Distruzio
2nd July 2011, 12:35
Good Morning all, I am Distruzio.
I'm new here and I thought I'd introduce myself. Before I do that though, I thought I'd articulate that I'm here b/c I look forward to learning more about leftism and all its varieties. That being said, I'm not exactly a leftist. I am an anarchist. But a peculiar kind of anarchist - an Anarcho-Monarchist. :D
Now that I have your attention, please let me explain. I am an Anarcho-Monarchist. Not a monarchist. Not a democratist. Not a Statist. I am an Anarcho-Monarchist. What does that mean? Well, I'm still working out a specific methodological approach to the subject. Suffice it to say that I am an economic anarcho-capitalist, but I recognize that such an economic system might tend to require a vanguard state in order to assure its promulgation and perpetuation as not everyone is a capitalist and not everyone is an anarchist (this is a common problem for most anarchist schools of thought). Maybe another AnCap has developed a solution to this issue, I haven't come across it yet. Anarcho-Monarchism is my attempt to do just that. As an anarchist I recognize that it isn't necessarily gov't that I oppose but, rather, the coercive monopoly of expropriation within a given territory - the Hobbesian State. That Leviathan artificial and eternal man.
Gov't and social order presuppose a relationship between authority and subordination. Consider, for instance, the family. It is the fundamental political unit due to the natural existence of authority and subordination present within. AnMon's recognize that any social authority or institution can be a source of gov't. Throughout human history, excepting the most recent rise of the State as it is recognized today, man has been governed by a multitude of sources of authority, each legitimate and sovereign within its own rights. None of which, were modern States. Tribal chiefs, religious leaders, powerful families, confederations of influential individuals, merchants, town councils, republics, principalities, etc etc. In all of these justice and laws were enacted, wars waged, taxes raised, money established, children educated, internal security maintained and property rights secured without the remote existence of the State.
When one considers the reality of such an observation, one quickly sees the implications... any voluntary societal order can be gov't without being the State. AnMon's do not reject this reality. We reject the State, the same as other Anarchists, but not voluntary association. We understand that natural hierarchies tend to arise in society. Individuals better suited to certain tasks excel at these tasks. We reject the egalitarian principle that these individuals should be required to inhibit their superiority, for the sake of others. Such a requirement, is a violation of individual liberty. There are individuals better organized, more capable of running successful businesses, more articulate, more physically capable of playing sports, more creative, so on and so forth. These natural elite should not, says the AnMon, be hampered but released from the restrictions society places upon them by restricting the monopoly power of the State.
Politically, this would translate into certain individuals arising that become a local aristocracy. The AnMon favors local self-determinism. Those societies wishing to install a monarchy should be free to do so. Voluntary association is the hallmark of anarcho-monarchist thought. Those societies choosing democracy, meritocracy, noocracy or any other political affiliation of any sort, should be free to do so. So all the various forms of leftism are accommodated quite succinctly in this theorem. The caveat, however, lies below...
The monarchist part of anarcho-monarchism implies the AnMon's personal opinion. The AnMon favors a monarchy when given a choice between monarchy and democracy. They apply the theory of private property to the institution of gov't. Such an application reveals immediately the issues present in a democracy that are not as prevalent in a monarchy. AnMon's favor dandyism instead of egalitarianism. Laissez faire instead of feudalism. Individualism instead of collectivism.
Philosophically speaking, anarchism has a strong anti-democratic tradition that, far from seeing anarchism as being democracy carried to its logical conclusion, is actually far closer to being instead aristocracy universalised. Monarchy can be reinvented as a concept to serve a distinctively libertarian ethos, if one can see in the monarch a symbol of sovereignty that is reflected in the absolute sovereignty of the free individual. The word 'king' is derived from the word 'kin' - so kingship denotes kinship, the king or queen being a symbolic guardian of the people's freedom and self-determination. Thus handed down generation to generation, the monarch carries the genetic inheritance of the people in a bond of mutual co-inherence.
- Wayne John Sturgeon
Democracy obliges us to elevate to office precisely those persons who have the ego-besotted effrontery to ask us to do so; it is rather like being compelled to cede the steering wheel to the drunkard in the back seat loudly proclaiming that he knows how to get us there in half the time. More to the point, since our perpetual electoral cycle is now largely a matter of product recognition, advertising, and marketing strategies, we must be content often to vote for persons willing to lie to us with some regularity or, if not that, at least to speak to us evasively and insincerely. In a better, purer world—the world that cannot be—ambition would be an absolute disqualification for political authority.
There is, after all, something degrading about deferring to a politician, or going through the silly charade of pretending that “public service” is a particularly honorable occupation, or being forced to choose which band of brigands, mediocrities, wealthy lawyers, and (God spare us) idealists will control our destinies for the next few years.
But a king—a king without any real power, that is—is such an ennoblingly arbitrary, such a tender and organically human institution. It is easy to give our loyalty to someone whose only claim on it is an accident of heredity, because then it is a free gesture of spontaneous affection that requires no element of self-deception, and that does not involve the humiliation of having to ask to be ruled.
The ideal king would be rather like the king in chess: the most useless piece on the board, which occupies its square simply to prevent any other piece from doing so, but which is somehow still the whole game. There is something positively sacramental about its strategic impotence. And there is something blessedly gallant about giving one’s wholehearted allegiance to some poor inbred ditherer whose chief passions are Dresden china and the history of fly-fishing, but who nonetheless, quite ex opere operato, is also the bearer of the dignity of the nation, the anointed embodiment of the genius gentis—a kind of totem or, better, mascot.
I am Distruzio. I am your new resident Anarcho-Monarchist troll. :cool:
I hope to learn as much as I can from this vibrant community!
I'm new here and I thought I'd introduce myself. Before I do that though, I thought I'd articulate that I'm here b/c I look forward to learning more about leftism and all its varieties. That being said, I'm not exactly a leftist. I am an anarchist. But a peculiar kind of anarchist - an Anarcho-Monarchist. :D
Now that I have your attention, please let me explain. I am an Anarcho-Monarchist. Not a monarchist. Not a democratist. Not a Statist. I am an Anarcho-Monarchist. What does that mean? Well, I'm still working out a specific methodological approach to the subject. Suffice it to say that I am an economic anarcho-capitalist, but I recognize that such an economic system might tend to require a vanguard state in order to assure its promulgation and perpetuation as not everyone is a capitalist and not everyone is an anarchist (this is a common problem for most anarchist schools of thought). Maybe another AnCap has developed a solution to this issue, I haven't come across it yet. Anarcho-Monarchism is my attempt to do just that. As an anarchist I recognize that it isn't necessarily gov't that I oppose but, rather, the coercive monopoly of expropriation within a given territory - the Hobbesian State. That Leviathan artificial and eternal man.
Gov't and social order presuppose a relationship between authority and subordination. Consider, for instance, the family. It is the fundamental political unit due to the natural existence of authority and subordination present within. AnMon's recognize that any social authority or institution can be a source of gov't. Throughout human history, excepting the most recent rise of the State as it is recognized today, man has been governed by a multitude of sources of authority, each legitimate and sovereign within its own rights. None of which, were modern States. Tribal chiefs, religious leaders, powerful families, confederations of influential individuals, merchants, town councils, republics, principalities, etc etc. In all of these justice and laws were enacted, wars waged, taxes raised, money established, children educated, internal security maintained and property rights secured without the remote existence of the State.
When one considers the reality of such an observation, one quickly sees the implications... any voluntary societal order can be gov't without being the State. AnMon's do not reject this reality. We reject the State, the same as other Anarchists, but not voluntary association. We understand that natural hierarchies tend to arise in society. Individuals better suited to certain tasks excel at these tasks. We reject the egalitarian principle that these individuals should be required to inhibit their superiority, for the sake of others. Such a requirement, is a violation of individual liberty. There are individuals better organized, more capable of running successful businesses, more articulate, more physically capable of playing sports, more creative, so on and so forth. These natural elite should not, says the AnMon, be hampered but released from the restrictions society places upon them by restricting the monopoly power of the State.
Politically, this would translate into certain individuals arising that become a local aristocracy. The AnMon favors local self-determinism. Those societies wishing to install a monarchy should be free to do so. Voluntary association is the hallmark of anarcho-monarchist thought. Those societies choosing democracy, meritocracy, noocracy or any other political affiliation of any sort, should be free to do so. So all the various forms of leftism are accommodated quite succinctly in this theorem. The caveat, however, lies below...
The monarchist part of anarcho-monarchism implies the AnMon's personal opinion. The AnMon favors a monarchy when given a choice between monarchy and democracy. They apply the theory of private property to the institution of gov't. Such an application reveals immediately the issues present in a democracy that are not as prevalent in a monarchy. AnMon's favor dandyism instead of egalitarianism. Laissez faire instead of feudalism. Individualism instead of collectivism.
Philosophically speaking, anarchism has a strong anti-democratic tradition that, far from seeing anarchism as being democracy carried to its logical conclusion, is actually far closer to being instead aristocracy universalised. Monarchy can be reinvented as a concept to serve a distinctively libertarian ethos, if one can see in the monarch a symbol of sovereignty that is reflected in the absolute sovereignty of the free individual. The word 'king' is derived from the word 'kin' - so kingship denotes kinship, the king or queen being a symbolic guardian of the people's freedom and self-determination. Thus handed down generation to generation, the monarch carries the genetic inheritance of the people in a bond of mutual co-inherence.
- Wayne John Sturgeon
Democracy obliges us to elevate to office precisely those persons who have the ego-besotted effrontery to ask us to do so; it is rather like being compelled to cede the steering wheel to the drunkard in the back seat loudly proclaiming that he knows how to get us there in half the time. More to the point, since our perpetual electoral cycle is now largely a matter of product recognition, advertising, and marketing strategies, we must be content often to vote for persons willing to lie to us with some regularity or, if not that, at least to speak to us evasively and insincerely. In a better, purer world—the world that cannot be—ambition would be an absolute disqualification for political authority.
There is, after all, something degrading about deferring to a politician, or going through the silly charade of pretending that “public service” is a particularly honorable occupation, or being forced to choose which band of brigands, mediocrities, wealthy lawyers, and (God spare us) idealists will control our destinies for the next few years.
But a king—a king without any real power, that is—is such an ennoblingly arbitrary, such a tender and organically human institution. It is easy to give our loyalty to someone whose only claim on it is an accident of heredity, because then it is a free gesture of spontaneous affection that requires no element of self-deception, and that does not involve the humiliation of having to ask to be ruled.
The ideal king would be rather like the king in chess: the most useless piece on the board, which occupies its square simply to prevent any other piece from doing so, but which is somehow still the whole game. There is something positively sacramental about its strategic impotence. And there is something blessedly gallant about giving one’s wholehearted allegiance to some poor inbred ditherer whose chief passions are Dresden china and the history of fly-fishing, but who nonetheless, quite ex opere operato, is also the bearer of the dignity of the nation, the anointed embodiment of the genius gentis—a kind of totem or, better, mascot.
I am Distruzio. I am your new resident Anarcho-Monarchist troll. :cool:
I hope to learn as much as I can from this vibrant community!