Stasis Theory

We live in an age of division, polarization and alienation; a short look at online debates or personal experience with explosive disagreements during family diners are all the proof we need for this fact. This short post is an attempt to bring us all a little bit closer together...

I think we've all had the experience of having a heated debate with someone who doesn't share our values or opinion on some topic or another, and were left with the feeling that we couldn't reach the other person. Somehow he or she simply doesn't want to see reason, it's like they live in another reality altogether. I've often written about why I think this is the case, and why we seem to drift further apart with each passing moment; rampant individualism, online algorithms that turbo-charge confirmation-bias, the ever growing gap between rich and poor persons and nations, failing education, and a lot more. Since I'm a believer in dialectic materialism, I believe that all these political, ideological and moral divisions are ultimately grounded in material causes, how we individually and as a society interact with the material world.

That, in my view, is basically what "economy" is; how do we produce the stuff we want and need using the resources given to us by Mother Nature, and how do we distribute those products among ourselves. Almost all our ideological, political and moral divisions revolve around those simple questions. That's my reality, and it's hard, if not nigh impossible, to convince someone who doesn't share that world view of my leftist ideological convictions. Our shared reality is capitalism, a method of production based on the private ownership of the means of production, and a method of distribution based on markets and profits. This causes our main problems; the wealth-gap, the destruction of the environment, the patriarchy, they're all derivatives of the way we've organized the economy.

And that - reality - is the first question in stasis theory. Stasis theory is a rather dull tool used in writing and debate, but can be very useful to have more productive arguments. It has 4 levels: fact (or reality), definition (details), quality (good or bad) and policy (what to do about it). In the first paragraph I've explained what my reality is, and in my experience most discussions about the economy, what's wrong with it, and how we can correct its problems, break down at step one. Although almost everyone has a strong opinion about the economy and everyone talks about it, most people don't have a clear and basic definition for themselves of what an economy actually is. They work, they go shopping, they watch the news, their entire lifes are regulated by economics, but they've never stood still for a moment and asked themselves what it actually is. Some are eager to point out how well the economy is doing, or how bad, but most fail to really understand what it means, how "good" or "bad" are defined, and when it's good, good for who?

That first question about facts or reality is where many debates strand. When someone asserts that more black people are arrested because black people commit more crimes, and that it's "black culture" that causes this, they live in another reality. A reality in which black people are somehow inferior to other people. When you discuss someone who rejects all proposals to do something about climate change, it may be that in their reality the problem of climate change doesn't exist. When you debate an anti-vaxxer, it could simply be that this person doesn't believe the pandemic is real, that it's a hoax. And to find out if you both live in the same world, accept the same facts, is simple: just ask. Whenever you've got that helpless feeling that, no matter what you say, the other person just doesn't seem to understand, or that they're willfully ignorant, ask them if they accept the same facts of reality. And if they don't, then you've got to take a step back and start there.

If and when you've made sure you're in the same world, it's time to go to step two, and then step three: I'll leave it to the below linked video, which inspired me to write this post, to explain those. The final question is what to do about the problem, and this is where discussions often break down as well. When you've finally agreed upon the basics, for example we both agree on what an economy is, that we live in a capitalist economy, and that capitalism causes the ever growing wealth-gap, we'll often disagree on what changes need to be made to remedy the problem. Tax the rich is the most often heard solution in liberal and leftist circles. But I disagree; I only think this is a useful first step, as it's not a real solution, it does nothing to change the underlying reality of capitalism. Taxing the rich is, when you think about it, nothing more than demanding donations from those who've gathered their wealth through the private ownership of the stuff that should have been equally divided in the first place. The only real solution, in my reality, is to place the ownership of the stuff we all need in the hands of us all. Which immediately does away with "ownership" in itself, because when everyone owns it, no one does... That's communism, by the way ;-) Yeah, I'm an idealist, so shoot me ;-) Anyhow, please watch this video by Zoe Bee, and check out her other videos as well, they're usually very good.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy!