[Inexorable]

Greetings folks, It’s been nearly a year or so since I’ve posted anything on this forum. Really, I found other things to pursue in my free time but came back here on a whim. My political persuasion has forced me into an alliance with mainstream conservatives (gasp, I know, American Republicans and European populists) in order to affect actual change in real-time. More on this odd alliance later I guess.

Without a doubt you Fascists, Third Positionists, Platonists, etc, have heard this oft-repeated notion in this forum and elsewhere: that nations are mere ‘social constructs’ and therefore are ‘arbitrary’, ‘meaningless’, meant only to divide a more primordial and originary abstraction we call ‘humanity’. It is instead insisted among the self-proclaimed-more-learned (IE socialists) that things such as class are somehow more important and REAL than nation, race, so on. What warrants the claim that a social construct (Nation) is less important or more arbitrary than another social construct (Class)? Well, there is no such warranting. By adopting the perspective of flat ontology, we can destroy this insistence that some objects remain more fundamentally real or meaningful than any other. Like the false dichotomy between natural and artificial we see that a social construction such as traffic laws are no less real than trees, rocks, or squirrels. If an object creates a difference in existence or alters some structure of existence then there is no reason to assume it is unreal or less-real. Likewise, the nation is no less real than class and the socialists who insists otherwise are engaged in a project of crude eliminative logic. Why, we could just as arbitrarily say, humans don’t exist, we could reply, they are merely illusions created by atoms! No, only atoms are real ala Lucretius, and therefore class is arbitrary…but who are we kidding now, such thought is idiotic. . Again, let us affirm that nations are real entities in their own right, far surpassing the crude calculus of a materialism that would consign the REALLY REAL to the domain of rocks and twigs, but would instead insist that ALL entities, real or imaginary, emerge from the complex structure of a flat ontology.

[Amanita]

I agree with you that talk of 'social constructs' is meaningless, particular and fundamentally discriminating (because it could be applied to more things than people dare or are able to). But for me you've pretty much highlighted the problem here:

If an object creates a difference in existence or alters some structure of existence then there is no reason to assume it is unreal or less-real.

Basically, I don't know what differences nations can be seen to have in this day and age. Economic globalisation has shown that different nations can be adjusted to think the same, act the same, be the same and the different nations, misguided by their respective elites, played their part well. It's like nations have lost their innocence or their honour and, deep down, these things can never be reclaimed, irrespective of the reactionism one adopts.

[Inexorable]

Basically, I don't know what differences nations can be seen to have in this day and age. Economic globalisation has shown that different nations can be adjusted to think the same, act the same, be the same and the different nations, misguided by their respective elites, played their part well.

You are reading too much into what I am saying. I don't disagree that nations are becoming hindered in their powers due to globalization and imperial hegemonies. We both see eye to eye on that. What I am getting at is that nations as such are REAL OBJECTS precisely because they produce differences. England is as real as this beer I am drinking right now, Kurdistan (despite having no internationally recognized borders) is as a real as the paper plate sitting next to me or the text I am typing on this screen. What I seek to do here with this post is to provide ammunition to the fascist to disarm the leftist critic: Nations are real, they are not arbitrary, they are not 'imagined communities', they are actual, and they are no less or more important than class or humanity or whatever other abstraction the leftists contrive.

[Daktoria]

At the very least, the OP should have referred to Manuel de Landa.

Flat ontology is crap in any case because it depends upon this brutal assertion without justification:

By adopting the perspective of flat ontology, we can destroy this insistence that some objects remain more fundamentally real or meaningful than any other. Like the false dichotomy between natural and artificial we see that a social construction such as traffic laws are no less real than trees, rocks, or squirrels. If an object creates a difference in existence or alters some structure of existence then there is no reason to assume it is unreal or less-real.

The mere usage of the words "natural" and "artificial" proves there's a dichotomy, yet you haven't explained why this dichotomy must be vertical rather than horizontal.

OK, you might view it as a vertical difference, but that doesn't mean others view it as vertical difference. Therefore, there's no reason for others to take for granted that you're correct. You also haven't established a method of experimentation/falsifiability for identifying whether or not a particular object indeed does create a difference.

Correlation does not imply causation. Yes, there's occam's razor, but occam's razor is quite often wrong, and you haven't explained why people should be required to take the risk of being wrong rather than pursuing greater complexities, especially when greater complexities bear LESS risk.

[Inexorable]

At the very least, the OP should have referred to Manuel de Landa.

I didn't think it was important. Yes, Manuel de Landa coined the term, but others have since then radicalized it. De Landa's flat ontology only pertained to so-called natural entities and assemblages as the topic of his discussion was mostly species and evolution. I am using the term to cover all objects.

The mere usage of the words "natural" and "artificial" proves there's a dichotomy

No it doesn't. Since when would the use of outmoded and problematic terms prove that somehow the dichotomy is still valid? That's like saying "Look, the mere usage of the term phlogiston proves it is still important." There is no ontological sense in which one object is somehow artificial and another natural. Is a spiderweb artificial because it was built by a spider? No. Yet people would argue that somehow cars are artificial because they were built by humans. Arbitrary? You bet.

You also haven't established a method of experimentation/falsifiability for identifying whether or not a particular object indeed does create a difference

Why would I need an experiment to identify whether an object produces differences? If I can recognize an object in the first place it validates it being an object. The definining feature of any object is that it does produce difference, hence what differentiates it as an object in the first place. Scientific experiments tell us about the properties and potentials of objects as well as cues us into the possible existence of objects we may not have foreseen (blackholes, superstrings, dark matter, for instance). Black holes, superstrings, and dark matter may be ruled out of the scientific lexicon if there is no longer experimental evidence for them, but they are still objects that produce differences in cosmological theories all the same, hence they are objects, imaginary or otherwise. You seem to be starting from an epistemological standpoint where the weight of proof somehow lies on the subject to confirm its existence and validate it through some method (IE "does this table really exist, it can't unless I say so"?) when there is no reason to doubt such a table exists in the first place and that regardless of its properties (the table could be wood, or it could be a dream) it produces differences all the same.

Correlation does not imply causation. Yes, there's occam's razor, but occam's razor is quite often wrong,

I'm completely lost. What did Occam's Razor or causation have to do with this conversation?

[Potemkin]

There is no ontological sense in which one object is somehow artificial and another natural. Is a spiderweb artificial because it was built by a spider? No. Yet people would argue that somehow cars are artificial because they were built by humans. Arbitrary? You bet.

I think you misunderstand the 'materialism' which is invoked by Marxists. It is not merely a form of naturalism, as Marx himself famously pointed out in Das Kapital:

Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will.

link

It is the ability to use symbolic abstraction which separates the works of man from the works of nature.

[Daktoria]

No it doesn't. Since when would the use of outmoded and problematic terms prove that somehow the dichotomy is still valid? That's like saying "Look, the mere usage of the term phlogiston proves it is still important." There is no ontological sense in which one object is somehow artificial and another natural. Is a spiderweb artificial because it was built by a spider? No. Yet people would argue that somehow cars are artificial because they were built by humans. Arbitrary? You bet.

It could just as well be argued that naturalness has been outmoded by artificiality.

Yes, phlogiston is still important. It represents a transition of ideas. Forgetting naturalness, for example, would prevent us from realizing how we got to where we are today.

Why would I need an experiment to identify whether an object produces differences? If I can recognize an object in the first place it validates it being an object. The definining feature of any object is that it does produce difference, hence what differentiates it as an object in the first place. Scientific experiments tell us about the properties and potentials of objects as well as cues us into the possible existence of objects we may not have foreseen (blackholes, superstrings, dark matter, for instance). Black holes, superstrings, and dark matter may be ruled out of the scientific lexicon if there is no longer experimental evidence for them, but they are still objects that produce differences in cosmological theories all the same, hence they are objects, imaginary or otherwise. You seem to be starting from an epistemological standpoint where the weight of proof somehow lies on the subject to confirm its existence and validate it through some method (IE "does this table really exist, it can't unless I say so"?) when there is no reason to doubt such a table exists in the first place and that regardless of its properties (the table could be wood, or it could be a dream) it produces differences all the same.

This is like asking, "Why do I need the scientific method to do science?"

There are such things as mirages and gettier cases in reality. No, your senses are not universally reliable. For example, seeing a stick bent in water does not necessarily mean a stick is bent, nor does it mean if you reach for the stick that passing water's surface somehow manages to bend your arm; the concept of refraction depends upon microscopic understanding (literally, the change of phase velocity is contingent upon the density and interactivity of water molecules versus air molecules).

Perception itself is a subjective process. It is different from instrumentation because instruments must react to stimulus. In contrast, perceiver reactions are contingent upon internal structuring.

[Bon Ventri]

Inexorable, does flat ontology explain cause and effect? Liberals believe in the necessity of humanity, as a single identity, in the interpretation of political/societal effects. Neo-Marxists believe in the necessity of classes, as separate identities. Realists believe in the necessity of states as separate identities. I believe in the necessity of individual humans as separate identities (and to a lesser extent their groups, i.e. states).

What does flat ontology believe to be the cause of political/societal effects? It seems to me that it assigns the blame to all, or better said: no one.

[Inexorable]

It is the ability to use symbolic abstraction which separates the works of man from the works of nature.

That is precisely what I am against: a dichotomy between the so-called realm of man and so-called nature. Consider that the vast majority of the human body is inorganic (something like 99%) and that the vast majority of actual left-over organic biomass is alien: parasitic, bacterial, fungal, so on. Consider that most of human consciousness is animated by unconscious neuro-chemical functions. It suddenly becomes apparent that the holy demarcation between human and ‘nature’ is arbitrary. If anything, Marx has outlined the role that non-human and ‘materialist’ causes have shaped the subjectivity of humans, just as later unorthodox Marxist approaches shaped the role that discursive and social-constructivist approaches have played in formations of human activity.

It could just as well be argued that naturalness has been outmoded by artificiality.

Precisely. I am arguing that there is no such thing as ‘nature’ or artificiality.

There are such things as mirages and gettier cases in reality. No, your senses are not universally reliable. For example, seeing a stick bent in water does not necessarily mean a stick is bent, nor does it mean if you reach for the stick that passing water's surface somehow manages to bend your arm

I know this. I am arguing that mirages are real things IN THEMSELVES. The particular qualities of a mirage (IE Is the stick in question bent OR not?) is not what is up for question here, the fact remains that the mirage still IS. This is not in conflict with the scientific method to argue as such. The interaction between stick, water, eyeball and human brain produces the construction we call a mirage. The mirage itself is an actual entity in its own right. In precisely the same way, class and nation are products by the interaction between various entities. It is not strange or controversial to say this, but it must be repeated precisely because of the crude demarcation people often make between the so-called real material world and the so-called false socially constructed world. They are both real but have different affects and powers on existence and are both capable of deceiving the human psyche.

[myrmeleo]

Consider that the vast majority of the human body is inorganic (something like 99%) and that the vast majority of actual left-over organic biomass is alien: parasitic, bacterial, fungal, so on.

I'm not sure I follow how you're coming up with a claim that 99% of the human body is "inorganic." In terms of your position, it'd be better to just say "everything is made up of the same 'stuff'" rather than presenting yet another dichotomy (this time within the realm of chemistry).

[Inexorable]

I'm not sure I follow how you're coming up with a claim that 99% of the human body is "inorganic." In terms of your position, it'd be better to just say "everything is made up of the same 'stuff'" rather than presenting yet another dichotomy (this time within the realm of chemistry).

Don't worry, you are actually on track with where I am going here. I used the false dichotomy for explanatory reasons to undermine itself from within. What makes organic ORGANIC and what makes humans HUMAN is elements that are largely inorganiC and inhuman, throwing the limited generic capacities of the abstractions in doubt.

[telluro]

Constructivism as far as the nation goes is historically self-evident. Was there always such a nation as France? Did all human races have this idea of nations? Did this idea of nation evolve out of a place heavily influenced by Jewish tribalism? So on, so forth?

All nations came forth at some point in time, and were once something else. The definition of what is human might change and may be it's not os obvious as we'd like to think, but to the same eyes, going back in history, there is a constancy to what is human, whether they speak French, Gaulish or Celtic.

Your argument is a good one, but it breaks down because we're talking of political identity. Nations are a subset of human, and yes humans are a subset of animal, and animals of life, and life of matter. BUT only the first two subsets are thus far able to handle political identity. The statement "We are French" is a political statement. The statement "We are human" can also be a political statement. The statement "We are matter" cannot.

Most of the time when nations were being created there were other subsets being subsumed into larger ones. The Chinese states ignored the small-statal subset in order to see a new subset, Chinese. And this is precisely what happens with those who ignore the national subset for the human one. And they need not necessarily be anti-fascist either.