Let us take a more psychological, more pragmatic, and less metaphysical example of what an individual’s biased outlook entails. For this, I will use the debate surrounding the idea of “paying in cash.”
Some people defend it, probably because, in their minds, they are defending a service provider’s freedom to declare what they consider fair rather than what is imposed on them. Others, however, see this very same behaviour as fraud and therefore believe cash should not exist, to prevent such situations. In the first case, the person in favour of cash sees the service provider as a victim of the system.
The system squeezes them to the point where they live to work, rather than eventually being able to generate enough wealth to decide when to stop working or to work solely for the pleasure their work can bring them. The first person advocates freedom because it is something they want for themselves. The second, however, does not desire it or does not consider it a viable option, and therefore advocates a paternalistic, authoritarian State to which they can surrender their decision-making, allowing it to become their provider and guardian. This second person sees the service provider as selfish, pursuing personal gain at the expense of everyone else’s security. From their perspective, the provider is therefore a perpetrator.
One could easily side with either camp depending on one’s position or disposition towards life and, therefore, what one expects from it. From their respective points of view, both would be right. Whatever their preference, both face the same struggle or conflict: fear, and the selfishness that fear produces.
In the first case, a person fears not being free or not having greater control over their decisions; in the other, they fear that the State might be unable to meet their fundamental needs. Both are equally selfish. Each pursues different interests aimed at personal benefit in order to resolve their underlying fear.
A fragmented State is built upon this foundational fracture, this clear division. That same division is carried into a higher tier.
And what do the participants in that higher tier do? Exactly what the participants in the earlier debate do: defend their own particular, selfish interests. The added problem is that they are removed from the original conflict, since their livelihood does not depend on resolving it, but on a partisan, biased defence of their voters’ outlook.
This disconnect between the decisions made and their own livelihood is compounded by another factor: the fever of power. The fever of believing oneself a god with foolish servants whom one must direct, deciding for them how to think and live.
Where, then, would the solution lie? Obviously, in the only place it can be found: at the source of the conflict. In those two individuals, blinded by their particular interests, and in their need to delegate the resolution of their conflict to a third party.
And how could it be resolved? Opposing interests are reconciled by reaching a point of balance, a mutually beneficial equilibrium born of the willingness to understand the other side’s position and accept it as valid, desirable, and reasonable, just like one’s own. That is nothing other than a willingness to unite.
If that willingness to unite existed at the foundation of the State—the individuals who make up society—the higher tier, which should serve an administrative function, would not pursue interests contrary to that shared will, because the nature of that will would have been clearly conveyed to it.
The State cannot resolve conflicts born of the fracture between individuals and their lack of unity. In fact, it can only amplify or aggravate them, since its privileged position distances it from the conflict itself.