This is a 3500-word essay that I submitted for a course in EFL University, Hyderabad.
Neil Nagwekar
H00MAELI20190056
Political Philosophy (APH 235)
Professor Sayeed Syed
30 March 2020
Trust: Centre of Transcendental Politics
When he explains the origin of society, Hobbes aids in establishing—however vague they may be—the determinants that distinguish a good political state from a dysfunctional one. Man in pre-civilization, according to him, creates tools of governance that prevents the species from otherwise debasing into force and fraud i.e. a state when they will attempt the coercion or conning of other humans into obtaining objects for their own necessity. This selfish animalism which, according to Hobbes, is capable of chaos, inequality and adversity, is latent in all men and must be suppressed by society. If one assumes truth in his theories, they may look at the ideal tenets of society as the negation of everything pertaining to man’s inherent barbarianism.
It is not only Hobbes. While most moral philosophers identify the conception of good (and, by extension, a ‘good’ political state) an abstraction—something much more relative than absolute—they must also acknowledge that there have historically existed common determinants that were the driving forces, the spirit of the law and the ultimate ends behind the creation of each and every political structure.
These ends of politics may be briefly identified as aims for continued peace and prosperity (as those ideals are generally defined) among all individuals. Simply put, the struggle of politics is to create a society shorn of conflicts, and for people—including themselves—to do well for the rest of time.
It is necessary to digress and briefly dispel the counterargument that some political instruments defy these determinants; that they exist purely as instruments of discord or evil. While it is true that political entities have, over the years, wilfully abused their influence to inflict acts that society deems ‘evil’, these actions are carried under their belief that they are means to an end—an end which will remain similar to achieving peace and prosperity.
[We have] been propagating this value-system based on self-knowledge and self-control […] because it is a source of individual joy, social harmony, cultural richness, spiritual advancement and universal peace.
This distinction of means and ends is crucial to the argument. It concludes that even divisive political organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (from whose ‘Vision and Mission’ section the aforementioned excerpt is taken), are willing and able to temporarily perpetuate chaos, inequality or adversity for the broader aim of attaining peace and prosperity.
It is also important to note that peace and prosperity, once achieved, cannot merely be ephemeral. Once they are achieved, the polity must be capable of maintaining those ideals for a continuous enough duration. And, indeed, it is time that proves to be the major obstacle for politics reaching this promised land. Even a political organization that manages to fulfil the Herculean yet heroic task of homogenizing peace and prosperity within their entire sovereign space must come to terms with the unfortunate inevitability of revolution; of inexorable decay and despair that will, almost as a counterculture, arise from the peace that preceded it.
Humanity has been perennially trapped into the cyclical essence of all political institutions—that begin with benign purpose before necessarily descending into disorder and, from its worst possible trough, rise again from the ashes. While peace and prosperity have been ever-present throughout the tomes of history, due to constant interruptions of wars and revolutions they have never truly been realized. If the progression and subsequent regression of all things political may—due to it continually failing the test of time—be accepted as part of the very fabric of the real, material world and, hence, be termed material politics, then the solution is to identify what has so far been the unreality; of a time when humankind is willing and able to actualize these impossible ideals in all its permanence, until time itself comes to a close. This abstract stage of humanity may be termed the stage of transcendental politics.
The three stages of the dialectic—briefly; the recurrence of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis—that Hegel is perhaps most widely known for may be seen as the most archetypal philosophy pertaining to material politics, for it best conveys the conundrum of humanity. What, according to Hegel, are the tools and means that will serve humankind in escaping this political imprisonment?
In his conception of Geist, Hegel offers his version of a potential means to an end. While the word does not appear to translate perfectly in English, Geist encapsulates a form of the ultimate core of the human being; a manner of essence that lurks somewhere between the spirit and the mind. On a macro level, it connotes the overall historical processes of continuous change, of which the final stage—i.e. a society where total freedom, along with an absence of conflicts, will prevail—was termed the Absolute.
The vagaries surrounding Geist may hinder any interpretation of Hegel’s proposal of achieving transcendental politics, which makes it necessary to briefly examine them. While the divine elements of Geist may have been exaggerated by his interpreters to the point of pure fabrication, it does appear that Geist is a force, a form of potential on a universal level; something that is yet to be actualized but, when it is, will foster communality and peace among all humans.
…world history concerns the progressive development of the human individual (the self, concrete subjectivity) up to the realization and comprehension of what it truly is, namely Spirit (Geist) in the various forms of its actualization in the world. (Bykova 187 – What is Wrong with the Divine Interpretation of Geist in Hegel?)
In order to find a basis of Geist on more concrete and political grounds, Hegel claimed that 1830s Prussia fulfilled those ideals; a divisive notion (to say the least) that eventually engineered the split into Left and Right Hegelians. Even if, by some miracle, we assume Prussia to be the promised land that fulfils the parameters of infinite peace and prosperity for all individuals, the concrete fact that it has been defunct since 1932 is evidence that it, like each and every state that preceded it, was unable to fulfil that dreaded test of time.
More issues with Hegel’s mystical (if not onto-theological) interpretation of Geist arise from his sheer confidence that this prevailing force to which all individuals are, to a degree, subservient, will guide humanity to its eventual paradise, as history takes its natural course. Further susceptible to the wounds of criticism is Hegel’s faith that, in the history of ideas, Geist itself had been achieved through the founding of his own philosophy of Absolute Idealism. At worst it was deemed arrogance; at best, his word against that of others.
(While it appears that these elementary and valid counterarguments to Geist have put paid to an unnecessary digression, we shall find value in this quick detour later.)
To forensically analyse the tools that have failed humanity in its release from the cyclical clutches of peaks and troughs, let us examine particular reasons for the disintegration of one of the first forms of governance i.e. the monarchy. There are, of course, multiple facets that led to its eventual obsolescence—economically, the concentration of wealth in one place; politically, the centralization of power; sociologically, the injustices inherent in practices like primogeniture; etc. However, there is another—and, in my opinion, much more important—school of thought that seems to explain, more holistically, the demise of the monarchy: moral philosophy.
Before the monarchy was the mere symbolic head of the sovereign; before it tussled for power with the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, before the inseparable ties between the state and church were questioned i.e. in its ideal, initial stages, the ruler of a kingdom was proclaimed (by priests, popes and holy men) as the true representative of God on Earth. If, then, one imagines common laymen of the Maurya Dynasty, or the average swordsmith of Wessex, it is extremely likely that their reality is complete obedience and devotion to their king. After all, if one truly believes their ruler to be the spokesperson of God; a belief maintained by the supreme architecture and regalia surrounding these monarchs, that contribute to the illusion; why would they—despite facing atrocities from unfair taxations to bloody battlefields—in good conscience dare defy their deity?
That today we can reasonably denounce this notion as a barefaced lie is irrelevant to commoners and illiterates then, who possessed neither the motivation nor any of the requisite means of coming to this conclusion. Until their reality was gradually eroded (or, at the very least, put into question) by great thinkers over the centuries, that forge of trust between them and their political structure had little motivation to be tested. It was only after different philosophies and ideologies were inculcated—either by their own thoughts or by the words of others—that the institution of monarchy as a whole began to be interrogated and, as centuries passed, disintegrated. This transition in thought may be seen most clearly in Machiavellian politics—that completely separates the prince from his divine heritage and, instead, focuses entirely on the preservation of himself and his principality—or in the Hobbesian notion in Leviathan that the supreme authority derives its power not from any gods, but the commonwealth. It was, thus, a fundamental mistrust in the ideals and mechanisms of the monarchy that began the process leading to its eventual insignificance.
Part of the philosophy of many institutions that exist in material politics today; democracy, modern capitalism, etc.; seem to attempt to secure, stabilize and bulletproof their mechanisms around this presumption of mistrust. Impeachment is introduced as insurance against Presidents that may abuse their power. Bills are mandated after every purchase in retail stores to provide concrete evidence of a consumer and seller’s economic activity.
However, what material politics fails to comprehend is that their task to negate mistrusts is not one with finite endings. These drawbacks in the mechanisms of capitalism, for instance, may be understood by an analysis of the causes of the mortgage crisis in 2007; which, ironically, occurred due to a glut of liquidity among borrowers, brokers, banks and investors. Let us examine this chain of borrowers and lenders, and—assuming the factual causes of the crisis to be accurate—examine the breakage of trust.
If an individual wishes to borrow money to purchase a home, he hires a broker to facilitate the process between him and a bank. That bank, living under the codes of capitalism, is aware that any individual has the potential to default on their debt. Therefore, the bank demands documentations and examines the individual’s income to determine the probability of him repaying the loan i.e. his eligibility. In addition, the bank securitizes the loan by mortgaging the very house that the individual purchases, on the trust that the value of real estate will appreciate. Therefore, the bank uses documents, mortgages and the real estate market as elements to negate mistrust, and ensure that the transaction does not end with the borrower defaulting on his debt.
However, in the weeks leading to the crisis, it became clear that the banks did not realize that any number of documents, receipts and securitizations were ultimately human abstractions and constructs that did not necessarily solve their issue of mistrust, nor guarantee any successful transaction. They had kept faith in documents that were manipulated, and borrowers who were unable to repay their loans. It was, indeed, their own misplaced, one-way trust in these flawed tools that led them to lend money to borrowers who did not deserve it. It was the same with the investors of banks:
…banks often sell loans now, and the loan may be split and sold to numerous investors. These investments are extremely complicated, so some investors just rely on rating agencies to tell them how safe the investments are (without really understanding them). (Pritchard – What Caused the Mortgage Crisis?)
Despite their apparatuses that negated mistrust, banks ended up misplacing their faith in brokers and borrowers who were later unable to repay the loans for which they were approved. It shows that, while the realm of material politics may be strewn with receipts and securitizations, none of them can guarantee a solution for this fundamental issue of mistrust. In addition, while this case study has aided in the identification of elements not necessary for transcendental politics (i.e. the finite and constructed tools for negating mistrust), another important conclusion regarding the true means of achieving transcendental politics must also be made.
That inference begins, firstly, with the observation that, ideally, borrowers and brokers ought to have realized their ineligibility themselves. Trust, instead of being concretized through faulty documents and rating agencies, ought to have been inherent among the borrowers themselves. The economy fell apart because, among other things, trust in the bankers was one-way—which, in many ways, is anathema to the concept of trust—and the borrowers did not bother a self-examination of trust.
We have circled around the issue of trust and mistrust, but only a brief yet direct philosophical examination of its true nature can now derive the truth. From the example of the housing crisis, it is apparent that trust cannot be completely unconditional. If A only has $10 yet wants to purchase a commodity from B for $40, he cannot intend to purchase it on the trust that Lord Vishnu will reincarnate on a white horse with $30 clutched between his fingers. That would be an absurd misinterpretation of the emotion because, here, trust would either be insincere, or thoroughly uninformed by context, rationality and probability.
Having said that, neither context, rationality nor probability are fundamentally flawless mechanisms themselves. Excessive focus on context is unreliable due to its highly interpretative nature, while excessive focus on rationality and probability would necessarily tend to Skepticism, the drawbacks of which have already been discussed in great detail in an earlier argument.1
It is precisely because of these flaws that trust must gain priority over other elements. Trust itself is transcendental. Trust fosters camaraderie on a micro-level which can then be built upon a larger scale. Of course, it must be informed and influenced by the aforementioned determinants of context, rationality and probability, but it must never be sourced from them; otherwise, trust will lose its nature. If trust is two-way, inherent and consistent—which is to say, if a minister believes in his king as a leader, and the king believes that his minister is someone who can be relied upon—then all conspiracies, ulterior motivations, subversions, resistances, revolutions and wars become an impossibility, history escapes the cycles hitherto plaguing her and the path to peace and prosperity is assured.
It is also here that the aforementioned Absolute Idealism may be truly appreciated. Hegel’s belief that, with the writing of his philosophy, Geist had been achieved in the history of ideas, was informed by his own inherent and consistent trust in his political philosophy. If each and every single individual on the planet had, at that moment, consented to that trust (i.e. if trust were two-way), Absolute Idealism would have paradoxically become a concrete reality.
Therefore, all or none of each political structure in the world is equally capable of success and failure, depending on the presence or absence of trust within their individual participants. If each and every individual maintains their belief that that political entity (in philosophy and practice); which, of course, has encoded within them the intent of securing continued peace and prosperity; is capable of success, then that entity, in an almost self-prophesying manner, automatically achieves its purpose.
An analysis of the Tragedy of the Commons may be seen, on a theoretical level, as an appropriate example for this. In the instance of the famous fish pond example—where, if four villagers depend upon the fauna of a pond for sustenance, and the aim is not to deplete its resources so that it can maintain the supply of fishes through reproduction—the Tragedy shows the effects of many individuals sharing a particular limited resource. According to Garrett Hardin, who deeply studied the phenomenon, the instinct of individuals is to prioritize short-term selfish interests which, in the long-run, causes greater detriment to the commons.
The general assumption surrounding the Tragedy, then, is of an inherent, almost Hobbesian selfishness among humans, who—if not managed by a higher authority, like a government—will descend to indulgence and exploit the common pool resources. However, according to Elinor Ostrom, not only is the state and market incapable of managing this issue, the fact that humans view the Tragedy as something whose solution can only be realized by a higher authority is inherently problematic. Ostrom’s solution is, hence, not actualized in verticality and absentee governance, but via the creation of a binding contract among the commoners themselves:
To open up the discussion of institutional options for solving commons dilemmas, I want now to present a fifth game in which the herders themselves can make a binding contract to commit themselves to a cooperative strategy that they themselves will work out. (Ostrom 14 – Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action)
In the context of this argument, one may observe that the commoners realized their trust in the state to prevent the Tragedy was misplaced, and that the more ideal solution was to foster two-way trust among fellow companions. Trust, therefore, was rightly placed on the elements of society more willing and capable to find a solution. Needless to say, after clarifying many other specifications, the studies concluded that the prioritization of horizontal accountability to governance by a state regulatory authority was realized to be more effective.
While trust as the epicentre of transcendental politics is highly abstract and unrealistic (more on that anon), there may be certain incidents that can, on a general level, be used as concrete examples. While the present situation may be too early to pass verdicts, Kerala state government’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic has, seemingly, been rightly praised for its swift pragmatism.
Many people believe that, due to the absence of a cure, COVID-19’s high infectivity may only be countered by worldwide lockdowns and maximum self-isolation; a belief that emerges, largely, from humankind’s trust in science. However, it is worth noting that this response by Kerala preceded India. Their State Response Team was created in the beginning of February, healthcare and tele counselling services were developed in early March, and salons, gyms, schools, etc. were closed a week prior to the rest of the country. As of 29th March 2020, their early response has ensured maximum sample gathering, high quarantine/surveillance numbers and effective initiatives like Break the Chain.
While it is, in hindsight, easy to praise Kerala for their successful efforts, it is necessary to note that, during the early stages of the virus, most countries were not taking concrete precautionary steps. While, in Kerala, discussions on the pandemic began as early as mid-January, many European nations only began concrete measures to combat the virus from mid-March. When, on 4th February 2020, the state had issued high alert, Florentines were busy countering racial profiling by hugging immigrants from Wuhan.
Especially considering that Kerala was the first state in India to curb several rights for civilians—not to mention it also increased the sheer degree; such as mandating twenty-eight days of quarantine instead of fourteen in the rest of the country—the positive, co-operative response of the public has been equally noteworthy. The fact that their government was imposing restrictions at a time when the general collective consciousness was, still, struggling to comprehend the severity of the disease, could have increased the possibility of civilians subverting and resisting the laws. It was a sign of two-way trust in the government and the civilians (supplemented yet, crucially, succeeded by trust in the science of the disease) that ensured the citizens remained co-operative during this difficult period. Despite the final numbers, it is extremely likely that Kerala’s government, due to its swift action, managed to maintain as much peace and prosperity from the given situation.
It must be realized, as part of the argument’s conclusion, that the identification of trust as the vital means to transcendental politics is precisely ideal. Similar to how microeconomics identifies and theorizes Perfect Competition while acknowledging, in its lengthy lines of assumptions, its unreality, similarly must this key determinant of all utopia be recognized as a faraway fantasy.
The aim, along with establishing the supreme importance of trust in politics, is to emphasize that despite how ideal the means of achieving transcendental politics is, this argument would not have needed its existence had human history not lived and laboured inside the proverbial bubble that the path to continued peace and prosperity is realistic and readily achievable.
Footnote
1. ‘Is Skepticism Healthy in Religious Dialogue?’ 2019.
Originally published: 30 March 2020
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