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KulakRevolt  1yr ago (anarchonomicon.substack.com)   1859 thread views

Teach a Man to Revolt: Dreams of a Dark Bill of Rights

anarchonomicon.substack.com

Long take I wrote on what sustains a cultures values and the dream of a "Dark Bill of Rights" that could be unalterable and untarnish-able, like the 1400 year long tradition of Sharia.

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Interesting read! One question.

The 3rd Amendment is an Anti-Surveillance Amendment.

The British Military would force lodge soldiers in the homes of suspected revolutionaries and key persons of colonial America so as to observe all their private interactions and cripple their ability to interact and organize.

Do you have any cites to further reading on this? The 3rd is basically never litigated, so there are basically no briefs that I'm aware of saying, "Here's what we think the original meaning is." Is there an interesting law review article somewhere? A historian somewhere? I'd love to nerd out on it.

Interesting case! Thanks for linking to it!

The way I read it, I think the gov't position was something along the lines of, "We still needed people living in these quarters to work in the prison, so we kicked out the people who weren't working and put in folks who were." I think the (somewhat unstated) position of the plaintiffs was, "Bullshit. You wanted to be dicks to us and make life harder for us because we went on strike; it's just a hardball move."

In any event, I think there's a sort of meaningful difference in intent here, regardless of how along this spectrum you think this case falls. In particular, what the gov't did was kick them out of their places. The OP speaks of the intent being "so as to observe all their private interactions and cripple their ability to interact and organize." Kicking them out could be used as a method of making them easier to observe, given some other argumentation, but I don't think there's much like that here. Instead, kicking them out would seem to make them hard to observe in most cases.

And frankly, I'm a bit unimpressed with the cites trying to connect the Third Amendment to a right to privacy. TBH, Griswold sort of just throws that in there, and it's the sort of free-floating prenumbras bullshit that really reads like motivated reasoning rather than any sort of serious historical scholarship. In Engblom, I don't actually see what invoking the word "privacy" even adds. It would be far simpler just to directly state something like, "Just like we don't require specific ownership rules for papers and effects for the Fourth Amendment, we don't for the Third, either." (Of course, I can genuinely see how the text of the Third Amendment specifically refers to the "owner", so I wouldn't be surprised if at least Gorsuch votes the other way.)

I guess what I really want is some history, not necessarily law. Some historical evidence that the Brits targeted revolutionaries to quarter their soldiers. It seems on first glance like this strategy would be a mixed bag, but maybe they did it.

Same here.

My understanding of the 3rd is that the objections stem from, you know, having a squad of rough ‘n tough men hanging out with your silver and your women. See here.

The Quartering Acts were an obvious proximate cause. I don’t see anything there about intelligence.

I have to say I’m on board with this, which is why I think the elites are so opposed to the idea of revelation and deontology as systems. People who have hard lines that will not be crossed are incredibly hard to manipulate into complying with things they disagree with. Religion is one way this happens and because of the firm belief in the Book (whichever book it happens to be) gives people lines that will not be crossed. A vague deism (or poly-deism) in which nothing about the religion is taken seriously (see liberal Christianity and gay rights despite the Bible) cannot do that because they don’t hold the text as inviolable or inflexible on those points. So when the state does something they don’t object.

It’s a huge point of respect I have for the Abrahamic Book Religions. They simply won’t give up on the main tenets. Jews and Muslims won’t accept the idea of compromise or shirk because they have the book and therefore you simply cannot violate the book and be a good believer.

Elites are opposed to deontology because from the outside, it looks like a stupid, close-minded reason to reject what should be a good deal. This is not specific to elites. It is the normal response of anyone outside a given deontology.

Resistance to manipulation is a subset of resistance to negotiation. In the abstract, great—one can respect that as a signal of belief. Practically speaking, that respect buys a certain level of tolerance. And such tolerance is inversely proportional to how much one is personally affected.

I like deontology for the very simple reason that no matter what the specific system, even a religious one, I can know where the lines are and what will be off limits. If I believe in thou shalt not kill then I can know that no matter what happens, murder is off the table. Maybe taking other people’s property is off limits.

And going back to the original thesis, I think a book or document is a very necessary condition for large scale deontological systems. A document with no standard interpretation and no firm adherents isn’t going to work, but likewise strong adherence to traditional standards doesn’t work either as you can easily make changes through culture that go unchallenged. Torah will always be Torah, Qu’ran will always be Qu’ran, Bible will always be Bible and because you can’t change the plain meaning of the text, as long as people take the text seriously there are hard limits. Going to non original it’s thinking about a definitional document destroys it.

People choose things they know are wrong all the time. Murder and theft are decidedly on the table in any large-scale society. The lines are just as imaginary as the utilitarian's.

I'll agree that successful deontologies rely on an external anchor, like a book. Believers have to buy in to the premise that it is revelatory, uncorrupted, and genuine. For someone who doesn't buy in, though, those beliefs are absurd. Elites are going to complain that, say, Baptists are dogmatic and make no sense. So are secular proles. So are other Christians!

What principled way do you have to resolve conflicts where two deontological injunctions conflict? All possible means of mediating them seem to require pointing at outcomes, which is just implicit consequentialism.

"I will not steal" and "I will do the best for my family" conflict when they're starving to death and your only way of getting food is stealing a loaf of bread.

All possible means of mediating them seem to require pointing at outcomes, which is just implicit consequentialism.

I don't think any ethical theory can get away with not placing an importance on outcomes, an ethical theory must be a guide for behaviour in particular real world circumstances after all, but the distinguishing factor of utilitarianism is a levelling of all outcomes along a single dimension of value.

For example for a deontologist like Max Scheler who argues for an objective hierarchy of values - pleasure utility, vitality, culture, and holiness, it is never right to temporarily compromise the higher for the lower except (and this is my reasoning on what I remember of his work) when not doing so would permanently compromise your ability to achieve the higher. The lower values are only justified as a means to the higher, whereas for a utilitarian the lower values are commensurable with the higher and that words like "higher" and "lower" values may only represent differences in quantity, if they mean anything at all. A deontologist might say that the pursuit of a certain amount of physical pleasure is justified for the fact that great discomfort can hinder you from fulfilling your higher duties, a utilitarian would allow for a scenario where a certain amount of pleasure is altogether preferable to the achievement of those higher values and you should have no moral qualms about making that trade.

(I broadly agree with what you said)

That's just kicking the problem up by another tier. What justifies one injunction being higher than another, and how do you choose between two of the equivalent seniority?

At any rate, I'm not a utilitarian, more of a consequentialist with idiosyncratic values.

What justifies one injunction being higher than another, and how do you choose between two of the equivalent seniority?

I'm not defending any system here as I don't think I have yet found the ultimate ethical theory, but to continue with Scheler as an example he would say that you can objectively say that some values are subordinate to others on the basis of their relying on the other for their existence as values:

Among essential values there are two that have medium rank: the value of utility and the vital value. It is evident that the latter is preferable to the former. We can also speak of the value of “preservation” and that of “expansion,” the value of “adaptation” and that of “conquest,” the value of the “tool” and that of the “organ.”

This preference is determined by the nature of each value. The values of the first series are founded on those of the second in the sense that they can only be experienced if the others are given in some measure. Every value of utility is a value “for” a living being. Something is “useful” if it is a controllable cause for the realization of a good that is agreeable to the senses. But the feeling of pleasure is itself determined not only by the nature of a mind in general, but of a mind that acts through some specific form and organization of life which, taken as a whole, represents a certain vital value. This vital value cannot be reduced to the criterion of pleasure, since acts and things that tend to diminish vital values can also be “pleasurable.” One can easily imagine vital values without pleasure, but the reverse is impossible (. . .) Through its relation to pleasure, the value of “utility” is equally dependent on the value of vitality. This dependence is further enhanced by the fact that not every cause for pleasure is useful, but only that cause which can be controlled by volition. Only the living being can exercise this control. The measure in which a cause is useful for pleasure is partly determined by the degree to which it is subject to such control.

From Scheler's Ressentiment.

Elites are opposed to deontology because from the outside, it looks like a stupid, close-minded reason to reject what should be a good deal. This is not specific to elites.

Well are you using "deontology" to mean "weird superstitious beliefs" or are you using deontology to mean "non-utilitarian thinking[1]"? If it's the latter, I don't see why that should be "stupid and closed-minded". There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of utilitarian ethics.

Torture vs. Dust Specks is one such case. But for a more practical example: statistically speaking, you're probably not an Effective Altruist, and if you are, you probably don't commit yourself to it as much as you could (please correct me if I'm wrong!). Unqualified utilitarianism places extreme demands on all of us to work to increase global utility (or preference satisfaction, or however you want to formalize it). If you think that people have any sort of right to choose their own life project, independent of the consideration of starving people on other continents, then you're using deontological reasoning. It's difficult to see how utilitarianism can account for a concept of rights or freedoms.

Maybe you would describe your own position as consequentialist but not utilitarian? But, that already seems like a sort of hybrid position to me. If you accept that there are counterexamples to strict utilitarianism, then you're committed to the idea that some things just matter independent of what the math tells you about net global utility. The only argument at that point is over specifically what things just matter, and how much.

[1] (Virtue ethicists might say that their position is neither utilitarian nor deontological but I think we can ignore that for now)

I’m using it in the same sense as M’aiq. Perhaps “revelatory” was the load-bearing word.

Insofar as “elites are so opposed” to, say, Islam? It’s not because they’re afraid of ubermenschen who can’t be manipulated. Rather, it’s because working with an opposing deontology is a pain. This is true whether or not one’s own ethics are utilitarian or even deontological. Deus Vult.

Jews and Muslims won’t accept the idea of compromise or shirk because they have true book and therefore you simply cannot violate the book and be a good believer.

The problem comes when you can find increasingly contorted justifications using the book to (attempt to) excuse whatever behavior you want. For example, this article describes how the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, a rather large organization of rabbis adhering to the movement/branch of Conservative Judaism, voted on specific rituals to be used in gay Jewish weddings. While the rabbis do pay lip-service to the Book, they ignore its spirit. For example:

“We acknowledge that these partnerships are distinct from those discussed in the Talmud as ‘according to the laws of Moses and Israel,’” said Nevins, referring to the words used in kiddushin, “but we celebrate them with the same sense of holiness and joy as that expressed in heterosexual marriages.”

So yes, there is an acknowledgement that these marriages aren’t quite by the Book— but who really cares, there’s still the holiness and joy, and certainly no reference to Leviticus 18:22. And by the way, sufficient wordcelery will do away with that prohibition directly.

That’s why Kulak, in this article, seems to be emphasizing not the Book so much as the culture. Words can be twisted; culture cannot.

Interesting, thought-provoking post. Like it a lot.

Even so, consider the other aspects of Islam. They get around the whole prohibition on usury by having bankers give 'gifts' in accordance with how much you hold there. Islam does change de facto, albeit not de jure. When modernity pulls hard, modernity wins.

Thank you, that was thought-provoking. I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would have said about it, given his opinion that "A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."

What if your Dark Bill of Rights ends up dragging the country down? Like the Sharia, the strictest implementation of which turns your country into Afghanistan or the Islamic State when not propped up by selling oil to the accursed infidels?

What if your Dark Bill of Rights ends up dragging the country down?

I won't put words in the mouth of @KulakRevolt but I think the implication is that that's a bet that he's willing to take. You really think that you've stumbled upon the political formula? You put it to the test and you succeed or you die.

This increases the risk of people finding the wrong political formula and wreaking havoc until they are put down, it all but removes the risk of people actually finding the right one and letting it slip out of their hands due to cowardice and compromise. Marxists tried this, Islamic Fundamentalists tried this, and their power has withered in the face of a society which hasn't even halfheartedly followed it's formula for success. The question is whether a strict adherence to the formula of the founders of America would have brought calamity or more success?

There's always the sticky question of how to define "success", however. Some would say that a small-government US with a much lower GDP and less international power (but still #1), but much more personal freedom, local political control etc is more successful than a richer, stronger, less free US.

@ZorbaTHut, I've approved this post but it doesn't seem to be appearing on the front page. Possibly I am being too impatient with something or other! But for the moment, at least, it seemed worth mentioning.

Well, it's showing up now. Caching error maybe? Check again next time it happens, if this was a one-off then I'm not going to worry too much about it.

I see it on the front page.

Thanks for letting me know! (I still don't--not on any browser, not logged in or logged out, not on my phone versus my desktop... it's very strange!)

I don't see it on Bump sort (my default), but do see it on New and Hot.

I didn't even think to try sorting.

But I see it on Bump and Hot, but not New (my default). Curiouser and curiouser!

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