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The Golden Mean Bell Curve: Maximum Good is the Balance Between Selflessness and Selfishness, Between Valuing a Nation’s Whole and Its Parts
SDCT0015: This episode compares synecdoche (whole substituting for parts or vice versa) to three types of attention deficit disorder, and to two standards of academic achievement. Minds that focus too much on the whole will focus too little on the parts. Applied to politics, this suggests a government that overvalues public interest and undervalues the interests of individuals. Conversely, minds that focus too much on the parts will focus too little on the whole. This suggests a government that overvalues interests of individuals and undervalues that of the public.
There’s one type of far left synecdoche, where the interests of the whole nation displace those of the parts — public good is gained from excessive sacrifices from individual citizens. There are two types of far right synecdoche: 1) where all the parts of the nation matter (all the individual citizens matter) but the whole doesn’t (that’s called “soap suds” libertarianism), and 2) where only one part of the nation matters (one individual leader matters), but again the whole doesn’t, nor do the other parts (that’s called “single tiny bubble” authoritarianism).
The advantage of focusing on the whole without going to excess is that it yields a “big picture” understanding of systems and relationships between parts. However, it takes more effort to understand the whole of an issue, or of a nation, just as it takes more effort to assemble a whole jigsaw puzzle than to merely collect some or all of its pieces. Minds that are academically inclined will try to collect all of the parts and put them together to form a whole picture, while minds with less ability and less curiosity, that place less value on education, will be satisfied with only a fragmentary and partial understanding of the issues. I think it’s safe to predict that “big hearts and big minds” would do better in school and would skew toward the political left, while “small hearts and small minds” would be less academically inclined and would tend to gravitate toward right-wing politics. Higher education is valued more by the whole-focused political left and less so by the parts-focused political right, who would agree with Marco Rubio when he said, “We need more welders and less philosophers.” The philosophers, representing the big circle left, would look at the whole of human existence, while the welders, representing the small circle right, would fasten metal parts to each other.
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By Daniel DodgeSDCT0015: This episode compares synecdoche (whole substituting for parts or vice versa) to three types of attention deficit disorder, and to two standards of academic achievement. Minds that focus too much on the whole will focus too little on the parts. Applied to politics, this suggests a government that overvalues public interest and undervalues the interests of individuals. Conversely, minds that focus too much on the parts will focus too little on the whole. This suggests a government that overvalues interests of individuals and undervalues that of the public.
There’s one type of far left synecdoche, where the interests of the whole nation displace those of the parts — public good is gained from excessive sacrifices from individual citizens. There are two types of far right synecdoche: 1) where all the parts of the nation matter (all the individual citizens matter) but the whole doesn’t (that’s called “soap suds” libertarianism), and 2) where only one part of the nation matters (one individual leader matters), but again the whole doesn’t, nor do the other parts (that’s called “single tiny bubble” authoritarianism).
The advantage of focusing on the whole without going to excess is that it yields a “big picture” understanding of systems and relationships between parts. However, it takes more effort to understand the whole of an issue, or of a nation, just as it takes more effort to assemble a whole jigsaw puzzle than to merely collect some or all of its pieces. Minds that are academically inclined will try to collect all of the parts and put them together to form a whole picture, while minds with less ability and less curiosity, that place less value on education, will be satisfied with only a fragmentary and partial understanding of the issues. I think it’s safe to predict that “big hearts and big minds” would do better in school and would skew toward the political left, while “small hearts and small minds” would be less academically inclined and would tend to gravitate toward right-wing politics. Higher education is valued more by the whole-focused political left and less so by the parts-focused political right, who would agree with Marco Rubio when he said, “We need more welders and less philosophers.” The philosophers, representing the big circle left, would look at the whole of human existence, while the welders, representing the small circle right, would fasten metal parts to each other.