A Cornucopia of Agendas: The Devolution of Political Unity

international | politics / elections | opinion/analysis

Wednesday September 15, 2004 14:48

by Tom

olearys at oceanfree dot net

Designing a system to effectively govern over four million people isn’t easy, but serious reform of the system that we have accepted is required if our goal is to achieve a pure democracy in which the greatest majority of citizens is represented satisfactorily.

Not dissimilar to our evolution from the dogmatic doctrine of the church to self-prescribed spiritualism, our political follower-ship has splintered from a few major parties to a plethora of issues-based groups. In Ireland alone there are 14 major political parties with many other interest groups and movements. Worldwide, the number of political parties competing for power is staggering. Each of these believes that they have a firmer grasp on the truth, a better idea for the best way forward. See: http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/parties.htm

truth

n 1: a fact that has been verified; "at last he knew the truth"; "the truth is the he didn't want to do it" 2: conformity to reality or actuality; "they debated the truth of the proposition"; "the situation brought home to us the blunt truth of the military threat"; "he was famous for the truth of his portraits"; "he turned to religion in his search for eternal verities" 3: a true statement; "he told the truth"; "he thought of answering with the truth but he knew they wouldn't believe it" 4: the quality of nearness to the truth or the true value; "he was beginning to doubt the accuracy of his compass"; "the lawyer questioned the truth of my account" 5: United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women (1797-1883)

I have always had difficulty with any particular group suggesting that they alone hold the key to truth. Mostly because truth is based so much on perception, and because truths often alter, even in scientific study, as recently exemplified in Stephen Hawking’s interesting about-face on the black hole information paradox. See: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996151

How misguided, then, is it to proclaim with any veracity a political or sociological concept? Knowing that historically, our perceptions evolve and our attitudes change; it is very difficult to imagine that any existing political party, group or movement has any better understanding of where we should go or how we should get there than the other.

Am I an anarchist? I want order…I want peace…I want comfort for myself and my children…and I want to discover my own personal truth that has eluded me for so many years now.

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Comments (4 of 4)

by notruledover

Wed Sep 15, 2004 14:56

You are definitely not an anarchist if you want a system to 'effectively govern over four million people'.
But if you wanted a system where people could voluntarily co-ordinate their activities with each other then you might be an anarchist.
It is important how you use language.

O-:

by o-:

Wed Sep 15, 2004 16:23

"Worldwide, the number of political parties competing for power is staggering."

yep- republican or democrat
alien or predator
IBM or Apple
coke or pepsi
Putin or the KGB
truly staggering.

governance

Wed Sep 15, 2004 16:38

It seems to me that governance, of some kind (even the self-governance of ararchy ) is necessary. Certainly during a period of change or transition from our existing democratic, capatalist system to another some sort of governance would be required to steer the path and manage existing systems of distribution, transport, health care, etc. Without any governance during a transition period, wouldn't chaos ensue?

I'm not saying that I am an anarchist, by the way...at least not as defined by any proponent of anarchy. I refuse to label myself with the identity of any existing group...my beliefs, like many others I imagine, are made up of my own personal thoughts, which were formed through personal experiences and observations...some of those beliefs may be conservative, liberal or anarchic in some broad definition....but I don't identify with any one sweeping set of beliefs. Besides, my beliefs tend to change and evolve as my experiences and observations do.

was it WC Fields that said "I don't want to be part of any group that would accept me as a member."??

Orwell on Anarchism

by Fergal

Wed Sep 15, 2004 17:09

This is from an essay by George Orwell on Swift's Gulliver's Travels. The rest of it is here:
http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/swift/e/e_swift.htm

but I think this section is most relevent to this discussion. I think it raises certain hard questions about anarchism as an organisation of society. Food for thought at the very least...

"... the totalitarian tendency which is explicit in the anarchist or pacifist vision of Society. In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by ‘thou shalt not’, the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by ‘love’ or ‘reason’, he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else. The Houyhnhnms, we are told, were unanimous on almost all subjects. The only question they ever discussed was how to deal with the Yahoos. Otherwise there was no room for disagreement among them, because the truth is always either self-evident, or else it is undis-coverable and unimportant. They had apparently no word for ‘opinion’ in their language, and in their conversations there was no ‘difference of sentiments’. They had reached, in fact, the highest stage of totalitarian organization, the stage when conformity has become so general that there is no need for a police force"

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A Cornucopia of Agendas: The Devolution of Political Unity

Comments (4 of 4)