Lockian Poltics

Since this blog tends to have more of a political flavor, and myself being a philosopher, I've decided to make this first rant about the Lockian social contract, and the social politics that stem therefrom. I'm sure I'll get more into metaphysics and epistemology later, which is more my specialty, (especially epistemology, cause HOSHIT it's awesome), once I'm unable to resist, but for the moment, I'll stick with something related to politics.

Now, I believe we all know about the Lockian social contract, or if we don't, we should, since it is the basic premise and foundation of our ENTIRE SOCIAL SYSTEM, but for those not in the know, here's a summary:

Locke proposed that humans are originally in a "state of nature" within which there are no constraints, except those which come from a higher moral power. The higher moral power, i.e. God, Fate, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Karma, the Universe fucking you up the ass if you break it's moral rules, whatever, says that every individual has certain rights. Y'know that "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuite of Happiness" thing? That's it in a nutshell. The right to live in the state of nature, the right to own personal property, and the right to self-determination. One is allowed complete freedom in a state of nature, as long as it does not infringe upon these rights in any one else.

The problem with the state of nature is when people violate these rights, thus breaking the laws of the higher power. The universe fucking you up the ass back generally comes in the form of someone coming out for your blood, and having every moral right to exact bloody bloody revenge, no matter your crime.

Thus, people go from a state of nature to a state of organized nature, aka society. People choose to give up that right to exact bloody bloody revenge to an impartial judge, for the security of knowing that no one is going to exact bloody bloody revenge on them for imagined or minor crimes, and if they do, said impartial judge will deal it out right back for them. People give up a level of freedom, a part of their rights, in order to gain security. That is the Lockian social contract.

The issue with Locke arises when you bring up consent. For a contract to be valid, one must consent to the terms. How does one consent to being governed by this contract? According to Locke, the assent is gained by a lack of dissent. If one does not remove oneself from the society, and takes advantage of it's benefits, then one agrees to pay for those benefits with certain levels of freedom.

Now by definition, consent is agreement which is not coerced. One must be free to choose otherwise. But the entire scheme of constraint versus coercion is subjective at best. E.g.: The fact that one has been raised in this society until the year of one's majority, and made to believe for one's entire life that there is no other alternative sounds a bit like brainwashing, which is clearly coercive. It is not surprising that those that reach the year of majority do not immediately choose to get the fuck out, since they know no other alternative. They're sheep, and have been raised to believe so.

If that consent isn't coerced, I don't know what is. However, even if it weren't; even if one were raised with the full and complete knowledge of the contract's advantages and disadvantages, I still don't think it can be considered non-coerced. After all, what's the alternative? If I choose to leave all institution of human society behind, where am I to go? Mars?

It is to be noted that Locke theorized in pre-colonial, pre-expansionist times, when space, land, the freedom to go elsewhere, had not hit a limit. Now, human society claims all of the Earth. There is no alternative to consent.

Even if there was, then. Let's say there was a patch of land set aside for those who rejected human society, where they could go and live in complete anarchy, in the state of nature. Well, even then I'm not convinced one's consent could not be considered coerced, but the line is a bit fuzzier. Consider how it would be to start over in life with nothing. No place to sleep, no food, water, nothing. Even the clothes on one's back come from the society that makes them. The completely forsake the state of society for the state of nature one would have to be free of all such accoutrements.

If one did not immediately die of exposure, since one's skin and internal tempurature have been softened by the advantages of civilized society so that one cannot fully maintain one's equilibrium. Likewise, one would most likely not posses the abilities necessary to cope with the harsh realities well enough to find and use tools of the wild in order to sustain said temperate equilibrium. If one did manage to not die of exposure, the finding of fresh water, the ability to stomach fresh water, along with algae, aquatic waste materials, fish parts, etc. would be rather difficult on a constitution softened by purified water. Note that we haven't even gotten to finding food yet. Such a thing would be like suddenly choosing to run a marathon with no prior training or excercise, from a dead stop, with bad knees, possibly no knees, depending on the person.

This effect is the same as brainwashing. Not knowing of the state of nature, and of the contract one is consenting to prevents one from being able to make a true assent vs. dissent decision and is thus coercive toward consent. Not being realistically able to survive unless one consents is also a coerced assent. If someone puts a gun to my head and asks something of me, I will most likely assent, but that doesn't mean my assent is consentual, because it involves a high level of coercion.

However, as I said, this line is fuzzy. There is a difference between having a gun pointed to my head and being unable to survive in a state of nature. The difference is passive vs. active coercion. No one gives me the advantages inherent in society for the express purpose of keeping me in the society. They're simply perks. But does society as a whole give those enticements as a means to make sure I cannot dissent from the scheme social control? Perhaps. And if we treat society on the whole as a moral individual, that would be unethical. But society is not necessarily a moral individual, so it is unclear as to whether society as a whole coercing me could be considered ethical or not.

Regardless, it seems clear that the Lockian social contract cannot truly be consented to in a social scheme as complex and interwoven into personhood as ours is.

This is why I hate Lockian social theory and politics. All is based upon the fact of assumed consent which cannot happen.

/rant
~Allie Leota

(Oh, and by the way rez, I did do quite well in school. Thank you for asking.

And the closest I'll likely come to screaming out someone's name inappropriately during sex, will probably be IVY!)