To base a political ideology or program on an entirely “rational” or “secular” foundation is and remains a fool’s errand. Pure rationality can never answer what politics ultimately should be about, only how we’re most likely to achieve what we set out to do. The means of politics can be more or less rational; yes, there are ways of organizing society which are more well-reasoned than others, but it remains utterly beyond the scope of rationality to determine which goals are worth striving for in the first place.
The following is a slightly edited extract from Hanzi Freinacht’s book ‘Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two’. This is the second book in a series on metamodern thought, a work of popular philosophy that investigates the nature of psychological development and its political implications. In this post you will be introduced to the idea of Existential Politics, one of six new forms of politics proposed in Nordic Ideology.
Credit goes to the talented Berlin-based artist Sina Goge for the artwork used in the thumbnail picture.
What we cherish most in life determines the goals we set for society. Politics is thus deeply subjective. I dare to say that it is inherently existential, since how we relate to the world, one another and ourselves determine what we believe to be just and ethical. The political thus cannot be reduced to a purely secular and objective affair.
Reason is forever destined to be the slave of passion, as David Hume once famously argued. So as rational creatures, we’re stuck with serving the will of the political animal.
We are emotional creatures, first and foremost, and what we feel determines what’s rational to do. We are also ideological creatures, whose ideas about society are always dependent upon that same society and our position within it. And we are religious creatures, who always adhere to some overarching narrative about reality, some kind of religion in the most general sense of the word. And, we are existential creatures; beings that can only be by somehow relating to “what is”.
>"“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of …"