Interview 1329 – Vin Armani on Self Ownership, Property and Morality
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Vin Armani, host of The Vin Armani Show, joins us to discuss his new book, Self Ownership: The Foundation of Property and Morality. In this wide-ranging, in-depth discussion we explore the philosophical basis and the political ramifications of self ownership, the nature and limits of property, the moral system that arises from a propertarian order and the cryptosavages that are threatening to storm the gates of the old order.
SHOW NOTES
VinArmani.com
Bypass YouTube censorship: HookTube or deturl
The Well-Read Anarchist: Proudhon – “What Is Property?”
Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory
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Best conversation on this topic on the internet. Hats off. Vin Armani’s summary of the gaps in Austrian economics and libertarian theory was so excellent I gasped.
His (I would call it phenomenological) attempt to fill the gaps is more problematic philosophically, but whose wouldn’t be? James’ issue with the objectification of the feeling knowing subject and its relationship to slavery is also right on!!! This is the age old subject/object mystery in the sphere of law. Good luck but thanks for trying. It is very important.
As usual, James’ keen mind finds the best questions. LAND LAND LAND. Answers are harder, but I felt closer by the end of the conversation. I certainly don’t have this all worked out myself, but I heard echoes of my own inner conversations throughout. I think you are struggling with the right issues.
**I do not think these issues can be worked out intellectually without dealing with the relationship between ownership, the family and the CHILD’s path to adulthood in society.**
This is not only the most essential theoretical issue, it is exactly where statists and slavers drive the wedge into the sense of self, between child and parent, which becomes a division in the child’s sense of self, so that the child can become effectively a machine.
50% off on Corbett DVDs? I think James has finally motivated me to go crypto. (And contribute again. There is nowhere else I know of where I can hear this quality of conversation.)
There is no such thing as “ownership” as such there is however rights and privileges over the “constitution of life forms within the vessel for the period of time referred to as lifetime”. This would be called your “Birth right”
We are born with nothing except usage rights of the vessel we are inside, it then has certain privileges bestowed upon it by the environment it is birthed into.
When we die the vessel is discarded and with it stays or goes all the rights and privileges associated with the vessel. Who owned the vessel then ? the environment it is left or abandoned in.
The only thing owned if there is such a thing is emotions which are the drivers of thoughts which in turn manifest into “things”
There is one other element that was not mentioned and that is “EQUITY” meaning do you own and have the ability to trade your future effort ? Is your potential actually owned or able to be owned.. It is Borrowed against by “States” or government entities in the form of Sovereign loans etc this is where a State sells a lean on its citizens future productivity onto the world market and receives “promises /currency” in return…
Thoughts on self, body, land and ownership:
The sense of being a free agent is not historically limited, but its historical emergence, as a social ideal, is a result of the cultural liberations of the Protestant reformation and the Renaissance, plus ensuing developments, including the discovery of a continent or three, the USA and Freemasonry.
As such it gradually included female persons. The tension between women and children (and serfs and slaves) as property (a time-honored tradition) and as free souls is felt everywhere and still is.
In many places, the ancient tradition of jus primus noctae was still observed. The landowner had the right to sleep with and impregnate every bride once before her husband did. A bastard child of ones Lord was considered an honor. The land and the woman’s body were the same.
In the same way, some portion of the progeny of subjects was due to the Lord for his military, personal and sexual satisfaction, which, by the way, was seen sacramentally and symbolically as the health of the community itself. In pre-christian times this also openly meant human victims for sacrifice. Later things become less overt, but one can see the same forces at work in the Jimmy Savile scandal and similar stories today.
Land, Earth and Vessel, (the latter as Cauldron, Crucible, Chalice, but also Womb, Mother and social Matrix as in Alma Mater) are fairly universal female symbols and feminine nouns in many languages.
Many of us from very different points of view, will recognize around us a developing Mother Earth religion of Materialism. As we love our Mother, we euthanize our mothers, and modulate our carbon footprint for the sake of our brothers and sisters – the ones who deserve to live, anyway.
The Female in religion, or anything interesting or powerful in religion, is not the property of elites, as I see it, and I AM NOT condemning anyone’s interest in it, but there is no doubt that in history, such female cults often involved orgiastic temple sexual practices, sacrifice, including human sacrifice, psychedelic drugs, and what one might call “mind control†techniques. Contrary to the modern feminist dream, ultimately, powerful families with powerful patriarchies ran these temples “for the good of society.†Interestingly anybody could come to these Temples, often anyway, even slaves. They were much more egalitarian, unless you were getting sacrificed or permanently conscripted for temple service against your will…
I will probably offend, but in one phase of HISTORICAL development anyway, the God of the Bible was once a Son of such a Mother, but one who was revolted by and revolted against her and was notably not fond of most Temple practices, keeping only some non-human sacrifice and ritual (and possibly some psychedelics) for the priesthood. Eventually what was left was the Market In front of the 2nd Temple that so offended Jesus just a few years before it was desecrated and destroyed by “Babylon the Greatâ€. Whatever His genocidal crimes along the way, God always led away from slavery and saw the Mother and Son Temples with ritual sex and human sacrifice as a return to slavery in Egypt. In the transference of the destroyed Temple to the Resurrected Jesus as a place for worship, and to ones own body as “a Temple to God†is the creation of the modern individual, Christian or not. (I am not.) In the resurrection of the cult of the Universalis Rerum Mater is its end,
Even for those who feel no specific religious allegiance, including me, the equation of a Temple of False Idols with “AI†and many other phenomena around me is fairly obvious, as is my loss of humanity as I descend, even conceptually, into the “human as thing†culture around me in the Age of Agenda 21
Whatever it is, “ownership†is of things by people, and Children and Women and Men, our very selves are not things. But if we do not own Children or Wombs, (to take the most immediately thorny examples), the state and the temple are happy to take them from us, as the property of the Mother. No one owns the Earth, of course, which is why the kindly folks at the UN will administer it for us.
“Self-ownership†is an unsatisfactory concept for me, but in the current environment, I’ll take any ownership outside Her Temple.
I appreciated the acknowledgement of animal aggression regarding competition for finite resources. Greed is not a sin peculiar to humans. It is not human nature. It is the nature of life itself: competition for finite resources of space, energy and time.
How does the new social interaction protocol address the following?
1) What to do with psychopaths? They exist. They will continue to exist.
2) What to do with inheritance?
Evolution: adaptation to an ever-changing environment. James, Vin… you are finding success with the introduction of the Printing Press of the New Millennium. Should your children be allowed to benefit by inheriting the belongings you acquire through a lifetime of fairly trading your valuable skills? How about your great great grand children?
Rockefeller was successfully fit for his environment 150 years ago. If a new type of fitness proves overwhelmingly successful, some will benefit while others struggle…. Meet the new boss….
Is it possible that the existing “system”, unfairly rigged as it is, is the most stable to deal with a mind boggling variety of individuals competing for resources? Wealth is not evenly distributed. Do Titans keep other Titans in check?
I don’t like socialism. I would like to see individuals enjoy the fruits of their labour. Trouble is, some are more fit for a given time and space than others. Life ain’t fair… Rams will continue to butt heads, eyes will be blackened for females and dandelions will continue to take over my lawn. It is the way of things.
Good questions.
Aggression and competition are indeed one of the ways we are “wired” for obvious reasons, and I agree the frankness is refreshing. Ultimately, it’s the same the old question: how not either to just kid ourselves or else end up with “might makes right.”
But we also live with those annoying but instructive youtube videos of predators and prey caring for each other in childhood, and we recall we are the sorts of beasts who can butt heads with a foe and even kill him with pleasure, only to live with nightmares forever after we remember something that might now be hard to forget: he was human.
And we also live with reality that humans found creative ways to be cruel to each other, including ritual torture, sacrifice and abuse of children and others as a CULTURAL SINE QUA NON for millennia (Entertainment Tonight! attendance required!) in ways that are hard to equal elsewhere in nature, though the play of bored cats with mice starts suggesting the possibilities, I admit.
Interesting, too, that the butting Rams heads are one form of the duality of BAPHOMET himself, when he is at war…In his other forms he chills out and simply accepts all sides — and the sacrifices of his worshipers…
James and Vin touched upon so many important things – concepts that require serious time to properly consider – that I pass on making any commentary at this time. Instead I latch onto a topic that I’ve come to think more about only recently.
“the play of bored cats with mice”
I had been made aware of the “cruel teasing” behaviour of several predators before they eventually consumed their anguished, terrified prey. The theory (I use this term because right now I don’t know of a scientific body of work that proves this) is that when under exreme duress the prey’s body secretes hormones, such as adrenalin, in aid of the prey’s survival through the enabling of an urgent fight-or-flight mode. A mode which nevertheless renders many of them “dinnerâ€.
These hormones supposedly enrich the energy potential in the prey’s flesh, blood, and organs. Sensory overwhelming terror is the induction method. The predator’s objective is to consume the enhanced nutritive, almost magical, properties now temporatily active in the prey’s body.
When this concept was brought to my attention it was in the context of the ritual torture and drinking of the blood and/or cannibalism of children – the examples were discussed in relation to paedophiles, in particular, but also about other types. There is also the underlying presumption that young, virginal children don’t carry or can’t transmit any STDs or other adult disease from their blood. I can’t recall now which video discussed this (I know – a great help that is!).
Now back to cats. There are more behavioral explanations for cats playing with their prey because of that pet’s prevalance in society, and the greater number of observations about that behaviour. Wildlife scientists seem to feel that it’s instinctive behaviour, engaged in whether the cat is hungry or not.
It’s suggested that the development of the instinct was a proven strategy for physically wearing out the mouse, bird, or whatever so that after the intial pounce and subsequent ones, the prey’s own defences couldn’t injure the face of the short-snouted cat. As the end game was to finally break the prey’s neck, the cat had to occasionally release it’s captive to get a better bite. This task became easier when the prey were finally exhausted, and couldn’t escape from a temporary release. Does this also explain banking in any way?
No. First, in my observation, and I have lived by a woodshed filled with feral cats, when cats are hungry, they don’t linger too long. They kill and eat.
It is when they are fed, lazy and bored that they become super cruel. No longer hungry, they can linger, take the time to enjoy the physiological delights of killing.
I don’t care what those guys say. Those cats do it for a reason similar to a Robin I knew who ate Grape Ivy berries every year – to get high!
But whereas that Robin just got stupid and tried to fight (or mate?) with his reflection in the window, the cat’s face would convulse with tremors as it flipped the mouse, it not only bit at the mouse’s back, it shook it vigorously but carefully so as NOT to break its neck (believe me, that cat knew how) but to strain a leg and disorient the mouse so it wobbled, but kept moving, and the the cat gazed, breathing heavy, with its pupils narrowing and its face convulsing in an eery grimace….how good…it could take it’s time and enjoy the thrill of the pain in the mouse…
Now THAT explains banking!!!
“Instinctive behavior” often feels pretty good…and regulating its expression in a social context is power itself, the secret of every religious Temple, which is what banks have always been.
Owning is knowing.
Having is being.
The currency of thought by which to claim possession is one of being possessed. That is to say, the idea that arises to your awareness is not yours – except you live from it and embody it, share it and meet it reflected experience – all of which is rising within the consciousness OF that idea.
Mutually agreed definitions operate a currency or matrix of meaning that minds seems to rule over and yet also be subject to, as a result of ruling out true relation or true witness.
When engaging in a thought that is aligned true, it operates the extension of true as a shared witness. But if priority is given to a private thought or secret agenda, then it aligns in the idea of self-image or identity held against conflicted experience – because what is not aligned true is dissonant and operates a filter of subjective distortion – that is the primary foundation of conflict, guilt, fear and pain – amd all the progeny thereof.
The freedom to engage in thoughts that are not aligned with who you truly are the being of, is the ‘ownership of the experience of subjection as a direct reflection of a coercive suppression of true will by a false ‘mind’ of self-definition. You can take this as far as you choose or accept but there is a limit to the ability to accept pain – no matter how ingeniously ‘redistributed’, redefined or outsourced.
The idea of owning your self in image and concept – is the idea of taking or assuming a ‘life’ that can now be taken back. The consciousness within self-image experiences through definitions of which it is unaware and equates it existence with the perspective of mind, body and world that seem self-evident, but are a complex development of construct and adaptation – as not merely an external world – but the internal mappings of conditioned adaptations of a multitude of personality strategies.
I often refer to the Humpty Dumpty rhyme – because under the fear of pain and loss of ‘chaos’. ‘all the King’s men’ operate a coercive narrative continuity and control that never shall complete because Humpty is a false flag – but the fear of conflict, pain and loss is genuinely triggered and active.
So the beginning point to regaining sanity of wholeness is to own one’s own – neccessarily in pause and desist of the overlay of moral guilting or blame. Because habits are choices we do not recognize as choice until we own them – and then we are no longer owned by them – even if it takes time to replace the habit through standing in a true-felt choice.
While the ‘God’ or ‘Source’ idea is generally ruled out by ‘self-owership’, The alignment within a truly felt existence is simply being the true of who you are – in being WITH all that you are the experience of. How you choose to experience is your freedom of acceptance. You own such freedom by recognizing it in others.
What I write may not grok because ‘thinking’ is predicated on ‘Self-divorce running as if an actual accomplishment. Invested identity…
Well, er, thanks for that…I think. My mind was already reeling from this episode, and trying to deal with a reappraisal of my understanding of property, etc. To that you now introduce in short order a very weighty, pithy discourse that has my mind trying to reappraise my mind. Geez! Who can’t but love this site.
I wrote to clothe insight in forms that might be recognized as a willingness to restore an integrity of being where a false sense of possession ran off with itself and got very lost.
The mind – can be seen in different ways at different times and a split mind can operate between different levels of compartmentalised facets – extremely quickly.
While I cannot understand my mind with my mind, I can release or pause from acting from what does not truly serve me, so as to notice what does not serve me, from a more aligned perspective in which what had been believed and accepted true can now be owned and released as not integral to my being.
So I would suggest releasing false claim, or false witness, as we notice from dissonance that we have something out of true, to come back into a truly connected possession of and within our own right mind.
What would false claim or witness be? Obviously when we know we are presenting a mask over true – but less obviously in the use of concept, phrase and language as James Corbett recently spoke upon.
Revisioning what you presumed to know or take for granted as a given, has to open a place of felt resonance in a self-honesty that may seem at odds with ‘self-protection!
But true discovery is of joy – including the uncovering and releasing of what works against that quality of connected purpose or flow of being that cant be given a name (without the name being subverted).
There are ways but the Way is uncharted;
There are names but not nature in words:
Nameless indeed is the source of creation
But things have a Mother and She has a name
tao te ching (Blakney)
My quick and belated lunchbreak stab at interpreting and responding to this question of ownership, devoid of any poetic or aesthetic aspirations:
Ownership = human construct, doesn’t exist in the absence of humans.
As such, it is both relative and subjective.
The notion of ownership arises when there is a human attempt at securing recognized power over some aspect of himself and/or other people and, the environment in an effort to maximize pleasure, minimize pain and some would argue optimize conditions for reproduction.
It is linked to the relative and subjective human construct of Freedom which is mostly measured according to the degree of power a human perceives he has over himself, other people, his environment and thus over his own life.
Ownership rules are inherently designed to maximize the pleasure and minimize the pain of those establishing them even though they may be designed to apply to other people.
Those establishing them will decide whether ownership pertains to inanimate objects, territory, people of any age or sex, nationality, social or family status etc…), the natural environment, material and immaterial phenomena including thoughts, emotions, instincts, souls, waves and particules of any nature etc… most probably in accordance with the establisher’s perceived capacity to enforce his own definition.
Human pain and pleasure receptors can be broken down into Physical, Ego and Moral all subject to varying and debatable degrees of objective and subjective existence and thus ownership aspirations will be designed to procure pleasurable gratification for the three above-mentioned types of receptors.
With the notions of ownership, freedom and power may come subjective perceptions of responsability.
Many people, intimidated by subjective perceptions of responsability will renounce any aspirations of ownership, freedom and power.
A human’s successful transgression of established rules of any nature may procure an enhanced sense of freedom, power and ownership and thus pleasure.
As for John O.’s satiated cat, the pleasure obtained by playing with its pray probably stems from the combined pleasure of the adrenaline secreted in the simulated act of hunting (playing) and the excruciating necessity of not breaking its toy which would terminate its pleasurable playtime.
I would venture to say that it does not stem from the sadistic pleasure of witnessing suffering which is a phenomenon of perversity acquired in psychopathic humans and their notion of ownership; A notion that is non-existant in cats as they do not intellectualize their territorial instincts.
The bell is ringing so I must obey my Pavlovian physical and social conditioning and abandon this pleasurable intellectual exercise.
Why are you so sure sadistic PLEASURE is a matter of dualistic intellect?
Assuming (and it is an assumption) that the cat had no dualistic sense of the mouse’s pain as “other,” still, she (a real cat, and it was a she), either had no experience/sensation at all (the scientistic “out” of many, but I do not buy it), or she experienced “something,” and what she absolutely did not experience was “adrenaline,” a concept we picked up in High School, usually, (probably pre-school now, as reminder that we are just chemical reactions, after all) and rather abstract from her pov, I should imagine.
What she experienced was “pleasure,” the buildup of a tension that leads to release, a concupiscence/detumescence, but of a particular variety, not Eros, but an expansive satisfied Wille zur Macht, which can become erotic eventually, in both males and females, but is a natural pleasure in its own “right.”
Now for those who must retrieve some vestiges of Darwinian behavioural TRUTH from my poetic, anthropomorphic (i would say theriomorphic, for i share that nature, and can empathize thusly) flights of fantasy, which just happen to be truer, but whatever, I will say this:
As I observed cats feral and domestic (and I really did for quite a while) I noted that bringing wounded prey home for kittens to play with was common, so that they could experience for themselves, and become addicted to (oh that poet in me!) the delights of “hunting,” (a euphemism under the circumstances for the useful but sadistic PLEASURE of sensing POWER that comes from weakening another before consuming it. Any boy (and some girls) in a hunting culture will recognize the parental love involved.
The older cats, still enjoying this as a pastime on hot summer days when the livin was easy, were simply enjoying for themselves again the pleasures of youth.
Just kidding! It’s all really neurochemical reactions in empty space.
Your sarcastic, refined and informed rhetorical questioning is absolutely irresistable. Vaguely reminiscent of a bored cat.
As you may know, I was a pre-school valedictorian. Things seem to have dwindled slightly since…and I’m SURE of nothing…except that I used to dream about becoming a highly distinguished endocrinologist…
Now, at least I can put a word on why I spend such an inordinate amount of time on this site. It’s that mild ‘detumescence’ that’s so much more effective than sucking on ventoline.
As much as I’m a sponge for unmitigated truth and easy poetry, I was not aware that people who hunt game experienced sadistic pleasure from killing. As naive as that may seem, I’m quite confident when I say that the hunters I’ve known are not sadists. Jimmy Savile, however, was an establishment-protected psychopathic sadist.
He intentionally tortured, humiliated, scarred for life, and for all anyone knows, may’ve killed, countless young people presumably for a few moments of detumescence.
An a-moral cat, feral or domestic, is obeying its instincts out of unquestioning necessity.
If Man is to become Human and distinguish himself from the animal kingdom he must place the immoral Jimmy Saviles who torture, mame and kill for pleasure or personal necessity, somewhere where they can no longer spread the suffering of their exceptionally psychopathic and destructive condition.
You know, that bland old lion and the lamb thing I guess.
Erratum: the above-mentioned “easy poetry” subjectively means “easily accessible poetry” which is in no way diminished in value by its accessibility.
Haha. No worries.
Well you got me with “sadism,” that was anthropomorphic overreach, for sure. It also implies a sexual charge which is not what I am talking about – yet. (I will save that for my workshop on The Tantric Way of John Frum.)
I think a lot about the problem of “psychopaths” and why we all are so hard on them. Basically, they are just misunderstood pussycats.
Maybe more later. Right now I seem to be almost the only one posting so I’ll shut up for a while.
where do I sign up for the Frum workshop?
Any physical pre-requisites such as age limits? application forms or health certificates to send in? Any special equipment required? preliminary reading? prior acquisition of core concepts or vocabulary? Will this be a mooc or do I need to contact a travel agent? Can I pay with bitcoin?
Finally, though I must congratulate you on your formidably efficient use of three-letter words such as “yet”, may there be no ambiguity: psychopaths are not just misunderstood pussycats. They often (but not systematically) embody both the difference between the a-moral and the immoral and the perverse. Cats are incapable of perversity. Now I must go be pedantic elsewhere. Yes, it’s
hamsterwheel time.
Perversity is a loaded term, but have you ever known a cat who was weaned too soon? They will nurse your hair through adulthood. Perversion in the technical sense for sure.
Psychopaths have have no feelings, but when we have feelings and for whom is a matter of who is in, and who is out, of our “feeling circle.”
Family fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si-khqzSsEM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKiu7cYBGn0
Most of us tune out the feelings of victims when we identify with perpetrators, and of winners when we identify with victims. Psychopaths just have a very small circle.
Are you suggesting you have a capillary fetish and can only have feelings for other trichomaniacs?
If you accept the Lockean principle of individual ownership (“Every man has a property in his own person. The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.”, then every non-consensual or coercive act upon a person’s body is a trespassing violation (and or theft). The State usurps Locke’s principle by making laws which dictate what a person can and can not do with his or her body.
Very clear.
Now lay out specifically how it works between father, mother and baby.
“I turn my eyes to the Schools and Universities of Europe,
And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire
Wash’d by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth
In heavy wreaths folds over every Nation: cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic,
Moving by compulsion each other…” – Blake’s Vision of Albion
tgmolitor on Locke: “Every man has a property in his own person. The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.â€
john.o response: “Very clear. Now lay out specifically how it works between father, mother and baby.â€
I think that if we could go back into the mists of time when humans were probably in small, inter-related nomadic groups, male dominance as “might makes right†could theorize a spouse/mother and baby as property – an extension of the male’s “property in his own person “.
This view is entirely conjecture on my part, but Locke’s reasoning touches upon ideas of propagation of the species, and shared communal sustenance and protection. As societal constructs become ever more complex during the slow but episodic advancements in knowledge and techniques, and under variegated environments, then patterns of cohesion exhibiting patriarchism and its “preservation of property†legacy would become more ingrained as working tradition in human affairs. The status quo is always resistant to change, and usually has a vested power base that frequently coerces success in that resistance.
The idea of women’s and children’s “rights†haven’t been in common evidence until fairly recently (in timeline terms for the entire sweep of human existence), so many vestiges of the old ways still persist. It wasn’t so long ago that societies were predominantly agricultural and mothers and children were considered adjuncts to male endeavours in farming and animal husbandry.
I’m in over my anthropological head, so I’ll leave it at that.
“Rights” are very suspicious as we all know. Part of Blake’s point. They are brute force. The butting Ram’s Heads, the tyrannic cogs,
When by “Rights” we are inspired
know that Force will be required
Strangely, I knew nothing of Vin Armani’s profession when I started writing. I hate Vegas. His business raises my eyebrows — and my envy of course — but interestingly the man’s “success” with women (if that’s what it is–I don’t know how many kids he has) is based on (besides his obvious good looks) abandoning any notion of asserting power over them or seeing women as anything other than independent centers of desire and agency.
I have questions about the “depth” of relationships by the hour. I have paid for a few, enjoyed some casual relationships where pay was not required. So far, no relationship with a woman that did not include at least one pregnancy, killer in-law, severe illness, sick child, total mental breakdown or divorce has ever meant much. But I will take this man’s human grasp of relationship over any robot’s out there, including John Locke’s.
His philosophy is incomplete, but he’s human. I’ll take it!
“Strangely, I knew nothing of Vin Armani’s profession when I started writing.”
Wow! Just like my music teacher whose name was Miss Musiker!
Now I get the objectification/subjectification discourse and the contrived photos!
I wonder if he owns that name…?
Oh! And the masonic logo! He’s transformed himself into an ambulent philosophical statement who walks the talk! (and probably does a lot of other stuff with the talk as well…)
8-o
This is one of my favorites!
I think ownership includes a quality of being able to control or influence what is owned.
“occupy a space”
It also seems kind of weird that most people must “pay” to occupy a space, or at least defend oneself from having others take away that space.
Ok, with regards to earth, as in land, there are only good stewards or bad. People who live there and love that land, belong to IT. It nurtures Them. So no one owns land. IF the land is degraded then the people cannot survive there. Bad stewardship forfeits possession. A different steward enriched the soil, kept the water clean…..good steward. If their children have learned how to care take as well, good…..In nature you could watch Beaver families….
Interesting.
“Land” is not an object, but an entity of sorts (i.e. nature).
By not being seen as an object, it is imbued almost as if it is alive.
It does contain an animation of sorts.
Stewardship
artemis, I think you are on to something. EXCERPT … So no one owns land….
A son or daughter is not owned by his parents. Parents are stewards or guardians in raising the child.
Nature (earth, sun, air, water, plants, animals, human meat bodies, etc.) have an “aliveness dynamic” and a creation source other than from an individual person. It seems that the spiritual entity or life force of an individual becomes a steward of these physical universe manifestations.
When we interject concepts of ownership and possession, everything seems to go downscale. We end up with arbitraries, “an agreed-upon playbook”, rules, laws, etc.
I think one specific concept of ownership includes a quality of being able to control or influence what is owned. A steward also would have that ability.
And there is the rub… “control”.
The Rockefellers or Rothchilds or Guberment only need to control or influence people and objects in order to “own” them.
George Carlin said it well: … I’m talking about the REAL owners, now… The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING… They gotcha by the BALLS… They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking… It’s a big CLUB. And YOU AIN’T IN IT… The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice….
Sorry folks I get a headache listening to this guy. I can’t even understand what he is saying. Maybe I’m just not smart enough. But I am reflexively suspicious of anyone who seems to be so sure of his ideas. Especially what seem to be esoteric ideas that are understood only by those who do understand them.
He is, in all fairness to your headache, johnnyreb92, not saying much. But he asks a great question.
His philosophy itself is not much more than a marketing slogan for not letting others own you. Armani does define one issue very well though, pointing out the missing link in the ethical/moral argumentation of the Austrian economists and similar libertarian theories by asking: what IS the rational foundation for what constitutes a just or rightful claim of ownership?
Well there is none, but why keep things simple? I am a philosopher too and it’s a tough habit. No 12 step groups.
Armani uses a philosophical technique of introspection akin to the Descartian search for an undeniable Truth.
Descartes ended up with “I think therefor I am.” Armani ends up with “I own me, therefore I own my stuff and therefor other people own stuff.”
I have a headache too just writing about it UNTIL, I remember that James starts asking some TRULY great questions. The kind where you go, “FINALLY!!” somebody asked! That’s when it gets good.
The two I recall that stand out are 1) Doesn’t owning yourself objectify yourself in such a way that it actually rationalizes others owning you? (paraphrasing, but that was the issue, as I heard it) and 2) doesn’t the concept of absolute land ownership involve, necessarily, the right to limit and harm others?
My answers: #1 Yes and the implications of this are very profound. #2 Yes, just as profound, but unfortunately ruling out ownership, i.e. physical force, PHILOSOPHICALLY, does not make the barrel of a gun theoretical.
Good man Johnny!! Don’t give up until it’s CLEAR! You might very well be right! Don’t take any easy answers that don’t feel… right…
!
Exactly.
“…reflexively suspicious of anyone who seems to be so sure of his ideas”
Not everyone’s reflexes are working so well, johnnyreb92. Many people are unbelievably easy to convince with an over-confident statement repeated 3 times, especially if corroborated by another equally over-confident source.
Unfortunately, beware of humble self-doubters too, since that can also be a well known confidence game. Some people play pool a lot better than they let on at first.
Frickin dangerous world.
And I completely reject the idea that ownership of land must not be permitted. And also I say that violence is not the only way to settle disputes over land ownership. Human beings are not like fighting rams, unless they have learned that that is the only way. Sounds like might makes right to me.
Interesting johnnyreb92, I agree with every one of your statements, the problem is,what ARE the OTHER ways exactly?
and an even bigger problem: most land transfers have not been “disputes.”
When homo sapiens wiped out the neanderthals, it was not a dispute, nor was it a when the Israelites wiped out the Canaanites, nor when the Vikings terrorized the Europe, nor when the Americans wiped out the Indians. Nor when the Americans invaded Irag. These were not disputes. they were intentional and largely unquestioned efforts to displace others…
Very shaky arguments.
You can’t prove neanderthals were done by homo sapiens.
The rest can be described as a crime of organized people that were already enslaved, conditioned (obey the boss).
You are making presumptions about human nature.
‘what ARE the OTHER ways exactly?’
People should be organized as a community of free individuals and all your arguments are gone.
Censured by a robot! That’s an interesting idea that should not be dismissed in the long-run or generally.
However, these current censures by YouTube (targeting Corbett and Armani, in this way – not 911 – and now), have all the earmarks of a more traditional relationship between the powers that shouldn’t be (including a sense of who those nefarious powers are), and the types of social controls they apply to accomplish their “tasks.â€
Blaming robots would be doing those scoundrels a great favor. For now robots are like hound dogs; they’re not the actual humans “conducting†the hunt.
The sexualized-robot meme ties in neatly with the current slash-and-burn sexual-misconduct meme that is being exploited to the hilt.
Remember all those composite clips of “local†newscasts repeating word for word a specific marketing call about this or that story-piece. Can any reasonable person believe that such a level of control over the media has fundamentally changed?
The current “sexual-misconduct†meme is being choreographed, which is regardless of the fact that many of the abuses may be real, even if sometimes Mafioso and “Intelligence-Agency†entrapment methods were utilized to establish the breaches in sexual conduct. (On Sept 11th almost three-thousand people were really murdered; that doesn’t negate a false flag analysis – quite the opposite.)
These types of abuses have been around and an intrinsic property of our hypocritical popular culture forever, so to speak (anyone casually familiar with our mainstream culture knows this), but usually covered-up – as they will generally continue to be, since these types of conditioned and ubiquitous abuses are too effective a way of controlling and corralling the crowd to simply give-up these “tools†for good.
The current sex-scandal bloodbath that has at least temporarily taken-out personages billed to represent divergent ends of the political spectrum, from O’Reilly to Rose to Lauer to Franken (all agents of corporatism regardless of where they are on that spectrum), has created a social climate that at least superficially (mindlessly) legitimizes these types of “fake news†censures.
That’s pretty wild when you consider the proportions illustrated by this phenomenon. They’re getting close to burning-down the house in order to curb our influence and control our communications, in these cases using the mayhem to target Corbett and Armani.
It’d be nice see a review/analysis of the bogus sexual-misconduct claims against Julian Assange. Whatever you think of Assange, it is obvious how this type of attack was mendacious in his case and maliciously constructed – maybe a combined overview analyzing Assange, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, NJ governor Jim McGreevey, David Letterman, NY governor Eliot Spitzer, and the fairly large profile of Mossad involvement with some of these cases – apparently the Mossad and the CIA (including proxy, infiltrated channels like local police), have specialized in this type of “work.â€
The conversation on “anti-collectivism†was often compelling. I hope future conversations address the strong points of “Left†political and economic philosophy from the anti-collectivist perspective. Omitting that level of consideration contributes to the false Left-Right-divide.
Agree on the choreography but the whole landscape is complex.
First off, there is a world of sexual abuse and slavery, closely tied to power in many industries and pursuits, ALWAYS hidden from sight, except for thin cracks here and there, like Dutroux, Savile, many others, (How many depends on how much research you want to do).
In spite of its dismissal, the Pizzagate story was in fact such a crack.
I personally believe the choreographed “outing” of so many “powerful figures” is partly just a very limited way to feed a portion of the masses some Pizzagate justice. (It’s not rational, but neither are humans.)
It also serves to further inflame the sex and gender wars.
My above thoughts on Land and Women and Children and Rights and Ownership is exactly my attempt to work up an anti-collectivist left perspective. (I love your term!)
If faced with the choice between “belonging” to the friendly UN Earth bureaucracy or living as the property of some guy they married in High School by mistake, most women I know will choose the UN and I cannot blame them really.
Probably inspired by the notion of rejecting Greco-Roman culture and slaves to the sword I woke up this morning with the image of the lictor’s bundle connected with the notion of “Rights”.
And it reminded me that the UN flag is plagiarism of the Roman Republican banner:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/SPQR_banner.svg
SPQR: “The Roman Senate and People”
Scroll down:
http://research.un.org/en/maps/flags
Peace, Security and Universal Human Rights under the impenetrable dome of the Blue Helmet…
?
Sorry,
(in reference to my soon-to-be-above comment currently being moderated)
it might make more sense for some, with the following information from the Wikipedia page dedicated to “Fasces” which is a lictor’s bundle:
Republican Rome[edit]
“…the Labrys (Greek: λάβÏÏ…Ï‚, lábrys) the double-bitted axe, originally was from Crete (hmmmmm) in Greece, is one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization. To the Romans, it was known as a bipennis.[2] Commonly, the symbol was associated with female divinities, from prehistoric through historic times…??
…The fasces lictoriae (“bundles of the lictors”) symbolised power and authority (imperium) in ancient Rome, beginning with the early Roman Kingdom and continuing through the republican and imperial periods. By republican times, use of the fasces was surrounded with tradition and protocol. A corps of apparitores (subordinate officials) called lictors each carried fasces before a magistrate, in a number corresponding to his rank. Lictors preceded consuls (and proconsuls), praetors (and propraetors), dictators, curule aediles, quaestors, and the Flamen Dialis during Roman triumphs (public celebrations held in Rome after a military conquest)…
The modern Italian word fascio, used in the twentieth century to designate peasant cooperatives and industrial workers’ unions, is related to fasces…
…Numerous governments and other authorities have used the image of the fasces as a symbol of power since the end of the Roman Empire. It also has been used to hearken back to the Roman republic, particularly by those who see themselves as modern-day successors to the old republic or its ideals….
…Italian Fascism, which derives its name from the fasces, arguably used this symbolism the most in the twentieth century. The British Union of Fascists also used it in the 1930s. The fasces, as a widespread and long-established symbol in the West, however, has avoided the stigma associated with much of fascist symbolism, and many authorities continue to display them, including the federal government of the United States…”
etc etc…
late yet again for the tumble dryer of the hamster wheel…
uh, well no, I mean there’s no lictor’s bundle actually ON the UN flag… but it somehow seemed connected to…the institutionalized “might makes right” mentality shared between the Greco-Roman civilisations and the “Peacekeepers” of the UN… since their flags are the same…at least it did this morning…when I woke up…
anyhow…
Property Rights, Disruptive Innovations, Hernando de Soto, CEO (Patrick Byrne) of Overstock.com, Cryptocurrencies
There is a very interesting trend towards helping the disenfranchised.
See the following announcement by Patrick Byrne and then search “Hernando de Soto property rights”.
https://www.corbettreport.com/bitcoin-10000-what-does-it-mean/comment-page-1/#comment-46675
It took me quite a while to watch this episode (and more for a comment due to time constrains). At the end I’m very glad I haven’t missed it.
The reason was a buzz-word: Self ownership. I instantly get annoyed, particularly when (usually) phrased to something like: basis of my life philosophy is self-ownership and nonaggression.
How is it possible to base life philosophy on self ownership, because it implies property to be well defined, but on the other hand property is a social construct?
Austrian economics(AE) tries to be a Positive economics (pure “science”, without pesky subjective values) not Normative economics.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/normativeeconomics.asp
So defining property is not in its domain.
Let me transpose the problem to mathematics.
AE takes property as an Axiom, self-evident truth, and building the theory upon it. Even if you just take a look at this episode together with commentaries, you will find property cannot be an axiom.
There is another such an axiom in AE: employer-employee (the same goes for huge company-small company) relation is viewed as a contract between equal parties. Couldn’t be far from truth for majority.
If wrong axioms are chosen theory might be pure larpurlartism, or doesn’t have explanatory power, or…. it might even be complete bullshit.
Back to economics, positive economics is a pipe dream.
Property by itself is usually not a problem. Its consequences, what is implied and derived from it, represent a problem (Power, for instance).
For the end I would like to borrow from VoltaicDude:
‘The conversation on “anti-collectivism†was often compelling. I hope future conversations address the strong points of “Left†political and economic philosophy from the anti-collectivist perspective. Omitting that level of consideration contributes to the false Left-Right-divide.’
Maybe American professor is having the right words, so some things the Left found out could be correctly understood.
Richard Wolff: “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism” | Talks at Google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc
Forgot to say something about morality.
“When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality” (Lao Tsu)
It’s even better when you see the source (ok, translation):
“When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.”
Tao Te Ching 38 —>>> http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching38.html