Here’s something I’ve been trying to think through. It’s probably been thought about before, so, I’d thought I’d post it to speed up my thinking on this topic.
I’m noticing through various conversations, outside of this forum (but sometimes in this forum too), that people that defend the government as a worthwhile institution is based on the level in which the government operates.
In their minds the government operates on the level of ‘keeping out corruption, fraud, and defending the innocent’. So the government works on a level outside of logic. Thus one will hear such things as ‘we need to be pragmatic, etc…’. The government is in the haphazard, ad hoc realm of dealing with destructive forces and since these forces don’t operate in the realm of reasonableness, then a institution, ie. government, is necessary to operate on that level as well. Therefore logical arguments, though solid philosophically, and if followed, then theories based off of logical propositions will work. Yet instantly the mind-set, so it’s more psychological than logical, of government defenders is that when dealing with criminals or dangers of the world, then individuals need to deal with those dangers on that beastly level. It’s a relational level with the world that doesn’t operate with logical arguments because as many have probably heard: ‘how is ones logic going to stop people that operate with ruthless power and always want to harm people’ - so - the government works on the ‘eye for an eye’ level. It seems that those that defend the government concede the fact that the government is a force of illogic because it has to deal with unreasonable people on their unreasonable level. They concede the fact that the government is illogical.
What I see is the argument seems to always become not between the two people arguing it out: ‘governmental advocate v. anti-statist’. The argument easily snowballs into ‘how are logical arguments going to stop criminals’, so, immediately it’s not even about the government advocate and their position at all. They don’t even try to refute the logical argument. They simply assert that logic doesn’t stop bad, ruthless people, so, an institution needs to exist that ‘goes down to their ruthless level’.
thoughts would be highly welcomed. If I need to clarify anything please ask, because this train of thought seems to be helping me understand something I’m trying to think through in a more generalized view too.
For me (like for Mises, I believe) the (justified) state is the necessary (minimal, orderly, predictable, and democratically guided) limitation of liberty (liberty tax, if you will) that I agree to pay for the privilege of avoiding the alternative: a likely violent limitation of my liberty by an unpredictable gamut of self-interested agents with unpredictable agendas (beliefs), powers, and willingness to enforce them onto me. I have accepted that my liberty/freedom WILL be limited – that an existence with ZERO liberty-limitation (though, of course, hugely preferable!) is, in fact, Utopian. To the extent that I CAN choose/influence the size and quality of that liberty limitation (which I believe will maximize my chances of achieving my ends of peace, prosperity, etc.), I see nothing illogical in making the above preference. The state would become obsolete (for me) if I become convinced that those ends are more likely to be achieved without it.
I think you are missing the point in my post. Maybe this needs to be discussed to understand what I said completely. The government doesn’t operate in the realm of logic. Logic is not utopian. It is a fact. This actually needs not to be discussed by me anymore in this thread cause you didn’t grasp in this statement, at least, what I was saying. No offense, but my OP had nothing to do with this.
It IS illogical that negative liberty needs to be limited. Because logically is it is NOT limited. A limitation on liberty is an arbitrary assertion, but again, this doesn’t really have to do with my OP.
Well, you are not arguing in the realm of logic. Maybe you’ll actually a test subject, for purposes of this forum, thread, and out-and-about-the-world in general. You are involved in an intellectual exercise to show how the government does in fact operate on a lower level. And thus no logic will ever reach government advocates because they are not focused on logic but actually are focused on the lower level in which government operates - which has nothing to do with logic and all to do with ‘who’s going to keep the world safe’ psychological mentality. The government operates on a lower level and all that try to uphold a government are actually propping up their own lower psyche phenomenas, ie. anger, rage, subduing ruthlessness, fraud, etc…, thus that which is upon the level of bruteness. It really operates within the animal world and doesn’t rise to the level of human action. The individuals in the government operate, obviously, upon the human action level, but what their focused upon, their operations - deal with that which is of the lower levels of the human species, ie. that which can be also found in the animal world. It’s this brute force level that government operates so no logic will penetrate the mentality of people that psychologically defend it - not logically defend it cause their mentality of defense is not upon a good argument but upon a lower level of existence. The government operates in the ‘dog eat dog world’. Now this has more to do with my original OP.
Never said there was. How about you address the gun in the room, or at the very least–stop using strawmen. Fallacies do kill arguments. Why you refuse to learn that is beyond me.
I like how you incorporate psychology in order to gain a third-person view on the state debate. I feel like you’ve captured the ideals of one of my statist colleagues quite well, and now you’ve shown me what to look out for.
thank you. Yes, I think you understand what I am saying completely, especially when you note, ‘third-person view on the state debate’. That is an excellent way of putting it. When I argue with a statist, I was arguing in a logical manner and trying to meet their ideas head on in a logical debate. But now I realize that most if not all, depending on the person, debates with statists involve not their arguments, in a way, but their psyche and I think they are really arguing about ‘how to defend against base-line acts of humans’. It’s a totally different level of dialogue, thus the phrase ‘talking past each other’ because what they are thinking about, how to stop unreasonable behavior, and what I am discussing, logical proposition this or that, are dialogues on completely different levels of inquiry. I’m sure you’ve heard or come across the argument ‘how will a logical argument stop a person coming at me with a knife’. And that is what they are wondering because it’s supposedly the government that deals with these base level interactions. Or if there is no government then who would stop corruption. Again, government, in their eyes, deals with base level human interactions. Another one, to include the welfare aspect of the state is ‘who will stop greedy people from making all the workers poor and how will workers get healthcare when all the rich people horde the money’. Again, another assumed base-level event, ie. greed, that the government deals with. They undoubtedly see logic as pissing in the wind in the face of such base-level behaviors that ‘government defenders’ assume that’s what government does. It deals with base-level behaviors. So to try to bring logic into the sphere of what the government does is hard to fathom by ‘government defenders’ because in their psyche, it seems from what I’ve encountered, government deals with situations that are not logical. So why bring logic into the equation I hear them asking? In other words, here’s another one, there’s a lot of crazy people out there and they are unreasonable how is your logic going to defend you when there is no government to stop these crazies.
That’s mainly been the kind of arguments that I deal with when I try to discuss/argue with people that want a government.
I do know the purpose of logic. Logic is the foresight of what is possible (or impossible), and I think it is a low-time preference event to expand upon theories logically, but this is foresight that is being dealth with. This is about future events; what is possible down the road that is being discussed when it comes to logical propositions that are not fully enacted now. Thinking in terms of civil society what are new logical insights, comparatively new, are the potential seeds of what will be. But it takes time, a long time quite possibly when referring to history, Age of Reason is a great example of this, in which the philosophy and arts of what is possible has the foresight to move into event horizons, expand upon what is known, and in time this knowledge gets diffused into the rest of civil society and becomes almost common sense.
Great post Wilderness. This is exactly how I feel every time I get in a debate. “But who will protect X Y and Z”. You are wholly correct in that they never address the points asserted but instead default, almost by instinct, to fear and anything not having to do with logic.
Politics is not a priori as a result logic is very limited in exploring the field of political science. Really, politics is founded upon empiricism, trial-and-error, and social evolution, as a result there is rarely a logical answer in politics that is set in stone because our knowledge of the situation is always in flux.
Furthermore, politics is a field of the possible, it is about improving human society through piecemeal changes that must be accepted by the majority (either a majority of the population when speaking of norms, or a majority of the government when speaking of legislature) in order to take root. Otherwise, they might be dandy ideas, but will be all that they will, in the end, be merely ideas that die along with the individuals who have them.
Radical change can be made, in the long term, look at the reforms that K. Marx set out to become a part of society. While it might have taken over a century, the vast majority of them have become an intrinsic part of what is considered Western liberal democracy, and the lesson to be learned is that they by political parties that were able to work for piecemeal goals (e.g. the SPD in Germany). While a political idea might be “logical”, if it cannot be put into action, then it is politically irrelevant, and the logic itself may become irrelevant once the axioms change along with our knowledge of society.
I contend that such a philosophy is intrinsically part of the American, even Western politics, and hence one does not see many basing their political positions on a completely logical framework, but rather they create them unique to each situation. The political opinions of the 1930s are not the political opinions of today for the sheer fact that politics is very much ideas being put into motion, and the situation, and the resulting knowledge motivating the political opinions morph as a result of the changing world they are set in.
Good post laminustacitus. I particularly liked this sentence here. I think it fits well as a summary of what you stated.
I’m thinking about, which correlates with the rest of your post in general, about the large political ideas. I know you mentioned political movements in the 1930’s etc.. and these were smaller compared with the Marxist political action that you also mentioned for Marxist or a form of Marxism could be considered the genus of Roosevelts New Deal for instance, thus, placing the New Deal as a species within that larger framework.
Another larger logical framework or theorizing would be that of Locke, Kant, Rosseau, and Hutcheson, etc… (Age of Reason which thereby includes not only political philosophy but other things as well, ie. Newton, etc…)which layed the seeds first philosophically that took about +/-100 years before they found any action. Art is another huge contributor to movements in time. It’s that event horizon or foresight that philosophers and artists bring to society in general. What is logically possible may not take root in action, but what is logically possible is helpful to see what needs or could happen in the first place, unless of course, if what needs or could happen is stumbled upon or found accidently but the risk might be greater. A good investor for future capital goods is less likely to act upon an investment deal by merely listening to a whim only. And with large political movements that involve large frameworks of thought I’m inclined to think these kinds of actions don’t happen only whims but are logically consistent first, along with many other social movements, ie. art, sciences, etc…, to show the path in a ever-growing all at once event.
thanks. And yes, it does seem that way, great way of putting it, “instead default, almost by instinct, to fear”. I think that’s because the government operates on that level and therefore there might be a correlation or more between larger and/or powerful government ----> people not dealing with their own base-level experiences on their own. Cause the government will do it for them. This grows to government not only penetrating with propaganda on this base-level experience, ie. fearmongering on various issues to get legislation passed, but also how much a government actually takes over on providing thus owning basic necessities, ie. food, water, clothing, and shelter, via various bills and regulations that provides the government access/control into these necessities. Control that is felt and thereby abandoned to varying degrees depending upon the person and how they are impacted by such governmental measures. For instance, the control of the government supplying food stamps to a family in need thus in turn embeds further the government into their lives, again more control and felt need by the family, as the family has abandoned, thus, government take-over of their attaining food. It would definitely be threatening to this family to hear about government dissolution, ‘who’s going to feed me if that happens’ I can imagine I would hear.
Chances are that I don’t understand what you are saying. It wasn’t my intention to divert from your OP. So if you think that this is still off topic from your OP just say so and I’ll quietly leave the thread.
I agree. Logically, negative liberty need not be limited. Logically, nothing contrary to peace, liberty, and prosperity NEEDS to ever happen. But I (and, unless you live on a different planet, you) empirically observe a reality in which liberty IS (and has consistently been) limited (and I’m not only talking about a state here). You seem to have “discovered” that reality exists in a realm that is “lower” than some “higher” idealized, logical, realm of model human interaction. I hope you don’t think that I’m oblivious to such a discovery myself.
There’s no single “realm of logic”. By assuming different starting axioms, different people can ALL use logic to arrive to different conclusions. It’s a tad presumptious to accuse all those who had arrived to a conclusion different form yours of being “illogical” or of residing in some “lower” realm of human existence. I like to think that I am VERY logical and I do make a conscious effort at making good arguments – I don’t take accusations to the contrary lightly. I say this only FYI (in case you needed it in writing). Of course, you are entitled to your own opinion.
Knight, I want to have productive arguments with you, and I mean this with all sincerity. I have no ax to grind, and no ideology to push/sell. Can we find some common ground from which to start a mutually beneficial interaction? I’ll try this even stronger from my side, so just giving you the heads up.
Civil society and the liberties enjoyed by individuals have undoubtedly increased in the history of the world in varies regions and times. Some of those places are arguably becoming once again experiences of less liberty. There is a flux, as lam pointed out. The logic of negative liberty in its’ theorizing has definitely changed since ca. 1800. For one, Molinari (?spell) was the first person to show how private security and not public security is possible in a civil society and he didn’t theoretically spell that out until ca. mid-1800’s. Subjective value theory is a 1800 phenomena too. Without Locke, Kant, and others the foresight into liberty, reason, and politics, etc… would have not diffused into general society after a particular amount of time, as I noted in a previous post above +/-100 years it took to diffuse. The Age of Reason is but one historical proof that you are painting a too broad of a brush as to how liberty is understood. And that’s not even considering the huge amount of intellectual maturation that happened in civil society in other fields during the age of reason.
What is significant about what I’m saying and as others have noticed too (as I started out my OP with ‘undoubtedly others have noticed this too’) is that logic has been able to make knowledge consistent, but it is the diffusion and thus this knowledge put into action that is a part of what I’m saying. And the knowledge of what is possible ‘government v. non-government’ has significantly changed recently (by recent I mean in the last 200 years). The knowledge in various fields, even outside of politics, has changed. Logic can only work with and show the consistency of the current knowledge available. In abbreviated form, logic simply shows A is A. But what is A - that has to do with understanding epistemology. And the knowledge of A sometimes changes. And when that knowledge of A changes, then logic can work within this new theory and apply consistency. Logic is not knowledge, but without humans having the ability to know that A is A, thus, to point out that A can’t be non-A, then knowledge would be worthless as A could be anything, sometimes B, C, D, etc… and nobody could focus and connect the dots.
I think this is what you are saying and I agree and haven’t otherwise: What is logical obviously may never be enacted by humans, but what logic will show is what is impossible and what is possible. And what is possible changes due to the knowledge within the premise to be deducted into a conclusion. The premise can involve various subjects (s) and predicates (p) and those s’s and p’s can change depending on what is known. But new knowledge doesn’t alter what has already been shown to be certain, in other words, once a deduction shows universality then that principle is understood and is certain. But the theories that any principle applies too can flux and thereby a change in theory would need to incorporate known principles or those principles would need to be incorporated into another theory far different, but it’s not the principles that change it’s the theory, in other words, what we know about the principles in what relational system (theory) in the world that can change. So what is logically possible may never come to pass, but what was known in the past to be logically possible is limited by the knowledge of the day. So what is logically possible today can be newly recognized based on new knowledge. I think you are focusing too much on the logic and not enough on the knowledge (which can definitely vary from person to person and that’s were the debate can actually take place).
Yes there is a single ‘realm of logic’. You might be surprised what polylogic has to do with.
Yes. That can happen. But starting from a known axiom, for instance negative liberty as we both agree upon it’s conclusion, the same conclusion is reached by all people using logic.
There is only one logical conclusion for one premise. It is obvious that individuals that don’t follow through on what is logical are being illogical. Why they are being illogical varies due to conditions that stop them from following through on what is logical. Coercion being the main contributor to stopping what is logical from happening.
The lower or base-level experiences of humans is a valid generalization rooted in maturation and thus the developmental stages and education of an individual. A person that supportively operates on appealing to fear-mongering biologically is inhibiting reason and a sustained experience of fear degenerates logical foresight and reasonableness. ‘Fight or flight’ is a biological experience that involuntarily inhibits deliberate action and causes the creature to reflexively ‘fight or flight’. But such an activity is not sustainable and too much of this kind of experience leads to a stressful lifestyle in which reasonable deliberate actions are not exercised very much due to this involuntary action replacing it. Without having the conditions to exercise deliberate reason the creature not being able to spend time on lower time preference activities thereby doesn’t have the time to exercise foresight, build capital, save for a rainy day, and will have an increased chance of being left out in the cold as the benefits of exercising reason brings insightfulness and clarity to what is happening in the world. A good leader is couragous, calm, and comes up with all kinds of ideas on what to do as such a person is experiencing the benefits of spending time with the intellect rather than ‘fighting and fighting’ all or most of the time, comparatively.
I admire your persistence. I suggest you understand the difference between knowledge (epistemology) and logic. Take it with a grain of salt or what have you, but understand I care about people and would love for others to understand and I’m definitely open to understanding too the viewpoints of other people. There are definitions to concepts that do need adhered to in order to have effective communication.
Your suggestion that whoever disagrees with you must not be thinking leaves us with only three possible implications:
I’m an idiot (as only an idiot would consciously avoid thinking before posting something)
You’re an ass (for making such a suggestion)
You’re an idiot (for suggesting something like that without previously thinking)
Now why would you ever make a suggestion with such a limited (‘lose-lose’) set of possible implications, and how conducive do you think it would be to a fruitful discussion? Wouldn’t simply tackling the perceived illogical arguments be a better line of action?