[FRIAM] Revising the American Revolution

Tue Oct 26 13:22:51 EDT 2021

Dave, Glen, n all, 

I agree with Houlton that “All men are created equal AND they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …”  is a pretty good place to start.  You will recall that I even think this leads in theory to a prejudice against inheritance and in practice to taxing the crap out of rich people, in which category I count most of us. 

With respect to Dave’s “Boo God” comment, I of course agree.  My only acquaintance with god was as something that came into being when my father hit his thumb with a hammer.  But it is fascinating to read the above words in context.  See https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

In particular, the references to God.  Notice that Nature “owns” God in this casting, so the rights flow from who we are as a species among other species living in a demanding and affording physical world, of which God itself is a creation.  

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I also thought it was interesting that “united” is not capitalized.  It’s as if the document does not anticipate a nation being formed but only that these States are going to pull together for the purposes of securing their independence.  

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 9:02 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Revising the American Revolution

from Glen's post:

Holton: [...] Can you and I, as an intellectual exercise, think of anything wrong with, all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights? That’s not the whole story, but I can’t find anything wrong with that. Can you?

"endowed by their creator" is really really wrong, IMHO.

 — any rights you may have are given to you, not intrinsic.

 — God certainly is entitled to endow different individuals and different groups with a different set/subset of certain inalienable rights and it is God's doing not man, so men are not responsible.

 — God gave rights but did s/ he give the "license key" that enables one to exercise those rights?

 — if God is Dead, are the rights no longer?

davew

On Tue, Oct 26, 2021, at 8:45 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote:

> Very cool! I've added Fragments to my wishlist. I'm wondering how/if it 

> relates to black radicalism, of which I'm still completely ignorant. 

> 

> Egalitarianism was briefly covered in the podcast:

> 

> Holton: [...] Can you and I, as an intellectual exercise, think of 

> anything wrong with, all people are created equal, endowed by their 

> creator with certain inalienable rights? That’s not the whole story, 

> but I can’t find anything wrong with that. Can you?

> 

> Bouie: [...] I find it difficult to find something wrong with it as 

> well because, to me, it is a statement of sort of the inherent dignity 

> of all human beings and an inherent dignity that must be respected in 

> our governments and our institutions. It’s such an extraordinarily 

> powerful statement that, for as much as I can recite every criticism of 

> Jefferson, it makes it hard to dismiss him, right, as a person worth 

> taking seriously and worth, in some sense, even admiring, at least 

> admiring the part of him that wrote that.

> 

> As I alluded in my previous post to this thread, this is charisma of 

> the *idea*, despite all and any evidence that the idea is obvious 

> garbage. It's like the hype around AI ... or consciousness. We *want* 

> to believe in things like "equality". So we believe in them, in spite 

> of all the evidence around us that such a thing doesn't exist.

> 

> But if we steal a bit of persnickety semantics from the philosophers, 

> we can better express the sentiment as "moral deserts", treating 

> persons as ends, not means. We can be equivalent in our moral status, 

> yet wildly different from every other perspective. Although this smacks 

> of dualism, it doesn't have to be.

> 

> 

> On 10/23/21 12:23 PM, Prof David West wrote:

>> This seems like an appropriate point to recommend a small book:

>> 

>> /Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology/

>> David Graeber (asst. Prof, anthroplogy, Yale)

>> Prickly Paradigm Press   [love the publisher name]

>> Chicago

>> www.press.uchicago.edu <http://www.press.uchicago.edu>  <http://www.press.uchicago.edu>

>> www.prickly-paradigm.com <http://www.prickly-paradigm.com>  <http://www.prickly-paradigm.com>

>> 

>> I believe that, within the book, some seeds for answers to Nick's question "how do we achieve coalition without charisma," and contributions to a lot of other ideas that have popped up in various threads: "great man theory," egalitarian societies, post-capitalism, political theory, etc., might be found.

>> 

>> From page 1:

>> 

>> /"What follows are a series of thoughts, sketches of potential theories, and tiny manifestos — all meant to offer a glimpse at the outline of a body of radical theory that does not actually exist, though it might possible exist at some point in the future./

>> 

>> /Since there are very good reasons why an anarchist anthropology really ought to exist, we might start by asking why one doesn't — or, for that matter, why an anarchist sociology doesn't exist, or an anarchist economics, anarchist literary theory, or anarchist political science."/

>> 

>> I also have on order — prepublication — Graeber's 500 page rewrite of history. Supposed to be full of insights like:

>> 

>> /"Before [Marcel] Mauss, the universal assumption had been that economies without money or markets had operated by means of "barter"; they were trying to engage in market behavior (acquire useful goods and services at the least cost to themselves, get rich if possible ...) they just hadn't yet developed very sophisticated ways of going about it.  Mauss demonstrated that in fact, such economies were really "gift economies." They were not based on calculation, but on a refusal to calculate; they were rooted in an ethical system which consciously rejected most of what we we would consider the basic principles of economics. It was not that they had not yet learned to seek profit through the most efficient means. They would have found the very premise that the point of an economic transaction — at least, one with someone who was not your enemy— was to see the greatest profit deeply offensive."/

> 

> -- 

> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."

> ☤>$ uǝlƃ

> 

> 

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