tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post2558551825733808932..comments2024-03-28T21:32:26.550+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: If there is to be a Good 'politics of the future' it will be incredibly simplisticBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-25911234638248572052018-12-04T11:29:12.492+00:002018-12-04T11:29:12.492+00:00@CCL - "The simple fact that every social ord...@CCL - "The simple fact that every social order ultimately depends on the voluntary cooperation of the most effective killers... " <br /><br />That's actually a pretty useless and over-reductonistic comment about civilization; and without explanatory or predictive value - because the only way it can be made true is to reduce the specificity of meaning to such a level that it is true by definition. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-74304477904057150972018-12-04T11:25:40.519+00:002018-12-04T11:25:40.519+00:00@CCL "This means that the great problem of so...@CCL "This means that the great problem of society has always been, and always will be, how to persuade the most effective fighting men. "<br /><br />Has been, yes - but from here I am not sure what will be - since the current situation is unprecedented. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-48225465545830102332018-12-04T11:16:49.166+00:002018-12-04T11:16:49.166+00:00The simple fact that every social order ultimately...The simple fact that every social order ultimately depends on the voluntary cooperation of the most effective killers is repugnant to many moderns, and to intellectuals of <i>every</i> decadent civilization. But this is simply what social order <i>is</i>. The alternative is to be on the <i>losing</i> side of a war (formally declared and organized or not), and that war <i>will</i> inevitably end with the side that has the voluntary cooperation of the most effective killers being in charge. We can and should prefer voluntary cooperation of the most effective killers to be based on reason rather than instinct, and failing that for some instincts to be preferred to others.<br /><br />But we cannot, and should not, forever depend on the cooperation of the most effective killers while we deride the need or justification for their consent to our social order. They only way to get any killers under control is by having the most effective ones on your side...and they <i>all</i> know it.<br /><br />Everyone else forgets that at their peril.<br /><br />But of course they prefer to avoid remembering it as much as possible. Another primitive instinct, I suppose.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-58268382328760916902018-12-04T11:14:21.100+00:002018-12-04T11:14:21.100+00:00I suspect that the majority of the intellectually ...I suspect that the majority of the intellectually gifted are bound to deride politics anyway.<br /><br />Statecraft, the process of selecting leaders for the task of actually building up civilization starting at the foundations, has nothing much to do with politics as we know it. It does have the tenor of being "ridiculously simplistic", positing basic principles of sound government that seem incredibly obvious to nearly every 'civilized' man. This is because when a new civilization is at the founding point, the men must fight, literally, to secure it. Either from barbarism or from competing civilizations.<br /><br />That means that the articulation of the principles which make the nation worth fighting for has to be suitable to the comprehension of the fighting men. After all, you don't have a long-established tradition of subordination of the fighting man to the politician when the civilization itself is not long-established.<br /><br />Not all 'intellectuals' will hate this, if <i>I</i> am to be included in that category at all. Although I learned from my own time in the military that the general level of intelligence of fighting men is not terrifically above average, they as a whole tend to more reliably understand that government (and thus civilization) is an exercise in applied organized violence on a large scale.<br /><br />The fundamental purpose and method of all government is to decide whom you are going to kill so you may live as you please, and who is going to do the killing. Every 'political' question is of this nature, legislation codifies the criteria for resorting to force, and the resort to force is always backed by the ultimate threat of irresistibly lethal force should there be resistance to lesser force prove ineffective. When your government is no longer willing or able to resort to irresistible lethal force if all else fails, why then it ceases to <i>be</i> the government, and either anarchy or conquest ensues in short order.<br /><br />Fighting men are more likely to understand this than the typical "intellectual" (however we decide to define that term). They may not arrive at it by sound philosophical inquiry, it seems more likely that they know it by some primitive instinct derived from territorial competition in prehistoric (and even pre-human) times.<br /><br />The great problem of society isn't <i>how</i> to persuade people to be reasonable. The ancient philosophers intuited that it couldn't be by appealing to their reason, modern mathematics proved it as a fundamental logical truth. The fighting man has always known that the way to persuade people to be reasonable was to be ready to respond to <i>unreason</i> with violence.<br /><br />This means that the great problem of society has always been, and always will be, how to persuade the most effective fighting men. Not necessarily, and certainly not exclusively, to see reason, though societies where reason is important are nicer than those where it isn't. No, the thing that you need to persuade those fighting men to do is <i>fight</i>. First to establish your social order, then to defend it.<br /><br />And when you can no longer persuade them anymore, why then your social order is finished.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.com