Sunday, September 23, 2012

Anonymous Responds Before I Can Cogently Reply...

I'm honored by the repost, although I think the formatting on it is a bit messed up.

I'm fascinated by the idea of maintaining a compassionate way of communicating and I've been pondering it. My own persuasive tactics are less friendly. I am no politician. My first concern socially is a need for security. By pushing people immediately into dissonance without waiting to see whether they're willing to examine themselves like that, I filter out those who will cause problems down the line. (Specifically, people who explode when they're presented with flaws in their own thought are people I don't feel safe conversing with on an intellectual level.) My perspective is of course strictly personal; I percieve this to reduce stress in my life (possibly incorrectly). Even if I'm right about that effect in my own life, when viewed on a broader scale of space or time, I may be failing to persuade people who could be brought around, thus not averting problems so much as shoving them into the future (or onto other people).

However, note that these are statements of personal ignorance on the matter of... what was it, nonviolent communication? I don't understand it. Hence my statement that I have no idea how to correctly interact with your friend. I don't see myself as being in a position to give you advice. Anything I say that's correct is accidental!

Speaking of which, time to push my luck and take a stab at it anyways: It's always nice when people provide a "friend-tionary". Semantic differences are some of the most frustrating disputes, as the involved parties are literally not talking about the same things. Semantic arguments can then be quite productive in turn if the parties to the argument commit to some degree of formal exploration of the subject. You might try asking if you can get your friend to define what 'government' is. 

He said: "A government that approximates 'Anarchy' or 'voluntaryism' is indeed what is needed."

This implies that he is not using the term government in the way that you are using it, and that the two of you are not in agreement as to what the essential features of governance are. If nothing else, it's an avenue for future exploration, and could be intellectually stimulating.

Potentially more interesting though is that he also said: "Property: is ownership protected by governmental sanctioned authority and force of law."

Ownership was not defined... but WAS specified to be a superclass of Property. Your friend is defining property only as that class of ownership that is guaranteed by the government. Does he acknowledge voluntary ownership absent coercion? What protects it? Can those protections be extended to illuminate what a voluntary world would look like? This kind of question is why semantic arguments can be helpful. It may seem like trying to win the lottery, but sometimes there's a hidden agreement concealed by language. 

Anonymous' Response to "A DISCUSSION ABOUT VOLUNTARYISM"


Your friend's viewpoint appears to be denying the essential 
personhood of "rich people" and "poor people". I don't think 
he's understanding them as people, but as abstract classes. 
Perhaps he should be reminded that everyone lives near the 
center of their own narrative. Most people are the heroes of 
their own story; when this isn't true, the hero still tends to be 
close by. They acquire resources to improve the world in 
which they live. Rich people and poor people alike do this. 
The desire to live a better life is universal. The fact that the 
modern world is better than the ancient world is testament to 
the fact that progress is real.

Your friend doesn't appear to believe that rich people are 
capable of being voluntarists. He is arguing that rich people 
will never seek win/win transactions with those who are 
poorer than they are. "Never" is a strong word, but it fits here. 
He is directly arguing that rich people will buy up the 
necessary elements of life and then use their exclusive 
access to enslave the poor. This can only work if, as your 
friend clearly believes, the poor have no collective resources 
with which to resist, no ability to use the market, and no 
ability to network with each other effectively.

I wonder if your friend understands that the debtor class in 
modern society is the ultra-wealthy, while the creditor class 
are the working poor and the middle class. People very often 
think "high net worth" equals "no debts, massive savings". 

Historically, that was generally true, but in the modern day 
the so-called wealthy tend to have vast amounts of fixed 
resources and shortages of liquid assets. The collective argument is a symptom of this dehumanizing perspective. Your friend appears to believe that it is right and proper to remove cancerous elements from society with a government's violence, just as it is right and proper to remove 
cancerous elements from the body with a doctor's scalpel. 

The government is not that precise, but that is not the real 
issue. He is dehumanizing people who disagree with him by 
referring to them as cancers in human society. His arguments appear to be an attempt at justifying the forcible 
excision of other people for the crime of disagreeing with him 
as to the best way to improve their lives.

I have no idea how to correctly interact with such an 
individual. There are specific counterpoints to some of what 
he's said that I've skipped mentioning, as none of the logical 
consequences of the policies he's advocating matter so much 
as the fact that he's targeting policies against people he 
doesn't regard as people. As long as he has no empathetic 
connection with the people over whose fate he is arguing, he 
is not going to come to a peaceful solution to their problems.