Proposal for a new psychosocial / political term - DRAFT

Proposal for a new psychosocial / political term
(Draft version)

The old political terms liberal and conservative are inappropriate for today’s discussion. Progressive, while accurate, fails as a label because too few people understand that the roots of Progressives lie in the dark soil of ethnic cleansing and eugenics. A new term based upon the characteristics of today’s political forces would better serve political discourse.

I, therefore, propose a new term: Phylasts

Phylasts comes from the root Phylae. Phylae were any of several “tribes” that formed the largest political subgroups within all Dorian and most Ionian Greek city-states. The phylae were kinship groups embracing all citizens; corporations with their own officials and priests; and local units for administrative and military purposes. Ref

Phylasts are people who have an innate mental set where they perceive the social world as a construct of groups rather than individuals. Such people are uncomfortable with the atomization of culture, politics, and society into individual persons. The cause of such conceptual prejudice is unknown. However, Phylasim can be studied to ascertain the basis of this mental illness.

Some possible causes include, but are not limited to:

    * A defect in the ability to partition concepts into parts
    * A defect causing abnormal clustering of information including inappropriate perceptual clustering
    * Childhood experiences which led to a fear of individuals
    * Limited childhood experience with individuals with varied characteristics.
    * Social learning (unlikely because Phylasts are so emotionally attached to this world view)
    * An inability to perceive those small characteristics that distinguish one person from another when there is a large difference between the person and the viewer (for example, skin color, ethnicity, social class, or clothing style masks personality differences, social relationships, and individual behavior)

All interaction with Phylasts should be based upon the understanding that people suffering from this affliction do not perceive the world in the same way as ordinary people. Their misperception often leads them to make decisions that appear random, inconsistent, and opaque to others.

Phylasts hold strongly to their distorted world view. They are likely driven by fear and thus are unwilling to engage in civil discourse if they think their view is not accepted. They must classify all individuals into groups. The most fundamental division in to groups is “us” verses “not us.” “Not us” is the enemy and will be attacked fiercely. This primitive division of the world is the basis for all wars, serious civil disorder, and, ultimately, the basis for murder. Crimes against individuals simply can not be committed by someone who sees their victim as “one of us.”

Phylasts are exquisitely dangerous. The Gestapo provides but one example of Phylasts behavior. Consider any war. Phylast motivation will be found to be, if not the cause, the sustaining motivation for its prosecution. Crimes against Humanity are all based upon Phylast world views. Racial discrimination rarely occurred because one individual disliked another individual. Rather, racial discrimination existed because Phylasts intimidated non-Phylasts. When finally given the chance to escape the Phylast’s world view of group oppression, most Southerners abandoned the group think of prejudice. After all, the individuals they knew in the “not us” class they thought of as “good folks”.

Perhaps Phylastism is caused by an in error conceptualization where thought is dominated by abstract as opposed to concrete thinking. Or is it because they are trapped in childhood thinking? Developmental Psychologists posit that there are several stages in mental development.

Take Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (most Psychologists do not believe that this schema is entirely accurate nor is it either sufficient or complete).

Stages of Cognitive Development

Stage	Characterized by
Sensori-motor  (Birth-2 yrs)	Differentiates self from objects  Recognizes self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise  Achieves object permanence: realizes that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the senses
Pre-operational  (2-7 years)	Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words  Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others  Classifies objects by a single feature:      e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of color
Concrete operational  (7-11 years)	Can think logically about objects and events  Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9)  Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size.
Formal operational  (11 years and up)	Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically  Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems

Table I: From http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm. 

(Spelling Americanized. Underline added.)

Piagetians assert that each stage builds upon earlier stages. In other words, adults fall back on Concrete Operational thinking when Formal Operational thinking fails them. Modern Psychologists would also assert that the vast majority of adults principally use Concrete Operational thinking and many adults never achieve Formal Operational thinking (Concrete Operational thinkers can’t ‘think’ in algebra, for example).

So where would our Phylasts fit in the Piaget Schema? Ignoring for the moment a discussion about whether or not they exhibit ‘logical thinking”, how do they group or classify social objects? Certainly the can classify people. Yet, they think about people only in large groups. They do focus on only one trait for their classification: Blacks/Whites, People of Color/, Elderly, Party affiliation, Us/Not Us, friend/enemy, educated/literate, rich/poor, and so forth.

Note that such classifications are strictly unidimensional. This places our Phylasts in the Preoperational stage (2-7). Preoperational thinkers can not conceive of a multidimensional classification system where a “rich” individual could be any one of another group like a high income, small business owner, family farmer, high income from inherited wealth, high income wage earner, or periodic high income earner like an artist or actor. Such complexity blurs their reality like a person with hyperopia struggling to sort apples into quality categories. Only the most salient feature of the apples is visible to them. So the apples are categorized by color alone.

Adults who think primarily in the Pre-operational stage are not limited in their intelligence. Intelligence has no relationship to developmental stages, although intelligence tests intertwine them. Indeed, highly intelligent Pre-operational thinkers develop methodological strategies to solve multidimensional problems. Concrete operational thinkers can memorize formulas and pass Algebra courses even though they do not ‘understand’ algebra. Such individuals come to believe that they do, in fact, understand. Criticism of their comprehension by “other people” is simply a lie. I would expect that intelligent Phylasts do not become mathematicians or engineers or scientists. Rather, they gravitate towards elementary education or literature. The more paranoid are attracted to law school. Such endeavors allow them to succeed while avoiding confrontation with Formal Operational thinkers.

These educational pursuits are obviously dominated by Pre-operational thinkers. Thus a cultural Zeitgeist evolves that cultivates, reinforces, and confirms Phylasts. Their US/Not Us tendency is also reinforced as is their disdain for technologists.

Please note that none of the above discussion is intended to imply that those who have achieved Formal Operational thinking are excluded from professions such as elementary education or the Law. However, it does imply that such individuals may experience discrimination and develop distain for their fellow students, professors, and colleagues. 

Also note that tribal behavior is both an ordinary stage of development and a tendency that remains into adulthood. We all have tendencies to root for “our team”, identify with our college, call ourselves according to our current location (I’m a South Dakotan, for example), develop protectionist feelings about our family and our possessions. Ordinary people, however, do not clutch these labels to their bosom so tightly that they distain individuals not or their label. Ordinary people do not pass legislation to protect Vikings Fans, or to prohibit wearing of Ga Tech sweatshirts.

Phylasts are behaviorally the same as street gangs, Iraqi Sunnis, drug cartels, the Taliban, and high school cliques.

Observe the behavior of Progressives closely and you will understand why they identify with certain enemies of the United States.

According to modern anthropological thinking, tribes all have a similar structure. Whether matriarchal of patriarchal, African or Central American, large or tiny, tribes are clearly bounded, homogeneous, parochial, and stable. Tribal members can easily identify individuals as members or non-members of the tribe. All members of the tribe have nearly identical features on the characteristic important to the members. Tribes have a limited or narrow outlook or scope. And, tribes are stable over time.

Progressives clearly meet all the above requirements to be described as a tribe. One can explore each characteristic and find many examples.

Phylasts use projection when interacting with non-progressives or Others. This is one of the best ways to ascertain the viewpoint of Phylasts. One must simply listen to what they say about others to understand how they think. For example, Progressives frequently accuse Others of racism. Thus one can understand that Phylasts themselves are racists. Phylasts frequently accuse Others of being stupid. Thus we can understand that Phylasts believe themselves to be superior while subconsciously believing that they are less intelligent. Phylasts frequently accuse Others of being uncaring. Phylasts are thus themselves uncaring. Phylasts often accuse Others of being uncharitable. Here we have excellent data that shows liberals, progressives, and Democrats to contribute less to church, private, and public charities than Republicans, conservatives, the religious, and Independents.


Some theorists hold that tribes represent a stage in social evolution intermediate between bands and states.