego development, which outlines nine stages. He suggests how one's ego evolves influences their level of selfishness and political views.
• Role of Identity in Politics: Leo argues that individuals generally vote for leaders that align with their own identity - a racist votes for a racist leader, a hippie votes for a hippie leader. The key to conscious politics, Leo suggests, is expanding one's sense of identity, enabling universal love which can resolve many problems in politics.
• Resolving Problems within Government: Leo proposes that to fix government problems, individuals must take personal responsibility and educate themselves about these complexities. He also highlights the need for expanding one's sense of self-consciousness and capacity for love through the path of personal and spiritual development. Role-modelling this growth can inspire others and eventually lead to an improved society.
• Blame Culture in Politics: Leo criticizes the blaming culture in politics where individuals assign blame to different groups depending on their political ideologies. He stresses that assigning blame does not resolve any issues but rather shifts the culpability from an individual to a group. Recognizing one's role in these societal problems and taking collective responsibility can transform the political landscape and improve government.
• Claiming Conscious Responsibility: Leo emphasizes the importance of individuals acknowledging their part in the actions and decisions of their governments. This includes understanding that their vote or lack thereof contributes to the status quo, whether that leads to human rights abuses, oppressions, or other weighty actions. This claim of responsibility is crucial to provoke necessary changes.
• Addressing Accountability: Leo asserts that accountability involves understanding and accepting that individuals are responsible for a wide variety of issues, including wars, immigration problems, corruption, and pollution. Transitioning from blaming others to taking self-responsibility and seeking solutions can significantly improve society.
• Avoiding Low Consciousness Behaviors: Leo identifies low consciousness political behaviors such as ridiculing opponents, denying or ignoring problems, and not taking responsibility for issues. These actions contribute to an unhealthy political environment and block progress. High consciousness involves responsibility, empathy and understanding of the complexities of human nature.
• Low-Consciousness Political Behaviors: Leo warns against engaging in low-consciousness political behaviors such as ridiculing the opposition, rejoicing at the suffering of opponents, holding an intellectual point of view as an absolute, demonizing the opposition, and acting morally righteous.
• Spiritual Development in Politics: Leo introduces the notion of spiritual development and its critical role in preventing devilry in politics. He emphasizes that ideology, morality, technology, and regulation alone cannot prevent devilry but expanding one's sense of self and focusing on spiritual development can.
• Impracticality of Only Technological Solutions: Asserts that solely relying on technological solutions cannot solve the problems of government and unconsciousness—technological innovations often introduce new problems and get co-opted for selfish or harmful purposes.
• Poor Quality of Political Discourse: Leo criticizes the current state of political discourse in the media and society, labeling it as childish and ineffective. Real issues aren't being discussed, and the focus is too much on short, media-friendly soundbites rather than deep, thoughtful analysis.
• Lack of Political History Education: Leo highlights the widespread ignorance about political history and government amongst the general population. He stresses the need for proper education in these areas to understand the political landscape and make informed decisions.
• Indispensability of Books and Well-Researched Knowledge in Political History: Strongly advocates for reading books on political history to deeply understand complex political issues and develop an informed perspective. He emphasizes that the founding fathers were knowledgeable elites who carefully studied political philosophies and historical political systems before architecting the United States' constitution.
• Importance of Quality Education: Leo insists on the need for universal, high-quality education to empower more informed voting and political participation. He identifies transforming the education system as a critical leverage point for improving governance and politics.
• Resistance to Education Reform: Leo Gura notes that those in power often resist changes to education because they don't want societal and cultural norms to change. They usually aim to preserve the status quo that maintains their ideological influences.
• Criticism of Policies: Leo offers that any political policy or position can be criticized from both 'above' and 'below', illustrating this with examples of criticisms on religion and science from both perspectives.
• Relinquishing Simplistic Dichotomies: Leo argues against simplistic left-versus-right or capitalist-versus-socialist dichotomies. Instead, he advocates for assessing policies and positions based on their level of consciousness, fear, selfishness, and expanded sense of self.
• Focus on Developmental Psychology and Spiral Dynamics: Leo reintroduces the concept of Spiral Dynamics, with a focus on political evolution. He outlines the tribal stage of human government, characterized by limited official government structure, a lack of individuality, and strong tribal identities. He mentions examples still exist today in remote tribes in places such as the Amazon and Papua New Guinea.
• Political evolution from tribal to modern societies: Leo Gura discusses the evolution of human societies from brutal tribal societies to complex modern civilizations, highlighting subsequent shifts in political systems. He notes that tribal societies, while romanticized, were often characterized by warfare and even genocide. The growth of such societies necessitated a shift from tribal warfare to authoritarian forms of government, such as totalitarian monarchies built through conquest, exemplified by Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, and the situations in present-day North Korea and Russia.
• Shift from monarchies to nationalistic civilizations: As societies evolved, they began to outgrow the structure of monarchies, leading to the rise of nationalistic civilizations that leaned on ethno states, isolationism, and nationalism. Leo cites Nazi Germany, Iran, China, and rural parts of the United States as examples of this stage.
• Transition to democracies and capitalism: Recognizing the limits of nationalism, societies gradually transitioned towards democracies and capitalism, seeing these systems as solutions to societal problems. Stage orange societies, as Leo defines them, believe in the power of markets and economics to solve problems, technology and science as development drivers, and largely ignore spirituality. Examples include metropolitan USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, France and the United Kingdom.
• Emergence of social democracies to mitigate unfettered capitalism: With growing disparities between lower classes and upper classes, societies moved towards stage green, embracing more of social democratic and socialistic approaches. Canada, Germany, parts of the United States, and Northern European countries are cited as examples of stage green.
• Towards future stage yellow and turquoise governments: Looking into the future, Leo suggests that stage yellow governments would likely be a hybrid of socialism and capitalism, recognizing and balancing the pros and cons of both. These governments would also be geared towards world governance, considering systemic social problems and human developmental stages. Stage turquoise, while less clear, would be rooted in spirituality and a sense of global unity.
• Challenges in political transitions: Each political stage sees the world differently, leading to conflict and misunderstanding among stages. A major challenge in political transitions is the fact that lower levels, especially those below stage yellow, do not understand that the world appears differently to people based on their stage of development. This lack of understanding results in conflicts, as each stage perceives the other as irrational or crazy. This problem spearheads most political conflict.
• Tier Distinction in Politics: Leo Gura introduces the concepts of Tier 1 and Tier 2 politics. Tier 1 is composed of green, orange, blue and anything below them in Spiral Dynamics. This tier deals with specific content and policy proposals, such as abortion or gun rights, and uses politics as survival strategy. Tier 2, however, goes beyond ideologies to look at the deeper structure and systemic issues. It focuses more on being conscious and expanding the sense of self beyond just the physical body. Gura believes less than 2% of the population is at Tier 2. He warns against assuming one's position on the tier system purely based on their political affiliations.
• Interdependence and Society: Individuals are integral parts of a society, a superorganism, and cannot escape it regardless how successful or reclusive they are. One's wealth or abilities to exist in seclusion are still dependent on societal infrastructure and collective systems established over thousands of years. Acceptance of being a part of the societal organism is crucial.
• Bureaucracy and the Court System: Leo Gura emphasizes the importance of bureaucracy, particularly the court system, in ensuring societal survival and functioning. It serves as the heart of governmental structure and prevents violence and warfare by resolving conflicts fairly and equitably. Without a legal court system, social disputes would likely be resolved through discord and violence, leading to an unstable society. Gura criticizes the common negative views of the legal system and encourages appreciation of its critical role in maintaining societal order.
• Function of the Court System: The court system provides an orderly process to adjudicate disputes and maintain peace among people. Without a fair and uncorrupt court system, disagreements could escalate into violence, and tribal warfare can ensue, leading to long-standing conflict over generations. The court system is designed as an objective, impartial third party where people can present their cases and resolve disputes based on agreed-upon laws without resorting to personal justice.
• Importance of Government in Group Formation and Conflict Resolution: In a society where people are free to form groups, conflicts arise when these groups contradict or compete with each other. Without an overarching government and court system to mediate disputes, these disagreements can lead to escalated violence and even wars. Governments were developed to prevent such scenarios, allowing the peaceful coexistence of various subgroups without each trying to dominate others.
• Consequences of Absence of Government: In the absence of government, efficient systems for justice, and a monopoly of force, intergroup conflicts can quickly escalate into violence and warfare, primarily because people form groups to gain survival advantages. Powerful groups may attempt to oppress other groups, leading to societal imbalance and conflict.
• Downsides of the Free-market Scenario: In a free-market scenario, without any intervention, different groups and cabals formed for survival advantages can lead to oppression and domination, potentially resulting in slavery. This happens because, in a free market, nothing prohibits one group from prevailing over others to maximize their survival.
• Inherent Human Behaviors Contributing to Societal Problems: Humans' inherent behaviors, driven primarily by survival, can be extremely manipulative and sneaky. These tendencies are often used to rig rules of society in their favor, ultimately leading to disparities, dominance, and oppression. These behaviors are hard to inhibit without the implementation of a structured government and fair justice system.
• Significance of Societal Evolution for Universal Morality: Achieving widespread morality throughout society — a state where people care for and love everyone equally — requires millennia of government and education. This Universal love or morality stage of societal development has been reached by less than 1% of the population, indicating the significant work required to achieve societal fairness on a large scale.
• Denial of societal oppression: The video stresses that societies today are grossly unjust and exploitative. The oppression is often overlooked because it serves the interests of those benefitting from it. Many are so entwined in their own survival agenda that they care little about the exploitation of others. An even more sinister aspect of oppression is that it can become internalized in individuals to the point where they fail to recognize that they are being oppressed.
• Examples of internalized oppression: Using Saudi women and historically, house slaves as examples, it is indicated that these groups often internalized their oppression to the extent where they rationalize it as being normal or even beneficial. Present day wage slaves are proposed as another example of internalized oppression, where individuals are economically oppressed without recognizing it, and those benefitting from this condition deny it due to the capitalism mindset they have grown up in.
• Cultural and systemic oppression: The focus is turned towards cultural and systemic oppression rather than focusing on individual actors that perpetuate oppression. The point is made that while oppressive individuals exist, the primary problems are cultural and systemic. The culture of places like Wall Street enforces oppressive conduct – like underpaying employees or denying full compensation – through normalized business practice.
• Consequences of rampant capitalism: Billionaires and CEOs within this system are not even aware of the problem, as they have grown accustomed to it. However, the system is so rigid that even if they attempted change, they would likely be ousted from their positions. The primary problem is defined as the lack of cultural development and collective consciousness.
• Importance of personal and collective responsibility: The notion of collective responsibility is expanded upon. Though personal responsibility is important, it is equally essential to realize and admit to the existence of systemic issues like racism and economic inequality to solve them.
• Financial inequality as a detrimental factor: The economically barbaric system, predominantly within stage orange societies, is identified as one of the primary ways people are oppressed today. Millions of hard-working individuals, due to lack of access to resources like quality education, are unable to succeed and self-actualize, leading to a significant societal regress.
• Solution to financial inequality: The video script suggests that a more equal distribution of resources could help not just poor individuals, but everyone in society. It highlights that if resources were better distributed, more people would have the opportunity to actualize their potential, working as scientists, artists and entrepreneurs, etc., ultimately benefiting the whole society including the rich.
• Understanding the Cyclical Nature of Wealth Distribution: Leo Gura emphasizes how society's distribution of wealth impacts citizen's opportunity to thrive. He illustrates that personal comfort does not negate the need for socio-economic change, suggesting that the suggestion of such change may be misinterpreted as an attack on personal wealth. The video argues that real progression lies in a move from individualism (Tier 1) to considering the broader needs of society as a whole (Tier 2).
• Selfishness and Cognitive Dissonance: Gura examines how oppressive systems manage to perpetuate themselves through cognitive dissonance and rationalizations, providing the historical example of slavery. He asserts that those who benefit from the system convince themselves that their position is morally justified and see any challenge to their power as a personal attack.
• Connection between Selfishness and Profit: Leo highlights how businesses or individuals can financially profit from the suffering of others, using examples such as the military-industrial complex opposing peace due to how it would negatively impact profits. He criticizes this system, suggesting that such personal or professional gains should not be achieved at the cost of societal wellbeing.
• Healthcare as an Example of Profit-driven Selfishness: Gura draws attention to the American healthcare system as a prime example of a sector that prioritizes profit over the welfare of citizens. He criticizes such profit-centric perspectives as inhumane and argues that a more equitable, compassionate society will prioritize universal healthcare.
• Expanding Sense of Self: He encourages the audience to expand their "circle of concern," moving beyond the immediate family or self to consider the wellbeing of all citizens. He argues that this shift in perspective is essential for creating a more compassionate society, underlining the importance of universal love, and pointing to the need for a collective responsibility in addressing systemic issues.
• Relative Nature of Norms and Morality: The transcript talks about how all norms or 'shoulds' are arbitrary and relative, as people's sense of self and morality are defined personally. Because morality is not objective, it becomes necessary for societies to form a consensus around their rules and standards. The video transcript highlights that these rules are not set in stone but made up by us. The ability to agree upon these is due to the realization that they are not absolute but rather relative.
• Elephant and Rider Analogy for Politics: 'Elephant' represents emotions and underdeveloped moral sense, while 'rider' represents developed moral sense. The elephant has a wider circle of concern, extending beyond family and tribe, possible only when one develops oneself to that level.
• Ego's Influence on Rules and Morality: Ego often seeks to cement personal preferences and biases into the objectified structure of morality. This mechanism becomes the root of ideological conflicts about what should and shouldn't be done in society.
• Political Spectrum and Overton Window: The left-right political spectrum and the overall political discourse are relative and subject to shifts based on era and culture. As societies evolve, the Overton Window (representing the range of acceptable public opinion) moves, indicating changing perspectives and norms over time.
• Selective Application of Today's Morals to the Past: It is cautioned against interpreting older social structures using today's moral perspectives. Acknowledging that societal norms and basis for judgments evolve over time helps keep criticism in check and understand how societies have built upon past stages of evolution.
• Increasingly Liberal and Progressive Societal Evolution: As societies evolve, they are observed to become progressively liberal. Much of what is opposed by conservatives today will likely become the norm in future generations, demonstrating the continuous shift in cultural norms and accepted morality.
• Influence of Geographic Conditions in Developing Countries: The development of stable governments in some regions of the world is hampered by tough conditions such as limited resources and harsh geographical factors. Therefore, comparing countries based on their development level disregards the different starting points and challenges they face.
• Comparison between Countries: Caution is advised against the simplistic comparison of countries based on their level of development. The transcript emphasizes that cultural, geographical, and historical contexts are key factors shaping a country's development.
• Relative Progress based on Past Position: Progress is a relative concept, and it should be gauged considering one's past position. The transcript suggests that what may seem as a lack of progress to an outsider could indeed represent significant strides for those who started from a less privileged baseline.
• Romanticization of the past: A common fallacy is the romanticization of the past, overlooking the harsh realities and struggles faced by previous generations. Acknowledging the difficulties and appreciating the progress made is crucial in understanding societal evolution.
• Role of Technology in Societal Evolution: The advent of new technologies necessitates evolution in societies. Over generations, the complexity of technology, logistics, and education systems require societal structures to adapt in increasing sophistication. Consequently, a society's progress is not merely a static state but a continuous process relative to past positions.
• Factors Affecting the Development of Governments: Leo Gura explains that environmental factors, such as geography, climate, and wildlife, play a significant role in the development and success of governmental structures. For instance, the harsh conditions and inherent challenges associated with a continent like Africa make it difficult to establish and maintain organized government systems.
• Romanticizing the Past: Leo Gura warns against romanticizing simpler, earlier times, highlighting that past societies faced their own substantial hardships, such as rampant slavery, famine, disease, and poverty. He asserts that it is impossible - and regressive - to seek a return to these times, particularly given the advancements in technology and societal structures.
• Evolving Society and Technology: According to Gura, as technology evolves, society needs to evolve in tandem. He explains that advanced, complex technologies necessitate equally complex logistics, manufacturing, industry, education, and government systems. Overlooking or resisting these necessary societal changes could result in destructive consequences.
• Complexity of Societal Solutions: Gura underlines that societal problems and challenges are complex and interconnected. Therefore, simplistic, non-systemic solutions can often backfire and worsen issues. Instead, he promotes a systemic thinking approach that carefully studies the whole system before implementing changes, considering both the greater good and future developments.
• Danger of Unbalanced Perspectives: Leo Gura emphasizes the importance of balance in perspectives and decision making, especially when it comes to political ideologies and societal regulation. He warns against taking extreme positions and highlights the need for careful, situation-specific decision making to achieve proper balance.
• Importance of Observation and Open-mindedness: For understanding politics and society, Gura recommends observation, studying history, and maintaining an open mind. He also suggests that mystical experiences can help expand individual consciousness and inspire universal love and cooperation.
• Avoiding Ideology Formation: Despite elaborating on the concept of 'conscious politics,' Gura cautions against turning the principles of conscious politics into an ideology, as this can distort and limit their applicability and effectiveness. He encourages instead a fluid, evolving understanding of these concepts.