我想知道，既然我们有了新的“前两名”的联合初选，加州的党派之争是否会发生变化。我认为，华盛顿出现党派之争的一个重要原因是，在初选结束后投票就结束的“封闭”地区有代表，因为这个地区的政党占多数。他们不需要对整个选区负责，只需要对在党内初选中投票的选民负责。

Since human time began, there has been a dichotomy. There is US. And there are THEM. Over centuries and for myriad reasons, the US/THEM separation took many forms. Inasmuch as religion is probably older than politics, we might (if we were so inclined), blame it for political partisanship. Someone said on an earlier post that if there is a cause for everything, then what is the cause of the cause---which leads back
to the origin of the universe---but, this post is not about that. Not directly, anyway.
I accept that there is a certain psychology of partisan politics: it is the old US v.THEM mentality, played long and hard, over more than two centuries in U.S. time. As the country grew and outgrew original goals and ideologies, US v. THEM became an strongly economic divide: one political party represented those who held wealth; the other, those who did not.
And so it remains. And so remains another fact: Those who were once among the less-wealthy change their party affiliation when fortunes reverse. I need not name names because we all know the principal players.
它不是心理学，也不是哲学。只是经济学。我们是我们，他们是他们。是的。

I agree with KT that liberals are focused on equality. That seems to be the central theme in what they believe. They identify with the downtrodden. Where they get this underdog mindset from, I don't know. With radicals I think the common element is pacifism - they think money is the root of all evil, and that's why they don't trust the corporations. This doesn't explain why so many of them are just a little rough around the edges. I spent four years in Berkeley, you see plenty of it there.
Conservatives, I spend a lot of time trying to figure them out. Maybe it really is taxes that bother them so much. To them, taxes are just the poor stealing money from the rich. There's more than one kind of conservative. The Wall Street crowd, they work hard for the millions they get, and they don't want to have to give any of it up. That's straightforward enough, but it doesn't explain where their drive comes from. The religious conservatives base their ideas on the Ten Commandments. They don't care too much about cleverness or inventiveness, your moral standards are what they judge you on. The libertarians just want Washington to go away, a lot of them are Johnny Rebs. And parenthetically, when Martin Luther King said that people should be judged by the content of their character, that sounds more like KT's definition of conservatism than liberalism.
But I think that both the left and the right need to open up their eyes. Neither of them seems particularly scientific to me.

全球化破坏了个人身份的两个主要塑造者:工作和当地社区——我们大多数人的姓氏都可以追溯到这两个基本现实。它们也是文明的基本要素——文明的基础。当人们对当地社区有强烈的依恋，并通过日常劳动与邻居一起工作和服务时，他们彼此之间的关系就非常不同。我们在物质上参与彼此的生活，为彼此提供生活所需;我们有共同的关切和利益;我们有共同的财富;我们对彼此负责。我们没有人反对进步，也没有人反对保护。也就是说，我们都是成年人了。
But now, debased from the civilizing influence of meaningful productive labor and stable, strong local communities, we instead depend for our identities on communities of abstraction and ideology .
John Adams had grave doubts that a nation the size of the thirteen colonies could be civilized. He was right to worry.
我们需要恢复文明，让世界重新变得文明——让我们的政治和工作重新本地化，并以所有这些方式与我们的邻居进行有意义的接触，这些方式使贬低和打击堕落的意识形态和抽象的、荒谬的虔诚。然后我们就有理由期待在我们的公共讨论中有礼貌和实际意义。

讨论触及了物质参与对公民话语的重要性，但还远远不够。全球化破坏了个人身份的两个主要塑造者:工作和当地社区——我们大多数人的姓氏都可以追溯到这两个基本现实。它们也是文明的基本要素——文明的基础。当人们对当地社区有着强烈而长久的感情，并通过日常劳动与邻居并肩工作，为邻居服务时，他们之间的关系就会非常不同。我们在物质上参与彼此的生活，为彼此提供生活所需;我们有共同的关切和利益;我们拥有并创造了共同的财富;我们对彼此负责。我们没有人反对进步，也没有人反对保护。也就是说，我们都是成年人了。
但是现在，在有意义的生产劳动和稳定、强大的地方社区的文明影响下——实际而有意义的共同性——我们转而依赖抽象和意识形态的社区来获得我们的身份。
John Adams had grave doubts that a nation the size of the thirteen colonies could be civilized. He was right to worry.
我们需要恢复文明，让世界重新变得文明——让我们的政治和工作重新本地化，并以所有这些方式与我们的邻居进行有意义的接触，这些方式使贬低和打击堕落的意识形态和抽象的、荒谬的虔诚。然后我们就有理由期待在我们的公共讨论中有礼貌和实际意义。

Dave, I don't think you can lump together Plato and Marx. Doing so suggests you'd dismiss anyone who questions laissez-faire as the basic organizing principle of societies. One of the beauties of getting back to thinking about society on the local community level -- civitas -- is that we can once again imagine the great ideal of civilization: all for one and one for all. That "and" is all-important. Organized at a scale that allows meaningful participation in our political and economic decision-making and activity, we can reconcile the interests of individuals with the needs of the community as a whole. It transforms the meaning of self-interest (actually re-aligning it with Adam Smith's understanding).

这又不是你开的博客，戴夫。但我将试图解决为什么华盛顿现在如此两极化的问题。我认为这更多是在实践中而不是在哲学上。乔纳森·海特在节目中给出了一个很好的理由，金里奇修正了国会的规则，这样人们就可以在自己的选区度过更多的时间，周四离开，周二回来。另一个原因是筹款，他们花了太多时间在上面，现在他们没有时间社交。福克斯新闻(Foxnews)煽动所有人陷入减税狂潮是另一个原因。

Dave --
在人类历史中——就我们所知，在史前时期——现代西方强调个人，或者更准确地说，愿意把个人与社会分离开来，这是例外，而不是规律。

POLITICALS
Carpenter, I always find your comments both provocative and helpful. What I like most about the blog is that while there is much room for disagreement and disagreement is welcomed, the two unproductive arguments ?ridicule? and ?dismissal? seldom appear.
Liberalism says: We can have a better society. We know what the goals are, but we have to commit to new processes to try to reach the goals. If one process doesn?t work, try another, but keep the goals the same.
保守主义说:我们喜欢事物本来的样子。让吗?继续做让我们走到这一步的任何事情。
All people seek confirmation of what they think is right and good: it is part of the human instinct, and a central impulse for social organization. Both the group and the spiritual provide reference outside one?s consciousness ? and to ?another consciousness? ? to give this confirmation (and to provide an object for the gift we each feel, of our love).
社会和精神(以及政治)的自我定义总是依赖于区分?S基团来自其他基团。结果就是妖魔化。(外交政策，美国和旧约和其他方面，补充说?对非理性的毁灭和杀戮力量的恐惧?妖魔化)。
It is my contention that American ideas of democracy and the wording of our Constitution will not get us into the 21st Century successfully. Just look at the paralysis of our institutions when we need them most.

Apparently we need to embrace and effect change. But, if our political partisans can never agree upon how much and what kind of change is desirable, we have the continuing enigma of ages beyond measure. Ken Wilber is a scholar of some renown, and I too have read much of his work. He has a system: well-expressed and articulate. But in writing so much, he has often repeats himself. So, I moved on to other philosophical realms, ultimately discovering the bastions of evolutionary biology and natural history. As Pope Francis said on the evening of his selection: Good night,---and good luck. Looks like we shall need it.

作为蒂姆上一篇文章的注脚，约瑟夫·坎贝尔说世界上有四种强调个人的神话，它们都在欧洲:希腊神话、罗马神话、凯尔特神话和日耳曼神话。前段时间有人在博客上说，自由是最重要的，并举例说，当他试图把他的猫关在笼子里时，它会有什么反应。我同意这很重要，但这不是唯一重要的事情。任何一个在喂食时间看到一群小猪的人都知道，自由不是它们感兴趣的。食物是他们想要的。

The claim of decreasing violence is wrong (undermining the thesis). Pinker manipulated data to fit his theory, and when you remove that manipulation his theory falls apart. See:
"John Gray: Steven Pinker is wrong about violence and war" athttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wro...
"Steve Pinker?s bogus statistics: A critique of The Better Angels of Our Nature" athttp://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/steve-pinkers-bogus-st...