But it's Hobbes' observation about the "state of nature," so reminiscent of the kind of Libertarian paradise half our country seems to be longing for, that gets my attention: that repugnance for government, for authority -- that insistence that any law limits our freedom. Without that authority we have no civilization, no culture, no industry but a climate of fear and a war of all against all, said Hobbes in The Leviathan.
As it is in Baton Rouge, so is it in America. Everyone in everyone's face and at each others' throats. Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. You've heard those words many times. Against our ruin we create the buttresses of a social contract, a moral, a civil authority and give up a part of our natural liberty that we can enjoy enough security to avoid chaos and enjoy our freedom without undue fear.. We cede some power and make it legitimate and authorize it for our own good. We create laws and we authorize the enforcement of those laws. That's an oversimplification of course but although it informs our American founding documents, that social contract is being portrayed as the cause of our ills rather than the failure of implementing that contract or defining the laws to benefit all rather than some. Some of us believe that racism will always make justice impossible and therefore authority is always to be resisted and with violence.
Frankly, I blame the latest incident on years of legislative deadlock and gridlock and years of festering inequality and injustice. It is caused in part by the GOP presidential candidate who trades on bigotry and hatred and ups the ante on reckless rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteUnrequited anger over social injustice spreads cancer-like throughout our culture.
Years of partisan obstruction, political malpractice, and nihilism … I blame rightwing talk radio, our news media, and the GOP most of all. When government no longer works, all of us become collateral damage.
Democracy is supposed to be a noble contest, not an act of insurrection and conquest.
Indeed, and can anyone say that Man is a noble beast? We're a bit like the family dog the kids have dressed up for Haloween, chafing and uncomfortable in clothes and about to first hand that gets close enough. Das Unbehagen in der Kulture for sure -- that's all of us. or at least far too many Americans.
ReplyDeleteMany of us are hardly civilized or have ever read much about political philosophy or the history of governments and civilizations and so we're very comfortable in the legitimacy of our hate and frustration and feelings of being upstaged by and subject to the ideas of others. I think the "conservatives" of today are just people who feel marginalized by what the rest of us see as the progress of Democracy and human values and justice.
The civil war wasn't that long ago and we're soiled by the residue of a "social contract" authored by greed and propped up by a huge injustice and arrogance. Legislating it away has produced resentment, to put it mildly and getting rid of it all, or attempting to is making us close to open rebellion again. Too manypeople need social injustice to make them feel content with our culture. To them old Dixie was the great America Trump will return us to -- when if you were white, you were all right and women knew their place: where God had a home in their church and in the Government and you had slaves and peons to do your work for you.
Yes indeed, I blame talk radio and talk TV who get rich tearing down civilization.
Just look at how Limbaugh and Trump live. Think there's any place for you in their Great America? Can you mow lawns? Polish limousines? Pehaps that would occur to the desperately losing ground petit bourgeoisie, the working poor or anyone in the sliding down to poverty middle classes but the endless lies, the endless propagandizing and the endless hate go on and on and on.
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