With the current economic crisis, the recession, and doomsday prophets saying that the time is (for real this time!) now, what are we to think? We’ve witnessed general outcries against our banking system, globalism, and even capitalism. Most of these condemnations have come in the form of blogs, talk-shows, and protests. Some websites even devote themselves entirely to the discussion of such things. People tend to talk about either one of two things: 1. the way things should be, or 2. how government can fix things. Those who oppose the second topic (libertarians, anarchists, etc.) usually can’t offer the most important missing thing: how can we as individuals fix things? How can we establish the world we want without relying on government?
Political violence seems only to reinforce police power. And peaceful anarchists don’t have any real solution at all. Assuming that government is in fact not our friend, how are we to free ourselves from its oppression?
Everything from the right-wing extremist profile the Department of Homeland Security put out to the unnoticed left-wing extremist profile put out a few years ago is marginalizing everything but lukewarm “moderates.” If you own gold, have a third-party bumper sticker, or own a gun, you match DHS’s profile for a potential domestic terrorist. Consider yourself added to the 1.3 million individuals on our government’s terrorist watch list. The expansion of executive power and our state of government-sponsored fear does very little to protect our liberty. The obvious question is this: how can we protect our liberty?
Opposing government directly is not an option, and it is unlikely that many would disagree. A diametric opposition of state and rebels results in the expansion of state power for the sake of security. Consider the American Civil War, the War on Terror, and so forth. As long as the government is working to protect us, there is no valid reason to stop its expansion. Any terrorist act against the government will only give the state further excuse to expand. The dialectic of opponents only ends when one side wins. War only ends when one conquers the other. If the apparently weaker one wins, a treaty is often formed—even independence. But the dialectic of war increases power on both sides until one side wins. Government tends to expand when it is opposed. Competing with government will likely only result in its accelerated growth. Competition is a totalizing force, resulting in a unitary system, a solitary winner. If we are to escape the oppression of government, how do we do it without expanding governmental power?
Dialectic, advertising, competition are totalizing forces, taking over more and more until a single unitary body exists. This is true in discourse, politics, and economics. In discourse, starting at separate points (dialectic) results inexorably in a conclusion of unity. Reactionary politics only bolsters the police state. In economics, advertising moves out more and more in order to drive out smaller business. Competition, in all its forms, is violence.
The only way to have a discourse without tending towards an oppressive unity is to start where we would like to end. We must enter discourse with openness and start with agreement, not disagreement. Only when dialogue is assumed in good faith can discourse progress. The conclusion of a dialogue beginning with agreement? The result is an openness to many suitable languages, laws, and lifestyles.
To put it another way, competition is simply war. If war is to be avoided, one must not prepare for war, but for peace. Peace is so often confused with the “opposite” of war, but opposites have such an intimate relationship that they do not exist without each other. In a war, opponents only exist as opponents if their enemy exists. Peace is not the enemy of war. It is an entirely other language grounded in openness. There is an opposition between peace and war, but only incidentally. The language of peace shares nothing with the language of war.
Virtually every field admits that competition is a violent, destructive force. Evolutionists openly admit that competition kills. The evolutionary paradigm advances a dog-eat-dog world in which only survivors win. It seems that only laissez faire economists deny this. Where evolutionists admit blood and death as inevitable results of competition, most capitalists seem to hold a vague mystic belief in the “Invisible Hand” which sanctifies the death of those who don’t manage to survive as a product of competition. The “Invisible Hand” applies to a species’ evolution and economics: the fittest survive and the species is benefited by being fitter as a whole. This is all accurate and true, but is the death of others for the sake of the species any more humane than the death of the bourgeoisie for a perfect communist state?
What is the solution? A new order can only be established by living it. Not by being anti-capitalist or anti-globalist can the dialectic of war be ended. Only by acting in accordance with a new law and ignoring the present order can the old world be foregone, forgotten, and ultimately forgiven. Freedom from an oppressive system cannot be cured by continuing the actions of our oppressive system nor by violent reaction against the system. Freedom comes by inaction: ignoring the problematic system and thus illegitimizing it. War is not conquered by preparing for war. Peace, perhaps counter-intuitively, is the only way to end war precisely because it refuses to operate within the language and dialectic of war.
Civil disobedience should not be a reaction to some government action, but should rather be a nullification of the previous world by living according to another world. If civil disobedience is seen only as an opponent to government, the intimacy between oppressor and oppressed will never be removed, and the dialectic is fueled all the more. Acts of open war against the state only consolidate the power of the state. To free ourselves from the state, we must ignore it by acting according to a new order. The more we get into politics, the more we fuel the very system we should ignore. With every career politician, we add a soldier to the army of the state.
Rather than talking about ideas, you should live as if the order you wish to be established already is established. Rather than contradicting the current system intentionally, do so incidentally, as part of living in a new order. If you want a socialist state, live independent of capitalism. If you want an anarchist state, live independent of government. Live the system you want to establish and it will become reality.
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In most respects, I think you’re correct. But how does one live according to principles when there are no other options available? For instance, taxes? Or the Health Care bill? Even something less drastic, such as Capitalism, is hard to live by when our economy is not anything like Capitalism.
I do agree with the larger point – that change only comes about by individuals living the change. No matter what arguments you put forth, no matter how persuasive your rhetoric, people will not be truly convinced until they see your ideas in action.
The action, however, is harder when there are entities preventing you from freely acting.
Action is more likely to change (and persuade) than arguments. People have said, “Capitalism works” but we’ve never had capitalism, just like no one’s ever truly had communism. Living according to the order one wants to bring about would certainly help establish it. But when there is an economic restrain, there will be a moral (practical) restraint.
Perhaps tax evasion is a valid form of civil disobedience? The cost for making practical statements is becoming increasingly more significant. At the current incarceration rate, there will soon be more people in prison than out of prison. Unfortunately, I don’t see many individuals making a stand. We need our own Solidarity movement!