Two Wings of the Same Bird:
Extremism, Agnotology, and the Illusion of Political Salvation
When ignorance becomes profitable, discernment becomes an essential act of self-governance and self-preservation.
There is a fascinating field of study called agnotology—the study of how ignorance is produced, maintained, and deliberately cultivated. Ignorance is not always the absence of knowledge. Sometimes it is manufactured through selective information, repeated narratives, manufactured controversy, and obscuring facts.
Ignorance can be profitable.
I find this particularly interesting when examining political extremism in an age of concentrated corporate power and influence. The political left and right are often described as two wings of the same bird. While their philosophies, policies, and priorities differ, both become vehicles for the same unhealthy human tendencies.
Moral superiority. Tribal loyalty. Dehumanization. Fear. The conviction that one's own side possesses the truth while everyone else represents a threat. Extremism begins to take root when loyalty to an ideology becomes more important than conscience, evidence, and the dignity of other living beings.
We see people defending behavior they would condemn if it came from the opposing political party. We see political victories celebrated as though electing the right person will somehow resolve the deeper conditions producing suffering. We see people demanding accountability from their opponents while making excuses for those they support.
And perhaps most troubling, we see people increasingly willing to surrender their own discernment in exchange for acceptance. This raises questions that I believe deserve far more attention than political allegiance.
Can we recognize wrongdoing when acknowledging it disadvantages our preferred side?
Can we acknowledge truth when it comes from someone we dislike?
Can we recognize when fear, resentment, or the desire for belonging is influencing our judgment?
Can we change our minds when better evidence becomes available?
These are questions of human development, not partisan affiliation. And they are essential to understanding how extremism takes hold.
When Ignorance Becomes an Industry
This is where agnotology becomes especially relevant.
A population does not have to be deprived of information to remain ignorant. It can also be overwhelmed with information that obscures understanding.
Outrage attracts attention. Fear encourages dependence. Division becomes profitable.
This extends into conversations about gender and race, where legitimate grievances and historical injustices can become entangled with political narratives that encourage people to view entire populations as adversaries.
Rather than examining individual conduct, institutional failures, and the conditions perpetuating injustice, people become consumed by generalized blame and ideological loyalty, waiting for political salvation while neglecting their own responsibility to recognize and confront wrongdoing.
Political campaigns, media organizations, corporations, and influencers operate within systems where capturing attention can be more financially rewarding than cultivating understanding.
When public attention becomes a commodity, controversy becomes a business model. And when political influence can be purchased through campaign financing, lobbying, advertising, and institutional access, we must examine whose interests are being represented and whose are being neglected.
This is one of the central concerns surrounding corporatocracy: the concentration of political influence among powerful economic interests, even within societies that maintain the formal appearance of representative government.
Corporate influence is not necessarily evidence of a coordinated conspiracy. Much of it operates openly through lawful structures, financial incentives, regulatory relationships, and political institutions. That makes it no less deserving of scrutiny.
Business first, people second. I believe this inversion of priorities is central to how we arrived here. Not through voting, but through economic and political structures that increasingly reward financial gain while neglecting human well-being.
Changing elected representatives does not change the incentives, institutional relationships, or concentrations of power that persist across administrations. And when profitability becomes a greater priority than human dignity, we must question whether the institutions entrusted with serving the public are fulfilling their purpose. This becomes particularly concerning when political victories are celebrated as though an entire population has suddenly been liberated from those who threaten them.
I see women celebrating electoral outcomes as victories over misogyny, while overlooking the possibility that coercion, exploitation, and contempt toward women can exist within the very political communities they trust.
Political affiliation is not evidence of moral development.
A man does not become safe, honorable, or capable of respecting women simply because he votes for the political party some women prefer. Nor does a political victory eliminate the need to examine the conduct of those claiming to defend women's rights. The emotional relief may be genuine. The political differences may have consequences. But neither establishes that those presenting themselves as protectors are beyond scrutiny.
A woman who learns to recognize danger only when it wears the colors of an opposing political faction may overlook danger much closer to home. People can sincerely believe they are defending justice while unknowingly perpetuating misinformation, prejudice, or the very conditions they claim to oppose.
Conviction is not evidence of correctness.
Recognizing injustice should not require us to abandon discernment or deny the humanity of those who share a particular sex, race, or political identity.
Nor does belonging to a preferred political group relieve anyone of the responsibility to examine history, evidence, and competing perspectives.
The danger is not merely that people may believe falsehoods. It is that they may become so invested in defending those beliefs that they lose the capacity to recognize contradictions.
Human dignity, bodily autonomy, and freedom from coercion cannot be reduced to political identity.
When Algorithms Reinforce Ignorance
Social media algorithms can reinforce segregated silos by repeatedly presenting people with content that reflects their existing interests, beliefs, and emotional responses. The more we engage with particular narratives, the more similar content we may encounter, creating the impression that our perspective is overwhelmingly shared or unquestionably correct. Blocking everyone who disagrees with us can deepen that isolation.
Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” I find this principle especially relevant to intellectual disagreement. Those who oppose my views are not necessarily enemies. In fact, I deliberately maintain connections with people whose beliefs differ substantially from my own.
I observe them. I study their reasoning. I examine the evidence they present, the assumptions they make, and the contradictions that sometimes emerge. Not because I agree with them, but because understanding opposing perspectives is essential to developing my own discernment.
I cannot claim to think independently if I only expose myself to information that confirms what I already believe. I observe them. I study their reasoning. I examine the evidence they present, the assumptions they make, and the contradictions that sometimes emerge. Not because I agree with them, but because I recognize that understanding opposing perspectives is essential to developing my own discernment. I cannot claim to think independently if I only expose myself to information that confirms what I already believe.
Understanding another's perspective does not require adopting it. Nor does tolerance require accepting harassment, threats, or abuse. But intellectual disagreement alone is not a reason for me to close the door to examination. Sometimes opposing perspectives reveal flaws in my own reasoning. Sometimes they strengthen my conclusions. And sometimes they reveal how deeply people can become invested in beliefs they have never independently examined.
The purpose is not to collect enemies. It is to understand how people arrive at their convictions without surrendering the responsibility to examine my own.
The Illusion of Political Salvation
I am increasingly concerned by the belief that voting provides a sufficient safeguard against authoritarianism. Elections are not a substitute for constitutional limitations, due process, enforceable rights, institutional accountability, or an informed population capable of recognizing abuses of authority.
What happens when competing political parties operate within institutions vulnerable to the same concentrations of wealth, corporate influence, coercion, and abuses of power?
What happens when people are encouraged to believe their freedom depends upon electing one political faction to protect them from another?
And what happens when the public becomes so accustomed to choosing the lesser of two evils that it stops questioning why injustice continues to persist regardless of which faction holds power.
The lesser of two evils may still be a lesser harm. But choosing one never transforms the underlying conditions into justice.
There is an old observation that money talks. Political influence, too often, follows the same principle. Presidents and legislators might be mere spokespersons for corporations. The influence of concentrated wealth raises serious questions about whose interests receive attention, whose grievances remain unresolved, and how independently elected officials exercise their authority.
If our political participation begins and ends with choosing representatives, we risk neglecting the structures within which those representatives operate. Authoritarianism does not become legitimate simply because it arrives through an election.
History offers sobering examples.
In Germany, the Nazi Party gained political power through electoral success, while Hitler's appointment as chancellor in 1933 and the subsequent destruction of constitutional restraints enabled dictatorship.
Elections did not prevent the dismantling of liberty. The existence of an electoral process does not guarantee that those entrusted with authority will remain within its lawful limits.
I am particularly concerned when public figures openly denounce the Constitution or dismiss the constitutional limitations upon the authority they seek to exercise. If that is not a warning sign deserving serious public scrutiny, I do not know what is.
The Constitution is not merely a political symbol to invoke when convenient and disregard when its limitations become inconvenient. Those entrusted with governmental authority are not above the constitutional framework from which that authority is derived. Disagreement over constitutional interpretation is one thing. Open contempt for constitutional restraints is another.
And no political victory should be mistaken for permission to exercise authority beyond its lawful boundaries.
Why I No Longer Place My Faith in Voting
I no longer place my faith in voting as a means of securing liberty.
Perhaps years of observing political cycles have made me skeptical. I find it increasingly difficult to regard elections as a sufficient safeguard against concentrations of power that persist regardless of which political faction wins.
My growing understanding of the constitutional republic and the principles upon which the United States was founded has led me to examine the relationship between individual liberty, legitimate authority, and the responsibilities of the people themselves.
I identify with the principles of state citizenship and self-governance, placing particular importance on natural rights, limited government, and the constitutional boundaries of delegated authority.
I have come to regard my responsibility as something akin to that of a private attorney general: a private individual willing to pursue lawful accountability, defend constitutional protections, and challenge abuses of authority through established legal processes.
Preserving a republic is a responsibility that cannot be delegated to elected officials. It belongs to the people who understand its principles and are willing to uphold them lawfully.
Much of electoral politics resembles a war game. Now people are betting on who will win.
Two opposing camps. Carefully cultivated enemies. Enormous financial investments. Continuous appeals to fear, resentment, and moral superiority.
The public is encouraged to fight over who will occupy positions of authority while comparatively little attention is given to the lawful boundaries of that authority.
Questions surrounding election integrity, transparency, documented irregularities, and impartial administration deserve rigorous examination rather than automatic dismissal or partisan exploitation.
One side wins. The other prepares for the next battle. The cycle continues.
Meanwhile, the deeper questions remain.
Who possesses legitimate authority?
From where is that authority derived?
What are its constitutional limitations?
What remedies exist when those limitations are violated?
And what does consent of the governed actually mean?
These questions have led me to examine not only the conduct of elected officials but also constitutional developments following the original Bill of Rights, particularly the ratification and interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Ninth Amendment protects rights retained by the people beyond those expressly enumerated in the Constitution. The Tenth reserves powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, to the states or the people. Both establish important principles concerning the limits of delegated authority.
I believe the historical controversies surrounding Reconstruction, the ratification procedures of subsequent amendments, and their consequences for the balance of governmental power deserve serious examination.
My concern is whether amendments adopted following the original Bill of Rights, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment, were ratified through constitutionally legitimate procedures and whether their subsequent interpretation has faithfully preserved—or progressively undermined—the rights retained by the people and the limitations on delegated governmental authority.
An election cannot, by itself, establish the moral legitimacy of every law, institution, or exercise of power that follows.
For me, the more meaningful work lies in developing legal literacy, understanding constitutional limitations, exercising personal responsibility, and pursuing lawful accountability.
I am not looking for a political savior.
I am interested in whether we have preserved the principles that make legitimate self-government possible.
When Diversity Becomes Ideological Conformity
One of the contradictions I find increasingly troubling is the celebration of diversity alongside an unwillingness to tolerate genuine differences in thought, belief, and conscience. Diversity cannot mean that everyone is welcome only so long as they reach the same ideological conclusions. Nor should inclusion require allegiance to a particular political faction. The threats to individual liberty do not disappear simply because a different political majority assumes power.
A majority can support policies that protect liberty. It can also support policies that restrict it. This is precisely why constitutional limitations matter. The rights of an individual should not depend upon whether that individual belongs to the majority, supports the prevailing political ideology, or holds opinions that others find acceptable.
The principles of our constitutional republic recognize that individuals possess rights that others, including the government, are not free to violate. The boundary of individual liberty is not whether someone finds our beliefs, preferences, or opinions acceptable, but whether our conduct unlawfully infringes upon the rights of another.
Differences in personal values, beliefs, and ways of living do not, by themselves, constitute harm. A society committed to liberty must preserve the freedom to hold unpopular opinions, exercise conscience, and live differently without demanding ideological conformity. Tolerance is most meaningful when we extend the same rights to people whose choices and beliefs differ from our own.
The constitutional republic was designed, in part, to place limits on governmental power and protect rights against majoritarian abuses. Yet political discourse increasingly encourages people to regard their own faction's exercise of authority as legitimate while condemning similar conduct when exercised by opponents. That is not a consistent standard of liberty.
And when people celebrate diversity while demanding ideological conformity, we must ask whether they value pluralism or merely agreement. Of course, respecting freedom of conscience does not require accepting violence, coercion, discrimination, or violations of another person's rights. But disagreement itself is not an act of violence, and dissent is not inherently evidence of hatred.
A society committed to liberty must preserve room for people to disagree without surrendering their fundamental rights.
The measure of our commitment to freedom is not simply how we treat those who agree with us, but whether we are willing to defend the lawful rights of those who do not.
A Republic Requires More Than Elections
The American Declaration of Independence rests upon a profound proposition: that human beings possess rights not created by government, and that governments are instituted to secure those rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Elizabeth Freeman: When a Woman Demanded the Law Honor Its Principles
One of the most remarkable examples of lawful resistance to illegitimate authority comes from Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mum Bett.
In 1781, nearly a century before the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, an enslaved melanated woman in Massachusetts challenged the institution of slavery itself.
She understood something profound.
The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 declared that all men were born free and equal, possessing natural, essential, and unalienable rights.
Yet she remained enslaved.
Rather than accepting that contradiction, Freeman, alongside an enslaved man named Brom, pursued a legal challenge with the assistance of attorneys Theodore Sedgwick and Tapping Reeve.
They prevailed.
The court determined that they were not the lawful property of their enslaver, John Ashley, and awarded their freedom.
Their case helped establish the legal foundation for slavery's eventual disappearance from Massachusetts.
Consider the significance.
An enslaved Black woman successfully asserted her liberty through constitutional principles in 1781, before the federal Bill of Rights, before the Thirteenth Amendment, before the Fourteenth Amendment, and long before the Nineteenth Amendment.
She did not wait for the entire nation to recognize her humanity.
She demanded that the existing law be applied to her.
And she prevailed.
Her victory did not mean that every injustice had been resolved, or that the legal system consistently protected everyone. It demonstrated that the principles of liberty could be invoked against institutions that contradicted them.
The existence of a right and the willingness of institutions to recognize and protect it are not the same thing.
That distinction remains profoundly relevant.
The development of constitutional law, the enforcement of individual rights, and the willingness of ordinary people to challenge abuses of authority are inseparable from the preservation of a republic.
Elizabeth Freeman's story reminds us that lawful self-governance is not merely a philosophical ideal. It can become an act of extraordinary courage. And sometimes the woman who most clearly comprehends the principles of liberty is the one who society has attempted to exclude from their protection.
That principle deserves more than ceremonial recognition.
It demands serious examination of the relationship between individuals, institutions, and legitimate authority.
A constitutional republic is not preserved merely by calling it a republic.
Its legitimacy depends upon whether governmental power remains constitutionally bounded, subject to meaningful accountability, and exercised consistently with the rights it exists to protect.
Living men and women keep it alive through their knowledge, responsibility, and willingness to uphold those principles.
This is why I am more interested in understanding law, constitutional limitations, due process, lawful remedies, and the responsibilities of state citizenship than in treating elections as the ultimate expression of politics.
Knowing the law does not automatically protect someone from institutional abuse. Nor does invoking constitutional principles guarantee that institutions will honor them. But legal literacy, disciplined organization, responsible civic participation, and lawful insistence upon accountability provide means of protecting liberty that political loyalty alone cannot offer.
A population that understands the limits of governmental authority is better positioned to recognize when those limits are exceeded. A population that understands its own responsibilities is better positioned to exercise freedom without reproducing the abuses it condemns. And a population capable of cooperation across ideological differences is less easily divided into competing factions that overlook their shared interests.
Human development cannot substitute for enforceable constitutional limitations, just as constitutional limitations cannot substitute for human integrity. A functioning republic requires both: institutions restrained by law and individuals capable of exercising freedom responsibly.
The preservation of a republic requires more than political participation. It requires people capable of self-governance.
When Representation Becomes a Substitute for Accountability
Another reason I have lost confidence in electoral politics is that, more often than not, we are voting for people rather than directly deciding the issues that govern our lives.
We choose representatives based upon promises, personalities, party affiliations, and carefully constructed advertising campaigns.
Once elected, those individuals exercise authority across an enormous range of matters, often with limited opportunities for the public to intervene or even remain adequately informed.
Meanwhile, many of the underlying problems remain unresolved, yet a substantial portion of the population celebrates its preferred faction's victory as though meaningful change has already occurred.
Electoral victory can create a sense of progress without necessarily producing institutional accountability.
Economic insecurity. Institutional corruption. Violence. Concentrated wealth. Erosion of privacy. The expanding reach of governmental authority.
These concerns persist across political administrations, even as parties promise solutions.
We have witnessed controversies surrounding medical mandates and bodily autonomy, proposals affecting protections within the Bill of Rights, expanding surveillance capabilities, and governmental intrusions into personal privacy.
These involve distinct legal questions, but they raise a common concern:
How much authority can government accumulate before the people lose meaningful control over the decisions affecting their own lives?
Equally troubling are instances in which institutions entrusted with protecting the public face credible allegations or documented findings of corruption, exploitation, sexual misconduct, or abuse of vulnerable people.
Public officials must not be presumed guilty merely because allegations arise. Yet neither should political affiliation, institutional prestige, or personal loyalty shield anyone from impartial investigation.
The protection of children, personal defense, bodily autonomy, due process, privacy, and fundamental liberties should never depend upon which political party benefits from their defense.
We cannot reasonably demand accountability from ordinary people while accepting lesser standards from those exercising public authority.
A government does not become accountable simply because its officials are elected. The integrity of the electoral process itself must remain subject to independent scrutiny, just as the authority exercised by those elected must remain subject to constitutional limitations and meaningful accountability.
Accountability requires enforceable limitations, transparency, due process, meaningful remedies, and consequences for abuses of authority.
Representation is a mechanism of government. Accountability is a continuing obligation owed to the people, who retain the right and responsibility to demand it.
Confusing the two leaves the public celebrating changes in leadership while neglecting to examine how authority is actually exercised.
The Responsibility We Cannot Delegate
No political identity guarantees integrity.
No party has a monopoly on conscience.
No elected official can develop our capacity for discernment on our behalf.
Nor can any single administration resolve every structural problem contributing to economic insecurity, institutional distrust, exploitation, and violence.
We live within economic and political arrangements that deserve careful scrutiny, including monetary policy, debt, concentrated ownership, regulatory capture, and the incentives that reward behavior harmful to human well-being. These are substantial matters.
They cannot be responsibly resolved through partisan slogans or the promise that one political personality will save us. I find it remarkable how easily people become consumed by the behavior of political opponents while neglecting to examine the beliefs, assumptions, and contradictions within their own circles.
People may demand honesty from politicians they oppose while excusing repeated contradictions from those they support. They may condemn censorship while celebrating the suppression of opposing views. They may demand respect for human dignity while speaking about entire populations with contempt. They may claim to defend liberty while supporting coercive measures they would find intolerable if imposed by the opposing party.
The inconsistency is not exclusive to the left or the right.
It is a failure of human development.
And it cannot be corrected merely by changing political affiliations.
The Capacities That Make Freedom Possible
Perhaps the more important questions are not simply whether we identify with the left, the right, or the middle.
Can we distinguish legitimate authority from coercion?
Can we disagree without dehumanizing?
Can we remain accountable when nobody is demanding it of us?
Can we recognize our own contradictions without becoming defensive?
Can we exercise restraint when anger would be easier?
Can we remain committed to truth when doing so threatens our social standing, political loyalties, or personal interests? These are human capacities, not partisan affiliations.
Discernment. Humility. Integrity. Responsibility. Accountability. Perspective. Cooperation. Stewardship. They must be developed through conscious practice.
Self-governance requires something more demanding than choosing a side. It requires the willingness to govern ourselves even when our own side would prefer that we did not. It requires recognizing that we cannot demand integrity from institutions while refusing to practice it in our own lives. It requires the ability to distinguish between what is lawful and what is merely customary, between what is popular and what is just, and between what we have been taught to believe and what the evidence actually supports.
Most importantly, it requires understanding that freedom carries responsibilities we cannot simply delegate to representatives, institutions, or ideological movements.
Someone who cannot recognize wrongdoing within their own ideological community has not yet developed the discernment necessary to evaluate that community independently. And someone who demands accountability from others while refusing it personally has not yet reconciled their conduct with the standards they claim to defend.
Self-governance must precede any legitimate claim to govern, correct, or morally instruct another human being.
Beyond the Two Wings
The left wing and the right wing may disagree about the direction of flight.
Their disagreements are sometimes substantial, and the consequences of their policies are not equivalent.
Yet both can become absorbed in the performance of political opposition while the deeper structures influencing public life remain insufficiently examined.
The question is not whether the two wings are identical.
The question is whether either wing, by itself, can sustain a healthy society when the people and institutions responsible for its direction lack the capacities necessary for self-governance.
A republic cannot remain healthy when the people responsible for preserving it do not understand its founding principles, constitutional limitations, or their own rights and responsibilities.
Nor can it remain free merely because elections continue to take place while the principles of self-governance are neglected.
Its preservation depends upon institutions that respect lawful limitations and people willing to recognize, defend, and exercise their rights responsibly.
I am far more interested in developing capable human beings than producing more devoted political followers.
Because a society cannot become genuinely free through the accumulation of people who have surrendered their judgment to charismatic personalities, reassuring promises, or political narratives that contradict the historical record.
Nor can we expect accountable institutions to emerge from a culture that repeatedly excuses dishonesty, coercion, and abuse whenever doing so benefits its preferred faction.
The work begins closer to home.
In what we believe. What we tolerate. What we defend. What we question. And what we are willing to correct within ourselves.
When ignorance becomes profitable, discernment becomes an essential act of self-governance and self-preservation.
And perhaps the greatest threat to liberty is not simply the existence of competing political factions, but a society that has forgotten how to exercise its own judgment.
