Towards a Cheon Il Guk Society: Transcending Democracy

Derek Dey’s comment [below] on my prior post, Updated: Thoughts on a Cheon Il Guk Constitution, is very astute. Understanding systems analysis in political theory fills an extremely important void in modern thought, within and without the Unification Movement. Derek’s discussion further supports the idea that a constitution should reflect the principles of the “ideal world” as explained in Divine Principle, Chapter 1. He noted that “Americans believe their constitution defines all,” that other people view the ideal society in the image of their own.

His comment raises the basic point of whether members actually believe their own political system is ideal. I don’t think anyone would join the Movement if they thought their own system was the ideal. They join because they realize they live in a fallen world and changes are necessary. Members in various countries are, nonetheless, aware of virtues in their own societies they would like to retain. Sometimes those things we consider good actually aren’t so good. Other times those things we want to retain are principled.

For example, if we have a society that says “each person has a right to a fair trial,” this is consistent with the Divine Principle, because it affirms the idea that each human being is an individual truth body of infinite value and worth. On the other hand, the idea of “one person, one vote,” might be inconsistent with the Principle because it denies the concept of qualification for citizenship based on having passed the growth stage to become a responsible adult.

What to transform and why

The real challenge in designing a constitution for an “ideal world,” is (1) to Gordon Anderson learn what has to change and why, and (2) how to implement the change without causing unnecessary pain and death.

I am concerned when people say a political system is not the ideal, and that we should discard and “reboot” the entire social system with a new constitution. This is like developing an entirely new operating system for a computer, and none of the old software will work. Rather, we reform and transcend the existing system, getting rid of “viruses” and malware, so the existing software will work.

Our governments, whether American, Chinese, or Korean in form, should be reformed to eliminate corruption and allow citizens to pursue the three blessings. Lenin in Russia and Mao in China sought to “reboot” their political and economic systems and millions of people died. In my view, the rebooting of a social system is akin to the flood judgment in Noah’s time. Millions or billions of people could die. This is an unacceptable approach that, in the Bible, God never wanted to see again.

Rather, we work to gradually transform each existing system, so that it can turn into a better, more ideal, society. This is analogous to changing a bad person into a better one; if you kill him or her, you cannot make them a better person. Principled behavior should be derived from a view that God’s love for everyone is unlimited. Therefore, humankind should work to transform communities, states, and the world without eliminating some groups through a genocide and starting a new society based on the ideology of the conquerors. That is just a repeat of fallen history.

England has a right to claim things in its history that made it a better society. For example, the Magna Carta served the purpose of decentralizing power, allowing more people — though not all — to pursue their own happiness and come closer to experiencing the “three blessings.” Did it lead to an ideal society? No. Was it something positive? Yes. Therefore, British members of the Unification Church have good reason to react against the extreme centralization of state power advocated in the CIG Constitution. Unfortunately, many of the reactions are simply that –“reactions.” They are growth stage responses to a formation or growth stage document: they point out a problem, but don’t advocate a solution.

“Democracy” is not the ideal

Derek said he thought many Westerners think democracy is an ideal form of government. However, Westerners who think so don’t know their own civilizational history. Democracy is not an ideal form of governance. In the Republic, Plato gave nine reasons why democracies don’t work. Those reasons are as valid today as in his time, because they address fundamental aspects of human nature.

Democracy is a powerful concept because it reflects the human quest for the first blessing. But the idea that each person should have a vote, simply by virtue of being a person, is questionable. Having a “vote” isn’t helpful unless it is a responsible vote. The forms of government that have emerged under the name “democracy,” especially those extant today, fail to link the “right” to vote with social responsibility. From the viewpoint of the Principle, people can vote with a destructive formation or growth stage consciousness, unable to consider others of equal worth and also part of a system greater than oneself. Such votes are destructive and unprincipled.

The American system was not designed as a democracy in the basic sense; it was a republican form of democracy that included checks and balances on abuses of power and an element of “aristocracy” in the method of voting. A voting citizen was a propertied male. Today, with universal voter enfranchisement, the United States can more properly be called a “democracy.” However, for reasons Plato explained, such a democracy can’t last and inevitably turns into a plutocracy with great disparities of wealth and a bankrupt treasury. I know of no democracy today with a positive net worth.

The authors of the U.S. Constitution improved on what the Greeks, Romans, and British had learned. They sought to further constrain the fallen nature that seeks to centralize political power. While it was superior to its predecessors, it failed to adequately constrain the centralization of economic power, and the power of political parties that today trump individual votes and lead to plutocracy.

World’s states by form of government as of 2011 (to enlarge go to drmarkpbarry.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/forms_of_government-svg.png)

Form of Government Map legend (source: Wikipedia)

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as an ideal

When I studied the transformation needed in the U.S. political system in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Version 4.0, I looked at the historical lessons and determined which principles (a) cause the system to fail, and (b) which are inconsistent with the type of society we want to create.

The American founders designed their system of governance on principles of an ideal stated in the Declaration of Independence: the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” of individuals. A CIG constitution should reflect principles that support a world in which all people can receive the “three blessings.” While these two ideals are not identical, one needs a system in which individuals can pursue life, liberty and happiness as a prerequisite for attaining the three blessings. In this respect, the idea of creating a system in which some people are not oppressed and exploited by others was important. The U.S. Constitution, except for the components related to slavery, focused on this. The intention of civil rights legislation is an example of trying to transform the existing system into a more ideal one. This might be why Rev. Moon, in his interview with Frederick Sontag, considered Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to be the most important American in U.S. history.

Problems with an unqualified general vote and good leadership

Voting is for the purpose of choosing leaders and representatives. In an ideal society, leaders should be capable, incorrupt, and trusted by the people. Simple voting processes fail to produce the types of qualified leaders society requires. In a comment on the 1992 presidential elections in Korea, Rev. Moon promoted a type of election reform that would correct this problem with a three-stage process: first, a requirement for a candidate to have basic competency, for example, passing a civil service exam; second, having a vote among qualified candidates to move forward those applicants who have the legitimate support of the people; and, third, there would be a lottery among the top candidates to prevent any economic interest from controlling the outcome, reducing corruption.

Another problem for Unificationists is how to build a political community on the foundation of the family, not the individual. The U.S. founders, following the ancient Greeks and Romans, advocated one vote per “household.” That was implemented by giving votes only to property-owning males. This concept is a misdirected step towards the second blessing idea that society is built on the foundation of self-sustaining family units. The problem with the U.S. system was that (1) in the industrial age women became able to earn an income like men, and (2) there was no assurance that male voters were genuinely responsible people.

However, the concept of one vote per self-sufficient household essentially means the creation of society based on the family. This is a qualification based on their ability to manage themselves as a self-sufficient economic unit. Such voters are better suited to (1) determine how public money could best be put to use, and (2) have natural incentives to protect the territory because their ownership is a personal stake. Most important, a law prohibiting heads of households from voting for any use of public money from which they would personally benefit would be necessary. Heads of households would need to be recused from such a vote, or there would be the type of legalized corruption that exists in the U.S. today.

Unificationists can use the ideals described in the “Principle of Creation” similar to the way the American founders viewed the Declaration of Independence as they develop a constitution. The founders were designing principles for a complex social system, many of which would apply to a genuine CIG society, and others that do not. I illustrate problems in democratic voting processes that enable individuals to have control over the society in which they live, but fail to prevent irresponsible leadership and corruption. Reform of the voting process is just an example of how current liberal societies can be reshaped to facilitate a better society.

Whether a CIG society would be called a “democracy” depends on one’s definition. Certain elements of past democracies that were modified along republican lines might be employed, so mob rule or plutocracy do not result. However, insofar as democracy refers to the right of every “perfected individual” to have a say in their household, for every contributing household to have a say in the community in which they live, and for every community to have a say in state governance, this might be construed as a restored definition of democracy.

Dr. Gordon Anderson (UTS Class of 1978) is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on World Peace and President, Paragon House Publishers. He is author of many articles and books, including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Version 4.0.

Derek Dey’s comment:

April 28, 2014

I appreciate Gordon’s thoughtful, updated post. There are certainly issues here which underpin the whole venture and raise substantial questions and this is a good start. We already see many personal interpretations of Principle, leaving one to wonder who governs who and upon whose authority. Misinterpretations and deletions are both common and made public. From other posts, the cultural problems tied to nationality are blatantly obvious. Many British think the Principle is a democratic institution akin to their parliamentary system. Quite a few believe Principle to be Darwin’s theory of evolution. The Americans believe their constitution defines all. The Koreans have a model based on familial piety, and so on and so on. CIG, flawed or not, is therefore what it is for the moment and variously interpreted through filters, notwithstanding personal and psychological issues which don’t just disappear overnight. Some of these problems are multigenerational. Others are exacerbated by a poor understanding of the Fall. However, nowhere in the Principle or in speeches do I see democracy as being posited as the ideal.

Having said that, I was also under the impression that the period of “church” was a temporary expediency to restore Christian failures and it was ended in 1997 by Father. The term church is not what the Garden of Eden might have been. Church is a restorative model and it is a model which necessarily requires a constitution – a definition of belief and practice. For the most part, history shows us that church constitutions are not effective. Despite the UC being re-organized as federations, which initially seemed to support familial and individual providences, freedom and growth, the term church looms large again, holding to questions regarding constitutions and the threat perhaps of rigid structures, control and at worst, authoritarianism. Is this a fear factor lying in antithesis to love life and creativity?

Do I think structure or hierarchy is necessary? During the period of the German Idealists, Kant put forward his “moral imperative.” It is one’s duty to participate ethically according to a priori and given sets of ideas. He was immediately challenged by Goethe and Schiller with their morphological or biological systems theory, which suggested systems were autonomous and sufficient in of themselves to manage, through feedback loops, the health of the whole in a systemic fashion. What was not fully reconciled here was the Kantian idea that designs and moral imperatives were emergent from a deeper order. Certain principles are evident and certain autonomous systems are not entirely autonomous but function well under this overarching invisible umbrella of universal ideals. Both were correct: principles and orders of nature, transcendence and immanence. Schiller’s aesthetic letters gave rise to an educational system which stated the child is lured by love and beauty first, then, at an appropriate time, introduced to principles – food for thought.

Examinations of biological principles gave way to social and political speculation last century. Biology was adapted to sociology. We have models from Lehmann, Varela and others, which put forward the term “autopoietic,” as emergent structures or states underlying molecular systems and broader ecosystems. Indeed conflict at lower levels in these models would be resolved, as one rose in consciousness towards the apex.

What these natural systems reveal is the fact that all are emergent properties of the “One.” Yet all emergent complexities in such a system, function with autonomy and paradoxically participate with field properties to which they ultimately belong. Self, family, community, society, and political domains are all autopoietic systems rooted in two participating dynamics. First, all are emergent from a larger system or whole rather like models of irreducible complexity. Second, systems largely autonomous, function along feedback loops which reveal concern for every face under the Sun, every particle in the cosmos, every growing thing and living thing, animal or human. Artists with heart will tell you this. Everything matters. Whitehead speculated that concern-consciousness lay at the heart of creation. Concern-consciousness extended to humanity and the social order in the West, and Confucius said the same in the East.

Much of these systems theories are well advanced and we find, if we are open, that we are “taught by nature” in this respect as might the Garden of Eden have taught its inhabitants better than our schools today. A constitution is simply nature in terms of a system. Dynamics and principles therefore might better inform CIG. Systems dynamics, such as CIG, might benefit from more profound thought about what surrounds us and what dwells within us and what we are dealing with. It seems to me that God incarnate is not just True Parents; they are the first but is it not also the goal of our personal journey? We are here to incarnate the transcendent function, are we not? We teach these things as immanent God – God of Day, or Logos personality and Logos creativity, which at bottom is nature by design, not church. Church might be necessary for the new acolyte but why can’t we be fully involved in community, creativity, and ecology?

I daresay a minimum constitution inheres to natural functions as natural law might. Yet there is a difference between principles and legalisms. Part of that difference lies in authenticity and integrity. Part

of it lies in the lure of love, particularly in the early steps of the human journey towards belonging to nature. Part of it lies in the elevation of consciousness so that we might see properly and reveal the concern shown to every particle in the universe as Whitehead suggested. Part of it might lie in limited perception.

From my perspective, nature and principle teach us well, though fallen nature and the aftermath and persistence of the shadow are real and highly problematic. It is factors like these, relating to transcendent functions and realities of the human condition, which are factors to be more fully considered. From my perspective, law and order are external functions which differ from the term Principle; the interior world of being, belonging and connectedness are more central and if considered further might supply better answers.