Member-only story
The Republican Party is currently a Dysfunctional Human Supra-Organism
Language gives us humans great shared creative power, but also great destructive power, including self-destructive power
As I have written previously, the “success” of our human species (apparently too much success in that it has led to runaway climate change) has been enabled by the evolution of our language abilities. First came spoken languages, which divided our perceptual experiences into discrete, named cognitive categories that we could communicate about. Later came written languages which extended our language communication over wide extents of space and time and large groups of people. With the mental and technological tools of language, groups of people (human supra-organisms) have accomplished great feats of cooperative construction and destruction from large, technologically advanced cities to nuclear weapons that can destroy those cities instantly.
Just as we individual humans can suffer from mental illnesses that impair the effectiveness of our individual decision-making, our many human organisms (from families to businesses, political organizations, and whole countries) can suffer from social illnesses that impair the effectiveness of their group decision-making.
What we see happening in many examples of conflict from current affairs, including wars, political conflicts, and social conflicts, can be described as group mental illnesses. In particular, the current embodiment of the Republican Party in the United States is suffering from such an illness that threatens to destroy that party, the United States itself, or possibly both. In the next few weeks, months, and years we will see how much damage that illness causes.
