junglecat

Why do you think so many Christians get state licenses?

People take marriage oaths very seriously. Maybe less so today with ubiquitous no fault divorce. Still, couples don't go through all the rigamarole of blood tests, licenses, extravagant parties, oaths, etc. and come away unaware of the contractual nature of marriage.

Sure, there are a lot of mimetic desires which will hardly get you into a conflict. This has to do with internal as opposed to external mediation. I love Mozart but as a model he is too far from me to get in a rivalry with him. Plus, mimetic desire is different than plain imitation. A mimesis could very well be doing the opposite of what your rival does, or rejection of what he does. You may feel you desire a kind of food simply because of how it makes you feel. This is learned. The pathway that got you there may be very convoluted but you can be sure it's mimetic. If it isn't, it's animal instinct. Desiring water because you're thirsty is animal instinct. Buying an aquifer is mimetic desire. Do you know Don Quixote? There are great examples of external and internal mediation in that novel. 'El curioso impertinente' is a perfect example of internal mediation. Don Quixote and Amadis of Gaul a perfect example of external mediation. Could you give an example, hypothetical or from history, of 'misperceived' aggression?

I stand corrected. It's not logically incoherent, it's just not true. Society is involved from the get go. Even if it's only the two who are married- they are most definitely involved and they are most definitely members of society. Usually the immediate and extended family is involved, friends and workmates, the government gets involved with taxes. Who are these 'most people' who only regard the contractual relationship only when it is dissolved? Some sort of mass national registry sounds good but only in a utopia (no-place). In real life marriage by the state turns the children of that bond into chattel. People used to simply record the marriage in their family Bible. The way it's changed is not an improvement in my opinion. Today, marriage is a privilege granted by the state. It's not a right or you wouldn't need a license. That's what I hate about the 'gay marriage' issue. Gays have always had the right to marry. You could marry your horse. You may not have many people recognize it or take you seriously but it's still your right. If you want the government to recognize it you have to pay the fee and get the permission. That will grant you certain privileges. The government can never grant rights, they are inherent.

Standing by my statement is the conclusion of an argument after I pasted the dictionary definitions. Context! Impartial witnesses rarely exist. In the absolute they never exist. Ok, so you define non-violent aggression as the mere threat of violence. And you're right. Some may admit to initiating aggression/violence but the norm is to not admit. The big picture of history demonstrates this is the fact.

I've noticed you tend to do this, deny then immediately confirm. "Initiation of force does not start with a glance, although it may have its origins there." Hello??? Of course the other guy inevitably feel that what you did was 'misperceived' as aggression. You talk about 'internally sourced desire'. There is no such thing. That belief is the romantic lie. Imitation is unavoidable. The only distinction we can make is between internal and external mediation. Internal mediation is where your model is close to you and therefore easily leads to rivalry. In external mediation the model is too far from you to be a rival.

There is some of that for sure, as in how much aggression constitutes an initiation of force. I think it's more a refusal to see the organic nature of human interaction. For instance, Girard's example of the handshake. It's a failure to see that initiation of force starts with a glance. There can be no initiation of force in the libertarian perspective without a bad mimesis in the Girardian perspective. There is no break between the two.

Brilliant point. All I hear is crickets.

No offense intended, but it's just as I thought. Your first point is logically incoherent. A union can't be dissolved unless it was first formed. And there is no society (as a whole but excluding government institutions) that recognizes gay marriage, polygamy, etc. Furthermore, I don't know a single society that gives a rat's ass about how property is divided up by surviving heirs- beside the government of that society. And maybe the close relations of the deceased, but that's it. After that, what's the point of 'registration'? Nothing but "proof that you've paid your protection money and that the mafia shouldn't attack you for that particular reason."

Oh, I know what you mean. Yes, NAP is about governments not initiating force. The problem is that all the biggest governments initiate violence all over the world. The majority of force in the world INITIATES violence. I am an American. My government is the latest, greatest abuser of this principle. But there was Great Britain, France, Rome, Egypt, etc. And your point about taxes- where is this principle taken up in regards to taxes in the 'enlightened' western world?

I disagree. The only place it works is in the realm of fantasy. You say it is only applicable for governments and societies at large. Our record of history shows that the world is getting progressively more violent. That is as big a picture as you can draw. And the majority of the killing has been after the Enlightenment. The non-aggression principle does not work because it refuses to see mankind as it is. The non aggression principle comes from a Voltairian view of the world. Think about Candide. The perfect society doesn't exist. Voltaire had to invent it. It's easy to criticize the world from a fantasy position. It's much harder to view it as it is. Still more difficult to apply the rules for the kingdom of heaven that Jesus lays out in the gospels.

Merriam-Webster: the state of existing or acting separately from others the power or right of a country, group, etc., to govern itself Cambridge: The right of a group of people to govern itself or to organize its own activities. I stand by my statement under either meanings. Absolute autonomy doesn't exist. I didn't say violence and aggression are fuzzy, although they certainly can be. I said that who initiates aggression/violence is fuzzy. You would be very hard pressed to find any instances where both parties did not feel the aggression came from the other guy. So might usually end up right and the winners write the history books. They demonize their enemy and airbrush out their own misdeeds. "Non-violent aggression"- that's a good one. That's like dry water. People and states use aggression and violence to provoke others to act violently, to play the game of tit for tat. This is obvious to anyone who observes world politics and marital relations. Of course, neither side will ever admit this is the case.

I'm not deflecting. I gave you an immediate example of what I am trying to convey to you: "For instance, you accused me of the logical fallacy, 'appeal to authority'. You say I am poisoning the well. You believe me to be initiating a kind of aggression in this poisoning. You therefore feel justified in your accusation. I believe I am not committing the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. I did not argue that my position was right because René Girard said so. I used his quote as an illustration. I view your accusation as a form of aggression." Yes, I do view your accusation as a type of aggression. I do so because your accusation was false. In no way did I make an appeal to authority by quoting Girard. Now, you could have easily made a mistake and are too proud to admit it. This in itself leads to a further escalation. Do you see what I mean? Who and how aggression is initiated is a very sticky affair. Try to sort it out and it's like putting tar in one hand, feathers in the other. Smack them together and sort it all out. But this was only an example. I am not thin skinned enough to actually take offense at what you say. I have had dealings with you before and I know how you react. I am not surprised in the least.

Yes, it does boil down to the issue of autonomy. Absolute autonomy doesn't exist in the human realm. We are the products of our parents and society. Nobody would want to live a completely autonomous life even if it were possible. Life is made up of human interactions. The worst punishment we can inflict on someone is to take these away and put them in solitary confinement. When it comes to violence and aggression this idea of absolute autonomy is just a fuzzy and indistinct. The non-aggression principle talks about the initiation of force/aggression/violence. Where does this begin? Does it begin at physical violence? When someone strikes another with intent to harm? What about war tactics such as siege? Would anyone consider it moral to do everything short of physical violence to provoke another?

I'm not sure I understand you. I think you are not making sense. Marriage is a voluntary association considered a contract WHEN it is dissolved? Not during the contract? What societies don't recognize marriage as a voluntary association? How else could they recognize it? Are you then saying that recognition by society of marriage needs to be something you pay for, that would otherwise be illegal (needing a license). Could you perhaps word your last paragraph differently? It sounds like you are saying essentially nothing. And do you believe a right, whether it is natural or civil, to be something that requires a license? Why?

First we need to determine if I was making an argument from authority. Where did I say 'because Girard says this, it is right'? I did not. Your accusation was false.

Is marriage a natural right or is it a privilege granted by the state?

Once violence is initiated then retaliatory violence in self defense is righteous. The problem I see is that, almost without fail, both parties will believe it was the other party who initiated the violence/aggression. For instance, you accused me of the logical fallacy, 'appeal to authority'. You say I am poisoning the well. You believe me to be initiating a kind of aggression in this poisoning. You therefore feel justified in your accusation. I believe I am not committing the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. I did not argue that my position was right because René Girard said so. I used his quote as an illustration. I view your accusation as a form of aggression. Aggression tends to escalate. Physical violence never comes clear out of the blue. It begins with aggression. A misunderstanding, offense taken, veiled insults, open insults, 'blocking', 'bad reputation' points. My point is that if you listen to both sides of a story as an outside observer to almost any conflict you will find each party to believe it was the other who initiated the aggression. Confining the definition of violence only to physical violence and theft is no help either. There are plenty of war tactics that do not involve any physical contact or theft but which can leave an enemy injured all the same.

An argument from authority (Latin: argumentum ad verecundiam), also called an appeal to authority, is a logical fallacy that argues that a position is true or more likely to be true because an authority or authorities agree with it. I did not argue anything was true because René Girard said it. I quoted him. The concept of 'self-ownership' is a bit like putting legs on a snake, as the old saying goes. It's superfluous and says nothing of the fact that nobody lives in a vacuum. You have parents. You were their child and you are their son. You may have children. They will be your children. We know ourselves in relation to those around us.

I thought marriage was a right? If it is a right, why should anyone need a license? A license is permission to do something that would otherwise be illegal. It's a privilege.

Good points. And the negative side of that is our hyper awareness of victims. Everyone is a victim in the west and nobody feels they are the persecutors. And the fascistic political correctness is also a concrete form of Christianity.

What is the straw man here?

The argument about the definition of "objectively" is very strange to me. First people said I was using it wrong. I produced the definition from Cambridge and they said I was defining Christian wrong. I explained what I mean by Christian in the broad anthropological sense and people said I was using the words the wrong way in conjunction. You say my use is 'less common'. Ok. I don't think so, but ok. So what? Can you only work with 'common'? As I said, Stefan (or generally secular western culture) is not Christian subjectively. They are objectively so in that they deny the divinity of the archaic god, the god that rules through violence. So in a sense, they hold up the divinity of love instead but they refuse to call it Christian. I suppose it's subjective whether you think the discussion is pointless. I thought there was and there is a definite point to my part. If a discussion is truly pointless it usually doesn't carry on for long. I'm happy to end it if you'd like. If you feel it is pointless, why engage? It's still a point if your point is merely to prove me wrong, isn't it?

And my question to you is when have you ever seen a use of force that was not predicated on some anterior crisis or use of force? How do you distinguish what you believe to be 'natural desire' from instinct? How does the circularity of mimetic desire (borrowed desire) illustrate it is fallacious? The words in quotations are Girard's, not my own.

I’ve been digging into the philosophy of Freedomain Radio and Stefan Molyneux and I find this concept of the non-aggression principle- which obviously did not originate from FDR but which is central to the philosophy- to be quite muddy. What does it mean to initiate violence or aggression? I think the idea that it is only the ‘other guy’ that initiates violence is akin to what Girard called, “the romantic lie” The ‘romantic lie’ is Girard’s idea that our desires and purposes arise from some creative inner depth within ourselves. The truth is that our desires are generally inspired by the desires of others. We want things not because they are inherently desirable but because someone else's desire for them has made them attractive to us. We see it in advertising where the products are not presented on their merits but as the possessions of attractive or prestigious people. We are invited to enjoy some quality of being that belongs to the person who has the product and not the product itself. Desire is never a straight line between a subject and an object but always has some ‘other’ as it’s model. Desire is essentially borrowed desire. "There is no such thing as ’natural desire’, otherwise it would be instinct. If desire had a fixed object it couldn’t change and it would be the same as animal instinct. Therefore desire always come from the ‘other’. This other, if he is close enough socially, physically, will necesarily become our rival when we desire his object. Human desire is changeable by its very nature. Beyond the basic things to which instinct or appetite direct us, our wants and our abilities are shaped entirely by imitation of those who surround us and those we admire. This is how we develop our entire cultural repertoire, beginning with the language we speak. We learn because we want to be like those from whom we learn. Aristotle say humans are the most mimetic of creatures. What Aristotle doesn’t point out is the shadow side this aptitude for imitation, which is the way it leads to rivalry between those who desire the same things. This rivalry will be most intense between those who are most alike in their interests and affections. The paradox is that the closer you are, the more your goals will be the same. This will be true at the highest level, at the intellectual level. If we are close intellectually, we are going to look for the same things and there will be moments when we feel that the other is more successful than we are. In fact, it’s everybody’s tendency to feel that the other is more successful. It’s also everybody’s tendency to feel “I am more successful” or “I should be more successful” but anyway the problem will be there because man is essentially a dynamic individual who wants to occupy the entire stage. This individualism will lead us into competition with the people who are closest to us. Aristotle says tragedy is conflict to the death between people closest to each other. The closer you are to someone, the greater the possibility of conflict given what man is, his goals and his individual imperialism. This is the unspoken truth of social existence that is hidden by the ‘romantic lie’ but revealed in the greatest works of literature." "I offer my hand. You take it. We shake hands. But if you don’t take my hand and if you put your hand behind your back, I will also put my hand behind my back. In other words, I will reciprocate a friendly action, you will reciprocate it too. But if there is no good reciprocity there will immediately be a bad one which takes over. And this is what I think the specialists of human relations have not noticed enough. That far from lacking reciprocity, we can not get out of it. But it’s very easy to shift from good reciprocity to bad reciprocity and terribly difficult to shift from bad reciprocity to good reciprocity and I think the problem of mankind is really precisely that. That whichever reciprocity we have, we are not going to be able to get out of it, it will be a vicious circle into which things will always get worse and worse, because even good reciprocity can become bad by force of repetition. We are very different from animals in that respect. I think that reciprocity begins with a glance. We look at each other. This is a very striking thing in my view. When you look at animals fighting on TV, even the two goats that hit precisely the center of the forehead. They don’t look at each other. They don’t look at each other before the fight, during the fight, or after the fight. There is a total lack of glance. This is so true that Kipling had a special theory, which was typical Kipling. He was a genius, but in the Jungle Book there is that story that animals can not stand the glance of man, which is human superiority- it’s not true! If you look a cat in the eyes too long, the cat will be bored, will go to sleep. But men will never go to sleep. They’ll rise to the challenge and they’ll fight. I think it is the good and the bad of man. It’s inescapable. We are terribly mimetic, and being mimetic we are inevitably open to conflict. What is vengeance? Vengeance is doing what the other guy does, always the same thing. But it’s the ultimate in bad reciprocity. To stop it by killing the opponent. And all men know how to do that and only men (and women) know how to do that because animals don’t have intra-specific murder. So when people say, “Humans are violent, animals are much less violent”- they are right. If we didn’t have culture, in the human sense, there would be no humanity. Humanity would have destroyed itself at birth. When the mimetic power rose in the relationship between animals- and we know that it rises, and we know it today scientifically through the mirror neurons. The higher you get, the more mirrored neurons you have and the more mirrored neurons you have (with man) the more you do the same thing. But this ‘doing the same thing’ includes enough violence to kill. And we call it vengeance. The human species is the only one which threatens it’s own existence from birth.” René Girard