DOMA and the Voting Rights Act: Abstractions Still Win People Over!

A Fascinating (and Logically Flawed) Day 2 of Abstraction at the Supreme Court:

There have been two big Supreme Court decisions in two days, both dealing with the "federalism" abstraction, a division of power between a nation and its parts.  One struck down the Voting Registration Federally-imposed Regime on the South dating from the Civil Rights Era in 1966 and the other struck down a Federal marriage definition. 

I'll look into the civil rights case, Shelby County v. Holder another time.  Here is the 77 page DOMA decision reduced to logical summaries.  This summarizes only the 5-4 Majority Decision.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf

• The nation recognized "traditional marriage" at the founding of the country. (See the Syllabus of the decision)
• The nation recognized that some powers are reserved to the states from the founding of the country to present.
• States have the constitutional and historical right to define marriage.
• Some states allow "same-sex marriage," which is a different definition than present at the founding of the country.
• The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) puts "traditional marriage" as THE national marriage definition.
• DOMA's marriage definition is used by all Federal departments, including the Internal Revenue Service, which has specific tax designations for married couples that are affected.
• DOMA was a statute conforming to the generally-recognized definition of marriage since the founding of the country.
• The Federal gov't can't refuse to recognize a state's new definition of marriage.
• The Federal gov't enforces equal protection of different marriage definitions.
• The Federal gov't can't enforce uniform statutes of marriage between disagreeing states.
• Some states do not allow same-sex marriage.
• The federal government may not enforce "same-sex" or "traditional marriage" definitions in any state.

Some Rhetorical Questions about these abstractions as they come from the top of my head:

• Will people feel more equal when they voluntarily enter into a relationship after each one of 50 states defines "marriage" themselves and not as 1 united country? 
• Does a broadened legal definition of just ONE relationship type expand belief in the "equality" abstraction?
•  Isn't the freedom of association abstraction still dominant when judging interpersonal relations between people?
• Isn't a same-sex relationship protected under the freedom of association abstraction?
• If any two people have the right to enter into a non-legal relationship, does society have a right to determine what benefits society gives to those of any class of two voluntary relatives?
• Isn't there a difference between legal and non-legal relationships with the former being more select and the later more open?
• Are there other intangible factors that are part of relationships that make them indefinable?
• If there are indefinable qualities to a relationship, like "love" or "commitment," should we somehow codify these abstractions? 
• Can we accurately show "love" legally?
• By broadening the possibilities of the marriage relationship by broadening the legal definition to any two people, do we create a system whereby "marriage" is simply two people showing intent to enter into a legal relationship?
• Does the legal intent to enter into a relationship equate to the "love," "equality," or "commitment" abstractions?
• Can any two willing people enter into a legal relationship so long as they, and not society, define their relationship as "committed" or "loving"?  Should we have it this way?
• Is it beneficial for American society to create laws that separate people based on certain characteristics and the benefits society gets by promoting that separate class?  
• Can we make laws that protect one class of people (ex. a married couple of whatever definition) and give them special benefits if we reduce the differences between that class of people and those not receiving the benefit?
• What is the societal incentive to having less distinction between a protected class of people that retain specific benefits if there is less reason to protect that class of people?
• Is there still a societal benefit to a voluntary relationship where any two people can express legal intent and receive special class designation?    
• Can and should we afford this?

Ok, so after US vs. Windsor, marriage law is just as complicated as ever.  Now we can't have uniformity, other than a new tax designation refund on IRS forms and more tax refunds for a larger protected class of "married" people in 11 states.  That's the problem with abstractions, they're just ideas that drive you to act as opposed to some new reality that magically appears.  The world is still complex because ideas are NOT reality, only our interpretation of a small part of it.  And we've now opened a legal relationship to individual interpretation of marriage with less separation between the supposedly beneficial class of "married" and the unprivileged class of "unmarried."

The complexity is fascinating!  Anyone know what's best??  Feel free to comment.

"Sequester" Is an Abstraction!

Pieces of paper with words written on them are concrete realities, people acting because of what's written on the paper, like a law, means they're following abstractions.  Therefore, the Sequester law is an abstraction and Obama's speech was inaccurate.

  " This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs.  The unemployment rate might tick up again...... And this is not an abstraction.  There are people whose livelihoods are at stake.  There are communities that are going to be impacted in a negative way.  And I know that sometimes all this squabbling in Washington seems very abstract, and in the abstract, people like the idea, there must be some spending we can cut, there must be some waste out there.  There absolutely is.  But this isn’t the right way to do it." "President Obama Speaks on the Sequester." 2/19/13

It has never been my purpose to be reactive to opinion writers or back and forth politics, but, David Firestone writes in the New York Times about a subject very near to my bloggish heart, namely abstractions and what President Obama said about them.  Firestone agrees with Obama's comments that recent "forced budget cuts" or sequestration coming on March 1, 2013 cannot be abstractions because "sequestration" has consequences for real people everywhere.   Obama also said that "Washington squabbles" over nice-sounding abstractions like "spending cuts" because it foolishly and recklessly thinks waste must be out there. But, the sequestration law itself is a piece of paper with writing on it that tells live human beings things they SHOULD do.  Sequestration isn't real because a law can't stand up and tell you you're fired.  It's the people who believe they're the government who've got to make the determination as to who to fire, then take ACTION, and "fire" other people.

First, I disagree with Obama's "Washington squabbles" abstraction, because rather than THE PLACE, Washington DC, thinking and arguing about budgeting, of course with Obama thinking he's far away from the BLAME, the human beings employed by the "American public" are debating over how to manage the resources we send them.  That includes Obama as well.  So, add another abstraction to his speech about everyone else messing around using abstractions when they should be thinking "smartly" like him.  Really, they're just thinking differently.

Second, Obama then declares himself "absolutely supporting" something he just declared was a terrible abstraction that leads to "communities being impacted in a negative way," namely that "there absolutely is" waste out there.  Add another abstraction to his speech.  So, using his logic, abstractions lead to job losses because of believing in forced budget cuts, aka sequestration, but Obama believes that there absolutely are budget cuts that should be enacted.  Therefore, we should believe in abstractions that he won't acknowledge as being abstractions (I don't believe we can avoid abstraction anyways).  However, is his absolute support for finding budget cuts the way or not the way? Logically, what is his approach from this speech and why is his understanding of the sequester abstraction better than the alternatives?  Is his form of rhetoric effective argumentation?

Third, this form of disagreement about who is thinking realistically or not has effects for the PUBLIC.  Obama has separated his opponents as "thinking in the clouds," while he remains firmly on the ground thinking about what is "going on in the clouds."  How can this abstractive approach lead to a realistic agreement on some pretty complex budgeting issues, if he's supposed to come to agree with those who'd hurt communities and affect people's livelihood?  If open budget cutters (not Obama) are that abstractly "bad," would his realistic outreach work anyways, and should he really want to work with those "promoting disaster"?  Should a reasonably thoughtful public buy such abstractions with such little logic or rationality to connect them just because he says so or because the level of cuts seem so ominous and large?  While people's ACTIONS after March 1st will certainly affect "government workers" and the complex workings of the "American economy," I am skeptical of figures who try to remain blameless and use confusing rhetoric to gain public support for life-changing government action. 

Fourth, Obama also discusses the "unemployment" abstraction.  "Unemployment" is a statistic, an imperfect counting of people across the country "who claim" they have no job for a short period of time (See its definition below).  How more abstract can you get than a complex number that merely explains what people offer up to the federal government and its agencies concerning whether or not they BELIEVE they are working or not?  FEELING unemployed is terrible and the concept means to me a lot of awful things.  For example, there are the tangible effects of the abstraction like having no money to pay for food to feed your family or other emotional intangibles like depression or despair that can result.  But, the term unemployment is abstract because it includes both the tangible and intangible effects of believing you're out of a job.

Typing on keyboards is real action, believing you're a receptionist is abstract because it's in your head.  There's nothing stamped in your DNA that says "receptionist."  Likewise, combining all job abstractions together and calling it "employment rate" is even further abstract as is its supposed converse: "unemployment."  As terrible as the unemployment abstraction is, it STILL is an abstraction because human beings believe it to mean a lack of work, while they still have the physical ability for action.  And besides if "unemployment" is only "going to tick up," why are the pesky Republicans and their budget cutting abstractions such a threat to the country's workers?

"Iran Won't Invade Because of Only 90% funding of "American Power" AND 6% More American Preschoolers Won't Become Street Urchins on March 2"

Or, if it's REALLY that bad, the President and Congress better start agreeing!

 

My blog has consistently contradicted the view that some people possess "realism" while others deal in the abstract.  These are human-made dichotomies reducing reality to ideas and then using those ideas to dehumanize those who disagree and supposedly ONLY think in the abstract.  The form of reductionism used by Obama and the false causality from such reductionism diminishes options to solve problems in a better, less conflicting way.

Abstractions are not necessarily a problem of "party belief," rather they are tools that humans use to explain complex ideas.  It happens that there are often harmful and violent effects of abstractive thinking.  According to reporters and most members of both parties,  some degree of "Armageddon" will occur if there are 7-10% cuts of federal budgets of discretionary spending from LAST year's levels.  Untouchable, "Locked box items" like Social Security and public trusts are safe from losing public resources because of the "sequester."  But, in the word games of abstractive politics, it is hard to reach agreement with the other side when you're labeled as "anti-US military" just because you pushed for 9.4 to 10% cuts of an approximately $613.9 billion total budget to counter cuts to your more favorite social programs.  (See See OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act and the "National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013" 8).  Republicans are using this label quite ineffectively against Democrats because the defense cuts remain as 11:50 on 2/27/13.

Forget that the "defense" abstraction is one of the largest expenditures of taxpayer money, but it must be we need every dollar and more for every sort of duplicate high-tech aircraft that can be provided with those 10% more funds?  If we don't spend it, well, Iran, Korea, and Afghanistan will go up in flames because we spend a tenth less?  And the really important expenditures, like soldier pay and benefits will be eliminated too with the 10% cut?  I'll end the sarcasm because these beliefs are serious.

I want wounded veterans to receive the best healthcare we can afford for our country.  So, if "Republican public employees" share my abstractive belief about providing the best for our soldiers using public money and are really concerned that personnel and the best weapons systems are effective and operable to counter "global threats," they had better do what's necessary to work with Obama and Democrats if he is really going to slash veterans benefits and destroy "America's defense" with his discretionary cutting abilities as "Chief Executive."  Is he really THAT serious a threat to the country's security?  Let's have the Republicans be less guided by abstractive warfare and more focused on preventing further heartache for those serving "our country."  If not, we'll suffer "a tenth more internationally" regardless of how much Republicans have complained about it.

Likewise, many Democrats argue that Republicans want to throw 70,000 kids out of pre-school into the street gutters because the Department of Education's 30 plus offices and programs face a 7.6-8% cut. (See OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act).  Forget that Obama is in charge of distributing the other 92% of funds of $69.8 billion in 30 education offices and programs, a large amount of money that itself is a 2.5% increase in money from 2012 because of inflation.  Or, that 70,000 refers only to a small part of 43% of children who have CENTER-BASED childcare before age 4, meaning they can be in any non-home center and not Head Start or other federally funded programs. And of the rest of the country's under 5-year-olds not in centers, some 57% of preschool age kids who won't be potentially "victimized" at all by these cuts because they are taken care of by parents, relatives, nonrelatives.  And using the administration's 70,000 figure, if Arne Duncan, Obama's Secretary of Education cuts funding for preschool intentionally to ensure the expulsion of that amount of under 5-year-olds, he is affecting approximately 6% of the total number of under 5-year-olds in the country (70,000/11,000,000) who may or may not have preschools with federal funding available to them (National Child Care Aware Association).

So, we can conclude it will be terrible for a small percentage of the eligible population who I assume desperately need the program for early childhood education and care for a host of reasons I can only deduce from Obama's abstractions.  I want this program to remain at current funding levels to help poor working class parents.  I also want as much of the education funding to remain as possible.  But like with the "Republicans," if we're really going to prevent more uneducated 3-5 year olds from roaming our streets,  like apparently the approximately 53% of 11,000,000 American preschoolers already do, Democrats better come to some negotiating position apart from their current, failed abstractions if they want to preserve the unprotected from becoming urchin buskers.

Logical Fallacies in the Sequestration Blame Rhetoric: Ad populums, Ad hominems, and Non-Sequiturs

"Cancer researchers are American government, and if Republicans don’t think their work should be supported by taxpayers, they are free to make their case publicly. But they won’t do that, because the various government functions facing cuts are both necessary and popular. Instead they talk in dire but abstract terms about the debt threat, pretending there is no need to ever raise taxes, and hoping that voters won’t remember what their dollars actually pay for."   

"So it’s ridiculous for Republicans to claim the sequester is really Mr. Obama’s idea, as if a kidnapper’s relatives deserve blame for paying the ransom"

"The Sequester Is Not An Abstraction" David Firestone, The New York Times

David Firestone mimics the President's same vein of logical fallacy and dehumanizing reduction to abstraction.  He really does the people who style themselves as the "media" a great disservice by writing so fallaciously that Republicans, all "driven crazy by Obama," should "feel free to defend" his  straw man he has set up for them to the American voter.  Namely, he BELIEVES Republicans do not think cancer researchers are part of the government and that Republicans purposefully try to deceive the American public with their "love of cutting spending" from the shadows.  In the same non-sequitur, he uses the ad populum fallacy to complement his strawman because Republicans must seek POPULAR approval over the merits of HIS characterization of their beliefs.  Furthermore, Obama is the "patient relative of a public held hostage" by Republican "kidnappers" who really should be blamed in the first place, as if Obama had nothing to do with the sequestration debate in the first place.  Most reasonable members acknowledge Obama's prime role in this debate, even if he's not fully to blame.

But let's assume that Firestone is correct that Obama was barely involved in the bad and consistently has done only good....oh and Bob Woodward is completely wrong.  Firestone offers no proof that Republicans do not believe cancer researchers get government funding, nor does he offer what I'm assuming is a figure corresponding to the catastrophic amount of cancer research funding that is to be cut, or that calling yourself "Republican" means you support cutting such research, which by extending his argument, I assume means that when Republicans cut costs that must mean they'll increase the number of cancer victims.  So, what is the evidence that the Republicans are a cowardly, ignorant shadow people who like cutting things they know nothing about?  Firestone's scant evidence is hardly enough.  Firestone offers Speaker Jim Boehner's comments that reflect blame back to Obama as evidence.  But, they are just part of the abstract blame game and not evidence of Republicans as hostage-takers.  And, how is this argument any less abstractive than "cutting spending" anyways?

I may not want the cuts involved with the sequester abstraction, but I also do not have evidence to support the arguments that Republicans are kidnappers who forced the sequester abstraction on America's victimized people.  Nor do I believe that on March 2 more people will die of cancer or that more accident victims will die because of the sequestration budget action effect on first responders.

Can we move to a more logical debate "America" since we're all using abstractions anyways?  The real shadows we can all crawl out of are the places where our eyes are facing the sun  unobstructed by other physical objects.

(Not extending this as a metaphor to describe immoral, sneaky people, but as a literal definition of shadows)

Definitions Useful for This Post

 

Abstraction= a lack of concreteness or the physical (beliefs or ideas)

artifact: a physical object (for example writing on paper like Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012)

abstract consequences:  humans action based on abstraction.

Non-sequitors: "a conclusion that does not follow from its premises." (Dictionary.com)

Ad Populum: "fallacy of attempting to win popular assent to a conclusion by arousing the feeling and enthusiasms of the multitude" (http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/popular.html)

Ad Hominem: "fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."  (http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html)

"Sequestration": automatic spending cut ("Glossary of Political Terms")

Intent:  “Intent” expresses mental action at its most advanced point, or as it actually accompanies an outward, [physically with ones' body] act which has been determined to be of ones' will. (http://thelawdictionary.org/intent/


"Unemployed": "Those who were not employed, were available for work, and had tried to find employment during the previous 4 weeks.  It also includes those waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off" (Mankiw 614).

Sources:

Blake, Aaron. "Who is responsible for the sequester?" Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/05/who-is-responsible-for-the-sequester/

"Child Care Aware of America:  State Facts 2012." Child Care Aware of America.

 http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/default_site_pages/2012/full2012cca_state_factsheetbook.pdf

"Department of Education: Funding Highlights FY2013"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/education.pdf

"Fast Facts: Childcare." National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=4 

Firestone, David.  "The Sequester is Not an Abstraction."  The New York Times.  http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/the-sequester-is-not-an-abstraction/

"Introduction to Logic." http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html

Johnson, Paul.  "A Glossary of Political Terms: Sequestration."  http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration. 

Linden, Michael.  "The Way Out of the Sequester Is Cutting Tax Expenditures"  The Daily Beast.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/27/the-way-out-of-the-sequester-is-cutting-tax-expenditures.html#sthash.MCqyCg3E.dpufhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/27/the-way-out-of-the-sequester-is-cutting-tax-expenditures.html

 Mankiw, N. Gregory.  Principles of Economics 5th Edition.  Harvard UNiversity: Mason, Ohio, 2009.

"National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013." Office of the Secretary of Defense.http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2013/FY13_Green_Book.pdf

 "OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/stareport.pdf

"President Obama Speaks on the Sequester." The White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/02/19/president-obama-speaks-sequester#transcript

"The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012"
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr5872enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr5872enr.pdf

Weisman, Johnathan and Parker, Ashley. "Acceptance of Defense Cuts Signals Shift in G.O.P. Focus."  The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/us/politics/democrats-and-republicans-miscalculate-on-automatic-cuts.html?_r=2&

Woodward, Bob.  "Obama Repeatedly Lied About Responsibility for Budget Sequester Cuts." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html

Anarchism and Demanding Discontent

Hopefully there is no defensive reaction against what I write.  What I mean is the assumption that because I question I must really be a "bourgeois capitalist," parroting and discussing anarchism to destroy it from within.  But, the whole purpose of this blog is to question abstractions and their application to real people.  In this post, I question the destructive capabilities of believers in the anarchism abstraction because I feel it is my individual duty to reflect on their beliefs (independent of anarchism’s content), my duty of autonomy from the anarchism belief system, and thus my duty to act to question the logical and moral contradictions which trouble my conscience (see individual anarchism and Christiano).  

I do not believe in a world dominated by permanent DISCONTENT like the anarchist's anti-ORDER system requires. I approach the world as it is, with the realization that abstractions like JUSTICE and AUTHORITY are simply abstractions, beliefs developed over thousands of years to help mankind cope with life and if possible, make it easier.  Contrarily, anarchists criticize concepts without checking first for their rationality or their utility by human beings in a real and not ideal world.  Because of its diffuseness, anarchist criticism involves many different topics that are too wide for one blog post.  But, I'll start to scrape the surface with introductory comments about authority, the State, democracy, and tradition.

Why create a belief system that destroys people who claim AUTHORITY if you are going to establish an AUTHORITY after that destruction?  

Why must we have faith that they'll do better?

Authority is just the ability to command people to obey. Unfortunately for us today, much of the philosophy of anarchism developed around a hundred sixty years go in France during multiple revolutions and in the Russian Empire.  Russian anarchists were influenced by a series of abstractions from the French anti-property and anti-Statism of Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-65).  He then influenced others like Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) who combined French abstractions with the beliefs in Russian “peasant wisdom” and “Slavophile communalism” (Burroughs 116). Buoyed by examples of supposedly glorious but inevitably futile French street riots and communal experiments most notably in 1848 and 1871, a few Russians believed in the strength and moral superiority of the poor Russian peasantry and the supposedly egalitarian (equal) local communities who did not have as much power as the "machinery" of the autocratic tzar ("all-powerful" Russian emperor).  Because of terrible experiences with a different authority and different abstractions, anarchists today feel the need to change America without the consent of American citizens.  They feel inspired by past anarchists; I am not.

But, the ideological fit was more difficult when a small group of those inspired anarchist immigrants brought those abstractions with them to the US in the mass immigrant waves of the later part of the 19th century.  They also brought with them a desire to destroy the established authority (Riasanovsky 433). They created explanations of life in Russia with its 19^th century Tsarist oppression.  But those abstractions do not fit as well with say, an anarcho-syndicalist voluntary association in Washington State, USA in 2013.  Nor do second generation immigrants from 1911 Europe/Russia and their difficulties reflect common grievances with the 2011 Occupy Wallstreet movement, which has a strong anarchist following, an "anti-hierarchical" tradition, and among many complaints, a desire to use their Ivy league education to get a job they can be happy with (See Bennett for anti-hierarchy).  Today, anarcho-syndicalist communities organize freely based on the protection of citizens who believe in the American abstractions of freedom of association, speech, and citizenship.  Yet, anarchists of whatever variety deserve the same skepticism they reserve for everybody not freely associating with them. 

Influenced by prominent anarchists like Emma Goldman, American anarchists throughout the 20th century forged a wide front against abstract explanations of American problems, while oftentimes saddling various rights movements with radical and terrorist labels.  A fringe of anarchist believers used sporadic acts of violence like the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 to achieve erratic results, namely to chop off the heads of an American authority explained by a metaphor of "weeds" that polluted the vast fertility of humanity (to borrow a Goldman metaphor).  Attempting further decapitation, between 1881-1911, numerous ministers, generals, kings, empresses, presidents from Russia, Italy, Austria and the United States were assassinated by terrorists believing in anarchism, while espousing “propaganda by the deed” (Burrough 195).  

Violence thus became the most powerful form of anarchist expression because at least in America, other ideological groups in America were more successful in altering people's minds (labor, women's rights, civil rights, etc.).   Thus, acts of violence and terrorism were perfectly acceptable and the future was just something humanity was just going to have to TRUST from people J.W. Burroughs called “confidence artists” (195).   Yet, many Occupy Wallstreet anarchists apply the same principles of anti-government, property, and tradition to America today (Bennett). Are we going to have to trust that they won't be violent?

Can Individuals "LIBERATE" themselves from Society and THEN be NATURAL, MORAL Beings?

Let me refer again to the terms of consent, duty to obey, to act from previous posts and now of AUTONOMY.  The last term refers to ones' individual independence from the content of others' actions/speech; "we have the right to do what we think is in our best interests."  Of course people are independent from the actions and speech of others.  But, does that mean we must evaluate every other person, out of billions, and decide for ourselves if their actions are moral?  Is that our duty to act?  Instead of acting justly in the perfect world of ideals and hypothetical, wouldn't we just spend a lot of time in the real world judging each other, until some COMMON beliefs started showing up anyways?  Like I don't know, trying to survive and avoid death by writing some rules down?

And how can anarchists judge the individual if the purpose of their system is the individual moral duty to act?  If violence is an acceptable way to correct an immoral situation from the subjective viewpoint, can one be an anarchist if one feels their duty to act would be to eliminate all other anarchists because one believes they are acting immorally?  Can't we keep time-tested abstractions over some charismatic leader's better future that they'll deign to lay out for us?

The Stupidity of the SHEEPLE Monicker

And if individually interpreted morality allows for the ONLY legitimate action, why are the majority people considered "sheeple" anyways?  This term is quite common among the youth bandying about at Occupy cultural festivals.  Really, "sheeple" is just a pejorative, a rather lame comparison of mindless sheep (animals) with a "herd" of people who supposedly don't think for themselves.  Why do self-professed anarchists get to determine whether or not individual action is in fact a mindless obedient animal action, and thus worthy of violent coercion in response, or an anarchic and thoughtful action which is moral?  Can't noncriminals be said to be acting within their duty to obey moral institutions as individuals at least because they haven't been caught?  Laws aren't perfect either and people do not enforce "JUSTICE" uniformly.  But, do we want a relatively moral humanity based on written laws or do we want to trust our fates to individual morality unlatched from time-tested commonality?  

Authority and institutions are abstract concepts the morality of which are subjectively determined.  Laws give them more weight because they are artifacts that remain long after thoughts disappear out of the human brain.  But, by dehumanizing the majority into an insulting "sheeple" term, aren't the anarchists simply imposing a new morality on everyone else?  And by demanding individuals question the majority, aren't they creating a law that separates right from wrong?  And if that law is written down in texts like Bakunin's God and State, aren't they really serving the same purpose as the abstract codes they would somehow abolish?

I prefer to have laws that provide for punishment when physical objects are taken that aren't your "own."   What about an anarchist at a Occupy Wall-street event losing his IPhone to another person who wanted it instead?  I prefer murder to be a heinous crime under the law so I am not murdered.  Perhaps those acting against all of those other individuals and doing it through VIOLENCE are acting immoral and violating the legitimacy of individual moral authority with their DEEDS?   Why is the minority, or rather the ultimate minority, the individual, ALWAYS the force for moral action, and not everyone else who just wants to avoid something taken from them or their safety preserved from a violent death?  Which morals would be acceptable in the ideal anarchic world, why do anarchists get to make that determination, why is it such a big deal that we write them down, and do we who object get a chance to disagree?

The "State" is an Abstract Explanation for Complex Interpersonal Obedience

Anarchism is full of contradictions, logical problems its believers should definitely work out before they affect my life.  Most anarchists choose to believe that governments and authorities are responsible for disorder (Guérin 9).  This is really an inversion of 18^th century Enlightenment philosophy (abstractions) whereby citizens in a “state of nature” form a "government" by a "social contract" or agreement to obey other people for mutual benefit.  Yet, anarchists believe that only a society without a government can possess a restored “natural order” and “social harmony.” 

Some anarchist "philosophers" argue that "each person has a right NOT to be bound by the states' commands" (Standford).  Emma Goldman is one of these believers in the possibility of a “stateless society.”  She wrote that “Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination” (Ward “Emma Goldman”).  She disconnects ideas from humanity, much like Bakunin, in that any abstraction that impedes self-awareness (whatever that is) should be removed (if that's even possible).

Goldman also wrote that anarchism is “the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary” (Ward “Emma Goldman”).  So, once man has somehow reached self-consciousness and purged State abstractions from their brains, then they can recieve anarchist liberty.  Goldman finds little worth in laws (artifacts) written by humans.  So, a written rule is automatically equated with the violence necessary to enforce it.  Yet, she ignores the fact that violence exists beyond punishment for rule breaking.  It might just be a human nature thing.   She also did not realize that her path to a new social order may be just as violent if American society ever gets there (hopefully never).

Likewise, other anarchists have typically tried to justify their imposition of beliefs on other people in the context of individual morality and the justification for an organization of people where membership is voluntary and one can depart at any time.  But, can we really leave our abstractions behind?  Can we really abandon "traditional society" as she conceives it?  I think not.

 Others write along the same lines that individuals have a right not to be subjected to another's imposition of duties (Christiano).  For example, you have no right to tell me what to do without letting me take the time to judge the morality of the situation for myself.  But, how can we remove ourselves from ourselves?  How can we spend the time needed to decide every possible obligation's potential morality or immorality?  Can't human beings use past understanding of morality and the laws that enforce it without having to throw everything out?  Of course!

Another problem is that natural order means ”perfection,” something that can never exist in the real world other than what’s already in existence physically or in people’s flawed minds.  In some anarchist, dare I say intellectual circles, “anarchism” is socialistic because believers want to “abolish the exploitation of man by man” (Guérin 9).  Really, they seek to end obligations between people that anarchism’s believers think are “too much.”  Yet, it’s their “standards” that they impose on us, the socialistic part where equality is best planned for by a select, knowledgeable few.  It’s a different determination of what constitutes a socialist construction of society.  They define for us separation between a social interaction (positive) as opposed to an obligation, and therefore a potentially “exploitative” action (negative).  Thus, they have constructed a moral system for us.

Bakunin and the State

Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin believed "States" were abstractions ( I think he’s right), but ones that devoured people’s lives, hopes, and dreams (Guérin 12).  But, humanity uses abstractions for all aspects of life.  Ask Americans to define happiness and you may find relative similarity, but whatever is expressed is based on imperfect perceptions of their current reality, the physical objects they THINK they possess, and what they believe, yet they can never one hundred percent know.  So, Bakunin’s standard of happiness is relative to his perception of the 19^th century world and how he viewed one abstraction, the State, and how he conspiratorilizes its role in affecting the "happiness" and "aspirational" abstractions.  How can we call this approach more rational than the imperfect "government" that we have now?  His ideas were violently applied in the death of Presidents and the "radicalization" and counter-reaction against the labor movement at a time when Americans in particular were weary of the violent 1917 Russian Revolution. 

Abstractions are used in incalculable number of ways to describe real life on a planet with billions of people.  Though Bakunin himself diagnoses abstractions as motivating people to act, he creates his own abstract system whereby his notions of aspiration and happiness are moral whereas the "State" is the immoral belief holding back "progress."  Thus, for the purposes of altering reality for people in Europe in the 19th century, he seeks to create something after he has destroyed.

Bakunin believes that mankind has suffered because of ideas (true).  History has been "a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstraction--God, country, power of State, national honor, historical rights, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare" (Bakunin).  But, Bakunin attacks his BAD abstractions ("God," "State power," etc.) with other GOOD ones ("complete humanization," "collective consciousness," etc.).  He also dehumanizes as much as he wishes the "ruling classes" didn't.  The "upper classes" are already separated not by their individualism that should be part of any truly moral person, but by their ability to maintain authority with "vampire" abstractions, sucking humanity's metaphorical blood to quench an unending thirst for control over human life (Bakunin).  

So in Bakunin's system, it is the PEOPLE (moral, real, positive and human) versus the VAMPIRES (abstract, sacrificial of the masses, immoral, and monster-like).  Thus, some people are humans while others are monsters because they believe differently than Bakunin, a contradiction of his wish for a humanity void of abstraction and united because he used abstractions to separate human beings.  But, Bakunin failed to see the logical extent of his own discussion of abstractions.  Rather than seeing abstraction as necessary and inescapable parts of an imperfect world like I do, he saw them as something that can be removed from reality if people simply stop believing in them, even as he uses them as tools of explanation.

The Paralyzing Effect of Abstractions:  How can man be in a “constant state of revolt?”

Taking  Bakunin's views on the abstractions of true-humans versus vampires further, many anarchists who sympathize only with nonconformists and outlaws declare themselves in permanent revolt (Guérin).  Thus, they develop erratic methods to do things, like isolated violent acts or assassinations, without a realistic strategy for completing their ideal individualist world.  They become the vampire slayers, protecting those poor (Russian) peasants by harming or taking out real people because they truly believe that murdering "upper class" humans with "property" or "wealth" is morally justifiable.  By believing that society should be opposed in its current state, they paralyze themselves to common sense and open the door to tragedy for everyone else.  It also makes for a miserable personal life if you're constantly revolting against society for something that will never come to pass.

Not exactly a picture of happiness himself, J.P. Proudhon was probably the first to use the label of anarchist proudly. He believed in loose organizations of people by free will and influenced the anti-state aspect of anarcho-syndicalism (Burroughs 117)  If as Proudhon wrote “the government of man by man is servitude,” what other non-human relationships have existed?  Which abstractions exist outside of mankind?  Did aliens coexist with man and that was a less exploitative time?  

“Governments” are just abstractions anyways, groups of people who believe they command the duty to obey from other people because of interpersonal relationships and the desire to make survival a little easier.  Therefore, in a hypothetical future society with all current government abstraction purged, people will still associate with each other, authority probably won't disappear at all even if every written law or vestige of "government" is destroyed.  And as population increases with authority in this post-apocalyptic world, so too will the need for more complex abstractions to keep the “morally perfect” supposedly in a state of nature.  Human nature is imperfect whether an “anarchist,” a self-described capitalist, or an authoritarian communist is obligating other humans.  Why revolt against what we have only to hit the reset button and be forced to start over with the same imperfect human nature?  And why do a few make that violent choice for many?

A major debate within anarchism’s believers has been over whether to use “social institutions,” like voting to infiltrate and change society while retaining anarchic individualism.  Yet, according to Guérin, the idea of sovereignty (right to rule) of the people contains its own negation (13).  For people to be sovereign, there would no government.  But, he is incorrect because governments are just people who believe they possess the duty to command.  And we’ve established in the last post that you can’t have sovereignty of any other species over humanity, unless aliens are coming to rule over us.  So, humans ask other humans to do things, and people obey or not.  I think that in an ideal anarchic world, humans will still obligate each other and if they write that obligation down, it will become a law.  And if the obligation isn’t met, a person will be immoral and one could even say, acting illegally!  And with new laws, people will of course be sovereign unless we're attacked by a non-human species!  Otherwise "sovereignty of the people" is just an abstraction.

Can we say that man never should have a duty to obey?  If so, why must we obey anarchist morality?
 
Proudhon and Property:

According to Proudhon, because bias and prejudice are part of authority, and because "Constitutions like those in France in 1790-93 imperfectly describe JUSTICE," only individual equality of ALL rights independent of all written artifacts is truly JUST (see "What is Property").  To use my terminology, because written constitutions contain ABSTRACTIONS like "VIRTUE an TALENTS," Proudhon believes that documents are imperfect and display too much attachment to what he views as the old, unequal order.  Proudhon found 19th century global resources to be imperfectly distributed, Constitutions protect property, and voters simply continued a rotten system.  JUSTICE cannot exist if the system is corrupt.  

 But, neither the written word nor Proudhon's conception of JUSTICE are perfect.  You can't pluck JUSTICE from our brains and bring it to earth to suddenly make it real.  We use JUSTICE to explain right and wrong as real human beings relate to each other.  We write those ideas down so that other people know the consequences of violation, but also to avoid conflict.  And "property CANNOT be theft" because we can't take a physical object and own it, say engulf it in our human bodies like an amoeba eat its prey.  Instead, we use law, an artifact itself, to ensure we can continue to use stuff with minimal harm to ourselves.  Laws protect USE of physical objects, not OWNERSHIP (an abstract conference of humanity on something that is NOT).   

Why do we "OWN" things?

Humans need physical objects to continue living.  I can only eat a slice of bread and get energy from it.  You can't receive energy when I eat the same piece of bread, unless you cannibalize me.  But then you'd exist at my expense.  When it comes to survival, necessary physical materials can't be in me and you at the same time.  And it turns out that there is a limited amount of stuff and time out there that humans need for survival.  And it is the case that humans might have to work together to limit competition for survival.  As a "society" develops, so to do artifacts like laws develop and where ever more complicated USAGE is defined.  

In fact, laws ensure survival because they avoid competition over physical objects and protect humans from murdering each other over stuff.  So, property does not equal theft, but removing law does mean more murder.  People's understanding of their reality unravels and the consequences of threatening survival become more apparent.  

Why buy into Proudhon conceptions when laws simply are artifacts that reflect man's imperfect understanding of the world around them? Why threaten survival by ignoring use rules in order to satisfy the unsatisfiable, namely bringing Proudhon's conception of the JUSTICE abstraction somehow into the real world?  That can never happen.  

In a post-apocalyptic anarchic world, anarchists will still need physical objects, like plants, animals, and oxygen for survival.  And they might find themselves competing with each other if they don't come to agreement among people to conserve the limited resources that survive their horror.  That agreement equals an abstraction, an attempt to understand the world around them for the purpose of survival.

Tradition and Obedience to the Dead?

Anarchists believe they revolt because they reject society with its “barriers of tradition” (Guérin 9).  But, tradition is simply following the repetition of action over some period of time.  Tradition itself is an abstraction because you can have religious tradition, say a Christmas “celebration” on December 25^th, or a micro-tradition, like an annual family trip.  So, secret “anarchistic” societies can have anarchistic traditions, like the annual conference titled "Renewing the Anarchist Tradition" which revels in the "intellectualism" of its movement's activists, writers, and cultural figures (http://www.anarchiststudies.org/rat).  

In reality, anarchists reject their other beliefs because they BELIEVE they have liberated their minds.  But, we can’t know everything about other people because we can’t mind-warp and understand each 100%.  Because anarchists renounce authority (“political,” “religious,” “moral” etc.), they want us to have faith that their different system is more moral (even though more than a few anarchists reject universal morals outright.)  So, they tear down faith in religion and religious authorities (priests, popes, etc.) while asking us to have faith in individual man’s ability to purify themselves of “society” and authority and then to remake society in their image.  I’m fine with current imperfection.

Let’s take the duty to obey and abstraction further.  Upon death in the US, people write documents ahead of time that dispose of their physical stuff upon their death.  Essentially, this establishes an obligation to a dead body.  In addition many societies on earth have burial traditions that show the strength of the interpersonal relationship with the person while they were alive.  

Abstraction and memory of past reality inform the living about what to do with that physical stuff.  They could dispose of the objects unjustly, that is, if the will (an artifact) demands an action be taken with the bequeathed object, and that action is not taken.  Unjust would be defined by how people who believe they’re “lawyers” read the will and then act to dispose of that stuff.  Or, we could take the physical artifacts and treat them as anarchists do.  They destroy what they THINK are “bourgeois representations of state oppression.”  Anything claimed in life as property would by this logic be inherently unjust because someone else doesn’t have it.  Reverence for the dead obligates the living to obey tradition.  

But, this logic necessarily shackles anarchists to their own abstraction.  If every anarchist is responsible for their own duty to act, to evaluate all demands of other people to evaluate and possibly throw out, shouldn't every reasonably consistent one of them have to throw out the work of the past?  Bye-bye Bakunin!   If they didn’t, they’d be following an anarchist tradition.   

With all of the anarchist literary tradition thrown out, how will the perfect natural existence come to exist?  Or was it really supposed to be a group of enlightened individuals leading a vanguard all along?  Aren’t Bakunin, Proudhon, Goldman etc. really the hated academics leading everyone else?  If the individual were truly sovereign and anarchists possessed the purest anarchic beliefs in their brains alone, do they deserve to violate the duty of autonomy of everyone they judge as not believing?  Do they deserve to impose their anarcho—syndicalist State of any size in order to impose their moralism and social harmony?  Can’t we just skip their polemics, assassinations, destruction, and bloody violence and stick with the imperfect society where more individual people have an input on the interpretation of abstractions and the ability to command the duty to obey in US 2013?

Do we really want to consent to anarchists who believe that obedience itself is dehumanizing and immoral?

And do we really want to consent to a system where we're labeled immoral and unjust?  Or where its believers think that violence can be necessary to scare the "sheeple" out of their labeled ignorance?

No thank you, I will not consent to discontent, I will not join, and I will not obey "anarchism."  I can think for myself.

Sources:

(It's pretty ironic that I'm crediting some of the intellectual work, dare I say, "property" of anarchists because I didn't create their ideas myself.)

Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich.  God and State.  E-text prepared by Fritz Ohrenschall, René Anderson Benitz, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.  From The Project Guttenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36568/36568-h/36568-h.htm

Bennett, David.  "David Graeber, the Anti-Leader of Occupy Wallstreet."  Bloomberg Business Week Magazine. October 26, 2011. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/david-graeber-the-antileader-of-occupy-wall-street-10262011.html

Burrow, J.W.  The Crisis of Reason: European Thought 1848-1914.  Yale University Press, New Haven: 2000.

Christiano, Tom, "Authority", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/authority/>.

Guérin, Daniel.  "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, " http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/Daniel_Guerin__Anarchism__From_Theory_to_Practice.html.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. & Steingberg, Mark D.  A History of Russia: Seventh Edition.  Oxford University Press, New York: 2005.

Proudhon, P. J.  "What is Property?  An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government."  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/360/360-h/360-h.htm

Ward, Dana.  "Anarchy Archives:  An Online Research Center on the History and Theory of Anarchy." A http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/goldman/aando/anarchism.html

Obediance and International Laws of Self-Defense

Can you really work for the world?  

Individuals CAN Think So, but I'm Not Ready to Give My Consent to their Authority.

Let me separate a few abstractions first before I discuss the problems of “global governance” in 2012. First, the pace of change toward some ideal global government violates existing (abstract) principles of representative government, citizenship, and the legitimacy of authority based on written constitutions.  Second, in 2012, the United Nations (UN) fails to meet my standards of an authority I should obey first before the US government.  Third, international laws of "self-defense," particularly those found in the UN Charter, are one area where disunity and mass abstraction prevent global governance. 

While some people merely dream of a united world, I believe we should do realistic things with our limited time on earth to help who we can with what limited things we have.  I believe that people have individual responsibilities to obey the most moral institutions human beings can manage during that time.  In the geographic area comprising the US, the US government is the better, and more moral institution when compared to the United Nations or some undefined global government that would hypothetically impose itself over everywhere.  The UN is most useful as a tool, and a very good one sometimes, but a tool of imperfect but more "responsible nations," like the US.  This group  is given the power to determine what constitutes a "self-defense" action.  It is useful to release pressure and to avoid conflict in a world where that might not always be possible.  While the ideas like "unity of all workers" or "ending imperialism" seem attractive and easy, they are just abstractions and dangerous if used to empower the wrong people.  And too many of those abstractions float around the halls of the UN and that probably explains why the "power of the international community" can be so limited at times.

Let me explain using common terms of political discourse.  They are not used to encompass all global political reality, an impossibility anyways, but a way to explain relationships between real people as they act as "governments."

Some terms I'll use:

Authority: an ability to command one or more person.

Consent: agreement to follow another person’s order or law.

Obedience: continued observance of the law.

Legitimacy: the right to demand obedience.

duty to obey: obligation to follow a law.  (See Christiano)

As with any collective group of people organized by their beliefs, UN employees are people who believe that they work for all nations.  Any consent to UN authority comes from "member-states" who signed the charter or were extended some form of membership (observer status of say the Palestinians).  Both membership options legitimize the UN in a way defined by the employees of each nations-state.  Thus, nations consent to the UN voluntarily, by the past/present acts of national employees.  Based on their treaty with the UN, countries only have the duty to obey in certain situations.  And much of the interpretation of what constitutes a duty to the UN is decided in the Security Council by the five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The employees of the member-states then comprise the "force" against a violating subject state again as determined by individual perceptions of international law.  But, consent of a nation for the UN can be withdrawn if the "international collective's" resolution violates the subject states' “authority” over their people.  Perhaps, the subject state believes that consent of their people is more important than the viewpoint of an international body (occasionally the US?).  Or, perhaps they view domination of their own nationals as more important (nearly always North Korea).  Nations like the US value the idea that representatives seek public consent through voting.  There are other more “authoritarian” models, like North Korea, who value ideology above all else.

In order to attempt “world government,” many changes need to occur.  First, enough people on the globe need to believe that global employees possess authority and thus command the duty to obey.  Ideally, these global employees would also believe in my variant of the democracy abstraction and would perceive their own actions as being legitimate because “global citizens” determined they should be given global titles as per a written constitution.

Global Representational Government AND Nation States NOT Possible

“Leaping Forward to Globalism?”  

How could employees of the globe command the duty to obey as part of a world government?  And what if one “country’s” citizens do not consent because they do not believe the ruling human beings represent the globe, thus are not legitimate, and thus they have no duty to obey them?  Essentially, for “world government” to be a practical reality, no “national” abstraction, like the United States of America, can exist in the minds of people and the global employees must be able to command the duty to obey from enough people to continue their employment.

Is mankind really capable of devising a representational system that accounts for all of the diverse abstractions that people believe in?  Can we really have widespread belief in global governance without minds purged of national abstractions?  So, national symbols like George Washington to “Americans,” would have to be re-imagined and twisted as part of a history of “progress” toward the belief in globalism.  Attempting to force global abstractions on minds already determined to be national in character will necessarily lead to dissonance and resistance.  Immediate change of ideas hasn't really worked on a mass scale without lots of people dying.  People cannot shed their experience, their core make-up and wiring of their brains quickly.  And forcing global abstractions on people before their brains change and understanding develops removes legitimacy and the duty to obey from the group of people.   Rather than the individual coming to understand the necessity of something like “global government” through “rational” and “irrational” moments in reality, a foreign abstraction is forced upon them. 

There is no guarantee that such "globalism," "progress," or "perfection" will ever exist either.  Irresponsible authorities exist, more responsible ones like the US may not exist, and everything might be destroyed if individuals aren't aware of the complexities as opposed to misleading comfort of words.  And people on this planet are still creating new government abstractions.  See the development of “nations” like Iraq or South Sudan if you want more proof that nations atomize just as much as they consolidate toward one big global nation.  And since World War I especially, international institutions have played their role in that procreative process using the belief in "self-determination" (to be discussed another time) to rationalize new geographic collections of people.   The application of "self-determination" can be quite a destructive process for nations and lead to violence, genocide, and tragedy.

Yet, people resist consent to an authority if they cannot understand the abstraction.  And they need not obey or throw away the abstractions that are more real to them like US flags and eagles to US citizens.  Thus, because a person believes they’re “Iraqi” and to whatever incalculable degree they believe in patriotic Iraqi symbols, their minds are blocked in understanding global abstractions.  They cannot, after however many years of experiencing life as an Iraqi, comprehend “global abstractions” in a way that gives the it more reality than the "Iraqiness."  As an “Iraqi” believer, they could say they’re “good global citizens" but they’d be interpreting “good global citizenship" through their individual lens of “Iraqi abstractions” and their other indefinable beliefs and irreversible history of action as individuals and a people.

UN Charter: Article 51

 

The main article of the UN related to "self-defense" is not universally applied in complete moral way. It is a written law, words on paper that people use to make decisions for billions of people across the planet.  It states "Nothing shall impair" individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs until the Security Council acts to maintain peace/security" (UN Charter).  This article is subjective to nation states that are members.  Then, those "attacked" define their own self-defense and then what action they choose to take to respond.  The UN shall not impair or limit the response until the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decides to do something about it.

In essence this article starts a clock the moment the nation-state is "attacked."  The clock is for Security Council action.  Meanwhile, the victim state "must report to" this body, defend itself however, and wait (Gray 90).  Then, action against the victim is subjective to the Security Council member states which are given the power to maintain "peace/security."  Therefore, conflicts had and have endured because of the subjectivity of the application of "self-defense" and the subjectivity of "peace/security."  One nation's relative peace might be another nation's armed conflict.  In addition, "armed attack" does not limit "attacking people" to the category of the "nation-state" abstraction, so those people could be labeled "guerrillas, terrorists, etc."  Is the SC always the most responsible body where armed conflict is concerned?  No, because its constituent members are not perfect, and other than international politics, members use both rationality and emotion with mixed results.

For example in 2002, Saddam Hussein rejected the collective orders of most nations when it came to disclosure about his weapons programs (See Press Release SC/7564).  He was found in material breach of Resolution 1441 and that meant little until the US used UN resolution violations (selectively) as a pretext for the 2003 invasion (See The Long Road to War).  The US felt that solutions to real problems weren't to be found by continuing measures within the UN.   Thus, the UN itself could do nothing other than legitimize or not those nations that would act and force Iraq to comply.  The UN abstraction did nothing, nationals employed by other peoples’ consent did.

UNSC is an Imperfect Political Institution

In addition, voting against a UNSC resolution, does not confer absolute possession of a moral authority.  For example, throughout the 1980s, the US/UK voted against resolutions condemning the "Apartheid" regime of South Africa (Gray 102).  The nation invaded its neighbors, Angola and Botswana, to respond in "self-defense" to cross border guerrilla raids. It was to some degree motivated by the abstractions of "anti-communism" and "racism."  US/UK leaders wanted a negotiated settlement more in line with their collective abstractions, which meant they did not want to see a "communist" South Africa if the region spiraled further out of control.  In this case, it seemed obvious that in an ideal world, everyone would collectively oppose Apartheid and the laws and practice would be shamed out of existence.  Instead, national leaders received the real world situation as their interests determined; convince racist South African white leaders to change their mind about their abstractions, while keeping a government opposed to the communist abstraction intact.  In the end, the Apartheid regime fell in a more complex way than simple global resolutions or communist victories.  In fact, it was part an individual mind change on the part of President F.W. De Klerk and the persistence and courage of Nelson Mandela and his supporters.

 Representational Consent Developed Through Complexity

Power of representative institutions, rather authority, developed in Western Europe and was brought by settlers to North America as complex ideas with a long history.  This power came about by receiving "consent" to finance government employees.  For example in 1275, England's Parliament gained revenue-producing rights by law and because of the king's need.  The King needed more tax money to pay more employees to fight his war, but found his ability to garner that money stymied by local communities and barons.  Thus, political mechanisms (laws) were needed to gain that consent from lords and the population, who were bound by abstraction to the lord and loyalty oaths subject to individual behavior (See Morgan 148).  In fact, kings themselves had to bargain with all levels of society (communities, nobles) to get people to give up their stuff to do kingdom or spiritually-related things.  And to simplify American history, our Revolution was against increased "government" power.  It was directed from British American citizens at the very much changed authority of King George III and a tax-empowered Parliament.  Those citizens wanted the imperial government to have less power to take away their stuff without their consent.

And as the US developed as a "nation," its people increased the power of voters to determine laws and increased the consent for its employees to take more stuff away.  Can we say that other countries that we're in a diplomatic relationship with have the same level of consent required by citizens in the US?  In the US, at least most of our employees received public consent to take more away.  Can we say the same level of consent exists within such a mixed institution as the UN?  Not really.  Are we ready for globalism with Communist China, a "nation" whose leaders order the bulldozing of whole communities because central planners believe they possess "scientific socialism?" (See Sui-Lee Wee)  I'd prefer America's imperfect "eminent domain" over Chinese "central planning"!  How can we reconcile two seemingly different abstractions, "Americanism" vs. "Chinese communism," based on two different people's understanding of the world around them?  China possesses the authority to claim a UN Security Council seat, a powerful position that allows it to veto decisions, maybe ones I think are good ones, presented by the US or the UK.

Yet, is the UNSC the best way to command US citizens, to ensure they're obedient to some "international community" if Putin's Russia and China are 2/5's of its decision-making?  And if globalism is the unity of "nations," their peoples, and their "beliefs" into one abstract system, do "Americans" really want to consent to some unknown, formless unity instead of their more immediate reality of American "self-government" and "self-determination?"

Why do we bother then?  

Because the UN is the best international system of abstraction that we can manage with what we have right now.  A "powerful" nation like the US could take action alone, but it might have to suffer the violent consequences of a decision to go to war.  And no, the Iraq Conflict of 2003 is not an example of one "nation" fighting alone with no other "nation" supporting it in a conflict.  I'll deal with authority, legitimacy, and Iraq in later posts.  Instead of loneliness, the US makes decisions in a complex world and I find those vastly more appealing than those of Russia or China.

The state of "globalism" is such that "national governments" are subject to possible coercion by the imperfect (but needed) UN system.  In 2012, humanity's abstractions are so complicated and geographically diverse that an incredible level of coercion, even force, would be required to make people believe in global unity over national integrity.  However, it is still easier for a poor farmer in Bangladesh to abstractify their terrible lives into "American economic imperialism," brought courtesy of communist believers, while blaming words for life's hardships.  But, humans are put into awful, inescapable, and/or involuntary situations.  Abstractions help us cope and make us think we understand something as a reduction.  What I demand is skepticism of remedy.  Because the world is as complex as it is, simple remedies are suspect.  Instead, when we act as individuals, we must be aware of the damage our individual action may have on everyone else, regardless of belief.   Maybe with a little more individual awareness, we'll have a little less mass chaos and a little more help for individual man.

Sources:

Christiano, Tom, "Authority", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/authority/>.

Gray, Christine.  International Law and the Use of Force.  Oxford University Press, NY: 2000.

Morgan, Kenneth. Oxford History of Britain.  Oxford University Press, NY: 1984.

"The Long Road to War" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/cron.html#5

"Press Release SC/7564," United Nations. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm

"United Nations Charter: Article 51" from The United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml

Sui-Lee Wee,  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-china-threegorges-idUSBRE87L0ZW20120822Thousands Being Moved from China's Three Gorges Dam- Again