I commented on a political post, and it reminded me of a subject that goes to the heart of the matter of freedom.
I've touched on this subject before:
"Of utmost importance to this consideration is what, exactly, freedom is and means. The common conception of freedom is being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Curiously enough, that's also an apt description of narcissists and assholes. This is why there is the "counter-argument" to this "freedom", being "We can't have total freedom; that would be chaos.""
In a sense, we intuitively know how to apply the concept of freedom properly; C. S. Lewis touches on it in "Mere Christianity", talking about an inherent sense of justice in relation to spatial and social occurrences, such as sitting in a seat at an opera (I think that was the context; or something similar), getting up, whereupon if someone else sits down upon the chair you were on, you say, "Hey! That's My chair!" Of course, it's not "your" chair, but in terms of the situation of listening to the opera, you were using that chair. A signal to indicate that would help, such as a purse or jacket; generally upon coming in, we avoid such chairs, knowing that, in all likelihood, someone was and soon will be, sitting there.
It is also the same principle used in science:
Can you repeat that? Can you do it again?
It is the principle of universalization.
I often call it "consistently applied rules" or "consistent application of the rules of society".
I know it need to change it, because whenever I use it, people look at me like I'm talking Greek.
Kal Molinet is excellent in these terms, and I'm studying him to use language with more casuality.
The notion of freedom is an existential one, because the universe is universal.
That is why, when put to the wall regarding universalizing the principle of freedom, and applying it consistently, what is reached for is the extreme generals of life, existence, and humanity. It is here that we come to general principles about life and other grand notions, such as God.
"Philosophically, I go all the way to anarchy, but I will suspect there will probably always be something that functions as a government (but maybe not the leviathan we have today).
Regardless of whether or not government is necessary, I strongly suspect there are elements of human nature that make the emergence of something that functions as government (even if we call it something else) probably inevitable."
The notion is that, if we're going to always have some form of rape, better to have the best, most equitable, least violent form of rape. Perhaps you recognize Pascal's Wager here: "Best to be on the safe side, since I do not know, and if I am wrong, how horrible to have the wrong conclusion!"
The thing is.... you DO know: Rape is wrong. It cannot be universalized.
The same can be said for the acts of government, and the existence of government.
Simply put, government exists by involuntary participation, which, if applied consistently, would collapse society overnight. The coming and somewhat expected Armeggeddon is the logical conclusion of such an application of the myth of just government: so many people hold to the inconsistent notion that society is, accordingly, collapsing per that universification of the application of those inconsistent rules.
That is the issue, because this is what is meant by the "elements of human nature":
The best way to confound self-realization is to put the self as being the false self.
You must be familiar with how often the word is used: Supposedly.
"Supposedly, the government..."
With such regularity the phrase occurs, and so very little of the time is spent on thinking upon the implications of that regularity. If the thing for which it is supposed to do is continually not occurring, that means that something is preventing that from doing it's proper purpose. Either that is not it's purpose, or the method is fatally flawed.
In the case of government, both of those answers are equivalent - for justice is not the purpose of government, and the method by which government exists is coercion, which fatally flaws all attempts at applying justice in governmental positions.
"The divine right of Kings" was where the mythology of divinity being applied specifically, rather than universally, transitioned from pure theistic oligarchy to physical economic warring. This was after the transition from the Age of Miracles, in the existential and millennia format of the undulation of the energy and story of the cosmos -- we had essentially an Eden existence, and then things changed, rendering the new ignorance of the self into a forest of that ignorance, to play out the game of separation in all the various formats.
We are at the time, in the galactic story, where the amnesia can no longer be sustained for the game.
Either we wake up, or we die; collectively.
The basic principle of the few awake being what is needed is an essential concept; likewise, the irrelevance of the few is of equal importance. Jesus, among others, was laid to blame as a singular divine being; people rejected their own divinity.
It is true that the core of all religions is the same: Love.
It is also true that the core of all religions is corrupt -
"No, you are not God; no, you are not Love. Subservience to X will transmute you of the sin of being human."
It has been by science that we are seeing a return to mysticism;
but this does not mean a lack of repeatability.
The one essential element that is missing from consideration that enables the repeatability of experiments relating to consciousness ... is that of your own consciousness. Whomsoever is doing the experiment, is also part of the experiment. It is not possible to conduct an experiment in regard to consciousness without ascertaining the intent of the experimenter: it directly affects the outcome, and thus, the repeatability of the experiment. Cleve Backster is best known for his experiments with plants and the polygraph in relation to this, and often noted this fatal lack of inclusion. The current assumption for most experiments is the total lack of involvement of the experimenter - whose attribution escapes me at the moment, though I'd thought it to be B. F. Skinner:
"The best scientific practice for isolation of any cause being searched for would include that the lab coat in each experiment be utterly identical." That isn't what the quote is, but a paraphrase of it.
This is The Science Delusion, also known by the name Scientism, which, strangely - or interestingly - enough has a rather proper entry on Wikipedia at the time of this writing. Nonetheless, to not have to deal with possible changes over time, here is the Wayback Machine version that I have archived just now.
The issue with scientism is that it is not scientific, but relies on false assumptions which science has itself, disproven; principally, via quantum mechanics, which is considered, by and large, pseudo-science, despite being "the most successful theory we've yet discovered." Essential to this is the reality of non-locality: at the most basic form of the universe, everything is connected. Thus, by default, all forms of not are false: an-archism, a-theism, for instance. I don't mean that they don't have something worthwhile of them; I mean that they are based upon rejection, rather than on form; resistance, rather than acceptance. And, again, I am not saying this as an overture to moral or spiritual relativism - I despise the New Age bullshit just as much as Mark Passio.
Instead, I've been consistently deriding against the false form (the usual forms of theism, and statism) while developing a proper form. That proper form has so far taken the shape of panentheism and anarcho-spirituality. Now, I'll grant you -- these are half-measures, but as with all measures of concepts and models, until you have enough peers off of which to bounce ideas, you use what you have, and you keep thinking until all of the nodes of the varieties of thought that you have... are consistent. When there is enough consistency of application within yourself, that will spread outward by your interactions with others.
I see the majority of people fully enmeshed in the circus show of distraction,
with the few that are awakening making gratuitous exceptions therewith.
Why, for instance, would you expect a candidate to stay principled?
To have such a wondering is to return the depth of thought to square one.
How, exactly, is there safety in putting a reserve lot with those who disregard safety and humanity?
They who pander to the thought of it to acquiesce a sense of false security?
What is the function of government?
Are there not but two answers?
- To protect, defend, and so forth; to ensure equality.
- To destroy by deception.
Does government exist by means other than involuntary ones?
I think you know the answer.
And if so, then how is #1 able to be produced,
if it is by the violation of rights, of protection, that protection is enabled?
When I ask this to people, one of the answers that I get is that
"Well, when government was first started, it was voluntary and there were no taxes."
That is, an insistence that it is not the idea of government that is at fault,
but the people who did the government/governing:
"We failed The Constitution."
"You need," as Stefan Molyneux when he was making good podcasts put, "to give the right people the gun!"
The notion of government is an existential matter; inherently, the same as the notion of God.
This conversation with Kal Molinet (32 minutes in) dramatically shows the many holes of thought and excuses that people will go into, to deny the consistent application of rules for society, in favor of an authoritarian (slave/master) style of existence.
Is that not how it is that you could attempt to speak of "human nature" as though it made systematic rape inevitable?
Total psychological de-stabilization occurs not through today or tomorrow, but to define the very concept of what it is that you, and people in general, are, that makes this assumption that it is "human nature" to want and wish for being ruled.
It is for this reason that I have now, for a long time, been working on systematic, entertaining depth to my conversations... and, as you might guess, from what you see here, to varying degrees of success, usually verging on failure. It is through failure that success is achieved, and I am open and wanting help and suggestions in this regard, though it is sadly unlikely to happen without a good deal of struggle, since it is pitted against two prime assumptions regarding existence that could not be more at odds.