Political Philosophy
06/11/2014
Unintentional Conspirators
“Authority is the right to command, and correlatively, the right to be obeyed. It must be distinguished from power, which is the ability to compel compliance, either through use or threat of force” (Wolff 576).
I remember when I was a child, maybe eight or nine years old, and still developing both mentally and physically. I had not yet come to be able to understand the sheer vastness of the community around me; neither of the society within which said community existed, nor of the world within which that society was but a small piece of. Lacking this basic element of a mere understanding of the ‘whole’ in which I operated, how possibly could I plan and execute actions which would result in a high degree of life-proficiency within it? The simple answer is that I could not; unless of course I had a source of reference for the world at large. This source of reference came to me in a rather non-unique form: the form of parents. My parents had sufficiently developed mental capacities which were more than capable of grasping the area of operations we humans call home and refer to as Earth, and they were therefore capable of directing my behaviour in an appropriate way. Parenthood is the pinnacle of authority, the child needs help making decisions because they are not yet aware enough of the world around them to make informed decisions about their life. Without the influence and direction of the parents the child would surely not survive, and thus: the parents of the child have a right to command the child and the child has a right to obey those commands. As is also supported by Jon Stuart Mill, “young persons below the age of manhood or womanhood[,] [t]hose who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury” (Mill 599).
Often times in childhood, following my biological imperative, I would choose to disobey the commands of my parents. Upon discovery I would be sent to my room as punishment, my parents commanded that I go there and I obeyed their command, for I respected their authority. One afternoon in particular I was commanded to go to my room and so I went, but I was not pleased about it. As I sat in there I began to think: ‘What exactly is keeping me in here? The door is not locked; my parents are not standing guard outside. Why do I stay if it does not please me?’ and so I opened my door, walked out of my room, out of the house, and right on down to the playground. I no longer respected the authority of my parents and thus freed myself from its bonds. It is questionable whether an authority void of the respect of the proletariat party still holds any true merit. For what right does one have to command, thereafter the supervised has waived his right to be commanded?
Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself all on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing. (Mill 602)
To be alive is, by this definition, to possess such internal drive. Therefore to contradict an individual’s internal compulsions is to contradict life itself, and hence the concept of government is not only illogical yet also a clearly false premise. It is my, most firm, opinion that when I decided to waive my right to be commanded that my parents lost their right to command me. The only option they had left was “to compel [my] compliance, either through use or threat of force” (Wolff 576). Whether they did this or did not and also whether, if they did, it was effective is beyond the scope of my argument here.
Governments do not have any legitimate authority whatsoever over any person, place, or thing. They hold great power in that they compel their subjects to obedience through threat of force (and excessive use). One must drive no faster than the posted speed, or else you will be financially reprimanded (financial reprimands being the modern day equivalent of lashings). One must not slander others, one must not tread where one is not expressly permitted, one must refrain from all acts of aggression, and one must not possess that which one does not own, all for fear that one will be incarcerated (one of the truest modern day forms of force). One must not rape, pillage or kill for fear of the same (incarceration) and, still in many areas of the world today, for fear of being slain in retribution (the death penalty would be the primary example here). All of these are examples of laws; a law is a technical term which describes the threat of force and, in the case the law is tested: use of force.
Many people will voraciously argue that governments do hold authority. That its subjects, by choosing to live in any particular government’s dominion: agree to the government’s right to command and therefore agree to the right to be commanded by that government. This is close-minded and wishful thinking; it is such, for there is nowhere in this world that is truly anarchist. There is nowhere for anyone to live out their life should they waive their right to be commanded. For if it is simply by living within the dominion of a government that one agrees to be commanded by that government, then should one not agree to be commanded one would need to live where there is no government dominion, and there is no such a place! However subconsciously it may be occurring, governments across the globe conspire with each other to consistently place one hundred percent of the world’s population under government power (power which they claim as authority); such a grand conspiracy, whether realized or not by those whom employ it, is a true and total definition of force. The word ‘accept’ carries with it a strong connotation of choice in the matter. One is born into a government controlled dominion and anywhere one might go is also a government dominion and simply by being within a government dominion one is said to ‘accept’ that government’s right to command him. But can one truly ‘accept’ the right to be commanded when there is no choice in the matter? I will state this again for clarity and emphasis: governments do not have any legitimate authority whatsoever over any person, place, or thing. They hold great power in that they compel their subjects to obedience through threat of force (and excessive use). The only time any government will be able to claim anything more than purely tyrannical and brutish ‘power’ over its subjects, is when its subjects have a choice in the matter; when there is the option of a truly anarchist state.
Works Cited
Mill, John Stuart. “A Classic Liberal Answer: Government Must Promote Freedom”. Philosophy:
The Quest For Truth. Ed. Louis P. Pojman, Lewis Vaughn. 9th ed. New York. Oxford University Press, 2014. 596-602. Print.
Wolff, Robert Paul. “In Defense of Anarchism”. Philosophy: The Quest For Truth. Ed. Louis P.
Pojman, Lewis Vaughn. 9th ed. New York. Oxford University Press, 2014. 575-579. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment