{"id":18,"date":"2014-07-26T18:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-26T18:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=18"},"modified":"2014-08-20T14:42:05","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T14:42:05","slug":"to-know-an-evil-institution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/07\/to-know-an-evil-institution.html","title":{"rendered":"To know an evil institution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tout institution qui ne suppose pas le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible est vicieuse.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.<\/p>\n

Maximilien Robespierre<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Amid the farce of what is being called a “new” Cold War with Russia by bitter old\u00a0US politicians, I grow more and more convinced that the state\u00a0is evil and it’s time for the West to understand\u00a0this aspect of modernity, finally.\u00a0This case is going to be the subject of several upcoming essays authored by me at a number of media sources that will be further discussed and explained\u00a0in adequate depth here at the blog.<\/p>\n

Antistatism is the interpretation that the state is harmful and unnecessary. Antistatism also describes\u00a0any forces\u00a0aimed at weakening the central government of an existing state. Antistatism differs from anarchism<\/em>, which in name actually\u00a0refers to rejecting all authority. I have always felt\u00a0that most variants of anarchism are ineffective, having existed for long enough to prove their effectiveness\u00a0if they had any. My belief is that they failed precisely because of their rejection of the necessity of certain authority forms, which leads\u00a0to ineffective communication and marginalization. At present, forms of authority are still necessary for practical purposes, although the idea that this must necessarily take nationalist and statist forms would be\u00a0a fallacy.<\/p>\n

I hold to the view that the\u00a0nation is a myth and does not exist, as proven over and over again\u00a0by many distinguished sociologists<\/a> including Immanuel Wallerstein and Benedict Anderson. The so-called nation has no real history, and it has always been based on narratives explicitly aimed at justifying governments ruling over a given area rather than being based on\u00a0protecting real rights\u00a0and real liberties. The American people do not exist, the British people do not exist, the Australian people do not exist. These are all terms used by politicians to create a sense of legitimacy\u00a0and thereby gain some form of control over people,\u00a0making\u00a0them feel indebted to what\u00a0they never had any choice in – the location\u00a0where they were\u00a0born.<\/p>\n

As Wilfred Owen showed in a famous poem “Dulce et Decorum est”, to\u00a0die for one’s country is not sweet and fitting. It is folly, because there is no nation. This is true everywhere, but I see that it is closer to being accepted in Western countries like the UK and other EU states than non-Western states. The exception to this\u00a0post-nation-state trend in the West\u00a0is found in the US,\u00a0where misguided “patriotism” is so valued.<\/p>\n

I deeply hope that the debate over illegal immigration in the US\u00a0will see the\u00a0US’s sense of “nation” challenged by the need to accept “alien” communities, and this outcome must be encouraged by progressives.\u00a0We need a US that is up to date with modernity, like the UK. We need a US that can accept all humans as equals, rather than arbitrarily denying them on the basis of not being part of the fake “nation”. Such a development will be an accomplishment for the antistatism.<\/p>\n

When the nation is gone, thereafter we can move on to a transnational community without the state.<\/p>\n

\n

By Harry J. Bentham<\/a><\/p>\n

\"HJB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tout institution qui ne suppose pas le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible est vicieuse. Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil. Maximilien Robespierre Amid the farce of what is being called a “new” Cold War with Russia by bitter old\u00a0US politicians, I grow more and more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12,11,13,2,10,9,14],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antistatism","tag-anti-nationalism","tag-anti-statism","tag-globalization","tag-lordre","tag-nation-state","tag-state","tag-transnationalism"],"yoast_head":"\nTo know an evil institution - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/07\/to-know-an-evil-institution.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To know an evil institution - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tout institution qui ne suppose pas le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible est vicieuse. 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