Declaration of Life

Interbane · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 11:10 am Post subject: Re: Dissident Vs Dissident

DH: "I need only care for my own property, my people, my family, my nation, my religion, my race, etc....."

How did you ever come to that conclusion? This is another example of something that I never said and never implied. I have plenty of compassion and empathy. But again, that does not mean I love strangers.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 2:49 pm Post subject: Re: Dissident Vs Dissident

MA: It's all relative. There apparantly are people who are comfortable with the idea of incarceration, in large part because they feel more traumatized in the society that lies outside prison.

I don't think "it's all relative". Nor do I think that you actually believe that either. The consequences of such thinking are wretched, to say the least: I mean, perhaps some concentration camp victims were comfortable with their torture, felt at ease with their terrifying circumstances, enjoyed their brutish masters unleashing untold miseries and assaults on their bodies and minds and upon their camp-mates. Or, thanks to the wondrous power of human imagination, were able to make believe, fantasize, and imagine themselves out of terror and into comfort- came to see their torturers as assistants and friends, even fell in love with them (which has been known to happen with Prisoners of War as well as Abused Wives).

But, no matter what they were able to tell themselves, or trick their minds into believing, they were under assault, abused, tortured and humilitated...nothing 'relative' at all about this; and, humans cannot experience Justice under these circumstances. I think the same holds true for your example of the Prisoner who's trying to make the best of an impossible situation.

MA: I would contend that any form of social configuration is going to produce its own particular brand of discontents. A radical reconfiguration of society will not prevent or evict social dysfunction, but rather give rise to new forms.

That's an assertion that can only find verification upon actual experimentation, trial and error, and genuine attempts to discover what the future holds. In other words, let's seriously try to build a society based upon Love, and then see if it can't work. I propose that what we are doing now certainly isn't working either: if by "working" we mean "encouraging, empowering, nurturing, and assisting loving choices". I agree the flaws and errors in all of us will create cracks and fissures in any structure: mistakes will and must occur. But, with Love as the modus operandi, Peace as the goal, Justice as the guide, and Mercy the reminder- Forgiveness of such flaws and errors will be far better suited to heal and mend and reconcile the inevitable dysfunctions.

MA:...extending the idea of freedom in such a way as to limit the ideas of law may have the apparant effect of reducing crime. That's not actually the case, though: the real result is that fewer behaviors qualify, under such a limitation, as crime. The behaviors remain; they've changed only in name.

The Law serves to protect and ensure Justice, the goal of which is Freedom, because only when Persons are Free can there be Peace. If the Law as seen as simply a tool to enforce Punishment, as a means to increase Misery, then there will be no Justice, hence no Freedom, and an absence of Peace. Freedom is not simply wanton behavior, absent constraint or discipline, mindless of the Law. Freedom is the discipline of learning to Love; being instructed, equipped, tooled, skilled, and guided to Love. Freedom is an education in Loving. Loving is what it means to be Free.

Granting someone release from the Penitentiary is not the same thing as granting Freedom. Just as sentencing someone to Prison is not the same thing as Justice.

MA: Here you seem to equate love with compassion. Are the two synonymous, or is there more to each than a simple equation of the two?

Compassion is what fires concern, attention and care in the heart for the suffering of another. Love is what moves you to action to assist in their burden. Compassion snaps me out of my ignorance regarding the plight of those around me. Love motivates me to mobilize my resources to lend a hand. Compassion wakes me up; Love moves me forward.

MadArchitect · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:15 pm Post subject: Re: Dissident Vs Dissident

Dissident Heart: I don't think "it's all relative". Nor do I think that you actually believe that either.

Of course I do. Why would a person's experience of one place not be relative to their experience of another? I'm not saying that our hypothetical prisoner would be absolutely happy in prison, but to assume that they would necessarily be happier in society is to ignore that some segments of society are more brutal, threatening and disheartening than even prison.

That's an assertion that can only find verification upon actual experimentation, trial and error, and genuine attempts to discover what the future holds.

It would be ridiculous to put the demand of experimentation on a discussion about the reconfiguration of entire societies. Better to look at the long course of history as a sort of laboratory. Has there ever been a society that did not breed discontents?

In other words, let's seriously try to build a society based upon Love, and then see if it can't work.

How do you propose to do that? I would suggest that love is not a social virtue, but rather an inherently individual virtue.

I propose that what we are doing now certainly isn't working either: if by "working" we mean "encouraging, empowering, nurturing, and assisting loving choices".

Obviously, if that's the goal, founding a society on love is a better way to achieve said goal (though, as I stated above, that strikes me as an unrealistic end for a society). But that doesn't seem to be the intrinsic goal of society.

The Law serves to protect and ensure Justice, the goal of which is Freedom, because only when Persons are Free can there be Peace.

The law serves to protect and ensure security. justice is a secondary goal. And people are often content to surrender social freedoms in order to ensure security. In fact, it would almost seem to be an inevitable trade-off -- you cannot have security without trading off certain liberties. For an example, you might look at the social convention of monogamous marriage -- sexual liberty is traded for a measure of security. And finally, freedom is not the only component of peace, and I think that you'll find that violence breaks out just as easily when people are deprived by natural circumstance as when their deprivation arises from social injustice.

Freedom is the discipline of learning to Love; being instructed, equipped, tooled, skilled, and guided to Love. Freedom is an education in Loving. Loving is what it means to be Free.

This doesn't correspond to any definition of freedom that I'm familiar with, and in order to make any progress here, I think you're going to need to substantiate the connection a good deal more.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 1:24 pm Post subject: Re: Dissident Vs Dissident

MA: It would be ridiculous to put the demand of experimentation on a discussion about the reconfiguration of entire societies. Better to look at the long course of history as a sort of laboratory. Has there ever been a society that did not breed discontents?

I think this brings us back to an earlier post where I said talking about love is usually cheap and easy, whereas actually loving is far more important. This is the dilemma facing the theorist and the activist: one demands a blueprint; the other demands action...both require each other, and a great deal of love.

As for the "long course of history", I am not so sure of its pedagogical value. I mean, Slavery has been a fundamental part of human society for millenia; for someone to speak up and say "I propose a world where you can no longer buy or sell humans as chattel property", they would face the same "when in history have we not required slavery? Who do you think you are to dream up such utopian nonsense?"

The same can be said for any significant civil and human rights movement: history is full of examples where liberty, freedom and justice have not operated. And, I would argue, wherever they (liberty, freedom, justice) were in motion, it was the result of utopic dreamers demanding change and offering hope that a better world is possible, and acting on that hope.

If you are interested in a vision that I find particularly compelling regarding "a better world", then check out these resources at Parecon: Participatory Economics

Society can breed discontents, and it can work to develop tools of mercy and forgiveness, as well as values such as education over punishment, or participation over submission, or solidarity over competition...I think the difference is obvious, and worthy of experimentation.

MA: I would suggest that love is not a social virtue, but rather an inherently individual virtue.

I don't see it as either/or. There is no individual apart from community, or society apart from individuals: I see it as delusional to the point of psychopathic to go too far in either direction. Love, as I see it, is an individual and social matter: Love matters.

MA: But that [love] doesn't seem to be the intrinsic goal of society.

I suggest this is up to us. We can affirm the values of justice, freedom, mercy and love- and work to create a society that reflects and supports them; or we can choose something else. I understand the complexity and messiness of it all; but I don't accept some 'intrinsic' nature of Society that is not malleable in relation to the choices we make.

MA: The law serves to protect and ensure security. justice is a secondary goal.

I don't accept that definition, nor do you. If this were the case, the Gestapo officer rounding up weak and sick Jews for decimation would be ensuring security and enforcing the law; unless you are willing to adopt such irresponsible relativism, and I know you aren't, then you will confess to your desire to see the Law as enforcing Justice, which is how we protect our Freedom: not simply providing security. Security is a means to protecting Freedom and ensuring Justice.

MA: freedom is not the only component of peace, and I think that you'll find that violence breaks out just as easily when people are deprived by natural circumstance as when their deprivation arises from social injustice.

I agree. Peace also involves Joy, and Healing, and Forgiveness, and Celebration, and Creativity, and Festivity, and Rest, and of course, Love. But, without Freedom, none of this is possible. There can be short glimpses here and there, sparse, limited, fleeting...but nothing lasting unless we are Free. And I also agree that the tragedies caused by natural circumstances can lead to violence. They can also lead to extraordinary moments of human valor, courage, sacrifice and love. I am not disagreeing that the work is difficult and messy.

Interbane · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 12:18 pm Post subject: Re: Dissident Vs Dissident

Dissident, do you maintain the definition of love through all strengths of the associated emtion?

For example, would you say you love a bird the same as you love you children? Would your life be devastated if a little bird died?

Of course not, these are emotions of different strength. I do not define my feelings toward nature and objects as love. It is sympathy or compassion. Love is a word whose strength of meaning is reserved for family members and close friends.

So in most of this I would definitely agree with you that we should all be sympathetic with strangers. If we are not sympathetic, we aren't human. I've offered my definition before, yet you continue to state that everyone should be loved. By whose definition?

MadArchitect · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:40 pm Post subject: Re: Dissident Vs Dissident

Dissident Heart: I mean, Slavery has been a fundamental part of human society for millenia

Only in certain societies. It would be ridiculous to characterize slavery as fundamental to human society as a whole when there have been so many individual societies with no real form of slavery. Even most of Europe in the Middle Ages dealt more in largely voluntary feudal ties rather than slave labor.

The same can be said for any significant civil and human rights movement: history is full of examples where liberty, freedom and justice have not operated.

And equally full of instances where what we perceive of as recent humanitarian advances were actually the norm, or even their inverse. Two factors come into play: first, what societies do you intend to survey, and second, what are your working definitions for liberty, freedom and justice. The second factor is probably more significant than the first, as it precedes the other in logical priority. If you want to compass history in search for your own ideals, it's best to know what those ideals are. Simply saying "liberty, freedom, and justice" is not enough -- these things are not writ in stone; their value changes historically; and when you come right down to it, no one has presented an argument (at least in our context) for why these ideals or values should be taken as universally valid.

Society can breed discontents, and it can work to develop tools of mercy and forgiveness, as well as values such as education over punishment, or participation over submission, or solidarity over competition...I think the difference is obvious, and worthy of experimentation.

Against this, I will not argue. But there's a rather broad measure of work that lies between this sort of experimentation and "a radical reconfiguration of how we organize society," which is what you initially suggested. The latter, taken as a program of social reform tantamount to upheaval, is potentially disasterous.

Best, I think, to take the advice of the Socrates of "Republic", who, despite authorizing a vision of society that is radically different from any existing, warns that such a society exists only in the imagination and would be dangerous to try to implement.

There is no individual apart from community, or society apart from individuals

The latter makes perfect sense. The former, far less so.

but I don't accept some 'intrinsic' nature of Society that is not malleable in relation to the choices we make.

Then perhaps you're not looking closely enough at society. Society serves essentially two purposes: 1) security, and 2) the organization of labor. It will reflect and support the ideals you name so long as they either coincide with those two purpose or, at the least, offer no terminal conflict.

I don't accept that definition, nor do you.

Don't presume to tell me what I will and will not accept, particularly when the opinions are my own. You're treading awfully close to the point of being totally dismissed. If you value dialogue and hope to actually bring anyone around to your own view, you'd do best to tread more carefully.

If this were the case, the Gestapo officer rounding up weak and sick Jews for decimation would be ensuring security and enforcing the law;

In the particular instance of Nazi Germany, it was. And particularly in Nazi Germany, where the notion of law had been very closely conflated with the "will of the Fuhrer." As regards your specific example, I'd suggest you look as some of the later chapters of Hannah Arrendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem". Were such actions just? No. But this line of argument does nothing to undermine my assertion that law and justice are not directly related.

unless you are willing to adopt such irresponsible relativism, and I know you aren't, then you will confess to your desire to see the Law as enforcing Justice, which is how we protect our Freedom: not simply providing security. Security is a means to protecting Freedom and ensuring Justice.

You've got me pegged wrong, brother. I don't count it as irresponsible to note that law is relative to whatever society you choose to examine. Nor would I characterize law as right. Law has no moral value save the negative moral value of defining the contingencies of citizenship -- pass this line, and you no longer have the rights conferred on citizens. Nor would I characterize security as a principle working in support of freedom or justice -- security is a desire arising out of the needs of self-preservation and the desires of ownership.

The desire for security is also a liability, and the emphasis a person places on security will, more often than not, encourage that person to surrender some portion of their freedom and/or act against the interests of justice. We certainly live in a society that daily trades its freedom in for security, and we've done that long before the World Trade Center attacks, though the post-9/11/2001 debate over civil rights v. security makes for a particularly compelling argument for my case. And the security that we demand over ownership may be traced back through the course of history as one of the root causes for the tight-fisted conservative tendencies which give rise to serious social inequalities.

Returning to justice and law, suffice it to say that I believe that law may sometimes lapse into the domain of justice, but not as a matter of course or policy. Justice is something that happens largely outside the confines of a legal system, which is really only the machinery that maintain the balance of a given society.

Peace also involves Joy, and Healing, and Forgiveness, and Celebration, and Creativity, and Festivity, and Rest, and of course, Love.

These are, for the most part, not notions that I would characterize as necessary to peace.

Interbane: Love is a word whose strength of meaning is reserved for family members and close friends.

This is an argument Freud makes in "Civilization and its Discontents" in critique of the Christian ideal of unconditional love. To love unconditionally, he says, is to slight the love that we have for those closest to us. What does it say to a friend, lover, family member and so on to say that we love them the same as we love a villain or a toad? That, at least, is Freud's argument.


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