People (individuals) who rely on institutions; religious, educational, political or some other external (collective) device; because they themselves are not fit to make crucial choices, should refer to such entitities on the making of rules and regulations and attempt to follow these maxims themselves. To force any of these, personal, views on the rest of the population -one way or the other- is an infringement of their freedom (which includes your freedom to chose your own institution which you associate yourself with). Preferably you attempt to change the entity (if you’re a reformist); if you have absolutely no idea how to improve things, you’ll just want status-quo and that’ll do.
However, if your goal is freedom, do not settle for less. The end do not justify the means. Even though it may seem so in a performance based economy. The means must justify the end.
Morality itself may not even be a basis. If good things only happen to good people and vice versa, humanity shall receive what it deserves.
But perhaps this is not the case. Perhaps there is not enough time for paradise; A-bombs may destroy the world first, Biological catastrophes could wipe us out, Chemical warfare may make human life unattainable within the following eons.
Even though the majority of the population (that counts and makes the real decisions) says: “wir haben das nicht gewust”.
Or we may all unite against global warming and deal with it properly, but then get hit by an astroid. But in that case at least we tried.
We may not want to unite, it may prove to be too complex for humans to figure out how not to harm their habitat.
In that case, we should let individuals (not immortal, global companies) do whatever it is they want to do. Burn plastics in their backyard, shoot random people, whatever they say fit. If people start lynching or talking to each other, they should be free to do so aswell. Common sense might prevail, and at least the largess of damages will be substantially reduced.
Your opinions, should not be made into law, nor should anyone elses. Because you can try and follow your own maxims, maybe you’ll even succeed. But it’s foolhardy to expect the same of others. Or to punish them when they don’t. Rewarding the obvious and innate good also seems superflous to me.
Most ‘injustice’ occurs between people with intense contact in the natural world. In the artificial world, states, industries and virtual groups can wreak havoc on peoples (individuals and peoples as some sort of a collective) but these are temporary phenomena and I need not concern myself with them in great detail in this piece of writing. Murder for example, occurs mostly between partners rather than strangers. Being killed by a stranger is only plausible with the use of an automobile which is like a giant bullet (if you want to use the gun control analogy). It’s the intense love that turn into hate, legislating this has not helped. Neither has scaring people away from drugs and locking them up if they fail to serve societies goals.
If you’re an employer, you want to employ everyone you can. You don’t want to pay too much for them, directly or indirectly. But you want hard, exhausting, qualitative and lots of work to be done (if this can be done with fewer people and thus fewer costs, so be it). In japan you have 3x times lower unemployment than say belgium, this translates into high suicide rates and 14hour work days and no more than 3 days off a year. I’m pulling numbers out of my arse now, but that’s what it was like 20 years ago (John Pilger, I’m paraphrasing the rough picture of what he documented behind the mask) and I see no reason why this would have changed.
Maybe we’re meant to sit around, typing away on our computers all day. Maybe we’re meant to be paid for it. Maybe we’re meant for greater things. Maybe we’re not meant for anything, and it’s all a choice. Maybe, it’s all up to us.
Simply conceptualising different modes of living, of existing, of working, of playing, of being.
Not bound to renting or in archaic days selling yourself. Or being born into a system of slavery from which there simply was no escape (as still happens in say Brazil, I refer to the push for Biofuels and the fact that is is offially no longer an issue since 1888). Perhaps those who live of intrests, who are technically unemployed have found better ways of roaming this earth than improving their own competiveness and being more flexible for the entities that they wish to subjugate themselves to.
But regardless of the way De Toqueville framed it, Saying democracy was the best way to ensure the people get what(ever) they deserve, it’s worth noting that you as an individual cannot be expected to pay the price of collective stupidity. The lack of power we have as a majority cannot be forgotten. We will be herded together like sheep, collectivist rethorics to unite one group and divide humanity in other groups. Freedom is responsibility. And we can have that as a person, but we cannot as a state, nation, empire, village or school be free. We cannot limit our thoughts, our ideas to certain people, to a set territory, to some chosen ones. Progress should be made for all. Evolution influences all life. Not just human, but we can evolve en revolve within generations by the ability to think. Consciousness allows us so unleash so much potential.
But governments should not restrict our ideas, our actions, our common sense. To let the business elites run the economy, rubber stamp the political framework around this by having ritualistic elections and deem the rest was “just meant to be” is not naive, it’s cynical. We shouldn’t have a left, right or centrist government. You shouldn’t stick to one ideology, one dogma or thought for you entire life either. Humanity may collectivly pick one of these and stick with it for generations. But the evolution will go a lot faster if there’s free mutation of the memes amongst humans themselves. There should be chaos, there ought not be any government. People should be running away from the imploding systems of dominion. To the right, to the left, to the center to corners not conceived of before. Attempting to convert their collegues, neighbours, family and friends to their political thought and exercise these systems of order themselves. Where they can remain under control of them, and be hold accountable when they have nefarious effects. This way they can correct the mistakes themselves.
To assume that the past systems of control and hierarchy are evolutions way of telling us what perfection is and that all other possible attempts are utopic and doomed to fail is to regard the concept of “historically grown” with “organic units”. The first implies some sort of arbitrary powergrab which by compromise and mere luck has formed odd borders across the world map and ideologically contradictory systems coexisting in a paradoxic flux (which should not be confused with a status-quo and end of time view either). The latter is what happens naturally when you put a man near his job, a women near her family, vice versa, a child play freely, an artist create etc.
The view is often expressed (by Noam Chomsky, Anton Pannekoek and alike) that anarchisme an orderly political philosophy. This seems odd to many, and indeed it should. Fearfull of the lack of security and certainty people would panic and scatter; and in a hobbesian way, they are right to do so. But what follows is not a social contract as so often described by democratic philosophers. It is a multitude of contracts, and no greater power shall hold us to it. Only one thing can be declared sacred; ’tis the individual. He or she will decide for him or herself what and who to associate themselves with.
Nobody breaks the rules because they are unjust. They break them because they cannot help themselves. Rules will not change that. If the rules are unjust, it takes mass movement and a leader that usually ends up preaching non-violence and getting shot to change them. But we can’t rely on that to happen in a better world. A better world would imply no rules; not from gods, countries, companies or any of that. You can have maxims, rules to your self, hope that all will follow your example. But you cannot expect people not to murder because it says so somewhere in a holy book or legal documentation. You cannot expect people not to use drugs because they are forced into the underground to get them. That is to say, you can expect all these things. But you will be disappointed if you search truth and reason after expecting such a thing.
We must appeal to ethics, sense of responsibility and respect of each others freedom. We cannot enforce or legislate such things. If people of destructive, to their surrounds and (by consequence) to themselves(it also works the other way around), it is their choice and must be made clear to them. Alternatives can be provided if deemed fit, but when we try to ensure it for everybody some people complain that for example their tax money is being wasted on people who do not wish to reach the same goals they have set out for themselves. If you feel you don’t need to government to explain to you why you shouldn’t speed on the road or companies to explain why downloading is stealing than don’t expect them to run the world properly (explain to other, equal human beings what’s right and what’s wrong).
This isn’t basic Joker-Psychology. I don’t “just want to see the world burn”. In fact, most pyromaniacs are hiding in firefighters clothes. The power hungry become politicians and those least fit to protect us from mass murderers become soldiers. And those two are the openly preferred options. Though, not the just ones. Not viable, long-term solutions to real problems.
Whenever a financial (and thus, swiftly an economic) crisis erupts, top private bankers are asked for advice. Those that haven’t fled the country or left the scene with pockets filled are begged to answer to questions nobody on the outside (of wall street and the stock exchange that is) knew even were valid. This is merely used as a tool to promote an older agenda, that doesn’t really go to the heart of the matter, but can postpone the debate by stabilising short and medium term imbalances. Since so much of “the economy” relies on the perception of those with power and money (not very often does this denote the majority of the population of any given collective entity) that everything is “going well” (for the privileges of those very few to be secured and expanded). This requires, not a workplace where a person may which to work, but a labor market which is flexible. For your labor to be sold and bought like a commodity and for individuals to be rented out and discarded when they serve no more use (unlike actuall slaves, which had to be taken care of and required some sort of human interaction). This way, capital finds its way into markets which will do anything for profit-seeking entities to make short-term gain for the sake of profit itself (as defined in law, otherwise it would be a non-profit organisation, which only makes profit to ensure the survival of the entity and build up reserves, liquidity and such), rather than having to deal with actual human emotions and sense of decency.
I plead for individualism not because I fail to hope for humankind as a species. But because collectivism has translated into state-subsidized corporatism in one form or the other. And murders become mass murder, littering the planet becomes destroying it and rape becomes a weapon of psychological warfare because human rights come second to pipelines and mines. Southern countires have people living in them too, but because of strategic, geopolitical and economic interests (which is code for: oil, gold, water, ore, pipelines, canals), they are subjugated. Something a person would not allow another person to be, if he or she saw themselves in them (skin pigmentation has made this hard for some people in the past, but I think a basic understanding of the human genome and enlightened philosphy easily rectifies this situation).
Now, to give primates’ other descendants such as chimps and bono bono’s or even gorilla’s and orang-utangs the same humanoid rights is going a step too far. Spain has done this. But to see the humanity of these great apes, is to recognise all life is connected. It’s basic darwinianism and undermines the humanist view. We would have to care for all mammals, because they breast feed their young, which is such a humane trait. They keep taking care of them, for such a long time. Which is something we tend to do. Whales, dolphins and elephants are smart creatures. Ignorant people are often told they’re better off dead by the elites. Why not stick up for these mammals? And sharks, they haven’t evolved for 200 million years and are fish. They have about the same brain as those mammalian critters. Don’t they get a trophy? Or don’t we appreciate predators? A crocodile can survive a month on a chicken, what does that make a human? Warm blooded animals are wargs when placed in perspective. Should we respect frogs, insects and bacteria?
Or virusses for being immortal, should we revere them for it?
You could say life is too short to worry about philosophical, abstrat matters. But I say it is too short to take things for granted, to dream and believe it to be truth. To accept that which ought to be and can be changed; to listen to laws written in times when so little was known what freedoms we could achieve.
I suppose the core of the matter can be summed up thus: There ought not be a unified political will which determines the public moral compass. Any social convention on what reality is or what it ought to be is agreeable, but not desirable. To send dissidents into the goelag or other camps because they agree which such an absolute application of a theory is nefarious to the expanding of all forms of consciousness (by destroying its individual agents). Private morality, viewpoint on just laws and rightfull extensions of power are the only way we can be free. Free of each other, free of a dominant force which places itself above all. We cannot, should not, be free of ourselves. We are doomed to listen to ourselves, to our hearts and minds. And not say: The system required me to behave as something I am not. This path cannot lead to transcendance of any kind. Not personal, not global as a species. We ought to govern ourselves. To use repression to govern others and be governed is to stray for truth, ourselves and reason.
This above all:
To thine own self be true,
for it must follow as dost the night the day,
that canst not then be false to any man.
– Shakespeare (Hamlet) inspired by Socrates (Know thyself).
If you do not fall within the social norms, we have much to learn from you. Even if it’s just what NOT to do ourselves.
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