Saturday, April 7, 2012

Pope Springs Eternal

IOZ sez:

Even those of us adhering to the view that this would be a welcome and desirable end tend to wax modestly apocalyptic about the period of transition. And yet, one wonders: would it actually be so? What if all the congresscritters in the world, the generals and general secretaries and unpaid unofficial advisers and MPs and CEOs and chiefs of police got ganked up in some kind of reverse rapture tomorrow? How long would it take the rest of humanity to notice that it was supposed to be helpless without the offices they all occupy

It is my thought, as I said there, that statelessness is not the problem. It is the preservation of statelessness that is the problem. Leadership is in us. Rule is in us. All it takes is one bad harvest, one angry leader, one whatever-the-fuck in the next village, to make people consider theft of the idyllic fishing town. After all, there is no morality. Why not take what one does not want to make, or cannot make, for oneself? Consider human history. Have we really changed?

So the village gets dominated or fights off its enemies. And what of the defensive fighters? Say, in a generation or in ten minutes, they decide to levy tax in order to feed themselves? After all, they say, we are focused on preserving the lives and livelihoods of others.

Anarchists better think about this shit. Otherwise we're amateurs, pipe-dreamers, and fools.

The state is not a static thing. It is a process. It is born through human interaction.

6 comments:

  1. What do you mean by "in us," Cuneyt? Are you arguing for a platonic, Kantian or biodeterminist human essence which is effectively immutable?

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  2. What's permanent? A percentage of humans will always want what others have, enough to take it by force? If so, then what % will always be? And will the remaining % always line up behind the taker-without-consideration? Always?

    History owns us? We're fixed, we're determined, we're delusional about self-determination?

    Seems this is true only if you think the status quo is status eternal. But what do I know, I'm just a stupid reactionary who mocks pwoggies and therefore obviously is an evil rethuglican!

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  3. More of a cultural psychological behavioral mishmash, Jack. Humans have a mixed essence; no real essence, just a lot of ingredients. Certain dynamics will emerge, again and again, because a lot of people make a lot of things possible. And then again, even one man can be his own tyrant.

    Karl, I didn't talk about permanence. I just talk about recurrence, which seems probable given how far we have not come. Humans are still at the cultural level with a few habits demonized but never fully extinguished.

    And you can save the passive aggressive shit for somebody else. You've been kind and encouraging to me in the past, but I really can't stand that shit.

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  4. Not a mote of passivity or aggression in that comment. Just wondering. Just asking Qs that were triggered by what your post said.

    Will it always be this way?

    That's what I'm asking. And I'm saying it doesn't seem to me that we're fixed and determined by our heritage -- cultural, or biological, or a mix of both.

    You could ask me what I see as a path out of the thicket you describe. I would probably reply that I know only what works for me and that what works for me probably doesn't work for everyone.

    How'd you guess passive-aggressive in my post? Definitely not what I prefer, I leave that to people who have no spine and feel the victim in all things.

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  5. I would agree its born through human interaction but would add that its sustained through human necessity. Each step in the process is a 'need' or a logical, and necessary reaction to some catalyst. It is certainly sold as such.

    Taken individually, the reactions are innocuous and benign. Anarchists (in my limited study) have done decent work on the large scale theory. It would be interesting to read how small, latent 'state' like conditions would be met early and delt with in an anarchist mold.

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  6. Karl, I guess I reacted to the statement "But what do I know, I'm just a stupid reactionary who mocks pwoggies and therefore obviously is an evil rethuglican!" I know you have your disagreements with folks here, but I certainly saw none of the above suggested, ahem, here.

    And I don't think there's a way out of the thicket. "Works for me" is fine enough. We don't need to correct (if there can be correction) the species; we can, however, not add to the domination. I just fear that a lot of us depend on it more than we realize.

    And mantis, most of the survivability of anarchism would rely on a power dynamic, namely parenting. And the door stays open.

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