One of the most vital concepts that needs to be addressed in American politics today is, the difference between a state and a society, because the line between them is steadily being erased via the state's aggressive attempts to control every aspect of our individual lives and war. . . Society consists of the many shared, common ingredients that make up American life: a shared history, religious convictions, common lore and cultural norms. Society is essentially a concept of peace.
The state, on the other hand, is an institution that asserts a monopoly on plunder and violent force. State is essentially a concept of power.
A society and a state function in radically different ways too. Society uses what Oppenheimer calls "the economic means" or cooperation; the state uses what Oppenheimer calls "the political means" or the use of force. Where society produces, the state plunders; where society works through agreement, the state enforces edicts. The state, therefore, is at odds with society, which is the host it feeds upon, until eventually consuming it whole.
Joe Sobran
Sunday, April 22, 2012
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2 comments:
You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. ~Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden, "The Mission," Chapter 8
Keep Smiling, Karmasurfer !
And don't let them catch you !! LOL
Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given.
(Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman)
The conflict between society and state is as old as humanity and history shows us the end result is always annihilation. The state's only recourse is to revise history and remove the classics from education through edict.
Society, state. Workers, management. Children, parents. It's all part of growing up, I guess.
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