Having listened to 3 hours of presentations at the Diem25 launch last night, I am reminded of how averse the left-progressive/radical sector is to solutions. The podium was clear: there is no A, B, C sequence that leads from problem to solution. We do not have the answer, apparently, and we should not expect to have one. Instead we must engage in interminable meetings, until unattributable solutions arise from the coalescence, and therefore pass the test of not resembling early 20th C “final solutions”.
But still the audience in even this self-selected leftie gathering wanted to know: What next? How do we get from A to B?
What if it turns out that there is a simple A to B to C? Is anyone ready to hear that?
The answer would appear to be “No”. Presented with a simple solution, this group will reject it because it has not arisen from a groundswell of the greater demōs. The logic is (partially) correct, but the result is failure. The logic is that communal consideration is the great strength of our species, and the failure is not understanding that specialisation is its complement. Groups define problems, but they do not develop solutions. Specialists develop solutions, and then groups decide whether to implement them. By insisting that solutions arise from the group, lefties unconsciously lock themselves out of solving the problems that they define so well.
Here is the A-B-C that we will inevitably end up with:
- A is where we are today.
- B is converting social safety into a service, from a cash redistribution system.
- C is a sustainable society.
There are reasons why that is inevitable, and why it works. Those reasons stem from who we are as a species, from a set of physical facts, not a political philosophy.
How long will it take to get there? How long will it take for all other options to fail before we understand that that is our only solution? Your guess is as good as mine. I fear it will be much, much longer than is necessary. So seductive is the delusion of individuality, so satisfying the practice of self-righteousness, that both sides will fight long and hard for the preservation of their respective ignorance.
Asked what the goal of Diem25 is, the podium seemed to agree (mostly) that after 3 years of meetings a policy framework would emerge. A fairly strong consensus seems to exist that nothing solid should be adopted until then, and that in fact to adopt a policy platform now would spell the end of the initiative – [sic] “if we become a political party, we are dead”. So the end goal is to have solutions, but we MUST go through a specific process BEFORE we can have any solutions. In other words, the journey is more important than the destination. But the reason to engage in the process is to reach a destination… or is it? An observer could reasonably conclude that the purpose of this gathering is to give the self-righteous an opportunity to demonstrate their credentials, and that any specific solution would destroy that space, so better not to have any solutions. What is going to change in 3 years, that will make these people more likely to adopt specific solutions? Is it new information? Is it something that has not been thought of yet? Something that protects the right to have outraged emotions, while still delivering a practical path forward?
What was obviously absent from Diem25’s launch was any recognition of self-sacrifice as part of the solution. It is always others that have to change, others that have yet to see the light, others that need to adjust their perspective. So much waffle about solidarity, but little or no recognition of what solidarity must mean for everyone. A sustainable future human society will not offer the delusion of individual safety, it will exchange that delusion for communal safety that explicitly eschews the distribution of tax cash to individuals, and instead devotes the cash to paying for public services for all. And those public services will require significant administration and civil, as well as civic, service. Who will stand at the podium and agree to give up their personal pension for a common guarantee of services for everyone? There may well have been people there who would agree to such things, but they were not advertising it in their promotions.
UK LIFE 