User:LordCompost86

Howdy, I thought it would be wise to author a page that actually expresses my political thought, rather than just ramblings on philosophy. So, I'm, and this I guess is my userpage.

Obviously most people here would know me for being the egoist of the Polcompball community. and for being the philosophy person. But, I do in fact have political opinions, but outside of those discourses I also enjoy folk music, cooking, antiquity, literature, art, or general discussions about random science topics. I would like to add the caveat that I don't like to be bothered with ignorant questions. However, I am generally a helpful or considerate person and I prefer not to be rude.

= Reading = Archaic and Classical Greek Art by Robin Osborne (1998)

= Influences = Sophocles (497-405 BCE) Plato (428-348 BCE) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854) Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) Johann Kasper Schmidt (1806-1856) Charles Baudelaire (1821-1887) Sergey Nechayev (1847-1882) Georges Sorel (1847-1922) Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Sigmund Freud (1854-1949) Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) Renzo Novatore (1890-1924) Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) Roland Barthes (1915-1980) Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) Michel Foucault (1926-1984) Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) Lawrence Stepelevich (1930-) Robert Paul Wolff (1933-) Bob Dylan (1941-) Slavoj Žižek (1949-) A. John Simmons (1950-) Saul Newman (1972-) Matthew Noah Smith (-)

= Philosophy = Look at my Self-Insert page.

= Political Beliefs =

Political Obligation
I wish to start with the notion of obedience because I believe that a thorough critic of this principle will allow the rest of my ideology to unfold. Political Obligation has been a sort of "basic" assumption held by nearly all political theories and if not politcal obligation then moral (i.e. declaration of human rights exist above political states). However, 20th century philosophy has seen a resurgence of arguments for and against, thereby acknowledging that it need not be a tacit principle of 'political' communities. The previous argument for this assumption was that a political community was in fact a community with shared 'laws' or obligations as opposed to 'anarchy' or chaos. However, as I said the resurgence has lead to discussions of whether we can in fact have a justified 'political' community. There have been many iterations or justifications for political obedience including, consent (including tacit consent), social contract, fair play, duty to justice, duty to fellow man, gratitude, or the basic principle that society as we know it will fall apart without obligation to laws, political systems, social customs, etc.

Now, I agree with what is now as 'philosophical anarchism' which is the 'side' that believes there is no obligation or duty towards political states or, the less extreme version, unjust political states. Following A. John Simmons and his work Moral Principles and Political Obligations I wish to deconstruct the common arguments. First is consent, which very simply I argue that I personally have not given consent. Secondly on the problem of tacit consent, i.e., by living in a country or under a state I give consent, and if I don't I should go elsewhere or live in the ocean somewhere. The problem with this is that it would also apply to say a 'slave' who does not run away because death in the wilderness is no option either, and as such consent is out of the question. More so, someone like Lysander Spooner has argued that even voting does not constitute consent because choosing between two negative options even if one is a lesser evil does not imply support for the chosen option. Thirdly we have social contract theories, which as we all know are not historical facts, but rather thought experiments. Each individual actually begins their life in a social situation with their mother, family, community and thus is already apart of involuntary association. The child prefers to enter into the voluntary association with their friends, until they must be called back the parent. I too prefer the voluntary association than the forced society from birth, whether it is a contract or not.

Fourth, we have the general 'duties' towards others which also includes fair play. Fair play is associated with the problem of the free-ridder, because other's are helping you and providing for you, you then need to contribute and also pitch in. Thus, something like you have been robbed and the police catch the criminal and return your property, you can't then yourself go around and start robbing people. For you to owe something then, you must have been given something in the first place, however, if I gave you something that you never asked for, then I can't expect something in return. Let alone if you viewed this "gift" as a negative experience. As such, a voluntary action caveat must be added, but if a person voluntarily associated with an unjust institution, does that then justify the existence of the institution? Let alone that that institution should then hold it's voluntary members accountable and hold them under obligation? As such, both the consent and the fair-play argument require the participants to voluntary enter into the cooperative scheme, except that the consent-argument requires the participant to deliberately have undertaken the obligation, while the fair play argument does not, it just assumes and throws them under the obligation. The duties towards fellow men or towards justice also tacitly assume that the participant owes something to someone else solely based on their association or interaction with. Fifth, we have gratitude, which again like fair-play bases it's arguments on the fact that society has given you things and thus you owe something back.

Lastly, we have the argument that society will fall apart without people following the laws. And this argument is based on the fact that people are unruly, we need a state to have security. A very Hobbesian 'state of nature' argument. But as I have already noted, humans never existed in a 'state of nature' where the war of all against all runs rampart. Following this, we also have the argument put foward by William Godwin that even if the state of nature is anarchy and chaos, that does not constitute an argument for political obligation, it may consitute an argument for security but need not lead to a state. And, on top of this, many if not all political states are equally brutish or 'evil', they may not even promote security and even if they did, it does not mean it is justified. A tyrant could produce security (which is precisely Hobbes' assessment when he argues that a leviathan could rule because it is automatically better than the state of nature), so too could a family, or a friendship group. This is not to say that a bundle of families will automatically be secure, but my point is that the focus on security could lead to worse options in my opinion. As such, following all of this, I reach the conclusion reached by many anarchists, or A. John Simmons that there is no political obligation, nor is there a justified state. This last conclusions comes from someone like Max Stirner, or Robert Paul Wolff, that moral obligations towards external authorities reduces my own autonomy as an individual and is thus a negative or unjustified institution.

However, I wish to distance myself from Simmons' conclusion on the nature of 'disobedience'. On this he says, "...from a conclusion that no one in a state has political obligations, nothing follows immediately concerning a justification of disobedience." (A. J. Simmons 1979, p. 193). However, I wish to ask a simple question. If obedience to the law requires the law to produce an obligaiton, then how does a law which does not produce an obligation then allow obedience? If say the law existed, i.e. a state has laws written down, and individual A happens to act such that their action is not considered "illegal" (For example, the law states that you cannot commit murder, and the individual never commits any murders), then is that individual being obedient to the law, or is there action adjacent to the law? In this case, the individual doesn't commit murder because they have no reason or desire to murder anyone, are they then behaving such that they 'followed' the law, or did the action jsut match up with what the law dictates? I think that if the individual is not 'specifically' keeping the law in mind, then they are not being obedient, but does that then mean they are being disobedient? This is where my quarrel with Simmons arises, even if the individual was "breaking" the law, if they have no option of being obedient because the law produces no obligation to be obedient too, then how can one be disobedient? As such, I think that lacking political obligation does not produce a justification for disobedience, because they option is no longer possible. You just have individual actions that may or may not be in "accordance" with some states "laws".

Art and Politics
= Comments = - I will be doing relations on my Self-Insert page. Please comment here however if you have political or personal questions.