Anarchism of the Right.

When I recently asked Joker, “are you pointing to something we may call an anarchism of the right?” (http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?p=2440868#p2440868), neither he nor anyone else responded. As he’s not the only ILP member who’s recently shown an interest in anarchism, however (http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?p=2433446#p2433446), I will explain and explore my question.

The second link I just provided links to a specific post in Das Experiment’s recent thread on anarchism. In that post, I shared my analogy between various “archies” and “theisms”. And my question to Joker contained an allusion to something Leo Strauss said:

[size=95]"The conservatives stood for throne and altar, and the liberals stood for democracy, or something similar to democracy, and religion as a strictly private affair. But liberalism was already outflanked by the extreme revolutionaries, socialists, communists, anarchists, and atheists. There was a position we may call political atheism.

“Now Nietzsche opposed both the moderate and the extreme left, but he saw that conservatism had no future, that its fighting was a real garbage, and its conservatism was being eroded evermore. The consequence of this was that Nietzsche pointed to something which we may call the revolutionary right, an atheism of the right.” (Strauss, 1971 lecture on Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.)[/size]

In 2007, I wrote about this:

[size=95]"Conservatism meant both aristocratic and Christian conservatism. There existed a self-contradiction at the heart of conservatism, indeed, at the heart of the aristocracy. For the Christian values were the moral values ‘good and evil’; whereas the aristocratic values were the ‘ethical’ values ‘good and bad’. ‘Good and bad’ are ‘noble’ values, sprung from what Nietzsche called ‘master morality’; whereas ‘good and evil’ are ‘base’ values, sprung from what he called ‘slave morality’. So why did the aristocracy champion both noble and base values? Because it had in the past divined a means to power in slave morality.

“On at least one occasion, Nietzsche says that the development of something from a means into an end signifies decadence. Perhaps it signifies an impoverishment of the nobility that it got its natural, noble values so tangled up with the base values of slave morality. In any case, this self-contradiction at the heart of conservatism weakened it. By pointing to an atheism of the right, Nietzsche sought to create the possibility of a restoration of noble values. For ‘atheism’ to him meant disbelief in the Christian god, that is, in the moral god. He did emphatically not deny the possibility of a god, or gods, beyond good and evil.” (http://sauwelios.blogspot.nl/2007/11/i-formerly-thought-of-overman-as-man.html)[/size]

Something which we might call an anarchism of the right would have to be a movement of those who, disbelieving in any gods but valuing the “ethical” good, sought to secure the triumph of the “ethical” world-order.—

[size=95]“Modern thinkers culminating in Nietzsche made men aware that human creativity or technology was not limited by anything. Nietzsche feared that contemporary egalitarians would employ this unlimited power to create a world of universal peace and equality. He yearned for a superman whose will to overpower nihilism and egalitarianism would use modernity’s immense power to create the eternal return of the past’s inequality and wars. Then there would be no wars to end all wars.” (Harry Neumann, Liberalism, pp. 165-66.)[/size]

I will explain and explore a bit further.

A movement of those who, disbelieving in any gods but valuing “evil”, seek to secure the triumph of “evil” over “good” need not be an anarchism of the right, but may also be a “socialism” or a “communism of the right” (see the Strauss quote above):

[size=95]“I am opposed to […] socialism, because it dreams quite naively of ‘the good, true, and beautiful’ and of ‘equal rights’ (—anarchism also desires the same ideal, but in a more brutal fashion)[.]” (Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Kaufmann edition, section 753.)[/size]

This passage suggests that an anarchism of the right be a movement of those who have a wise vision of the good and the beautiful and the true (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/human_superhuman/message/533) and of unequal rights, and who pursue it in a quite brutal fashion.

[size=95]“I confess that the theory which subjects all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar, or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter absurdity in respect to God, whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of their existence.” (Spinoza, Ethics, Part I, prop. XXXIII, note II, Elwes translation. Cf. Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, second treatise, section 15.)[/size]

The atheism of the left is disbelief in God, but not in said “something beyond God”—which Plato called the Idea of the Good. Nietzsche’s atheism of the right, conversely, is disbelief in the Platonic Idea of the Good but not in God. The Nietzschean Idea of the Good is in general the Spinozan God, i.e., Nature. In particular, the good for Nietzsche is “those sides of existence hitherto denied”: they are better than “the sides hitherto affirmed” inasmuch as they are “the more powerful, more fruitful, truer sides of existence, in which its will finds clearer expression” (Will to Power 1041). Will to power is good, and stronger will to power is better. Nietzschean philosophy is the expression of the strongest will to power, philosophy, as the supreme affirmation of the will to power, the will to the eternal recurrence.

This is absolutely true.  Every prominent conservative writer/philosopher eventually expresses exasperation in the left's dogmatic belief in problems and solutions.   Maybe the biggest difference between a conservative and a libertarian is this atheism about progress.

Ucc, do you conflate “liberal” with “libertarian”?
That would explain a lot of the things that you say that seem strange.

 No, but they have certain similarities, including one major similarity that makes them both different from conservatism- they each put an academic understanding of an idealized value ahead of a practical sense of how the world operates.  The real reason the things I say seem strange is because people don't read opinions they don't already agree with anymore.

Well, I’m not “people”.

From what I gather, “Libertarian” refers to the incentive for independence, such as a constitution. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives want a Constitution, a UN agenda (of course neither would admit to that). Liberals want the government to be able to change anything at any time, giving it the power of a Pharaoh/god. Conservatives want the government to bow only to predesignated agendas, making the predesignator into the god (Kings/Queens, Social Architects,…). Both play into the New World Order agenda (“21”). The Libertarian wants the God-wannabes to be restricted (which is why you never see one become President despite popular vote).

Eh. We can define the groups without demonizing any of them or getting melodramatic or conspiratorial about it.

Liberals are ideologues who’s driving ideal is equality.
Libertarians are ideologues who’s driving ideal is liberty.
Conservatives are skeptical of ideologues (or maybe just recent ideologues if you prefer).

I can see situations where any of the above could be for or against some element in the Constitution. The liberals the most, because they want to change the most. Libertarians less so, because their beliefs were shared by at least some of the founders, so a lot of what they want is already in the Constitution. The Conservatives the least, because they don’t have any sweeping reforms in mind that would require a change to the Constitution.

Well, yeah. We could lie.

Disagree

Agree

Skeptical of any new ideologies. They most certainly support prior ideologies (else none would be religious).

Disagree. But not surprised. I wasn’t expecting agreement. I was just curious how you were defining your words. Which group is “really up to what” is another matter. I see the world from a very, very different perspective from yours despite many things that I can agree with you about.

So okay, thks. :sunglasses:

Conservatives wanna shit on the 4th amendment if you’re dealing drugs or having gay sex, but not if you’re stockpiling weapons.

They also wanna shit on the 1st amendment, if you’re badmouthing the rich assholes who bought their votes, but not if it’s time to say a prayer at a public school.

Conservatives want to make it illegal to badmouth rich assholes? Show me.

You will get banned for life (with no forgiveness) if you badmouth Obama, or any prominent official (exclusive of Jesus), on the Catholic site.

I didn’t say illegal you tricky guy. Look at occupy wall street. That’s pretty fair. You remember when those people were getting herded like cattle and arrested by the pile? Or what about all the women they maced in the streets? Or all the people that got beat up w/ night sticks? Come on man you know conservatives love combining church and state, and you know they love to spend money making rich greedy assholes look like good candidates. In the last couple of years the new trend in being a conservative is to hate the poor and blame society’s problems on them. Don’t act like you don’t see this buddy.

You said they were trying to shit on the 1st Amendment. If they aren’t trying to change the laws, they aren’t attacking the Constitution…

How many women? How many people? Why? Right now all you’re doing is telling me a fantasy story. I want to see these screaming women knocking the hat of a police officer with their mouths all foaming up right before they get maced, so you can tell me I should feel bad for them. And lets not forget, the entire reason why people get maced now is because the left decided that actually hitting them is too brutal. So now you’re gonna bitch about the non-violent alternative too?
To return to the point you think you’re making, there are very clear rules about what you can and can’t do in a protest- making a public park into your new home is very clearly not on the list of acceptable protest behavior. I see protests on both sides going unmolested all the time, I haven’t heard a conservative propose one bit of legislation saying that the 1st Amendment rights of protestors should be changed in any way, so what are you talking about? A couple police officers did something you don’t like- hell, let’s call it unjustified police brutality for the sake of argument- and that adds up to a particular political faction wanting to tamper with the Constitution?
You’re talking out your ass and you know it.

Working outside of or with disregard to the Amendments, is “shitting on the Constitution”.

That hasn't been established with the examples Smears cited, if they even rise to the level of being 'examples'.

Not that putting restrictions on a private website is a violation of the 1st Amendment or anything, but,
Catholics haven’t been a conservative voting bloc since…

…ok, Catholics have NEVER been a conservative voting bloc.

You don’t have to be trying to change the law, you just have to be trying to violate the spirit of it all the time.

I maced a person once who broke into my mother’s house. I was charged with, “unlawful use of a chemical spray” and “unlawful imprisonment”. The guy had 3 pistols under the seat of his car that he stole from me earlier that day. I had to post an 18000 bond so that I could take my math final the next day. It took a grand jury to dismiss the charges. The way they wanted it to seem, was as though I’d done something extremely violent. So I dunno man. Have you ever been maced or pepper sprayed?

Yeah right. Try to tell that to a Liberal. :laughing:

You can’t even tell really obvious things to a liberal. Explaining to one that the Catholic vote isn’t conservative would take more skill than I posses.

But who is ‘you’? Like, if somebody on the street asks me to sign a petition, and I tell them to stfu, am I ‘violating the spirit of the 1st Amendment’?

Yeah. in my martial-arts crazy guy days, me and a bunch of the guys got together and had a pepper spray party. We sold the stuff in the dojo gift shop, and figured we (the more long-term members) ought to know how the stuff worked. So we each took a turn spraying each other. First thing I’d say is, it’s not very good for self-defense. You’ve got like a 3 second window where it just feels like water- more than long enough to shoot or stab or whatever you were in the middle of doing. But then, it fucks your shit up. Some of us were hitting each other on reflex, I ended up with my head in the toilet, it was a riot. Violent? It certainly hurts worse than a punch, but in the long run I’d rather be pepper-sprayed if only because I hate dentists. It certainly sucks enough that it ought to be criminal when done in the wrong circumstance.