Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

http://mises.org/daily/2993/Why-Be-Libertarian

Despite the potentially negative aspect of polemicism, ROthbard's prose is excellent. I learned a lot from it, to an award winning degree even.

 

[Einherjar86]

Edit: I want to be clear that I think Nietzsche, for all his good points, would have seen Nazi Germany as an excellent development, despite "relatively small flaws".

I think Hitler would agree.

It's important that we not let Cristi's argument assume the identity that is Nietzsche. Cristi's article might be about Nietzsche's work, but the content is Cristi's; and the argument is not presenting what Nietzsche is, but what Cristi's theories are via Nietzsche.

If Nietzsche is consistent in one thing, it's in being contradictory. He's a poet first and a philosopher second (he occasionally admitted his disgust of philosophy). It is literally impossible to reduce Nietzsche, the historical man, from the texts of Nietzsche, the author.

 

[Dak]

He's a poet first and a philosopher second (he occasionally admitted his disgust of philosophy).

Not philosophy, but the state of philosophy; an important distinction.

It is literally impossible to reduce Nietzsche, the historical man, from the texts of Nietzsche, the author.

Well we might say that about any author and corresponding critique. I don't think that's a valuable critique of critiques. People do change throughout their life. My writings from ten years ago would be somewhat opposed to much of what I would write now. This doesn't invalidate earlier writings as being un-indicative of my beliefs at a given time. People change. People not only change, but have ideals as well as practical beliefs held in unison.

 

[Einherjar86]

Fair enough on the second point, but Nietzsche actually did abhor philosophy occasionally. I can't recall which text, but he was very wary of abstract thought in general. Again, contradictions.

 

[Dak]

Fair enough on the second point, but Nietzsche actually did abhor philosophy occasionally. I can't recall which text, but he was very wary of abstract thought in general. Again, contradictions.

Well, abstract when not his own. Like I said:

Edit #2: Nietzsche's most glaring flaw was his inability to see where he denied his own eclosion to others, even as he inspired it.

Or, to put it in other terms: he did not respect a lack of self-nonage that was not his own. There are psychological critiques that take hold here: His supreme respect for physical and charismatical power as the antithesis of all that he lacked.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Fair enough on the second point, but Nietzsche actually did abhor philosophy occasionally. I can't recall which text, but he was very wary of abstract thought in general. Again, contradictions.

I believe you're referring to the first section or so of Beyond Good and Evil. I've only browsed it, so I'm in no position to comment extensively. I do know that he questioned free will and opposed the notion that all reality is merely a figment on the imagination.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well, abstract when not his own.

On the contrary, he was entirely aware of his own self-contradiction and was torn by it.

 

[Einherjar86]

Chomsky on the NSA surveillance:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...ock:Network front - main trailblock:Position2

As much of a cop-out as it may be, I don't look at this as bad or good one way or another; it simply is. I don't think there's a preventative measure to be taken against legal (i.e. sanctioned by Law, not right or just) surveillance. My question to Chomsky would be: how does a government's population become its primary enemy? This is axiomatic for him, but I'm more interested in how that achieves the level of an axiom.

 

[Dak]

Maybe you should read more anarchist literature

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard62.html

What the State Fears

What the State fears above all, of course, is any fundamental threat to its own power and its own existence. The death of a State can come about in two major ways: (a) through conquest by another State, or (b) through revolutionary overthrow by its own subjects – in short, by war or revolution. War and revolution, as the two basic threats, invariably arouse in the State rulers their maximum efforts and maximum propaganda among the people. As stated above, any way must always be used to mobilize the people to come to the State's defense in the belief that they are defending themselves. The fallacy of the idea becomes evident when conscription is wielded against those who refuse to "defend" themselves and are, therefore, forced into joining the State's military band: needless to add, no "defense" is permitted them against this act of "their own" State.

In war, State power is pushed to its ultimate, and, under the slogans of "defense" and "emergency," it can impose a tyranny upon the public such as might be openly resisted in time of peace. War thus provides many benefits to a State, and indeed every modern war has brought to the warring peoples a permanent legacy of increased State burdens upon society. War, moreover, provides to a State tempting opportunities for conquest of land areas over which it may exercise its monopoly of force. Randolph Bourne was certainly correct when he wrote that "war is the health of the State," but to any particular State a war may spell either health or grave injury.[35]

We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely – those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State's lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State's openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d'être.[36]

 

[Einherjar86]

"What the State fears above all" can also be applied to the individual; that is, the individual also fears any fundamental threat to its own power and existence.

Rothbard makes the assumption that an individual possesses rights to these things, but that the State does not. However, the individual is inherently divided when it comes to its own power and existence. The State manifests as a portion of this division. Whether it operates unethically or reprehensibly isn't really the point. All that matters is that the State appears as the very tendency of individuals to fear the loss of their own power and existence.

 

[Dak]

I'm not going to disagree that the state merely acts as a vehicle for human actions. That's beside the point. The state is dependent on the individual, as in, the state cannot exist without one or more people. People can exist without the state. This places them in a superior position of consideration a priori.

 

[Einherjar86]

Why?

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Or, what about a magnet?

 

[Dak]

Why?

Because the individual is a priori as a matter of fact. Were we to erase all individuals, there is no state. However, if we erase the state, we still have all the individuals.

 

[Dak]

On a slightly different note:

Now that our first test scores are in for my DevPsych class, and I outscored the rest of the class, to include being one of only 3 people to get the bonus question right, suddenly the teacher is a lot more open to going back and forth with me.

One of the questions on the test that I guess some amount of people missed was having to label a hypothetical situation behavior as either/and prosocial behavior/altruistic behavior. The correct answer was prosocial only. According to this textbook, altruistic behavior exists. I mentioned that there's an argument that there is no such thing. Apparently Freud said as much, and the teacher mentioned that. I never got around to tying that in to anything relating to economic thought. (He also heavily pushes the subjectivity of perspective, which also is of economic concern. Both the lack of altruism and subjective valuation conflict with his socialistic economic beliefs, but I digress).

So tonight I'm checking my blog feeds and:

Circle Bastiat: Oakley on Pathological Altruism

People often act out of a desire to help others, but this by no means ensures that what they do will have good consequences, whether for the intended beneficiaries or for others. Sometimes these bad consequences cannot reasonably be foreseen; but all too often action proceeds in blithe disregard of them. It is this sort of misguided action that Oakley characterizes as pathological.

 

[Einherjar86]

Because the individual is a priori as a matter of fact. Were we to erase all individuals, there is no state. However, if we erase the state, we still have all the individuals.

Why does something coming first, or being prior, make it de facto more important?

 

[Dak]

It's not that individuals are here "first". It's that the state is conditional, contingent. It is created(even if "emergent"). The state is a weapon shaped tool.

 

[Einherjar86]

The state is conditional and contingent, but I don't understand why this makes it less important than individual humans, or why humans are in a "superior position of consideration a priori." Consciousness is entirely contingent and conditional on human organisms forming the capacity for abstract thought, but this doesn't mean consciousness is less valuable somehow.

I realize my posts have been sparse, but I'm really trying to keep this as simple as possible. I want to know how the population becomes the primary enemy of a state. The state is contingent upon human actors, meaning that it emerges because of interacting humans. At some point, however, it appears as though the state diverges, or turns against these actors; or is it the case that the state is always opposed to human individuals? But how can the latter be, if it emerges because of human actors?

I think my last question can be easily countered: "Just because something emerges because of something else doesn't mean it must be in support of that which came prior to it." I'll concede this point; but we need to perform a kind of genealogy of the state. Its emergence is the result of a very strong tendency in human agents to protect themselves and their rights to property and existence; in short, it emerges due to what a collective of individuals deems to be a law. The reasons for the creation of this law are beside the point, but it almost certainly manifests unintentionally as a result of power dynamics and struggles within tribes/cultures, and in all likelihood also coincides with the human capacity for abstract thought.

The institution of the law, prior to any form of state apparatus, thus appears as something universal and eternal because it looks as though it's somehow built into the structures of society and human interaction itself: the protection of families/clans, the gradual institution of private property, the ability of humans to consider the cosmos and its destructive and regenerative capacities (resulting in mythical belief systems). The law, therefore, takes root deep in the psyche of early humanity. In fact, I would argue that it's bound up with our ability for abstract/linguistic thought. It did not need to be; but somehow it is.

The law, even prior to state apparatuses, is a divisive and self-debilitating institution. It resists instinctual urges and drives. At this very primordial level, human individuals are already conflicted in and of themselves (again putting pressure on the whole notion of the individual). The point of all this is to suggest that humans are already, in fact, turned against themselves. The state is not the enemy of humanity, but merely the social manifestation of its inherent ambivalence.

This isn't an argument that everything the state does is therefore just and acceptable, since that certainly isn't the case. It is an argument that the state - in its broadest definition - is not something that should be or can be done away with. If it is the enemy of the population, that is only because human individuals are, so to speak, their own worst enemies. There's nothing to be overcome by the removal of the state, and this desire appears (to me) as little more than a barely concealed desire for some kind of New Age cognitive revolution.

 

[Dak]

Consciousness is entirely contingent and conditional on human organisms forming the capacity for abstract thought, but this doesn't mean consciousness is less valuable somehow.

Abstract thought or thought in general? There is a difference between concrete and abstract thinking, and consciousness is present in both. Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development go over this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development

I realize my posts have been sparse, but I'm really trying to keep this as simple as possible. I want to know how the population becomes the primary enemy of a state. The state is contingent upon human actors, meaning that it emerges because of interacting humans. At some point, however, it appears as though the state diverges, or turns against these actors; or is it the case that the state is always opposed to human individuals? But how can the latter be, if it emerges because of human actors?

Because the state is never the total population. It is those on the payroll generally, and those with authority most specifically. The state does not earn it's income, it takes it. Since it already takes it's income, the scheme allowing it to do so is rapidly, increasingly "abused" (more so than the initial creation). There is no check on the monopoly - except rejection by host or outside threat. Yet outside threats are counterintuitively beneficial to any state, except in the case of a loss in total war. Beneficial to the state apparatus, not the general population. Hence regular beating of the war drums by various countries even without a legitimate reason (which is most of the time).

I think my last question can be easily countered: "Just because something emerges because of something else doesn't mean it must be in support of that which came prior to it." I'll concede this point; but we need to perform a kind of genealogy of the state. Its emergence is the result of a very strong tendency in human agents to protect themselves and their rights to property and existence; in short, it emerges due to what a collective of individuals deems to be a law. The reasons for the creation of this law are beside the point, but it almost certainly manifests unintentionally as a result of power dynamics and struggles within tribes/cultures, and in all likelihood also coincides with the human capacity for abstract thought.

The institution of the law, prior to any form of state apparatus, thus appears as something universal and eternal because it looks as though it's somehow built into the structures of society and human interaction itself: the protection of families/clans, the gradual institution of private property, the ability of humans to consider the cosmos and its destructive and regenerative capacities (resulting in mythical belief systems). The law, therefore, takes root deep in the psyche of early humanity. In fact, I would argue that it's bound up with our ability for abstract/linguistic thought. It did not need to be; but somehow it is.

I argue that Law does need to be (Law, not law). The state does not. It's a fundamental difference in approach to an inescapable problem: antisocial behavior (I realize that is quite vague but I'm not sure how to get much more specific than that and retain a context of universality).

What law does not have to be is a sprawl of legal code filling entire libraries.

The law, even prior to state apparatuses, is a divisive and self-debilitating institution. It resists instinctual urges and drives. At this very primordial level, human individuals are already conflicted in and of themselves (again putting pressure on the whole notion of the individual). The point of all this is to suggest that humans are already, in fact, turned against themselves. The state is not the enemy of humanity, but merely the social manifestation of its inherent ambivalence.
[/quite]

The divisiveness depends on the content of both the law and the nature of the people. I like to start with "Thou shalt not kill" as probably the most universal Law. Of course there's all sorts of contingencies people want to put on this: Thou shalt not kill those in this tribe/country/family/state/race/etc.

I agree that humans are "turned against themselves" in many ways, and a subconscious and conscious understanding of this created Law. Turning to the state as a tool for application of the law is caused by misunderstanding the nature of the tool. Might fall under something like pathological altruism.

This isn't an argument that everything the state does is therefore just and acceptable, since that certainly isn't the case. It is an argument that the state - in its broadest definition - is not something that should be or can be done away with. If it is the enemy of the population, that is only because human individuals are, so to speak, their own worst enemies. There's nothing to be overcome by the removal of the state, and this desire appears (to me) as little more than a barely concealed desire for some kind of New Age cognitive revolution.

As long as people falsely believe the state is the best "tool for the job", then I agree that doing away with it is pointless. That's not a desire for a "New Age" cognitive revolution, where everyone suddenly (magically) gets along, thus making the state unnecessary as it's purpose is fulfilled. That argument assumes the function of the state is to benevolently guide human behavior to a higher mode of being, which it is not. It is merely the wishful thinking of some: that it's desired purpose and actual function are the same.

It's not going to be some sort of ideal happy world without the state, even in some future where the overwhelming majority of people do not hold conflicting ideas of morality for "us" vs "them". There will always be a segment of the population that simply will not care. That segment cannot be seen as an excuse for a state, as the state is the tool of that segment.

 

[Einherjar86]

I meant thinking in general; thought is abstract.

The state is the entire population if it's merely the manifestation of Law in people's psyches. Not some specific law such as "thou shalt not kill." I mean Law in general, its very form (its content does not matter at all). It has nothing to do with payroll or employment; this is all far more developed than what I'm talking about. I don't agree with your dissociation of Law and State. They're inseparable, in my opinion. You can't have the Law and not have the State. In fact, I would claim that Law is itself the State; the form of the State prior to its later manifestations. It's an institution, even if it doesn't possess employees.

The divisiveness doesn't depend on any of the Law's content. Any notion of Law, by its very institution, will be divisive. Also, the "nature of the people" might play some role; but this sounds like there must be natures that are superior to others.

Without the state, there is no application of Law. This is why I don't buy your separation. Without some form of the State, the Law depends on individual humans to act accordingly; again, this suggests a cognitive revolution that would, in fact, make Law obsolete. The State is not a mistake or a flawed application of any tool; it's inherently connected to the process of human cognition and capacity to conceive of Law.