I would like to re-present the question of authority in a manner that I don’t believe anyone currently alive today can answer. The question I’m raising is how do we solve the problem of the apparently never ending “war of all against all?” Granted that, pace Nietzsche and Freud, human aggression is not the sine qua non of our existence, yet we still have to confront this question. To this point in human history most of the answers given in the west have been variations of the notion that “the truth will set you free,” whether that is the truth of a sovereign charged primarily with maintaining a civil truce (Hobbes, Locke) or the truth of an inner light which necessarily leads everyone to relinquish the use of cruelty (Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud). In an interesting and weird twist on Marx’s historicism, Rawls proposed to distribute justice by requiring those who hold power to relinquish power. This gives me pause, and I often wonder what our world would look like if every citizen were required to spend one week on a long term residential, psychiatric unit and one week attending the poorest school in their home state. I love Rawls’ vision, but pragmatically I don’t know how he ever proposed to implement it. Of course, utopian theorists often don’t know how to implement their vision, though I’d rather hang out with their lot than with pragmatists like Lenin or Jefferson, thank you very much! In the end I prefer figures who lead by example rather than by fiat (the authority of effort as opposed to the authority of commandment.…)
-
Recent Posts
Archives
- February 2019
- January 2019
- September 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- October 2017
- July 2017
- May 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- September 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- December 2011
Categories
Meta
Leave a Reply