----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Fitch" <gcf at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 8:50 PM Subject: Re: Milton the Anarchist Re: "post-leftism"
> Gordon Fitch wrote:
> > > There is no "founder of anarchism", such that utterances of
> > > the said person are taken as an authority upon which "the
> > > whole anarchist structure is grounded", whether on a
> > > metaphysical claim or on anything else.
>
> Carrol Cox:
> > Yup, I was rather extravagant. But I did say "one of the" not
"the." And
> > I continue to see in most anarchism (including often yours) that
> > expectation of the petty producer that of course there would be
a
> > use/utility for her act (product, service, skill) if only some
malign
> > force blocking that realization were destroyed. The fear of
_all_
> > "institutions" expressed by a fringe of (self-declared)
anarchists is an
> > extreme manifestation of this. And in that extreme form it seems
merely
> > a mystified affirmation of Smith's "Invisible Hand." In that
case Milton
> > was perhaps the first anarchist:
> >
> > So spake th' Omnipotent, and with his words
> > All seemd well pleas'd, all seem'd, but were not all.
> > That day, as other solemn dayes, they spent
> > In song and dance about the sacred Hill,
> > Mystical dance, which yonder starrie Spheare
> > Of Planets and of fixt in all her Wheeles
> > Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
> > Eccentric, intervolv'd, yet regular
> > Then most, when most irregular they seem,
> > And in thir motions harmonie Divine
> > So smooths her charming tones, that Gods own ear
> > Listens delighted.
> > (PL, V, 616-27)
> >
> > This is anarchic heaven (literally!) Each angel dances a pattern
> > internally consulted, but the result is a harmony as though they
were
> > following a divine conductor. They have divinity within, and
when freed
> > from all external restraint, freely obey that invisible order.
=================
...And the Leibnizian monadology/diplomacy which led to KM's notions of contradictions as non-compossibility which became fallacies of composition [code for fallacy/myth of metahistorical post political harmony]; dialetheism-paraconsistency as irreducible human contigency.
> >
> > Milton recognized a glitch, however. This dance immediately
follows the
> > Father's announcement of the sovereignty of the Son, which
triggers
> > Satan's rebellion ("All SEEMD well pleas'd"). It was necessary
in the
> > end to call out the cops (the Son who drove the rascals into
hell by his
> > very appearance).
> >
> > Proudhon lives!
>
> Milton would seem to be violating fundamental Christian theology
> if the sovereignty of the Son has to be _announced_ to the
> angels. The Son pre-exists all that is created, including
> the angels, according to John 1:3. One would think the angels
> would have been already informed of this rather fundamental
> fact. Maybe some of them were supposed to be a bit slow?
> Not Satan, though! So there's something of a problem there.
>
> Anyway, what you have above is not the anarchic heaven but
> the world-as-one-machine, Milton in bed with Newton and Locke,
> as opposed to the world-as-one-organism favored by classical
> conservatives. It is the watch that demands a divine if
> invisible-handed watchmaker because it's got to _work_. I
> doubt if this vision should be identified with anarchism
> although certainly liberals look over their shoulders at
> anarchism and Milton was (sometimes) of the Devil's party
> without knowing it.
>
> The liberal vision centers on the efficiency of the social
> machine; therefore, while liberty is good in its place (so
> that the wheels can turn) it must be liberty under Law. When
> necessary to the well-being of the Great Machine, that Law
> may order war, slavery and imperialism -- that is, call out
> the cops -- so that the Machine can go forward. This is the
> very coercion whose specifics I have been asking about and
> which we see all around us.
===================
The liberal vision also rests on the tragedy of non-harmony and the absence of the possibility of transcending politics. What it has occasionally striven for is the non-contradictions of freedom and law; the mitigation[s], however contingent, of their antagonism[s].
> The anarchist, interested (I would think) in Minute Particulars
> rather than the greatness of the Great Machine, might suggest
> that if we need to shoot people to get airplanes, maybe we
> don't really want airplanes. After all, there are things more
> important (to this anarchist) than the Great Machine's maximal
> performance. (Of course, there's also the possibility that
> we don't have to shoot people to get airplanes, but nobody's
> interested in it.)
================
The other question[s] would seem to include whether we would have to resort to the very kinds of coercion we claim to abhor in non-order to get others to forgo making airplanes and other appliances; how can we even predict whether we would/would not simply be shifting the structure and content of coercion into other dispositions of human behavior?
>
> Naturally, as if imbued with a profound religious belief,
> liberals and those who accept the liberal world-view (see
> above) will find any suggestion that shooting seriously
> taints the desirability of airplanes risible or, if taken
> seriously, as heretical, blasphemous, contrary to the most
> fundamental accepted values. Often, dark allusions to Mao,
> Pol Pot, Stalin, and rural idiocy will follow.
>
> "I want my _airplane_!!!!"
>
> -- Gordon
=====================
Liberalism arose precisely to intimate an escape from the religious concepts you use. That it used coercion to do so is irrelevant. Are you suggesting there was a non-coercive way out of feudalism? Evolving from a condition of zoon politikon and the shifting kaleidoscope of coercion may depend on technologies that cannot help but trace their origins in coercive actions. The issue then becomes how to deal with tragedy and sorrow and anger as sources of political/technological/ecological creativity.
Ian