This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
This book was provided by the author
“Drawing on the stark lessons of
human history and the Enlightenment’s teachings, the founders’ principal (and
overlapping) aims for the Constitution were threefold. The first was to create a representative
democracy that gave the American people (narrowly defined) a stake in their own
government. The second aim was to
prevent the concentration of government power in too few hands. And the third was to accept and harness the
realities of human nature in a system that would last.” – William Cooper, Chapter
4: Constitutional Principles, Page 33
“With federalism, drawing the right lines can be hard, as
two contrasting considerations are often at odds. Giving states too much autonomy leaves local
minorities vulnerable to abuse. If the
federal government doesn’t step in to protect them, no one will. Yet giving the federal government too much
authority diminishes the vital role local officials should play in formulating
policy. Far-away officials ignorant of
the facts on the ground shouldn’t dictate the affairs of local communities.” – William
Cooper, Chapter 4: Constitutional Principles, Page 53
“Humans lived in tribes for most of our history. The bonds of tribalism are thus deeply hardwired into the human psyche. Tribalism makes us loyal to and biased in favor of fellow members of our own tribe. In the process, it distorts our thinking, overriding facts and data. And it makes us biased against outsiders who we dislike and perceive to be a threat.” – William Cooper, Chapter 6: Tribalism, Social Media, and Political Structure, Page 93
Excerpts with permission from the author
Is This An Overview?
The American Constitution has mixed
qualities, but has enabled an effective architecture for governance. Meant to make sure that the people have
ownership in the government, to prevent concentration of power, and accept the complexity
of human behavior. A democracy that is
meant to prevent the concentration of power by spreading power and authority to
the people broadly. Meant to enable a
peaceful transfer of power based on elections.
A federalist system in which state and federal governments
counterbalance each other. Protection of
free speech that protects human freedom by enabling negotiation through sharing
different views rather than through violence.
But there are
problems within the America political system that prevent effective
governance. Three problems are
tribalism, social media, and the political systems’ structure. Wanting to belong is normal for people, but
tribalism effects how people process information. Tribalism distorts thinking, and
oversimplifies information. Tribalism
enables various cognitive biases that distort information in favor of one’s own
political party and against the opposition.
Social media amplifies the cognitive vulnerabilities and intensifies
tribal prejudice. Social media uses
tribal biases to find reaffirming views, without enough verification of the
information.
The American
two-party political system polarizes the tribes, which enables a destructive
rivalry. A rivalry that has criminalized
politics as each party mutually recriminates the legal actions against the
other party with more force. Rather than
encourage bipartisan efforts to uncover the truth when there are major
accusations and enable an appropriate prosecution of politicians, the
criminalization of politics has negative consequences. Consequences such as that the ideas become
prosecuted no matter the guilt or innocence of a person, takes energy away from
governing effectively to use towards hatred of political rivals, and deters
talented people from politics.
Caveats?
The book was written in a neutral manner to be acceptable by
the different political parties, but infrequently the author’s biases become
salient. Infrequently utilizing the same
tribal biases. Knowledge of the biases
does not prevent the biases.
The political system is complex, that makes finding
resolutions difficult. There is little
on ways to resolve the problems that the American political system is
facing. Some resolutions have mixed
qualities, such as having more political parties to reduce the destructive
tribal competition for power.
