7. ABOUT POLITICS

 

WTM FAQ 7.7  Shouldn’t the WTM avoid taking sides in politics?

 

Jeremy Griffith’s response:

Taking sides is really just another description for thinking, and thinking is what we conscious humans have to do. We have to find understanding of what is a right choice and what is a wrong choice in a situation. And this is what I do with every aspect of the human condition, be it the conflict between men and women, between races, between civilisations, or in this case, the conflict between the cultures of the left and right wings in politics. At the deepest level of all, I bring understanding to the two sides of the whole human condition, the issue that has historically been referred to as ‘good and evil’, our cooperative, loving moral self and our competitive and aggressive upset self, with the objective of the whole human journey having been to find the reconciling understanding of those poles, which I do by explaining the good reason why we have been competitive and aggressive. To complain that that analysis favours one side over the other misses the point, which is that one side was right and the other wrong. There has been a good reason why we have been competitive and aggressive and not cooperative and loving, which means we humans weren’t bad after all. To end conflict or dispute, understanding had to be found of who is right and who is wrong: is the human race good or evil?—it turns out it wasn’t evil; has the culture of the Left been right or wrong?—it turns out it was wrong. The issue is not about taking sides, it’s about getting to the truth. As to why the culture or philosophy of the Left is wrong, I have fully explained that in my booklet Death by Dogma.

I should emphasise that while the explanation of the human condition finally brings about the end to the whole ugly business of politics, it also brings into the light all manner of confronting truths about ourselves, as explained in our FAQ 1.39: ‘How are we supposed to cope with all the heretical truths brought to light by the explanation of the human condition?’ And one of these confronting truths is the paradoxical situation that I point out in paragraph 1128 of FREEDOM where I wrote that ‘Compassion and kindness towards those who are suffering or less fortunate is very important, but continuing the upsetting battle to find knowledge, ultimately to finding self-knowledge, understanding of the human condition, is even more important’ because if we don’t find that the human race will perish. And similarly in paragraph 116 of THE Interview and paragraph 150 of Death by Dogma, I wrote that ‘Being concerned for others and the world is very important, but doing that to make yourself feel good is a dangerously selfish sickness, indeed it’s the most destructive of all drug addictions—and it’s been taking over the world’. So as I emphasised, it is the culture or philosophy of the Left that has been wrong, not the desire to be concerned for the less fortunate, which I emphasise is important for both the Left and the Right. So, contrary to what some say, what I’m putting forward is very supportive of the need for compassion, but like many of these ideas, people can find it extremely challenging, which is why we in the WTM encourage everybody to take their time investigating and digesting this whole new framework of knowledge about the human condition.