Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing. - T. H. Huxley
OBJECTIVES:
(A) To define volition and to describe some aspects of volition.
(B) To identify four basic elements of volition: Perception, discrimination, conception, and decision.
(C) To define decision.
(D) To indicate the double-edged nature of decision.
(E) To explore how decision might be related to some other notions of meta-information.
(F) To indicate the importance of counter-decision.
(G) To describe the quality dimension in terms of : Perception, discrimination, conception, and decision; and their opposites: deception, identification, inversion, and protest.
(H) To define coercion.
(I) To define relinquish.
(J) To describe philosophical anarchism in some detail.
(K) To indicate the major source of violence.
(L) To suggest that voting and paying taxes may result in certain problems, including violence.
(M) To indicate that the philosophical anarchism I'm propounding does not come out of protest, and rejects violence (except as a last resort in self-defense and except between consenting parties, such as boxers).
(N) To relate philosophical anarchism to quality.
(O) To define chaos and order.
(P) To suggest some lines of research before rejecting philosophical anarchism out of hand.
(Q) To introduce epistemological anarchism.
(R) To pre-empt some popular objections to philosophical anarchism.
(S) To depict the belief in the existence of supposed "states" as idolatry.
(T) To suggest that it might be a superstition to believe that there can be, or have ever been, so-called "states" or "governments."
(U) To provide quotations that support the above suggestion.
(V) To argue that, in any case, we live in an essentially anarchistic world in which people really do what they want.
(W) To formulate certain basic principles to serve as a criterion for human behavior:
VOLITION:
The power of willing; exercise of the will; the power to determine one's choice of action independently of causation; freedom to act according to one's decisions; the ability to conceive or imagine what does not yet exist, and to bring it into existence; the faculty of choice; the power of discrimination; the ability to perceive.
There are four basic elements of volition: Discrimination, perception, conception, and decision. These are also the elements of will-to-power. Our ability to act is a function of: (a) Our acuteness of discrimination; (b) Our flexible focus and perspective of perception; (c) Our freedom to conceive or imagine; and (d) the strength and realism of our decisions. (Under conception, I include prediction or probability estimation.)
Conception has to do with the creation of meaning; decision has to do with discriminating and choosing; perception has to do with sense impressions (there are many subtle senses in addition to crude seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling). Conception is also related to definition, imagination, and vision. (It seems to me that the attempted descriptions of these "phenomena" are limiting, and that we should conceive them as wider, greater, and beyond our conceptions.)
Discrimination, perception, conception, and decision are made possible by energy differentials in the universe, coupled with a degree of randomness or unpredictability inherent in the universe.
Life is possible because of energy differentials and a degree of randomness in the universe. (This is the domain of the "fifth dimension.") The most basic faculties of life are discrimination, perception, decision, and conception. From these fundamental faculties stem further abilities: Emotion, communication, action, mobility.
What is conception? Please review the definition of "concept" in Section 2.
Context can be described as the field of possibilities or the perspective from which, or out of which, one conceives or imagines. Context is meta-conception: What lies behind or beyond conception (See section 3).
What is perception? Who really knows?
DECISION:
(From "decidere" (Latin), "to cut off"); to arrive at an answer, conclusion, determination, or solution that ends uncertainty or dispute; to bring to a definite end; a choice or a judgment; an intention to do something; making up your mind about something.
Every concept is, basically, a decision about the universe or some part of it. Every decision is, to some extent, a concept about the universe or some part of it. Every decision tends to cut you off from the universe or some part of it.
The ability to unmake decisions is as vital as the ability to make decisions: Hence, the virtue of nihilism. Maybe every decision you have ever made needs to be unmade, then remade consciously, if appropriate...
Unconsciousness has to do with forgotten decisions, protesting the decisions of others, failure to assume responsibility for one's own decisions, refusal to perceive one's own perception, inability to conceive one's own perspective of conception, identifying (regarding as identical) what is crucially different.
Consciousness has to do with perception (and perception of perception), making decisions, acting according to these decisions, observing consequences (receiving feedback), generating new information or modifying present information -and fine discrimination.
The great decision killer is the counter-decision: "You can't do that!" "It's against the law!" "I will do that tomorrow!" "I am not powerful enough!" "It's too dangerous!" "I fear failure!" "I will burn my fingers!" Most of us habitually counter most of our decisions; most of our "friends" will attempt to counter our decisions as soon as we voice them. (There is a fine distinction between careful evaluation of risk on the one hand versus potential benefit on the other hand.)
Emotion is the physiological concomitant of discrimination, perception, conception, and decision. Emotion is a physiological preparation for communication or action (emotion is "e-motion"). Emotion is a consequence of discrimination, identification, perception, deception, conception, inversion, decision, communication, action - or a consequence of the failure of any of these.
And protest?
Fear is a reluctance to receive feedback, to accept responsibility for consequences; anger is a stronger rejection of feedback, coupled with a threat to destroy. Protest is a decision inversion.
| V | Will-to-power | Will-to-power Inversion | C |
| o | Conception | Inversion | o |
| l | Perception | Deception | e |
| i | Discrimination | Identification | r |
| t | Decision | Protest | c |
| i | i | ||
| o | o | ||
| n | n |
This is another view of the "quality dimension," extremities of. We can communicate from, act out of, a context of quality conception, discrimination, perception, and decision; or, we can communicate from, or act out of, a perspective of inversion, identification, deception, and protest - or from anywhere in between - creation or destruction. Note that a great deal of religion, politics, and economics are based on inversion, identification, deception, and protest.
Remember the fourth notion of group theory form Section 5: "Every member of a group has its opposite, reciprocal, inversion, or antipode, such that the combination of a member with its opposite results in the identity member (5 plus -5 = zero). Maybe "the human situation" can be stated: For every conception, there is an equal and opposite inversion; for every perception , that is an equal and opposite deception; for every discrimination, there is an equal and opposite identification; for every decision, there is an equal and opposite counter-decision or protest. Maybe this is part of the problem!
A decree of the general assembly in this country is expressed by the word "hnhloayn," which signifies "exhortation," as near as I can render it; for they have no conception of how a rational creature can be "compelled," but only advised, or "exhorted," because no person can disobey reason without giving up his claim to be a rational creature. - Jonathan Swift ("A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms")
COERCION:
Domination or restraint by overwhelming or nullifying individual will; the violent imposition (by force, threat of force, or fraud) of the will of an individual or group, upon another or others (without the consent of the latter); (coercion is the inversion of volition); the means used for imposing prescriptive and proscriptive principles.
All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. - Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776
RELINQUISH:
To leave behind; to withdraw or retreat from; to desist from; to give up; to abolish; to renounce; to give up possession of or control over.
All questions of politics, the ordering of society, education have been falsified down to their foundations because the most injurious men have been taken for great men - because contempt has been taught for the "little" things, which is to say for the fundamental affairs of life...now, when I compare myself with the men who have hitherto been honored as pre-eminent men, the distinction is palpable. I do not count these "pre-eminent men" as belonging to mankind at all - to me, they are the refuse of mankind, abortive offspring of sickness and revengeful instincts: They are nothing but pernicious, fundamentally incurable monster who take revenge on life... - Friedrich Nietzsche ("Ecce Homo")
Note the protest above. Towards the end of his productive life, Nietzsche's writings came more and more out of a context of protest. Here, we have possibly the world's greatest philosopher and psychologist of his time, almost completely ignored, having to pay personally for the publication of his books...)
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas. - Jonathan Swift ("Thoughts on Various Subjects")
Remember the "discount transaction" from Section 6? That drives people crazy! Both Swift and Nietzsche suffered this fate. Meta-information is dangerous stuff!
Imagine that human beings were, at birth, fitted with a mask which controlled the amount of air that was available to them. This mask would, at first, be left wide open; the child could breathe freely; but at the point at which the child was able to perform certain desired acts, the mask would be gradually closed down, and only opened for periods of time during which the child did whatever the grow-ups around it wanted it to do. Imagine, for instance, that a child was prohibited from manipulating his own air valve and that only other people would have control over it, and that the people allowed to control it would be rigorously specified. A situation of this sort could cause people to be quite responsive to the wishes of those who had control over their air supply; if punishment were severe enough, people would not remove their masks even though the mask might be easily removable.
Occasionally, some people would grow tired of their masks and take them off; but these people would be considered character disorders, criminals, foolish, or reckless. People would be quite willing to do considerable work and expend much effort to guarantee a continuous supply of air. Those who did not work and expend such effort would be cut off, would not be permitted to breathe freely, and would not be given enough air to live in an adequate way.
People who openly advocated taking off the masks would justifiably be accused of undermining the very fiber of the society which constructed these masks, for as people removed them, they would no longer be responsive to the many expectations and demands on them. Instead, these people would seek selfish, self-satisfying modes of life and relationships which could easily exclude a great deal of activity valued and even needed by a society based on the wearing of such masks. "Mask removers" would be seen as a threat to the society, and would probably be viciously dealt with. In an air-hungry but otherwise "free-wheeling" society, air substitutes could be sold at high prices, and individuals could, for a fee, sell clever circumventions of the anti-breathing rules. - Claude Steiner ("Scripts People Live")
And who are (or have been) the other great "mask removers"? G. I. Gudjieff? Aleister Crowley? Timothy Leary?
All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and strictly directed towards the solution of the following three cardinal problems:
First Series: To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him about everything existing in the world.
Second Series: To acquaint the reader with the material required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and the quality of it.
Third Series: To assist the arising, in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, non-fantastic representation not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but of the world existing in reality. - G. I. Gurdjieff ("Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson")
("Beelzebub's Tales" is the first series - and a masterpiece, in my opinion.)
Crowley was a more extreme and more insistent "mask remover" than Gurdjieff.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law...
I dedicate myself wholly to the "great work."
I will work the work of wickedness.
I will be loud and adulterous.
I will freely prostitute my body to the lusts of each and every living creature that shall desire it.
Etc. - Aleister Crowley
Of course, whether we should go to such extremes in order to remove our masks - relinquish the belief systems and the conventions that limit us - is, needless to say, doubtful!
The first step in our criticism of customary concepts and customary reactions is to step outside the circle and either to invent a new conceptual system - for example, a new theory that clashes with the most carefully established observational results and confounds the most plausible theoretical principles - or to import such a system from outside science, from religion, from mythology, from the ideas of incompetents, or the ramblings of madmen...
There is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge. - Paul Feyerabend ("Against Method")
Like the ideas of Jonathan Swift?
My reconcilement to the Yahoo-kind, in general, might not be so difficult if they would be content with those vices and follies only, which nature hath entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a gamester, a politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an evidence, a suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like: This is all according to the due course of things: But when I behold a lump of deformity and diseases, both in body and mind, smitten with "pride," it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience; neither shall I be ever able to comprehend how such an animal and such a vice could tally together...
But the Houyhnhnms, who live under the government of reason, are no more proud of the good qualities they possess than I should be for not wanting a leg or arm, which no man in his wits would boast of, although he must be miserable without them. I dwell no longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable, and therefore, I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to appear in my sight. - Jonathan Swift ("A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms")
That is how Swift put it two-hundred-and-fifty years ago. More recently, Timothy Leary (taking his cue from Swift?) has written:
If we can imagine an [anthropological] report about "homo sapiens" written by extra-terrestrial scientists from a more advanced civilization, we can assume that humanity's inability to solve its psychological, social, and ecological problems or to provide answers to basic cosmological questions (e.g., why are we here and where are we going?) would lead to the conclusoin that "homo sapiens" is a species capable of very limited robot-reactivity and that intelligent life has not yet evolved on this planet. - Timothy Leary ("Exo-Psychology")
So, what's new? What has been happening during the past two-and-a-half centuries? "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose"? At least Swift never got himself into jail (though some of those who printed and published his writings were not so fortunate). And from Folsom Prison, Leary wrote (in 1973):
Americans, reeling with premonition, look around for a hero, an untainted leader. Let me tell you the good news. There won't be one. Politics is too important now to be turned over to ambitious politicians and adversary-process lawyers. The wise administration of social and economic affairs requires temperamental and intellectual characteristics notably absent in those who are driven to seek [coercive] power. Do you really want to know what causes political secrecy problems? Representative government. Elective democracy: One person is selected to "represent" others. Government by proxy. Even in the most liberal democracy, no one can represent someone else. (The non-representative nature of totalitarian governments is even more unwieldy.)
We have been robot-trained to believe that democracy, as practiced in this country, is something sacred. Everything we have been taught is dangerously wrong. Our history books are self-serving fabrications. Everything printed in our newspapers is a selective fraud. (I know that you know this, but we have to keep reminding ourselves.)
Representative government, as practiced today, is a brief and now outmoded historical phase designed to bridge the period between the rise of national states and the emergence of globe-linking electrical-electronic communication. - Timothy Leary ("Neuropolitics")
Philosophical Anarchism: (From "anarchos": Without a ruler)
A theory of human interaction holding all forms of coercive "authority" to be undesirable and unnecessary, and advocating volitional or voluntary cooperation and free association of consenting individuals and groups; a philosophy calling for all forms of coercion to be relinquished;
The people with no one to command them would, of themselves, become harmonious. When merits are accomplished and affairs completed, the people would speak of themselves as following nature. - Tao Te Ching
the advocacy and practice of anarchistic principles:
Freedom: "The organization of society must not interfere with the freedom of the individual." A safe statement with which few would disagree. Nevertheless, we can say "Po freedom" and see what happens. This is obviously not a matter of saying that freedom is wrong but of trying to look at freedom in a different way. We may reach the idea that "non-interference" is a better concept than freedom, because freedom for one person to do what he likes can interfere with the freedom of other people. For instance, your freedom to play your radio loudly in the park interferes with the freedom of others to have peace. Your freedom to smoke in a cinema or to drive a car interferes with the freedom of others to breathe clean air. Freedom is an egotistical concept that is centered on the individual, whereas "non-interference" is centered on the reaction between individuals. Perhaps non-interference is a much more practical concept, since it gets round the usual difficulty of having to decide when freedom becomes license. A person who is not interfered with and does not interfere with others is free. But under the old concept, a person who claims freedom for himself may yet interfere very much with others. Perhaps some of our social troubles arise from the obsolescence of the concept of freedom in a crowded society. - Edward do Bono ("Po: Beyond Yes and No")
(What are the abstractions that constitute the basic paradigm of politics? What are the psychological and manifest consequences of adopting these abstractions for thinking? For communication? For behavior? What might be the consequences, both psychological and manifest, of relinquishing these abstractions? What is the context within which political thought and behavior occurs? Can this context be transcended?)
the assumption of and the responsibility for a viewpoint or context of personal liberty, independent of external circumstances - coupled with appropriate behavior, consistent with that viewpoint or context;
a philosophy of individual power (of choice) that does not interfere with the power (of choice) of other individuals;
living your life out of a context or perspective of questions, rather than out of a context or perspective of answers.
The computer sighed, "A wheelbarrow has no rights, nor do I."
"You're dodging, dear. 'Rights" is a fictional abstraction. No one has 'rights' - neither machines nor flesh-and-blood. Persons - both sorts! - have opportunities, not 'rights,' which they use, or do not use." - Robert Heinlein ("Time Enough For Love")
Please don't let "philosophical anarchism" (or my personal definitions) automatically trigger your rejection mode. Like most people, you may never have read a book on anarchism written by a philosophical anarchist; you may have been exposed only to the popular "cow dung" propaganda about "anarchy is violence, lawlessness, and disorder;" or you may have come across only a particular "brand" of anarchism. I suspect that the vast majority of anar-chists abhor violence, even in its most subtle forms. you don't read about these anarchists in your newspaper, nor do you see them on TV - for the simple reason that they are not "newsworthy." Also, because you may have, at best, only a vague idea, and at worst, a grossly distorted view of anarchism, you read a book like Maslow's "Farther Reaches of Human Nature" without recognizing the extent to which he makes a case for philosophical anarchism on page after page.
After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force; the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason, the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore, no harm results. - I Ching
Let us ask some questions about violence: Where in the world is politics not based on violence or the threat of violence? Think for a while of some examples of violence and disorder that have occurred recently; were these perhaps associated with
I want to put it to you that the evidence is overwhelming that attempts to impose prescriptive and proscriptive principles result, at best, in mild "problems" like "inflation," "unemployment," and riots, and at worst, in mass slaughter like "war."
The Inquisition left a trail of bloodshed of the relative order of magnitude of Hitler's holocaust. Furthermore, the means employed by the Inquisitors during their suppressive reign of terror represented a blueprint for the atrocities of Hitler's Germany - all conducted by the church and all in the name of God. - Stewart Emery ("The Owner's Manual For Your Life")
I often hear complaints about "a hundred times (or some such ratio) as much money being spent on armaments as on food." When you pay your taxes, are you perhaps financing these armament expenditures? When you "vote" for a politician, are you perhaps "voting" for the potential annihilation of the human race? When you "vote" for a politician who promises to ... can you count on politicians to keep their promises?
The Queen's argument was that, if something wasn't done about it in less than no time, she'd have everybody executed, all round. - Lewis Carroll ("Alice in Wonderland")
It must be emphasized that the "philosophical anarchism" that I am suggesting here does not grow from the soil of protest; it is not conceived from a context of countering "the evil in the world;" it is not propounded out of a perspective of opposition. This philosophical anarchism specifically excludes all forms of coercion; the initiation of violence is anathema to it.
(There are two general cases where this philosophical anarchism admits to violence: Firstly, as a very reluctant last resort in self-defense; secondly, there is no objection to violence between consenting parties, such as boxers and duelists.)
Yes! This philosophical anarchism is self-conceived and self-proclaimed from a grand and noble perspective of personal responsibility, power, freedom, quality, superabundance, triumph, and glory. The individual who has woken up and recognized his or her inherently inalienable (except by himself or herself) power and sovereignty, proudly proclaims:
(A) As an individual, I am supreme and sovereign;
(B) I am responsible, powerful, and free;
(C) I laugh at the absurd notion that others think that they can formulate (or as they call it, "legislate") ridiculous make-believe "laws" that could curtail my personal responsibility, power, and freedom;
(D) I will respect and honor the individual responsibility, power, privacy, and freedom of my fellow human beings, irrespective of their awareness (or otherwise) of their inherent sovereignty and supremity;
(E) There are people with guns (misguided and ignorant) who, under certain circumstances, will attempt to violate my sovereignty, who may attempt to impose by force their misconceived "morality" upon me - I avoid and circumvent such people and circumstances, as seems judicious, convenient, expedient, and appropriate.
Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.
Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp,
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavour of will-o'-the-wisp.
Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
And dines on the following day.
The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed,
And it always looks grave at a pun.
The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes -
A sentiment open to doubt.
The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
From those that have whiskers, and scratch.
For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums - ...
- Lewis Carroll ("The Hunting of the Snark")
Remember the description of quality in Section 5? Consider the significance of the fact that quality is unique to each individual; that quality cannot be defined so as to fit into a neat box (nor a bathing-machine); that no one can really know what quality means for another...
Does the same apply to value?
"Quality is what you like."
Little children were trained not to do "just what they liked," but...but what?...Of course! What others liked. And which others? Parents, teachers, supervisors, policemen, judges, officials, kings, dictators. All authorities. When you are trained to despise "just what you like" then, of course, they become a much more obedient servant of others - a good slave. When you learn not to do "just what you like," then the system loves you. - Robert Pirsig ("Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance")
Are quality and philosophical anarchism two sides of the same coin?
Chaos: Behavior you don't like; things not being the way you like.
For a season, perhaps, it is the misfortune of everyone to fall into this delusion of imagining that human good is to be served by political means. How delusive it is...men...are as easily to be kept in order by kindness as by force - nay, easier, for force never secures order; it merely suppresses the appearance of disorder. It covers the sores of society and heals them not. - Charles Lane ("A Voluntary Political Government" compiled by Carl Watner)
Order: Behavior you like; things being the way you like.
Here follow some psycho-metaphysics. If you are not hot for philosophy, best just skip it.
The aneristic principle is that of apparent order; the eristic principle is that of apparent disorder. Both order and disorder are man-made concepts and are artificial divisions of pure chaos, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction-making. - Malaclypse the Younger ("Principia Discordia")
Before you reject philosophical anarchism out of hand because you think:
Let me suggest that you do one or more of the following:
When choosing the term "anarchism" for my enterprise, I simply followed general usage...I now prefer to use the term "Dadaism." A Dadaist would not hurt a fly, let alone a human being. A Dadaist is utterly unimpressed by any serious enterprise, and he smells a rat whenever people stop smiling and assume that attitude and those facial expression which indicate that something important is about to be said. A Dadaist is convinced that worthwhile life will arise only when we start taking things lightly and when we remove from our speech the profound but already putrid meanings it has accumulated over the centuries ("search for truth;" "defense of justice;" "passionate concern;" etc., etc.) A Dadaist is prepared to initiate joyful experiments even in those domains where change and experimentation seem to be out of the question (example: The basic functions of language).
"To be a true Dadaist, one must also be an anti-Dadaist." His aims remain stable, or change as a result of argument, or of boredom, or of a conversion experience, or to impress a mistress, and so on. Given some aim, he may try to approach it with the help of organized groups, or alone; he may use reason, emotion, ridicule, an "attitude of serious concern," and whatever other means invented by humans to get the better of their fellow men (except violence). His favorite pastime is to confuse "rationalists" by inventing compelling reasons for unreasonable doctrines. There is no view, however "absurd" or "immoral," he refuses to consider or to act upon, and no method is regarded as indispens-able. The one thing he opposes positively and absolutely are "universal standards," "universal laws," and "universal ideas," such as "truth, "reason," "justice," "love," and the behavior they bring along, though he does not deny that it is often good policy to act as if such "laws" ("standards" and "ideas") existed and as if he believed in them...he has no objection to regarding the fabric of the world as described by science and revealed by his senses as a chimera that either conce4als a deeper and, perhaps, "spiritual" reality, or as a mere web of dreams that reveals, and conceals, nothing...applying this viewpoint to a specific subject such as science, the epistemological anarchist finds that its accepted development (e.g., from "closed world" to the "infinite universe") occurred only because the practitioners unwittingly used his philosophy within the confines of their trade - they succeeded because they did not permit themselves to be bound by "laws of reason," "standards of rationality," or "immutable laws of nature." Underneath all this outrage lies his conviction that man will cease to be a slave and gain a dignity that is more than an exercise in cautious conformism only when he becomes capable of stepping outside the most fundamental categories and convictions, including those which allegedly make him human. - Paul Feyerabend (Edited from "Against Method")
Once you start thinking about this philosophical anrchism, considering all the implications, and living out of this context, you start discovering the advantages which, at this point, may not even be conceivable to you...
The two most popular objections to anarchism probably are:
(A) If we had a state of anarchy, then what would happen is:
______________________ (make your own list);
(B) If we didn't have a so-called "government," then who would:
______________________ (make your own list).
[Did you notice any fear while making your lists?]
Your answers to the A-list probably consist of past events you have been told about or that you have read about or that you have seen on TV or that you have imagined. How do you know that these events would occur in a state of anarchy? Did they not occur in some part of the world where there were people claiming to "make laws" and "maintain order"?
Your answers to the B-list almost certainly consist of activities performed, not by some invisible, mystical ghost called "Big Brother," but by real flesh-and-blood human beings, possibly using tools and equipment...?
Of the New Idol There are still peoples and herds somewhere, but not with us, my brothers: Here, there are States.
The State? What is that? Well, then! Now, open your ears, for now I shall speak to you of the death of peoples.
The State is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly, it lies, too; and this lie creeps from its mouth: "I, the State, am the people."
It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and a love over them: Thus, they served life.
It is destroyers who set snares for many and call it the State: They hang a sword and a hundred desires over them.
The State lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies - and whatever it has, it has stolen. Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth. Even its belly is false.
It would like to range heroes and honorable men about it, this new idol! It likes to sun itself in the sunshine of good consciences - this cold monster! It would give you everything if you worship it, this new idol: Thus, it buys for itself the lustre of your virtues and the glance of your proud eyes.
It wants to use you to lure the many-too-many. Yes, a cunning device of hell has here been devised, a horse of death jingling with the trappings of divine honors! Yes, a death for many has here been devised that glorifies itself as life: Truly, a heartfelt service to all preachers of death!
I call it the State where everyone, good and bad, is a poison-drinker: The State where everyone, good and bad, loses himself: The State where universal, slow suicide is called - life.
Only there, where the State ceases, does the man who is not superfluous begin: Does the song of the necessary man, the unique and irreplacable melody, begin. There, where the State ceases - look there, my brothers. Do you not see it: The rainbow and the bridges to the Superman? - Friedrich Nietzsche ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra")
This may be the appropriate point at which to continue the line of investigation that I suspect many people would find almost unconfrontable: Is there, in actuality, such a thing, entity, or institution called "the State" or "the Government"? If there is such a thing, then where is it? What does it look like? How can I perceive it?
"My name is Alice, so please, Your Majesty," said Alice very politely; but she added to herself, "Why, they're only a pack of cards, after all. I needn't be afraid of them!"
..."Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. "Who cares for you?" said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time). "You're nothing but a pack of cards!" - Lewis Carroll ("Alice in Wonderland")
On the other hand, if there isn't such a "thing," then what are the implications? What if the horrible fact is that there are hucksters who call themselves "government, "state," "President," etc.? What if the extremely embarrassing fact is that there are suckers who believe these hucksters? What would happen if the suckers stopped believing the hucksters?
Hazel's obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false "karass," of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done, a textbook example of what Bakonon calls a "granfalloon." Other examples of "granfalloons" are the Community Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows - and any nation, anytime, anywhere.
As Bokonon invites us to sing along with him:
"If you wish to study a 'granfalloon,
'Just remove the skin of a toy balloon."
- Kurt Vonnegut ("Cat's Cradle")
The problem with this line of investigation is that it is horrifyingly threatening..."Do you want me to admit that most of my life, I have been paying taxes to a 'granfalloon'?" "Do you want me to admit that I believe that a toy balloon can make laws?" No, no, no, a thousand times no...intelligent human beings couldn't possibly be stupid!
Since late Neolithic times, men in their political capacity have lived almost exclusively by myths. And these political myths have continued to evolve, proliferate, and grow more complex and intricate even though there has been a steady replacement of one by another, over the centuries. A series of entirely theoretical constructs, sometimes mystical, usually deductive and speculative, they seek to explain the status and relationships in the community since it became discernibly organized politically.
It is the assault upon the abstract and verbal underpinnings of this institution ("the State") which draws blood...those who seek to destroy the abstract/ver al justification for such "play"...are its most formidable adversaries. - James J. Martin (From the introduction to "No Treason" by Lysander Spooner)
Now, imagine a libertarian or anarchist who has been arguing for years that "the State must be abolished"...how embarrassing would this line of investigation be to him or her? What abject stupidity would he or she have to admit if Kurt Vonnegut were right?
There are more idols in the world than there are realities: That is my "evil eye" for this world, that is also my "evil ear"...for once to pose questions here with a hammer and perhaps to receive for answer that famous hollow sound which speaks of inflated bowels - what a delight for one who has ears behind his ears - for an old psychologist and pied piper like me, in the presence of whom precisely that which would like to stay silent, has to become audible...
...this little book is a grand declaration of war; and, as regards the sounding out of idols, this time they are not idols of the age, but eternal idols which are here touched with the hammer as with a tuning fork - there are no more ancient idols in existence; also, none more hollow...that does not prevent their being the most believed in; and they are not, especially in the most eminent case, called idols... - Friedrich Nietzsche ("Twilight of the Idols")
Interestingly, psychologists already have a sophisticated term for the phenomenon which may be involved here: "Hypostasis" or "hypostatization." It refers to regarding a word, concept, idea, or symbol as having a distinct reality or substance in itself; or the arbitrary assigning of physical characteristics or properties to a word, concept, idea, symbol, or dream when the word, concept, idea, symbol, or dream has no basis in actuality. Hypostatization is the "civilized" equivalent of the "primitive" practice called "participation mystique" observed among Australian aborigines. Each aborigine had a piece of wood or a stone (a kind of talisman) that was hidden in a secret place. When the Aborigine felt the need, he or she would go to the "talisman" and pray to it for salvation. These Aborigines actually believed that their stones and pieces of wood had magical abilities to save them!
The Prince returned pensively home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes. "Father, is it true that you are not a real King, but only a magician?" The King smiled and rolled back his sleeves. "Yes, my son, I am only a magician." - John Fowles ("The Magus")
We, of course, are more "civilized:" Instead of a stone or a piece of wood, we use a theoretical mental construct called "state" or "government." We hypostatize all manner of mystical, occult, and magical abilities into this idolatrous image of ours; we believe that "its word is law," and that if we pray (sorry, "petition") to it, then it will save us! (For more on hypostati-zation, read: "The I and the Not-I" by Esther Harding and "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.)
Freedom is one's control over one's own life energy. Our self-control is inborn and unalienable. Others can, by force, thwart or curtail our freedom, but they cannot control us: They can't make our minds work or our muscles move, no matter what they do. Torture may persuade us to give information, for example, but it cannot actually, in fact, make our throats produce sounds. In other words, we are wholly self-controlling, self-responsible beings. We govern ourselves. "Government" by external force is, literally, impossible. - Roger MacBride ("A New Dawn For America")
Then, of course, there are the libertarians and the anarchists. They often use the term "Big Brother," who is very powerful and must be curbed or abolished! They hypostatize into their "Big Brother" the ability to enslave them! But what if they really are self-conceived victims?
A "granfalloon" is any large bureaucratic figment of people's imagination. For instance, there's really no such thing as the Feds or the General Veeslefeltzer Corporation. There are a bunch of people out there who relate to each other, and there's some structures, and some paper. In fact, there's lots and lots of paper. The people sit in the structures and pass paper back and forth to each other and charge you to do so.
All these people, structures, and paper are real; but nowhere can you point to the larger concept of "government" or "corporation" and say, "There it is, kiddies!" The monolithic, big "they" is all in your mind. - Don Lancaster ("The Incredible Secret Money Machine")
What I have attempted to demonstrate in the last few pages is that we live in an anarchistic world, whether we like it or not. Note that in this anarchistic context, people can "play" whatever "philosophical system" and/or "religious system" and/or "psychological system" and/or "economic system" they desire. No matter what anybody says, writes, or does, some people will experiment with: "atheism," "syndicalism," "theism," "terrorism," "Zen," "humanism," "save-the-world," "suicide," "nationalism," "Communism," "Buddhism," "primal screaming," "Federalism," "transcendental meditation," "Gestalt," "Christianity," "socialism," "liberalism," "capitalism," "racialism," "feminism," "Republicanism," "democracy," "conservatism," "Nazism," "scientology," "libertarianism," "limited governmentism," "anarcho-capitalism," "anarcho-socialism," "Catholicism," "Hinduism," "Islam," "Mohammedanism," "one-world-ism," "laissez-faire," "universal union," "existentialism," "est," "black magic," "spoon bending," "spiritualism," "Ku-Klux-Klan," "agnosticism," "violent anarchism," "psycho-analysis," "communalism," "Platonism," "positive thinking," "unemployment," "unionism," etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Personally, I don't particularly care which of these games you play as long as you don't attempt to shoot me or drop your bombs on me or demand that I finance your silly games or tell me that I need a "passport" to travel on a road you do not own or try to coerce me into playing with you and as long as you don't mess in my garden.
Should all "religious," "political," and "economic" games not be regarded as temporary experiments? Should people get stuck in any one of these games year after year? Should you dedicate your life to any of these questionable games? And if you do get (momentarily) involved in any of these games, you might like to observe the outcome or the results of the experiment - like how many people slaughtered?
But, I think, most important of all, it is not advisable to play any one of these games all your life. What would you think of a "scientist" who repeated the same experiment every day, over and over and over, week after week, year after year? (And what must we think of voters and politicians who repeat the same experiment (with minor variations) for century after century - for thousands of years - despite hundreds of millions of humans being slaughtered? When will we emerge from our "Yahoo" stage?)
Guilt, innocence, punishment, forgiveness, law and order, rehabilitation - all constitute the mythology that masks the simple reality of badly-wired robots bumping into one another. Most agonizing - and supposedly intractable - social problems are caused solely by our ignorance of the brain's capacity for rote repetition and abrupt change.
Brainwashing is happening to all of us all the time. Knowledge of brain function is our only protection against it. The solutions to our predicament are neurological. We must assume responsibility for our nervous systems. Our robothood can remain static if we endlessly repeat the imprints of infancy to adolescence, or it can be drastically altered by brainwashers without our consent, or we can take control of our nervous systems. If we don't assume this personal responsibility, somebody else will; if we do take over the control board, we can each be any person we want to be. - Timothy Leary ("Neuropolitics")
What I do suggest is that in matters philosophical, moral, religious, political, economic, and psychological we apply at least these principles:
(A) How can I increase my personal responsibility, power, freedom, and quality?
(B) How can I, likewise, assist others to increase their personal responsibility, power, freedom, and quality?
(C) How can I minimize my conflicts with others?
(D) How can I identify and get rid of my violence-breeding, limiting, and stupefying concepts, ideas, beliefs, emotions, and habits that may infest my brain and my body?
(E) How should I experiment with the above?
(F) How should I measure my results? (Count the dead bodies?)
But, should the play prove piercing earnest,
Should the glee glaze in death's stiff stare,
Would not the fun look too expensive!
Would not the jest have crawled too far!
- Emily Dickinson
POINTS TO REMEMBER:
(A) "Sit down before fact like a little child..."
(B) Volition is, basically, the power of willing.
(C) The three elements of volition or willing: Perception, conception, and decision.
(D) What is decision?
(E) The double-edged nature of decision ("decidere" = cut off).
(F) How decision is related to: concepts, unconsciousness, protest, consciousness, and emotion.
(G) The great decision killer is the counter-decision.
(H) Another look at the quality dimension: Conception/perception/decision versus inversion/deception/protest.
(I) Coercion is, basically, the overwhelming or nullifying of the will of another by means of violence or the threat of violence.
(J) Coercion is volition inverted.
(K) Relinquish, basically, means to leave behind or to desist from.
(L) The principles of philosophical anarchism (maybe a good idea to go back and review them quickly).
(M) The sources of violence: What kinds of people tend to practice violence; the kinds of people that violence is usually directed against.
(N) The relationship between voting and taxes on the one hand, and violence on the other hand. (Maybe the left hand sometimes does not know what the right hand is doing.)
(O) Philosophical anarchism does not come from a context of protest.
(P) Remember the five "Snarks" - maybe a good idea to review them.
(Q) The relationship between philosophical anarchism and quality.
(R) The definitions of chaos and order.
(S) It might be a good idea to do some research before rejecting philo-sophical anarchism out of hand.
(T) Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism.
(U) The popular objections to philosophical anarchism.
(V) Idolatry as described by Nietzsche.
(W) Belief in the existence of supposed "states" and imagined "govern-ments" as superstitions.
(X) We live in an anarchistic world whether we like it or not.
(Y) The six suggested basic principles to serve as value criteria for human behaviors:
CLARITY CHECK:
(A) What did T. H. Huxley say?
(B) How would you describe volition?
(C) What do you think are the elements of volition?
(D) Do you think it is possible for humans to "decide" anything? Or is this just a popular self-delusion?
(E) If you think that anyone can "decide" anything, how is this done?
(F) Do you know of anyone who has ever demonstrated the ability to "decide" anything?
(G) Give some examples of decision killers.
(H) How is decision related to some other basic notions of meta-informa-tion?
(I) How are perception, conception, and decision related to the fifth dimension?
(J) What is coercion?
(K) Could deception, inversion, and protest be described as elements of coercion?
(L) What do you consider to be the most subtle form of coercion?
(M) And the second most subtle form?
(N) Can you give some examples of coercion?
(O) Do you think the notion of coercion is easy or difficult to understand? Why?
(P) What does relinquish mean?
(Q) Is it feasible for you, as an individual, to relinquish coercion?
(R) Write down the principles of philosophical anarchism.
(S) What kinds of people tend to practice violence?
(T) Against what kinds of people is a great deal of violence directed?
(U) What is the most extreme form of violence?
(V) What is the most subtle form of violence?
(W) From what kinds of violence have millions of people died?
(X) In which parts of the world have millions of people died from violence?
(Y) Why to humans slaughter one another from time to time?
(Z) How are voting and paying taxes related to violence?
(AA) What do you think of the notion that Hitler was one of the greatest heroes of all time, because he dramatically demonstrated what can happen when a politician is voted for and financed through taxes?
(BB) Did Hitler ever hurt anyone except himself? If "A" tells "B" to shoot "C," should "B" obey?
(CC) What is the relationship between violence and obedience?
(DD) In the absence of obedience, is "war" likely?
(EE) What is the context out of which philosophical anarchism is proclaimed? (What are the five "Snarks"?)
(FF) Do you think there is any relationship between philosophical anarchism and quality?
(GG) How would you define chaos and order?
(HH) Do you think it might be necessary to do some research before rejecting philosophical anarchism out of hand?
(II) What do you understand by epistemological anarchism?
(JJ) Do you think that Nietzsche was an epistemological anarchist?
(KK) What objections do you have to philosophical anarchism?
(LL) What alternatives do you propose? (Have these alternatives been tried before, and have you counted the dead bodies?)
(MM) What did Nietzsche write about idolatry? (Have you read what George Bernard Shaw wrote about idolatry in "Man and Superman"?)
(NN) What do you think of the notion that it is pure superstition to believe that there have ever been, or can be, so-called "states" and "governments"?
(OO) Have you ever seen a "state" or "government" (or a "ghost")?
(PP) Do you remember any of the quotations that support the notion that belief in the existence of supposed "states" or "governments" is absurd? (Maybe you should go back and review them?)
(QQ) What do you think of the notion that we really live in an anarchistic world whether we like it or not?
(RR) What are the six basic principles that have been suggested as basic value criteria for human behavior?
(SS) Do you think these principles are practical?
(TT) What principles would you regard as more moral and more practical?
(UU) At this point, what is your overall opinion of this book? Has it changed as you have progressed through the book? Do you think it will change further?
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