animals, solitary, social, and political

This is the second post presenting the elements that will be included in my paper for the IPSA in Poznan, Poland.  See The Human Thing for the first. 

Perhaps the most famous quote from Aristotle is found in the Politics, 1253a following:

It is evident that the polis exists by nature and that man is by nature a political animal, for he who exists outside a polis because of his nature and not by luck is either worse or superior to man.  He is like the man denounced by Homer as “clanless, lawless, and hearthless.  Moreover such by nature desires war inasmuch as he is solitary, like an isolated piece on a game board.  It is clear, then, why man is more of a political animal than a bee or any other gregarious animal; for nature, as we say, does nothing in vain, and man alone of all the animals has the power of logos. 

What does it mean to say that the human being (anthropos) is a political animal?  To understand this, we must distinguish between three possible types of animals: solitary, social, and political.  As is usual with Aristotle, these are not mutually exclusive categories but instead represent stages of development.  A solitary animal is not, in any but the most primitive way, social; however, a social animal may remain, in certain significant senses, solitary.  Likewise, an animal can be social without being political, but not vice versa. 

For examples of solitary animals, we could consider a male polar bear.  He spends most of his life alone, hunting on the ice.  His social life will be limited to the time he spent with his mother and, if he is lucky, his mate.  We could also consider social amoebae, like the slime mold organisms.  In one stage of their existence they crawl around like individuals, without interacting much with their colleagues.  Some of my colleagues are like that. 

What does it mean to say that these amoebae are social?  When food runs low, they crawl atop one another and form a slug with lumbers around looking for a meal.  If that doesn’t work, they form a stalk and bulb structure.  This is designed so that a passing insect or something else (L.L. Bean hiker shorts) can burst the bulb and carry the spores to greener pastures.  This latter business requires that a lot of amoebae sacrifice themselves to make the stalk.  Only the lucky ducks in the bulb will have a future. 

Social animals are not animals that dwell together.  You can find lots of grizzly bears at the salmon spawn.  Social animals coordinate their behavior so that all of the contributors benefit.  In most cases this means that a solitary organisms or animal has a repertoire that includes both solitary and social behavior.  A wolf kicked out of his group will hunt on his own until or unless he finds a mate and founds a new pack. 

Aristotle recognized that there were many social animals, including bees.  He does not say that human beings are the only political animal; he only says that we are more political than all the other animals.  What exactly does it mean for an animal to be political?

An answer is provided elsewhere in the Politics, where Aristotle discusses the evolution of the family. 

The ruler of a household, as a husband and a father, rules both his wife and his children, who are free, but not in the same manner.  He rules his wife politically, but his children royally. 

However offensive this view may be today, it was remarkably liberal for its time.  He thought it barbaric for a man to treat his wife the same way as one would treat a slave or a beast of burden. 

That aside, what does it mean to treat the children royally but the wife politically?  The answer is that the father must explain his decisions to the mother and try to persuade her and thus gain her consent.  In this respect it reflects politics in so far as citizens rule and are ruled in turn.  Aristotle says that the relationship between the father and mother is like this, except that there is no change of office.  So the father must treat the mother as if she would one day rule over him, just as he must treat his fellow citizens while he is in power. 

By contrast, he gives his children commands and expects that they will obey them.  He may explain, but he doesn’t need to.  He knows more than they know about what is proper and safe.  Whatever happens in the future, he won’t be ruled by children. 

Politics is possible because all social organisms must obey rules that are morally logical.  A honey bee worker may be tempted to rear her own offspring; however, if she does, that would threaten the interests of the hive.  The worker is offered genetic success through the flourishing of the queen.  In that sense, the bees are political. 

Human beings are much more political because we possess logos.  Logos is the power to distinguish between what something looks like and what it is.  This includes the power to distinguish between what looks good but isn’t, and what looks bad but is really the best choice.  We anthropoi are political animals because we can attempt to persuade one another regarding the good and the just.  

Social Security & Carbon

I have so far avoided explicitly political questions on this blog, but I have always planned to post on issues involving technology and the environment.  Here is a sample. 

It has occurred to me that the Democratic Party is dramatically at odds with itself concerning energy and the environment.  On the one hand, Democrats are almost exclusively concerned about climate change.  The failed cap and trade legislation pursued by the President in his first term is one example.  The federal mandate on light bulbs is another.  All policies proposed to curb carbon emissions work (if they did or could work) to curb energy consumption. 

On the other hand, the Democratic Party is much more firmly committed to maintaining and increasing federal spending.  This is especially true when it comes to the major entitlement programs.  It seems obvious that the Democrats will do whatever is necessary to prevent any significant reductions in entitlement spending.  I could point out the problems in fiscal logic involved here, but I will focus on something else. 

More and more over time, federal spending has become and will increasingly become devoted to maintaining consumption.  The whole point of most social policy and particularly of entitlements is to make sure that as many people as possible have as much to spend as possible.  Social Security directly funds consumption.  Medicare and Medicaid make it possible for people to get medical care without diverting their resources away from consumption. 

The result is that more people have more floor space, comfortably heated and well lit.  They have more cars and fuel to put in the tank.  They have more wealth to spend on trips about the country, in RVs or airliners, to see the grand kids or visit the Grand Canyon.  This is pretty obviously a good thing as far as it goes. 

However, consumption requires production and production requires the extraction and burning of energy.  Not all the energy efficient light bulbs or all the hybrid vehicles encouraged or mandated by federal law will count as anything next to the consumption levels that our social policies are designed to maintain.  If we know anything about energy use, it is that every increase in energy efficiency is more than matched by an increase in energy use in bigger houses and kitchens, larger TVs and more devices. 

The social policies that the Democrats religiously protect fund ever higher levels of energy consumption, thus wiping away whatever good may come from their environmental policies.  If environmentalists were really serious about curbing energy consumption, they would switch to the Republican Party and push hard for entitlement reform. 

Of course, they won’t ever do that.  Environmental politics is, like all politics, polemical.  Polemical thinking makes it hard to reconsider who your friends and enemies are.  That Democrats are the party that cares more about the environment weighs more heavily than the fact that Democrats may not be the party that is actually good for the environment. 

Another reason that the environmental left will not abandon the Democrats is that the Democrats bring clout to the table.  Democrats can actually block the Keystone pipeline.  They can do this in part because they have the unions and the AARP behind them.  It would require amazing courage and imagination to give up that support in order to move toward really effective environmental policy.  Don’t hold your breath. 

I am not saying that we should impose draconian limits on consumption to save the planet.  While it is true that technological innovations favoring energy consumption have so far been outmatched by energy consumption for new and more expensive living conditions, the ratio will eventually shift if technological advance continues at the present rate.  Sooner or later we will be able to live in very comfortable housing at a negligible cost to the environment, if we continue to innovate. 

I just point out a major contradiction in environmentalist support for the Democratic Party at the present time.  Right now, rising consumption in the developing world is the major driver of carbon emissions.  In the US, emissions are rather stable.  This is due to new technologies like fracking.  Still, personal consumption is the major driver of energy use here as well.  Social Security may be good for the elderly, but it is not good for reducing carbon emissions.  Just sayin’.