more on AtD (which contains everything) including TRP's political theory metaphors

[Mark Kohut]

Nozick starts by trying to find out if stateless "voluntary associations" could
guard one's desires and the desires of others while not violating anyone's rights. 



----- Original Message ----
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>; me <mark.kohut at gmail.com>; Page <page at quesnelbc.com>; rdonaldson at quesnelbc.com
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 11:27:27 AM
Subject: Re: more on AtD (which contains everything) including TRP's political theory metaphors

But what troubles me is the sort of anarchy that might prevail in a
stateless world.  Political anarchy is one thing, social anarchy is a
formula for disaster.  the question seems to arise, "To what guide do
we turn when the old rules of loyalty and justice lose their meaning?"
These, I gather, are characteristics native to Pisces and to the
passing Piscean Age.  What lights the way of Aquarius?  What course do
Aquarians run, those creatures of the air?  Aloft and adamantine,
their rule seems painfully subjective, separate from the needs of
others.  Is anarchy ignorant of the needs of others desirable, really?
Is there a form of anarchy that accounts for interdependence?  These
are inconvenient questions, and maybe meaningless.  Great change
happens slowly, in small ways, like eddies in the impetus of a river,
or of a glacier, powered by gravity, steered by resistance.  We only
discover the great changes in retrospect.  We are impressed in the
moment by mere surfaces and spectacles, the ephemeral inconveniences.

On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> The Inconvenience:
> I have previously quoted the ending from John Rawls' Theory of Justice---
> in which 'grace' and dealing with everything that might come up [ala that curious
> line re The Chums' in their mini-city at the ending of AtD].
>
> Another major work of political thought, conceived and written, arguing with and
> using/ attempting to refute Rawls is Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia. 1974
>
> That anarchy word might appeal to all Pynchon fans. And his question, Why the State
> and not anarchy? Can the State be just? Can anarchy?
>
> Anyway, from Chapter 2 of this book, since I have not read John Locke, Nozick quotes
> this from Locke: There are "inconveniences of the state of nature"...Yes, inconveniences.
> Uh....Remember the Chums' intercessions?
>
> Nozick: Only after the full resources of the state of nature are brought into play, namely all those voluntary
> arrangements persons might reach acting within their rights, and only after the effects of these are estimated,
> will we be in a position to see how serious are the inconveniences that yet remain to be remedied by the state,
> and to estimate whether the remedy is worse that the disease."...Nozick, p. 11.
>
> Remember that curious self-contained city that the Chums' become, so to speak?
>
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