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Titus's open letter to the Queen of England
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GF



Joined: 26 Sep 2012

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fox wrote:
In submission to both parent and teacher, one temporarily entrusts their dignity while they are being polished into a state where-in they can do it credit. The end result is always freedom and, correspondingly, the reclamation of what was entrusted. That's a far different thing than indefinite submission to a Monarch.


As I said, the analogy has limits. The principle has been proven, that submission is consonant with dignity. And if a man wishes to improve himself all his days, he will have indefinitely to be in submission to some superior or series of superiors.

Let's look at another example.You�ve said that you try to understand reality. This suggests a master-student relationship, where reality is the master, and you the student. Even while exerting some power in the world, your reason, to perfect itself, necessarily submits to the order of things; and since your knowledge of reality will never be total, here we have a master-student relationship which is indefinite, only ending, perhaps, with your death. Is it not so?

I have tried to use an analogy that would speak to you. I will offer another. Think of a master � a human master, this time � overwhelmingly superior to other men in every respect. His student could never hope to equal him in the smallest thing, even given many lifetimes. This master goes away, but in his absence commands his student to submit, but in a lesser way, to other masters whom he sends. And although some of these lesser masters are good men, some others of them are not. But the master himself has a high wisdom, and the student trusts that he would not send a bad master unless he had a good reason for doing so. So he obeys these other men, as proxies for his master. Only, when they try to involve the student in vicious ways, he understands he is being tested by his real master, and he resists heroically, preferring even death to failure.

Do you believe that this student is lacking in dignity, simply because he is in perpetual submission to a man infinitely his superior ?

Fox wrote:
GF wrote:
It is not the King as individual who is the master, and submission to him is not conditional to his personal merits. It is his function - as temporal principle of Order - that demands submission, and it is the embrace of one's own function within this Order that works the only real self-improvement.

I don't see Monarchy that way, and I don't think anything about historic Kingship gives us cause to interpret Monarchy that way.


I�m not sure what you mean by that. If you are wondering about the functional aspect, I encourage you to have a look at the great student of Indo-European history, Georges Dumezil. Or are you saying that the King is not a temporal principle of Order ? An immense mythology exists to verify this as a popular belief. Every nation on Earth has stories about a King returning to restore order to the Land. In pre-historical times, the King was held actively to mediate between the gods and the people, his sacrifice keeping even the natural world in order. In the realm of political philosophy, the idea saturates Dante�s De Monarchia, Bodin�s On Sovereignty, and Campanella's City of the Sun. And in what chaos a kingdom finds itself following a regicide ! Look at the Reign of Terror, for instance. But tell me what you mean, for I may have misunderstood your objection.

Fox wrote:
One can behave in a fashion conducive to the social order without submitting at all, much less submitting to a specific individual acting as the representative of said order.


If you do not submit when you ought, then you rebel. Can subversion conduce to Order ?

Fox wrote:
Indeed, the Monarch himself must behave in such a fashion to be effective!


The Monarch, enthroned at the pinnacle of the social pyramid, is to some extent an exception, the necessary exception, he who decides the exception. Traditionally even he submits to superior non-human powers, including ancestral, natural, and divine law. Which is why I am still interested in exploring the notion of rule of law with Kuros.
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Fox



Joined: 04 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GF wrote:

Let's look at another example.You�ve said that you try to understand reality. This suggests a master-student relationship, where reality is the master, and you the student.

Even while exerting some power in the world, your reason, to perfect itself, necessarily submits to the order of things; and since your knowledge of reality will never be total, here we have a master-student relationship which is indefinite, only ending, perhaps, with your death. Is it not so?


I think this mistakes a metaphor for a description. Maybe in some poetic sense, you could say the world is my teacher, but in reality it's a subject of study. Abstractly modelling X is not the same as submitting to X. One can submit to a prescriptive ideology, but not a fact (as least not literally). Moreover, even if we accept this metaphor-to-literal style of argument (and I don't), the relationship is merely indefinite for practical reasons, not intrinsic ones; with a long enough life, there would eventually come a time when I had understood all I possibly could, preserving the formal distinction.

By contrast, even if I lived a million years, barring rebellion and revolution (which is in essence a violation of the relationship, not a natural conclusion of it), that Monarch would still be there, demanding my submission. I think we can safely deem these relationships to be distinct of one another.

GF wrote:
I have tried to use an analogy that would speak to you. I will offer another. Think of a master � a human master, this time � overwhelmingly superior to other men in every respect. His student could never hope to equal him in the smallest thing, even given many lifetimes. This master goes away, but in his absence commands his student to submit, but in a lesser way, to other masters whom he sends. And although some of these lesser masters are good men, some others of them are not. But the master himself has a high wisdom, and the student trusts that he would not send a bad master unless he had a good reason for doing so. So he obeys these other men, as proxies for his master. Only, when they try to involve the student in vicious ways, he understands he is being tested by his real master, and he resists heroically, preferring even death to failure.

Do you believe that this student is lacking in dignity, simply because he is in perpetual submission to a man infinitely his superior ?


I'm going to lay something on the table here: I don't think life, at it's deepest, most meaningful levels, is about results. There are results-driven reasons to submit to a perfectly virtuous master, so if we take a utilitarian stance that results are all that matters, your point would be a strong and convincing one. I'm no utilitarian; something can produce ostensibly undesirable results, yet still be the right thing to do, and that opens the door to situations in which it is not only acceptable, but arguably mandatory, to disobey that perfectly virtuous man. I'm hesitant to completely derail this thread by going more in-depth about this, since it would twist the subject from the value of Monarch to a debate on what might be commonly called "the Good Life." I'll leave it at this: the value of a perfectly virtuous man to society would lie not in submission to him, but in emulation of him (in terms of the general character of his actions, not necessarily the specifics).

GF wrote:
Fox wrote:
GF wrote:
It is not the King as individual who is the master, and submission to him is not conditional to his personal merits. It is his function - as temporal principle of Order - that demands submission, and it is the embrace of one's own function within this Order that works the only real self-improvement.

I don't see Monarchy that way, and I don't think anything about historic Kingship gives us cause to interpret Monarchy that way.


I�m not sure what you mean by that. If you are wondering about the functional aspect, I encourage you to have a look at the great student of Indo-European history, Georges Dumezil. Or are you saying that the King is not a temporal principle of Order ?


I'm saying that in reality -- if we remove the romanticism, remove the rhetoric, and look at the raw facts -- Kings are, historically, not representatives of order, but representatives of conquest. That conquest is at first literal -- taking and controlling the polity by force of arms or charisma -- and later, if it persists long enough, extends even into the culture itself. The Queen of England and the Emperor of Japan, despite their politically deficient states, both retain this element of cultural domination, the fruits of their predecessors conquests. Order is a byproduct of Monarchy, not the core character of it.

GF wrote:
An immense mythology exists to verify this as a popular belief. Every nation on Earth has stories about a King returning to restore order to the Land.


A relic of the cultural conquests I previously mentioned from where I stand, though it is, of course, easier for an atheist to be dismissive of such things.

GF wrote:
Fox wrote:
One can behave in a fashion conducive to the social order without submitting at all, much less submitting to a specific individual acting as the representative of said order.


If you do not submit when you ought, then you rebel. Can subversion conduce to Order ?


Now you must be careful, because if you're going to utilize mythological evidence to bolster your case, then the rich body of trickster mythology present across the global often presents a belief that it can, and moreover, that it may well be an indispensable, benign element of the ordering process.
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Spartacist



Joined: 18 Feb 2012

PostPosted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kuros wrote:
Spartacist wrote:
This thread is just further proof of the deep distrust some libertarians actually hold for democracy and any real freedom, as they don't trust "the rabble" to hold power. Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind makes more and more sense every day.


Go burrow yourself up your own asshole. We are entertaining a monarchy. Its called a discussion. Do you know what it means to entertain an idea separate from holding it?

And you are sniping from the sides to make partisan attacks because you are a political coward and intellectually infirm. (How's that for aggression, Unposter?)

All challenges to the status quo should be welcomed. We don't need anymore of this political mudslinging. The election is over, people.


Wow, not what I expected from you, Kuros. I thought you were one of the more even-handed and rational posters here - I stand corrected. You're getting very defensive about something you're just "entertaining".
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Titus



Joined: 19 May 2012

PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 7:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spartacist wrote:
This thread is just further proof of the deep distrust some libertarians actually hold for democracy and any real freedom, as they don't trust "the rabble" to hold power. Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind makes more and more sense every day.


I read a bit of that book. He doesn't understand the reactionary.

The rabble isn't very bright. They shouldn't hold power. The best and most loyal should hold power. Humanity is not intelligent and selfless enough for democracy.

http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html

I don't trust any of you to balance my checkbook. I barely trust myself. Why would I want a nation of 300 million (half of them dumber than the other) to make intelligent choices with their vote.

Another major problem is that the people who own the media are able to easily (comically easily) influence the rabble into doing the bidding of the oligarchy. We reactionary types refer to the Cathedral, though the moniker Propaganda Community is gaining steam. Whatever you call it, the people who own the media own the democracy. Only reactionary people see this. Some leftists will note media power (Chomsky) but never get past the word corporations, forgetting that the corporations are owned by people, run by people, organized by people, and that these people have interests beyond narrow profit.
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Spartacist



Joined: 18 Feb 2012

PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 5:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Titus wrote:
The rabble isn't very bright. They shouldn't hold power. The best and most loyal should hold power. Humanity is not intelligent and selfless enough for democracy.


I think you just proved my point.

Titus wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html


How about that research that showed liberals were more intelligent than conservatives? Can we perhaps just all agree there's some sort of crappy psychology research that will prove anything you want?

Titus wrote:
Some leftists will note media power (Chomsky) but never get past the word corporations, forgetting that the corporations are owned by people, run by people, organized by people, and that these people have interests beyond narrow profit.


Yeah, owned by rich people.
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visitorq



Joined: 11 Jan 2008

PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spartacist wrote:
Titus wrote:
Some leftists will note media power (Chomsky) but never get past the word corporations, forgetting that the corporations are owned by people, run by people, organized by people, and that these people have interests beyond narrow profit.


Yeah, owned by rich people.

Actually, owned by all kinds of people. Including people who pay into pension and mutual funds. Anyone (including yourself) who has a bit of money can invest in basic stock portfolios and own equity in corporations.
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