Re: MUTUALISM -- Part 1 -- LIFEBOAT

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Date Posted: 22:35:12 01/19/00 Wed
Author: W.H.
Subject: Re: MUTUALISM -- Part 1
In reply to: SwimmingUpstream 's message, "Re: MUTUALISM -- Part 1" on 14:58:13 01/17/00 Mon

Look, I agree with the idea of trying to accommodate the needs of minorities. If a minority wants to observe a law just for itself which doesn't affect the majority then there is usually no problem. But if a Scottish parliament wants to be able to legislate for non-Scots while the Westminster parliament cannot legislate for Scots, or a Kossovo parliament to legislate for Serbia without Serbia being able to legislate for Kossovo, then problems are going to arise. The question arises whether the minority wishing to impose its will on the majority is loyal to the wider polity. Loyalty implies a continuing willingness to try to resolve the problems being caused by disagreement.

There is no way of getting around conflicts of this kind by evoking abstract schemes, whether called mutualism or anything else. This is why there are those that regard the relations between different groups in a state not as contractually-based but as ties of destiny or fate. I don't like current attempts to censor and/or silence this "conservative" viewpoint (e.g. the republican referendum in Australia). They are part of an ongoing international project to establish states where relations of domination masquerade as freely-chosen contractual relations. This masquerade permeates the archetypally "modern" democratic state of the U.S. type. People who live in states of this kind can very easily become one-dimensional beings, very intolerant of two-dimensional people. Nobody freely chooses his/her parents or chooses where he/she is thrown out into this world. The fact is that that you don't eradicate the coercion of reality or the reality of coercion (whether by states or freelancers) by silencing those who acknowledge that it is a permanent factor in all our lives, which cannot be philosophised away.

On the second message: What rational ethics supports the idea that the judgement of the greater numhber is superior to that of the lesser number. It is because I agree that the judgement of the lesser number may be superior that I have elaborated my thought model of collective-mandate democracy where voters would have the option of submitting themselves to (or rejecting) government openly moulded around such a claim, not as an ideology but as a practice.

I see that this discussion is degenerating into a rave. SwimmingDownstream, you don't to help me bring to light the deficiencies in my model of collective-mandate democracy. Your aim is get me to sign up for membership in a cult, or put me in the wrong if I decline to do so.

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