Navarro
Well-known member
Not to mention the ceaseless complaining that everybody who disagrees with him is an evil sophist deliberately misrepresenting his views. And the constant repetition of the initial assertions as if they constituted a valid counter-argument ...
Speaking of sophism ...
When confronted by an extreme example of the degree to which the arrogance and abuses of a feudal rulership-class set inherently above the common people can reach, instead of trying to argue that in his system such abuses will be prevented somehow (though he also said that in another post, without giving any hint of a means as to how this would be achieved) our interlocutor adopts an ... interesting strategy. He adopts a two-faced position, of denying the charges:
And simultaneously claiming that the perpetrators were justified in their actions and the victims kinda had it coming by, you know, bumping into them on the street:
==*==
To understand just how alien our interlocutor's mindset is, we should take a look at this scene:
To the individual in question, Loki is the hero in this scene. The exiled prince of two cosmic kingdoms, come to bring the Earth under his rule (it doesn't matter how bad he is as a ruler in either the moral or pragmatic sense, what matters is that he's unquestionably in charge). Those he intimidates into kneeling are dutifully playing their role in the feudal order. And the old man who bravely stands up to this superhuman figure ... is not only a villain, but the worst of all villains. He defies Loki's Thanos-granted feudal authority over Earth and the "harmonious" order he brings. And when Loki tries to kill him - he, like the Japanese Samurai who could legally kill peasants for any number of trivial reasons, in Itnol's worldview - is morally in the right. Because the old man didn't "respect mah authoritah".
I mean, it's hilarious how our interlocutor has so swiftly abandoned any pretense that the feudal rulers are meant to be governed by any manner of ethical or religious code. When you can kill people for bumping into you, and do so regularly ... that's pretty much the definition of arbitrary power wielded in an unjust manner, and his response? "Eh, rank hath its privileges". The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must. Our interlocutor's ideal ruling class aren't Christian knights so much as Nietzschean ubermenschen - they need not worry about God's prescriptions against murder or Christ's teachings on turning the other cheek (indeed, they can even be openly hostile to the Christian religion, as the Samurai class largely were, and the "tech overlords" who he glowingly presented as the new feudal lords lean in that direction), they just need to be selected in an un-democratic manner and be sufficiently brutal to anybody who gets in their way to earn at the least his faint approval.
He would rather live under Diocletian or Caligula than any of the American Presidents.
==*==
You certainly claim to be able to solve all the problems of the modern world. If that's not a desire for utopia, what is?
Can be blamed. Not can be proven to stem from. Having demonstrated that you don't know how or why the transition from feudalism during early modernity took place, you're in a poor position to draw a moral lesson from it or try and draw a line from it to the problems the modern world faces.
Your "positive solution" is "hand all power back to an arbitrary (both in the sense that they're arbitrarily chosen, and that they can do whatever they want) overclass of rulers, who will not be subject to any moral, religious or legal code (and indeed may even be anti-religious!) but will somehow be kept in check anyway. Then put the majority of the population in de facto slavery to this overclass of arbitrary rulers (extending to the overclass being able to kill any of the majority for reasons amounting to 'he bumped me on the street!'), but there will still be popular sovereignty, somehow."
Assuming the problems of the 8th to 16th centuries (which are those of vastly lacking bureaucratic and military logistic structures, which is what gave birth to feudalism in the first place) are those of the 20th and 21st is an exercise in folly. I mean feudalism itself didn't originate from the starting point of "how do I justly order society" but "how do I ensure that the heavy cavalry which are critical to my military success (and hence, my remaining on the throne) can arrive on time and come when called", so this is to be expected.
EDIT:
You claim you want to do away with consent of the governed, but retain "popular sovereignty". Unfortunately, the phrases are synonymous:
Furthermore, the concept was developed by the Enlightenment political thinkers you've constantly expressed your opposition for:
There was the School of Salamanca advancing the idea from a specifically Catholic angle, but you might not like their conclusions:
Either your grasp of political theory is so poor you really shouldn't be writing essays about it, you actually don't intend to retain popular sovereignty, or ...
"Popular sovereignty" is to be retained in a purely talismanic manner, with the new feudal ruling class claiming to rule in the name of "the people" like the communist party does in Red China or did in the former USSR.
Speaking of sophism ...
When confronted by an extreme example of the degree to which the arrogance and abuses of a feudal rulership-class set inherently above the common people can reach, instead of trying to argue that in his system such abuses will be prevented somehow (though he also said that in another post, without giving any hint of a means as to how this would be achieved) our interlocutor adopts an ... interesting strategy. He adopts a two-faced position, of denying the charges:
Given how highly regarded peasants were in Japan due to providing food for the samurais and daimyos, I highly doubt that your characterization of feudal Japan is accurate.
Yeah, I'm still not convinced you're right on this. And you fail to realize: all of the problems we have today can be blamed on how we went away from this kind of society. The problems I pointed out with individualism are real, even if my positive solution to them has flaws. Or do you deny this?
And simultaneously claiming that the perpetrators were justified in their actions and the victims kinda had it coming by, you know, bumping into them on the street:
That's pretty much a feature of every society's privileged classes. The modern equivalent of this would be anti-discrimination laws and hate speech laws. Societies that didn't have some kind of privileged class like this were bizarre anomalies in world history. This is hardly the same as "samurai could just kill peasants in order to practice his swordsmanship."
==*==
To understand just how alien our interlocutor's mindset is, we should take a look at this scene:
To the individual in question, Loki is the hero in this scene. The exiled prince of two cosmic kingdoms, come to bring the Earth under his rule (it doesn't matter how bad he is as a ruler in either the moral or pragmatic sense, what matters is that he's unquestionably in charge). Those he intimidates into kneeling are dutifully playing their role in the feudal order. And the old man who bravely stands up to this superhuman figure ... is not only a villain, but the worst of all villains. He defies Loki's Thanos-granted feudal authority over Earth and the "harmonious" order he brings. And when Loki tries to kill him - he, like the Japanese Samurai who could legally kill peasants for any number of trivial reasons, in Itnol's worldview - is morally in the right. Because the old man didn't "respect mah authoritah".
I mean, it's hilarious how our interlocutor has so swiftly abandoned any pretense that the feudal rulers are meant to be governed by any manner of ethical or religious code. When you can kill people for bumping into you, and do so regularly ... that's pretty much the definition of arbitrary power wielded in an unjust manner, and his response? "Eh, rank hath its privileges". The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must. Our interlocutor's ideal ruling class aren't Christian knights so much as Nietzschean ubermenschen - they need not worry about God's prescriptions against murder or Christ's teachings on turning the other cheek (indeed, they can even be openly hostile to the Christian religion, as the Samurai class largely were, and the "tech overlords" who he glowingly presented as the new feudal lords lean in that direction), they just need to be selected in an un-democratic manner and be sufficiently brutal to anybody who gets in their way to earn at the least his faint approval.
He would rather live under Diocletian or Caligula than any of the American Presidents.
==*==
I don't appreciate you talking down to me like I'm some child, Hastur. As far as you know, we're the same age. Nor did I ever imply that the modern day doesn't have its good points. Nor did I ever express a desire for utopia. So your "advice" doesn't really do much. It just comes across as pretentious.
You certainly claim to be able to solve all the problems of the modern world. If that's not a desire for utopia, what is?
And you fail to realize: all of the problems we have today can be blamed on how we went away from this kind of society.
Can be blamed. Not can be proven to stem from. Having demonstrated that you don't know how or why the transition from feudalism during early modernity took place, you're in a poor position to draw a moral lesson from it or try and draw a line from it to the problems the modern world faces.
The problems I pointed out with individualism are real, even if my positive solution to them has flaws. Or do you deny this?
Your "positive solution" is "hand all power back to an arbitrary (both in the sense that they're arbitrarily chosen, and that they can do whatever they want) overclass of rulers, who will not be subject to any moral, religious or legal code (and indeed may even be anti-religious!) but will somehow be kept in check anyway. Then put the majority of the population in de facto slavery to this overclass of arbitrary rulers (extending to the overclass being able to kill any of the majority for reasons amounting to 'he bumped me on the street!'), but there will still be popular sovereignty, somehow."
Assuming the problems of the 8th to 16th centuries (which are those of vastly lacking bureaucratic and military logistic structures, which is what gave birth to feudalism in the first place) are those of the 20th and 21st is an exercise in folly. I mean feudalism itself didn't originate from the starting point of "how do I justly order society" but "how do I ensure that the heavy cavalry which are critical to my military success (and hence, my remaining on the throne) can arrive on time and come when called", so this is to be expected.
EDIT:
You claim you want to do away with consent of the governed, but retain "popular sovereignty". Unfortunately, the phrases are synonymous:
Popular sovereignty is the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People) or by them directly, who are the source of all political power.
...
The central tenet is that the legitimacy of rule or of law is based on the consent of the governed.
Furthermore, the concept was developed by the Enlightenment political thinkers you've constantly expressed your opposition for:
It is closely associated with social contract philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
...
Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns"
Popular sovereignty in its modern sense is an idea that dates to the social contracts school (mid-17th to mid-18th centuries), represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), author of The Social Contract, a prominent political work that clearly highlighted the ideals of "general will" and further matured the idea of popular sovereignty
There was the School of Salamanca advancing the idea from a specifically Catholic angle, but you might not like their conclusions:
The School of Salamanca distinguished two realms of power, the natural or civil realm and the realm of the supernatural, which were often conflated in the Middle Ages through granting royal control of investiture of bishops, or the temporal powers of the pope. One direct consequence of the separation of realms of power is that the king or emperor does not legitimately have jurisdiction over souls, nor does the pope have legitimate temporal power. This included the proposal that there are limits on the legitimate powers of government. Thus, according to Luis de Molina a nation is analogous to a mercantile society (the antecedent of a modern corporation) in that those who govern are holders of power (effectively sovereigns) but a collective power, to which they are subject, derives from them jointly. Nonetheless, in de Molina's view, the power of society over the individual is greater than that of a mercantile society over its members, because the power of the government of a nation emanates from God's divine power (as against merely from the power of individuals sovereign over themselves in their business dealings).
At this time, the monarchy of England was extending the theory of the divine right of kings—under which the monarch is the unique legitimate recipient of the emanation of God's power—asserting that subjects must follow the monarch's orders, in order not to contravene said design. Counter to this, several adherents of the School sustained that the people are the vehicle of divine sovereignty, which they, in turn, pass to a prince under various conditions. Possibly the one who went furthest in this direction was Francisco Suárez, whose work Defensio Fidei Catholicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores (The Defense of the Catholic Faith against the errors of the Anglican sect 1613) was the strongest defense in this period of popular sovereignty. Men are born free by their nature and not as slaves of another man, and can disobey even to the point of deposing an unjust government. As with de Molina, he affirms that political power does not reside in any one concrete person, but he differs subtly in that he considers that the recipient of that power is the people as a whole, not a collection of sovereign individuals—in the same way, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of popular sovereignty would consider the people as a collective group superior to the sum that composes it.
Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604) held that natural law is not limited to the individual, but obliges societies to act in accord and be treated with justice.
For Suárez, the political power of society is contractual in origin because the community forms by consensus of free wills. The consequence of this contractualist theory is that the natural form of government is either a democracy or a republic, while oligarchy or monarchy arise as secondary institutions, whose claim to justice is based on being forms chosen (or at least consented to) by the people.
Either your grasp of political theory is so poor you really shouldn't be writing essays about it, you actually don't intend to retain popular sovereignty, or ...
a party or even an individual dictator may claim to represent the will of the people, and rule in its name, pretending to detain auctoritas
"Popular sovereignty" is to be retained in a purely talismanic manner, with the new feudal ruling class claiming to rule in the name of "the people" like the communist party does in Red China or did in the former USSR.
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