[ExI] Cephalization, proles--Where is government going?

[Stefano Vaj]

On 6 May 2011 03:20, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:

> I. A Capitol Idea
>     Since you are all politicos *de nos jours* we might try and
> evaluate political epimemetics in the past few centuries--or to what
> direction they tend.  Being predominantly a Western group, we can talk
> about politics that are more familiar to all of us, which manifest
> most strongly in that great white hippo Liberal Democracy and its
> opponent, libertarianism.
>
>     Both are concerned with freedom, but which is most 'free'?  On
> the face of things, libertarianism seems to be freedom at its purest.
> But it is also true that pure freedom, a la state of nature, carries
> with it the constant stress of death and despair.
>

"Predominantly Western" sounds like an eufemism. Predominantly
"Anglo-Saxon", or even "American(ised?)" could be closer to target. :-)

In fact, I am always surprised in our little political discussions how the
great divide seems between those who are primarily concerned with i)
individual freedom "to do what one likes" and those who are primarily with
ii) individual freedom "from basic and/or not-so-basic needs".

In continental speech, political freedom is (or used to be until quite
recently) in the first place iii) *collective freedom*, as in independence
and self-determination, at a national, local and group level, which of
course include the ability of the relevant entity to choose for itself the
norms to which to obey and under which to function.

Now, it is worth noting that some tensions exist as well between this latter
view and the formers, since the formers' proponents are only too ready to
admit that, eg, legislative process is bound to restrict itself to the
notarisation of the rules which "objectively" serve at best freedom of type
i) or of type ii), so they are not so inclined to grant much scope for the
ability of a given people to regulate its internal affairs as it sees best
(as opposed to, say, the intervention of an "enlightened" foreign power or
international bureaucracy) or for political and legal diversity across the
world - with the related "Darwinian" competition amongst different systems,
which seems to me as the best possible bet for transhumanism on a global
scale.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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