The Gödelian Limit of Political Formalism

It is a straightforward corollary of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem that no strict formalization of political theory can possibly adequate to the multifarity of human reality, either in the most general terms or, a fortiori, in the particular and peculiar. Only a very informal formalism respecting genera, types or sorts of political order – as democracy, monarchy, etc. – is practical. When it comes to the formulation of concrete policy for a particular concrete polity, then, only the most general recommendations can make good general sense. And even a good general recommendation based on the eternal verities of human society must be tweaked if it is to fit a particular society in its given historical condition.

This is why the general conservative deference to local traditions is the most appropriate political attitude. It is the opposite of a theory. It is rather a method. It is comparable to trying to understand the behavior of an animal species by observing its members in the wild and letting them alone, rather than by dissecting or running experiments on them. Or, it is like devising a detailed diet and exercise plan for the idiosyncrasies of an individual athlete, rather than trying to map out a detailed plan that will work for all humans, period full stop. Or, it is like applying a few time tested general principles to plan a building fitted to its environment, rather than designing an ideal house or farm plan that will work well everywhere.

[Concrete creaturely being is inherently local per se; a nature can be concresced only in a certain definite locus, with idiosyncratic causal inputs. Location is not simple, to be sure; but only God is not at all local. Ideas can be implemented concretely only with complete specific definition along all dimensions.]

Deference to local traditions – and, at the limit, to the local traditions of each individual person – is an effect of the Catholic social doctrine of subsidiarity. It is the only way to succor individual men and women, or a fortiori any of the social organs that supervene upon them. The implementation of any Political Theory of Everything – including even strict libertarianism – necessarily results in totalitarian tyranny, that rolls over local idiosyncrasies like a juggernaut. It is the implementation of a Procrustean Bed. And this is to impose everywhere a monoculture that in many places, and due, if to nothing else, then to geographical differences, simply cannot work very well.

This is why there can be no global government. It is also why no government can be perfect in its execution of justice; for government as such involves adjudication between subsidiary social organs, in pursuit of social harmony according to some scheme of justice – of morality and right political order – that government per se cannot but presume must properly rule with just authority over disparate subsidiary social organs that are somewhat dissimilar in their own notions of justice. Only when all such social organs, up and down the social hierarchy, ascribe to a common cult, and so to a set of general principles about how society should go, is even good government ever possible.