tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post4427241926243998542..comments2023-11-03T06:36:27.305-04:00Comments on Phronesisaical: Fire and Icehelmuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09069600766378586919noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-7766193938258703342010-12-27T18:07:08.115-05:002010-12-27T18:07:08.115-05:00You are correct to point out that there is no hate...You are correct to point out that there is no hate without fear, and no fear without false beliefs. But there are no false beliefs without propaganda, and propaganda cannot work without a predisposition to believe, so the argument appears to be circular.<br /><br />I think the circle has a cusp, though, and it comes to that predisposition to believe hate-stirring things. Partly this is the natural human tendency to sadism, the single strongest of all human tendencies. The rest is contextual and it comes to the locus of otherness.<br /><br />In our case, here, today, the locus of otherness is the fact that America consists of two civilizations that have nothing in common and can have nothing in common.<br /><br />One word: privacy.<br /><br />Think, long and long, about that word. Then I would not need to write out the rest of my argument; but as no one wishes to wait or to be tantalized, I will write it out anyway.<br /><br />Urban society depends absolutely upon absolute privacy. Else one went mad: humans were not designed to live in such density and can only do so if it is structurally impossible to learn anything about one's neighbors except what they choose to share. Lack of privacy is and existential threat to an urban society.<br /><br />Rural society depends absolutely upon the absolute lack of privacy: I haven't seen Bill this morning, but I know what he should have been doing; I must go see whether his tractor has rolled over on him, else he will die. Privacy is an existential threat to a rural society.<br /><br />Here are two civilzations that cannot agree upon anything. They cannot even agree upon the most basic aspects of what it means to be a human being. Pyotr Kropotkin identifed mutual aid as one of the essential distinguishing features of humanity, but urban and rural societies cannot agree upon the nature, the form, or the purpose of mutual aid. They may as well be different species. This gap is unbridgable and any effort to bridge it is wasted.<br /><br />So here we sit, attempting to govern two completely disjoint civilizations under one body of practice. This had never been tried before and has not been tried, since because anyone with a functioning autonomic nervous system sees at once that it is a doomed experiment. In every other place and time, one of the two civilizations has been structurally privileged over the other. <br /><br />We have now reached a point where our rural civilization has imposed its values on our urban civilization, by force and stealth, to such ruinous effect upon the one side, and at such ruinous effort by the other, that both camps have become insane. Accordingly, our two societies will now proceed immediately (on the historical scale of time) to destroy each other. It is no longer possible to prevent this. It may never have been possible.Frank Wilhoithttp://www.broadheath.comnoreply@blogger.com