[Suska]

A little graphic I made up.


I guess I shouldn't have to explain it if its worth anything
what do you guys think?




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[Potemkin]

"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

Does that sum it up, Suska?

[Suska]

ooo I like it. Must be Biblical, can I has citation?

[ingliz]

2 Corinthians 3:6

Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

[Potemkin]

Suska, your idea can also be related to the Daoist idea that laws and rules are essentially oppressive and falsify the human experience of the world and our human relations with each other:

Do not control the people with laws,
Nor violence nor espionage,
But conquer them with inaction.

For:
The more morals and taboos there are,
The more cruelty afflicts people;
The more guns and knives there are,
The more factions divide people;
The more arts and skills there are,
The more change obsoletes people;
The more laws and taxes there are,
The more theft corrupts people.

Yet take no action, and the people nurture each other;
Make no laws, and the people deal fairly with each other;
Own no interest, and the people cooperate with each other;
Express no desire, and the people harmonize with each other. (Chapter 57)

[Zyx]

I do not think that the graphic makes sense, but given that both ingliz and Potemkin caught onto it, I'll claim myself 'tired.'

Still, explain the graphic.

[Suska]

I'll try

There are two ways of arriving at governance. One is by creativity and consent. The other is by authority and force.

Governance arrived at by creativity and consent is called governance by the governed and is characterized by family and community, with authority distributed according to merit and inclination - ad hoc. It is filled with sentience, in fact it consists only of sentient actions. In as much as it always consists of emergency community action it is always deliberate and crucial.

Governance arrived at by authority and law is called governance by governors and is characterized by the interests of the governors whereby people are organized according to utility to government. In a kind frame of mind we may call this specialization, I characterize it as treating citizens as mechanisms. Both tyranny and bureaucracy are implied here. It is non-sentient; it operates artificially and pitilessly, it doesn't keep good track of people's wishes and it often makes large blunders - generally punishing other's for them, and eventually falling into corruption by the wealthy. It is a giant robot, not a Leviathan so people just fight over control of it. It depends on people to subject themselves to its authority and this is the principle problem.

People - the sentient portion of the network - subject to a system!

There's a few permutations but the main point is that sentience is the cent'er and reason for sovereignty - or as I say, it is sovereignty. Nation's don't posses sovereignty unless it is positively built by the people. In every case its about people. People are sentient and their experience is meaningful whereas contracts and laws are not sentient and their meaning is always in relating to people. The rule of law is supposed to be impartial and social engineering is too - at any rate you haven't succeeded at good governance unless it represents the will and interests of the people. If you have to use force there's something very wrong. Maybe ultimately this is the point I'm getting at; It is right to find government by force to be wrong even when apparently necessary. Never accept that. Its not "their" job to govern us, its "ours" so when they exercise their authority against us, or not in our interests, you have proof they have more authority than they require.

It is a tyranny if it uses force and law. The question of necessity is a matter of disguising that fact. Usually because the interests of the owner-class, sometimes in response to a foreign aggressor it is of acute importance to band together, but this happens rarely and inspires the defense among the people (or if not they deserve to be overrun) so this forced measure is the only thing thats really out of place. Abstract authority and arbitrary justice.

The group is not a person.

If the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few then you have several "manys" not one, and whats more, they want different things. Why are you forcing them together?



.

[ingliz]

In as much as it always consists of emergency community action it is always deliberate and crucial.

Typical libertarian, anarchic, idealistic, bullcrap which promises much but can only offer, at best, a corrupt, small minded, 'small town' communal tyranny, vigilante justice, and the lynch mob - Welcome to Dodge City, circa 1870, yeehaw!

[Suska]

yeah I had that thought too ingliz, imagine what those people could've done with an internet, yeehaw indeed. The fact is people are rooted in their locality which isn't more than a couple thousand people. Urban confusion lined by a bureaucratic police state is much more to your tastes I guess, enjoy your Orwellian nightmare.

Anyway I figured a description would just take away from the principle of the graphic. I was just giving examples off the top of my head but I could've explored it in a variety of ways.

[ingliz]

Just to be sure, you are advocating ochlocracy, mob rule, as your political system of choice?

[Suska]

Thats random... Not at all. You simply failed to understand the graphic. Ad-hoc Democracy would simply be a very pure way of expressing an interest in being governed. So long as people initiate and maintain the government it can be anything they want - the problem comes when that government's authority outweighs the people's interest. If they no longer want it and can't even change it because it is the authority it has lost its sovereignty - the basis for its authority.

[Potemkin]

I think he's actually advocating (without really being aware of it) something very close to the Daoist ideal of government - spontaneous self-organisation of the population (overseen by the guiding hand of a benign and unobtrusive emperor-figure, which the Daoists felt was needed to prevent the system from becoming chaotic or destructive). The Daoists felt that, just as nature spontaneously self-organises, so human society, if left alone, is also capable of spontaneously self-organising.

If they no longer want it and can't even change it because it is the authority it has lost its sovereignty - the basis for its authority.

In other words, it has lost the Mandate of Heaven.

[Suska]

I admire all sorts of Daoist theory but you could also compare this to Leviathan and Social Contract thinking. Its very simple; people build the government. The government doesn't build people. Its ridiculous to say a person will vote in a government to hurt them so they'll be more skilled productive and law abiding, thats not the deal. The deal is when people want to organize they do so and this is called government. The rest is tyranny.

In other words, it has lost the Mandate of Heaven

precisely

[ingliz]

If the law in your utopia is entirely local and arbitrary, a reactive "emergency community action", what is it other than mob rule and vigilantism? If that is not what you meant to say, please, explain yourself better.

[Potemkin]

Its very simple; people build the government. The government doesn't build people.

Brecht thought otherwise:

The Solution
Bertolt Brecht

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writer's Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

The deal is when people want to organize they do so and this is called government. The rest is tyranny.

This is not how states historically originated.

[Suska]

This is not how states historically originated.

I beg to differ.

If the law in your utopia is entirely local and arbitrary

I hope you aren't using the term Utopia in a derogatory fashion. If you think Utopia is an impossibility then you must expect Dystopia as inevitable.

This thread is not all that different from Doctor State's covering private cops and the like. I have focused my efforts around the term sentience. A critical permutation that ingliz seems to be missing is that one sort of government is sentient in its entire body, while the other is only sentient at the top - so what I'm actually getting at is just an observation about that. What also fascinates me is that Authority derived from people overrules people ( "the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government" ) It strikes me that what we're really talking about is classes and slavery. If governors have law and force to hold over people, they are not really people*. The government in that case would in effect only recognize people wealthy enough to be above the law.

*Their sentience is ignored, their sovereignty discarded, their will has no impact etc

obviously in practice its a much more mixed affair of both authority and representation - but not really by systematic design but by natural design - it is just as natural for governors to abuse their position as it is for good people to form a genuine basis for governance.

[ingliz]

Urban confusion lined by a bureaucratic police state

"In 1950, the population living in UK cities was 79% - already a large figure - but one which is set to rise to 92.2% by 2030."

We already have the "urban confusion", the bureaucracy, and, arguably, the "police state" and, yes, I much prefer it to your vision of a primitivist anarchy.

[Potemkin]

I beg to differ.

The first state apparatus emerged in the city states of Sumeria. The Sumerians had a certain set of religious beliefs, among them the idea that the gods created humans to be their domestic servants. This was believed to be the entire meaning and purpose of human existence. The state apparatus in the Sumerian city states therefore derived its sovereignty from the gods, and was primarily a means of organising the human servants of the gods in the most efficient way possible. It therefore logically followed that the people serve the state; the state does not serve the people. The state in fact serves the gods. This remained the template for the state apparatus for thousands of years, leading directly to the idea of the 'divine right' of kings, until its intellectual and religious basis was overthrown during the Enlightenment of the 18th century. The concept of state sovereignty was then turned on its head, so that the people, who had previously existed only to serve the state, now became the putative masters of the state, which now served them rather than the gods (or God). By the standards of most human societies throughout most of human history, this is an exceedingly odd idea.

[ingliz]

The same men who establish their social relations in conformity with the material productivity, produce also principles, ideas, and categories, in conformity with their social relations.

You will doubtless argue your anarchy is not primitivist but "social relations are closely bound up with productive forces"; industry and large scale organisation would be impossible without hierarchy and authority.

[Suska]

I much prefer it to your vision of a primitivist anarchy

It wasn't my intention to propose a vision of a primitivist anarchy.

Potemkin that is a very narrow review.

Both issues seem to me beside the point. I don't have time right this minute but I do have another graphic.