JustinG wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 9:11 am
Sure, but he also believes that 'one clears the way for the most independent people by doing away with all force and authority'. Hence, he (in 1898 at least) is against both external and internal authority
Here we should make a clear distinction. The popular understanding of anarchism is as if human individuals are like free electrons in Brownian motion. They refuse to be aligned by external EM field, for example. We should be deeply aware that this view
presupposes the fundamental separation of the particles. Seen in this way, it sounds only logical that such a kind of anarchy can produce nothing but chaos. So in our age anarchy has become synonymous to chaos. And in a certain sense, without deep understanding of human nature, it is inevitable that chaos should result. If everyone submits to their Brownian impulses it is inevitable that collisions and friction will arise.
This is the tragedy of anarchism which is not deepened by self-knowledge. As soon as there's friction, an unsolvable situation is encountered. If two electrons move against each other, they collide. One says "This is my free will". The other says "Well, this is my free will too". If one backs up, he's no longer true to his ideology because he has allowed external circumstances to dictate his behavior.
What is universally misunderstood in PoF is that we begin by questioning the hidden impulses behind our T, F, W. If a person moves in a direction, it is not enough to simply say "This is my will". This is not freedom. Why is our will this and not other? We don't know. So we shouldn't mistake lack of insight for our impulses, with freedom. In this way, someone born in a prison, will apply his will to go round his cell but he has no awareness that his will is already severely limited and shaped by external factors. At the heart of PoF is not some anarchic stubbornness to do whatever we whim while we're ignorant of the constraints within which we operate. Instead it is about the continual unveiling of the deeper 'geometry' within which our spiritual conduct flows.
Returning on the two electrons, if they were truly free beings, they would look deeper for the reasons they go against each other. At that level they'll also find the moral imagination and intuition which will result in the two electrons gently moving around each other without any friction, as if in a superfluid condition. Science has equipped us with powerful observations but people still don't dare to
read them.
The greatest barrier for proper understanding is the deeply ingrained self-enclosedness which refuses to investigate the possibility that if we go beyond our limited apertures we'll also find the currents of universal harmony. When electrons remain self-enclosed, the only solution seems to be in a kind of
ideology. Some electrons have certain ideas that must be spread as external EM field over other particles in order to ensure some kind of coherency.
Why do we feel that freedom can only lead to chaos? Because it is seen in the narrow sense as indiscriminate Brownian motion. And this is certainly the case at certain stage of evolution. What happens when the teacher leaves the classroom for a while? Very soon the children are all over the place screaming, running. When the teacher returns she entrains the children-electrons through her EM field. Such is the course of evolution. Man had to be cohered through religions, then ideologies.
But today we arrive at a point where each individual can be their own moral agency. This seems as impossibility only if we declare that human behavior is fundamentally weaved of blind disconnected forces to which our T, F, W must helplessly submit. The materialist submits to the laws of physics which drive the brain calculations, of which consciousness is only the final output. The idealist submits to the local vortex flow. But all of these are only excuses. There's nothing fundamental that prevents me to seek higher resolution of a conflict.
What do people fight over? Land, objects, women, etc. It's always a conflict of desires. As long as people don't investigate the nature of these desires, they'll feel that their desire is true and all others are wrong, or they'll assume that all desires are equal but it is through power that we shall dominate ours over others'. In all cases, the common thread is that no one wants to explore the deeper forces weaving into these desires. All of this results into a worldview based on primal egoism. If we go deeper we'll find that these conflicts issue because we're not free. We simply saw the object and we wished for it. It was suggested to us from the outside. We desire for it because it is the only thing we know. And if it is the only thing that also others know, conflict arises. When we move towards freedom through self-knowledge we find that for each one of us there are unique things that we can do for the benefit of the whole - things which no one else can do. In this sense, the solution to conflict is to find the deeper strata of being where we discover what is unique to our perspective and what can be contributed to the Cosmic edifice only by us.
I know that the above will be rejected with great might. It will be said "I don't believe that the universe provides the means for universal musical harmony. Chaos is fundamental. So the best we can do is to gather in groups of interests which are destined for eternal wars with other groups."
The only thing I can say to this is that it is based on a belief which only serves to preserve the sanctity of the ego. It is not believed because of some deeper investigation in the nature of reality but because the ego wants to preserve its imagined apex position - to feel as the highest authority. The ego says "I'm a lone island of order in a sea of chaos. If I find like-minded islands we can gather in a group. But if we meet groups which hold other ideas we'll have to fight to the bitter end."
If the trouble is taken to investigate the inner world it will be found that reality is fundamentally superfluidic - it flows without friction. Friction and conflict issue only when the superfluid has been convoluted several times and the egos desire for conflicting objects because they see nothing else.