So as to leave you with something that it is a bit more optimistic, I have decided to post this text that I wrote before having, as an Anarcho-Pacifist, left the Anarchist movement and became decidedly a-political under my former alias, Alistair Lane, here. I won't be around to respond to comments, as I am leaving to prepare for the semester, but feel free to discuss however.

On Civil War

Throughout all of history, people have been made subject to ruling orders by that they have deployed what, in martial terms, is called the “divide and conquer” strategy. The tactic seeks to create internal schisms within a community in order to atomize its members. Once people have become isolated from each other, they can be integrated into a political body that has rendered their natural antagonism inoperative and can actually enforce the very repression that the ruling order that they necessarily did not want to become subject to sought to carry out. That sovereignty had been constituted by a process that induced social disintegration had resulted in the absurdity of that the potential crisis of civil war had more or less become a normalized state of affairs within most nation-states. Contrary to popular belief, civil war has not been regarded as a crisis that poses an existential threat to whatever powers there are that may be; it has, rather, provided the various regimes who have sought to deploy the divide and conquer strategy in the formal constitution of a state with the semblance of legitimacy in that their rule of law has appeared to have been justified by that they have actually needed to respond to the very crisis that their attempts to secure power by such measures has inevitably created. The threat of civil war provides a nation-state with the justification for the suspension of the rule of law and the deployment of the extra-juridical forms of repression that have come to be called “emergency powers”. Because no person can agree to become subject to a state that seeks to divide and conquer its populace, and, because most nation-states have historically deployed such strategies in their establishment, what we have come to understand as the “rule of law” has not generally been legitimated by the faith that a populace has in a state’s constitution as according to what Jean Jacques Rousseau theorized as the “Social Contract”; it has, rather, been established by what nation-states have enacted during states of emergency. The exception to the rule of law has become the law itself. In order to prevent the more nefarious parties engaged in the already dubious battle for global dominance from securing power in the absolute, we need to actively disengage from all that is unduly divisive within our respective communities, refuse to be integrated within any social order that seeks to subjugate its prospective constituents by exploiting social disintegration, and present a legal challenge to the dictates that have been enacted by suspending the rule of law during states of emergency.

All of this is, of course, easier said than done. When a nation-state is no longer capable of maintaining the semblance of legitimacy, which, in most cases, is to say, that when its ruling order is no longer capable of deceiving its populace, those who seek to restore decorum will, in desperation, resort to overtly violent tactics, such as the carrying out of political assassinations or the deployment of the military, or attempt to introduce the threat of violence within communities that they believe have lost their faith in their authority. As people are naturally inclined to create and participate in communities that are freely associated, the threat of violence undermines their original basis. Free association is defined by Google Dictionary as “the forming of a group, political alliance, or other organization without any constraint or external restriction”. As a theoretical concept, it has been explored by both Marxists and Anarchists. I interpret “free association” as signifying the ideal circumstances of any given social relationship wherein all parties are free from coercion. I see it as not only being the precept upon which human relations are naturally established and the common inspiration for the participation in what we have come to call “politics”, but, also, the revelatory principle that can make civilization consummate. To substantiate free association is to take part in a political project that furthers the total liberation of all of humanity. Because I hold these truths to be self-evident, I have been called an “idealist”. To this, I respond with that there is no reason to situate social relationships upon anything but ideal grounds. As no person can agree to become subjugated through coercion, that they are free from it is always necessarily demanded in any given situation. The freedom from coercion is a natural right that determines the conditions of the democratic project as a whole. That people should be freely associated is not a mere utopian reverie; it is the requisite condition for democracy to occur.

As the principle which I have invoked is just simply cogent, it ought to be easy to affirm. Because most ruling orders have had years to experiment with just how to enact the variegated set of procedures that effectuate subjugation, however, to refuse to participate within a society that renders solidarity inoperative now means to forgo one’s right to exist. Life must be qualified by its civic merits in order for most ruling orders in most nation-states to consider for it to be of value. To refuse to become subject to the unsanctioned dominion of the nation-state has become a peril wherein a living person’s status as such is let to be called into question. To relinquish one’s status as a person who is regarded as a “citizen” now means to let oneself be considered as an “enemy combatant”. While most nation-states do not have the legal jurisdiction to either deprive political radicals of their citizenship or to banish them from the political sphere, their isolation is still culturally enforced. Those who are aware of our political situation and willing to change it have become outcasts. As much as I suspect for moralizing to risk engendering a cult of martyrdom, I must, here, insist that we are compelled to refuse to engage in or sanction either the violence or dissension imposed by most nation-states by both that our freedom is defined by the status of the natural rights of others and that we ought to attempt to create the best of all possible worlds while we are here on Earth. To express solidarity means to be willing to be regarded as an outcast and to defend the unjustly marginalized. It is only through its ecstatic disclosure that we will see a world that could, at all, be considered to be utopian.

In spite of that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the 10th of December in 1948, the attempts to effectively utilize human rights legislation, international law, or to repeal the wanton abuses of jurisprudence that comprise the extra-juridical protocols which apparently legitimate the excessive use of force by most nation-states have done little to either significantly invoke human rights or restrain most nation states from actualizing what are often violent campaigns more or less without the consent of their respective populaces. The legal theory behind what, in The State of Exception, Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, called the “state of exception” is also fairly obscure. Political theologist and “crown jurist of the Third Reich”, Carl Schmitt, delineated his defense of sovereignty in his seminal thesis on dictatorship, Dictatorship. While his theory may be difficult to understand because he was a jurist who specialized in legal theory, I would allege that, because almost no person would be likely to agree with him, his work has been intentionally obfuscated. In spite of that I do think that the political works of Giorgio Agamben are a proper antithesis to what Carl Schmitt has postulated, his political philosophy is unfortunately no less arcane. We are in dire need of a practical theory of Law that can substantially situate its constituents within a paradigm that posits both natural and human rights conclusively. By this, I do not merely mean to suggest that either natural or human rights ought to exist; I am stating that they do in order to make it emphatically evident that they necessarily demarcate just what laws are passed and how. Human rights transcend the nation-state just as any good ideas ought to transcend any form of botched compliance. Natural rights exist by that they are always necessarily demanded in every given situation. Liberation is inexpropriable. That we should seek to interpret the Law in our favor is not just radical zeal; it is an honest assessment of our current political situation.

So, what, then, remains to be said for “civil war”? While it is clearly the case that attempts at subjugation will necessitate some form of revolt, I do not think that we should agree to their terms. Because, in most nation-states, we have the legal precedents to lay claim to either free association or the freedom from coercion, the attempt to reduce the status of political dissidents to one where their right to life can be called into question, or, to include them in the civic sphere by their very exclusion as what has come to be called “bare life”, can be effectively countered by an appeal to all that is veritable of the democratic project as a whole. While such a strategy may occasionally have to rely upon the invocation of the rights of citizens, I think that human rights legislation ought to transcend the confines of the nation-state. While, in order to put such a plan of action into operation, we may have to rely upon the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, I do not think that international law should ideally be conceptualized as it has been enacted by the United Nations. To state my position as an Anarcho-Pacifist in favor of nonviolent revolution does indicate that I am willing to engage in civil war. It does not, however, as per the terms which have been offered, mean that I am willing forfeit my “unalienable” natural rights. As the threat of civil war serves as the pretext for martial law, the hysteria which it inspires needs to be allayed. Because most ruling orders have secured power through their response to the very crises that their projected reign has necessarily incited, almost all of the radical transformation of the nation-state from a sovereignty to a democratic entity has been inspired by some form of civil disobedience or another. Nearly all of the lofty ideals of the Liberal democratic project have been antithetical to the structure of the nation-states in which they were born. The demand for free association does not produce a political crisis in that it presents the nation-state with a social configuration that can rival that of the established ruling order; it, rather, resolves the political crisis that has been imposed upon the populace by that, in most cases, the ruling order has been established through subjugation. The substantiation of the freedom from coercion, free association, solidarity, and nonviolent revolution does not imperil negating the democratic process; it can, rather, bring it to its apotheosis. I do not seek to destroy civilization by participating in a vaguely eschatological project that foretells a common war of all against all; I merely intend to reify what has become sanctimonious of it. Liberation, the realization of egalitarianism, and world peace are not just possible; they are the only ends that any person who is sincerely engaged in politics should seek to actualize.