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.

Unlike my philosophy, I prefer to fall under an already existent political ideology, for me that is Philosophical Anarchism. While it does already exist, I do have my own take on what exactly it involves. I also extend my ideology into an analysis of political systems, which involves Stirner's critique of universal political systems, Lyotard's Postmodern conception of justice, and a combination of Žižek's and Newman's critiques of the reinforcement/reproduction of power respectively. Finally, I have a general commitmemt to individual autonomy and the possibility of individual action through artistic creativity, insurrection, and extra-political association. My "ideology" argues that there is no political obedience, and as such espouses the individual's choice to focus on themselves apart from politics and the formation of social groups that are not necessarily political. This ideology is not a political system, nor do I seek to replace any current system but rather to acknowledge extra-political possibilities.

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

= Influences = Hesiod (750-650 BCE) Sophocles (497-405 BCE) Plato (428-348 BCE) Epicurus (341–270 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) Renzo Novatore (1890-1924) Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) Roland Barthes (1915-1980) Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) Michel Foucault (1926-1984) Lawrence Stepelevich (1930-) Robert Paul Wolff (1933-) Bob Dylan (1941-) Slavoj Žižek (1949-) A. John Simmons (1950-) Judith Butler (1956-) Saul Newman (1972-) Matthew Noah Smith (-)

= Philosophy = Look at my Self-Insert page.

= Political Beliefs =

[[File:PhilanAlt.png]] Basic Tenets
These are very basic summaries.
 * [[File:Philan.png]] Political States are unjustified institutions that have no obligatory force.
 * [[File:Indiv.png]] Individuals are separate from political systems.
 * [[File:Postmodernicon.png]] Plurality and relativism in the realm of justice and political views.
 * [[File:EgoUnion.png]] Extra-Political association.
 * [[File:Radape.png]] Political avoidance.
 * [[File:Revolution.png]] Critique of the reinforcement or reproduction of political power
 * [[File:Ins.png]] Individual action to rise above political discourse.

[[File:Sec.png]] 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".

[[File:Indiv.png]] Individuality
Of course discussions on political obligation requires a seperate discussion of whether an individual can even be a political member. If I was to ask you whether or not you are a citizen, worker, student, etc. you would probably answer yes to some of these, but my point here is to argue that you are not 'essentially' these classifications. I wish to take a quick look at the history of political thought and its categories; Under Feudalism the bulk of the population were serfs and as serfs they had nothing, they were paupers, while after the French Revolution and the advent of the political liberal, the bulk of the population became citizens. No longer was there a different relation under the 'state' or King, but rather everyone was now equal under the law. Well except perhaps the non-citizen, or the jew under the christian state, or the worker under the heel of the capitalist. Okay so we have some problems, because we took one part of an individual (the fact that they live under a state) and made it our universal political principle. As such, the "private" or another less evil word individual interests of a person were left out of the public or political sphere. So whether they were christian or jewish, worker or capitalist, or not ethnically the same did not matter to the liberal state and thus it became a problem. It couldn't deal with private issues, with factors other than its focus on citizenship.

Okay sure, well maybe another state that focuses on a different singular aspect will fair better. Social Liberalism (Socialism) instead says that politics shouldn't be based on citizenship, but rather whether you are a worker or not. As such, other private factors such as again your religion, or your ethnicity, or whether you know you don't work, are ignored. As such, these too will become problems under a political system that focuses on a particular "feature" of a select group of people. The last solution would be then to find something so universal that everybody falls under it, and what is the 'Humane Liberals' solution? Well the name is a dead giveaway, it would be humanity. See, the christian, the jew, the worker, the capitalist, the insider, the outsider, these people are all humans. So, if we make that our base principle and help all the humans then bingo. Except that, to be a human is well to be what? Should we treat everyone the same, should we make everyone happy, do all humans love each other, are they all selfish, maybe they are all hedonists, or maybe each "human" is so totally different and unique that a universal system that caters to "humans" will leave out everything else. Maybe the capitalists and the workers will fall back into strife, because the humanist state only cares if they are human, and says "all humans can be actors in the market", it doesn't matter whether you work or don't you are apart of the market. So the political liberal says you are all equal before the law, doesn't matter if some of you starve or not. The social liberal says you are all equal before the community, doesn't matter if you are more than just a worker, that is your value know, that is how we measure you. And the humane liberal says you are all humans, that is it, oh but if you don't correspond to our definition of human, we will treat you as an inhuman monster. You'd only have to look at how "insane" people were given more "humane" treatment which lead into inhuman practices and the seperation of people from society because they were deemed different. If you don't fit the essential concept of citizen, worker, human then we can't do anything for you.

So, the individual is boxed into categories. "Target" populations are used all the time, they create benefits for a select group, say aged-care, and thus secure the elderly vote. However, the elderly "population" didn't really exist until we started thinking about programs for the elderly. Social constructs such as these (or citizenship, workers, humans) are built into the system of politics, as Ingram et al. says, “Social constructions of target populations are important political attributes that often become embedded in political discourse” (2007 p. 94). The process by which these constructs take shape, is very similar to that outlined by Max Stirner, a particular image or essence of a subject is given, the “cultural characterisations or popular images of the persons or groups” (Schenider and Ingram 1997, p. 334). These images are then placed in positive or negative lights to sway perspectives on these certain groups, and those groups which are supported and provided for perpetuate the current cycle of construction. Ingram et al. (2007, p. 99) references how senior citizen participate in the political system at much higher rates due to the policy of social security, which increases their interest even more. Thus, the target population which receives certain benefits provide higher rates of political support for the public policymaker that benefits them; the constructed population is utilised in the Stirnerite sense to benefit the constructor, the policymaker. Stirner outlines how you, by not realising yourself, support the ruling political power, it is because you bow down on one knee that you are able to be ruled. See, the atheist doesn't think they are a sinner even if they say wear mixed fabrics because "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together"(KJV, Deuteronomy 22:11), but does the criminal think they are a criminal? You may call them one, just as the christian will call the atheist one.

You then "acknowledge" the law, as such you bow down before an external principle and do not realise yourself. Because you do see yourself as a political subject or a worker or etc. Your private interests are put on the back pedal. See, the Young Hegelians made it their goal to follow Hegel's work towards a universal state. Bauer in his humanist republic, and Marx in his classless communism. These are systems that aimed to removed "one-sidedness" on behalf of a particular group. For Bauer it was religious differences, and for Marx it was class differences. However, we have seen that their are differences everywhere, and thus any "universal" system will have lines drawn in, between gender, race, if not class, between citizens and foreigners, between religious groups, between the elderly and the young. And at the extreme level, between individuals. Like what I like and value is not what you value, that is obvious, but then what is our political system based on? Well because it can't cater to all of us as individuals, it must cater to us as concepts. Between a general "feature" that we happen to share. Like the socialist appeals to my "workerishness", but I am more than that, and all my problems won't be solved by focusing on my work problems (let alone that Marx despised those who didn't have class consciousness, the paupers of society, such as Stirner). Well, those problems aren't for politics to solve, the same thing was probably said by the political liberal when the workers complained. Now I will not come by an argue for an even more universal system, I intend to let "politics" squabble over its most important universal factor, and will instead focus on my "individual" or "private" problems, interests, "features".

[[File:Postmodernicon.png]] Justice
So far we have discussed that no political state is justified (and additionally creates no obligations for individuals to follow it), and that universal political states/systems create issues for individuals who have private interests. Thus, we have a two-fold critique of political states that seek to impose themselves as absolute or universal. And it is all well and good to critique arguments, but if one cannot produce a positive replacement then it is kind of pointless. However, as we have seen, I do not wish to "impost" my own view on anyone else as the true absolute/universal system. Instead, I wish to discuss the "virtues" of pluralism, relativism, and particularism within politics. To do this, I wish to look at Lyotard's concept of justice, as well as the ancient poet Hesiod's. This will be done by exploring Lyotard's critique of grand-narratives, and his 'solution' in micro-narratives. However, I will also supply a critique of this in relation to Žižek's 'postmodern cynic' and my own concept of the 'postmodern pagan', a figure who chooses their own form of 'master'. To do this I will look into the relation of artists and politics. I will also try to locate this plurality in forms of extra-political association such as Epicurus' 'Garden' or Stirner's 'Union of Egoists'

W.I.P

[[File:Ins.png]] Insurrection
= Comments = - I will be doing relations on my Self-Insert page. Please comment here however if you have political or personal questions.