What are various theories of the origin of the state? We have of course the Divine Right Of Kings, the Marxist view (which is actually not that far from the A/C view, except for the differing definitions of exploitation), the social contract theory and the A/C view put forth by Nock, Oppenheimer etc. Are there any other big theories on it, or any key lesser known thinkers from any of these theories? Thank you!
The natural elite coup by Hoppe.
Apparently some douche even believes that irrigation was responsible for the genesis of the state - apparently because an EFFICIENT organization was required lulz
http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?acc_num=bgsu1237824890 The state as the naturally arising consequence of strategies in human interaction.
The real reason for the origin and perpetuation of the state is human sociobiology - incoherent moral paradigms, supernatural thinking, various fallacies of attribution, The People’s Romance and more, more, more. Humans are ill-constituted to mass-society.
Awesome. Nitpick: “supernatural thinking” would be a subset of “fallacies of attribution”, no?
(1) What’s The People’s Romance?
(2) What do you mean by “Humans are ill-constituted to mass-society”? Do you mean “Humans are ill-constituted to a WELL-FUNCTIONING mass-society”?
- People’s romance with government
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_10_1_1_klein.pdf
- My guess is it may mean mass centralization? Or more maybe more accurately humans are tribal in nature (like many other mammals), not some species that is inherently designed to mingle together in perfect harmony?
“supernatural thinking” would be a subset of “fallacies of attribution”, no?
Supernatural thinking often answers questions with ‘propertyless nouns’. IE, ‘magic’ is not an explanation. It’s a mystery. So it’s a bit different.
(1) What’s The People’s Romance?
What do you mean by “Humans are ill-constituted to mass-society”?
They have many extremely counter-adaptive psychological traits. Herdishness would be a good, lump term for much of it.
I meant to put that here
herdishness or tribalness?
herdishness or tribalness?
There are elements of both. For example, equalitarian-egalitarian reasoning is extremely common in humans. Especially when it comes to morality. This includes libertarians (they feel the need for ‘equal justice’, a ‘law which applies to all’, an ‘objective law for all humans’ etc.). That is a really herdish mentality. But romance-of-similarity is more tribal.
Evolution never quite gets anything working perfectly.
Thanks for the link. I’m sure the paper will be interesting.
So the notions of “tribal” and “herdish” are distinct. What would be a similar such category of distinction? And what is the field of expertise which deals with these? As a libertarian/ACist I didn’t know the fount of my thinking was “herdish”, as you say. This is fascinating.
So the notions of “tribal” and “herdish” are distinct.
I’d only say the distinction is rather loose, or at least not always easy to discern. Tribal is more sociological, though. And herdishness is more biological (ineradicable human prejudice). Of course, they overlap and influence one another. But I’d say it’s fairly clear that Nationalism has large non-biological elements, while our relative indifference towards animal suffering is biological in nature.
Do you believe in the existence of universal moral truths, or instead do you believe that every supposed moral insight ultimately comes down to some unacknowledged biological or sociological imperative?
I do not believe that there can be any such thing as a ‘moral truth’. There is commonly an adaptive ‘moral sense’, IE the tendency to feel that some things are ‘moral/immoral’, taboo, etc. And I think this is largely socio-biological, ie evolutionary in explanation. I would say that moral statements in the veign of categorical imperatives, duties, intrinsic values etc. are literally false or nonsensical. I think there are non-cognitive associational and emotive elements to morality and ideology. And much of what passes for ‘moral discourse’ is pure sophistry and rhetoric, though not necessarily intentionally - it is, instead, a habitual rhetoric which people are inclined to feel is either true or false rather than nonsense.
Vichy, do you think that human’s reasoning is better than human’s not reasoning? Therefore sticking to nationalist, traditionalist, and ‘might makes right’ kind of world is better than going by reason?
(Of course, some nationalistic, traditionalistic, and ‘might makes right’ activities can be argued reasonable, but I’m not asking about that.)
Trying to get a feel for what you mean… thanks.
I don’t think it’s possible to make any sort of blanket statement about what is ‘better’. What is ‘better’ is dependent upon a specific frame of reference and actually held values. I think you can make a strong case for employing critical rationality (doxastic logic, for example) but I don’t think that it makes sense to say anyone ‘ought’ to do anything (or nothing) in particular. Since one only acts as a specific, temporal entity with actual valuations even being inconsistent isn’t ‘wrong’ in a normative sense - it’s just pointless, or fruitless. But there is nothing ‘objectionable’ about fruitless activities, though specific people may object to it.
Value is a property of the observer, not the observed.
Would you say you reasoned this?
Would you say you reasoned this?
Well, yes. But that is not an argument for rationality as a goal in itself. Nor, if it were, would that indicate any sort of normative moral - only a practical conclusion. Rationality is correct, or at least our only method of knowing what is correct. Nonetheless ‘knowing what is correct’ has no value in and of itself - it is up to us to decide whether or not we care.
swooow (picture me wiping my forehead)… Good.
Excellent! I wasn’t trying to make “an argument for rationality as a goal in itself”.[:)]
Freedom! “It is up to us to decide whether or not we care.” I agree.[Y]