Topic: 14. RACE [EARLY EXPERIMENTAL WRITING]
The point made here is well taken but its statement is confused. To summarize: Humans can think of things that aren't there as well as of things that are there (exist). Civilizations are built on ideas of things that don't exist. Civilizations by the same token sense they are threatened by things that exist. What is unreal, essentially, is civilization. What is real is race, or collective identity. It is natural that civilization--not just American civilization but all cultures--should be threatened by racism. On the other hand, just as life appears out of inert matter and returns to matter, cultures both appear out of and return to race.
SWARTZBAUGH'S 10 SYLLOGISTIC PRINCIPLES
1.A is, then not-A is not.
2.Not-A is, then A is not.
3.An animal can think A; the animal cannot think not-A.
4.Only a human being can think not-A.
5.The human being builds his human world--culture, society, civilization--upon what only the human being can do, that is, think not-A.
6.But A is.
7. Therefore not-A is not.
8. Conclusion: the human being builds his world--culture, society and civilization--on something that is not, not-A.
9. Culture, society and civilization do not exist.
10. Only a State of Nature exists (is): baboon fascism, Spartan socialism and Columbian town militias. The encompassing term for these types of groups is race.
Race, which is a fact, is heresy to man, culture, society and civilization. That is only to say that race is a fact in relation to a society or civilization built upon formal logic. Race is not logical or even reasonable; but that is true of any number of things and events, including the very beating of my heart. The fundamental incompatibility of race with civilization is easy to understand. Heresy means here simply fact as opposed to logic. Race is the factual response of humans and other animals to the fact of distrust. Civilization too is built upon the fact of distrust; but civilization is a logical response to distrust. The logical response to a fact is not itself a fact but only logic. This is to say that civilizations are built not on the facts that any being can understand but on logical ideas. Only humans can understand logic, although logical ideas have nothing to do with fact but only with other logic. Thus the logical idea of nation and society has nothing to do with race; but nation and society also have nothing to do with fact as such.
The logic of the issue of race is simply expressed as race versus non-race, or the negation of race. Nations and societies are, as I say, constructed upon or out of logical absolutes: the absolute Nation, for instance, in the Hegelian sense of an Absolute Idea. This nation is raceless. Race is the fact of which the state, society and so forth are logical, but not factual, opposites. What race is as a fact is rejected by society simply because race is a fact and not a logical absolute. The metaphysical structure of race is entirely different than the state, nation and so forth; they are incompatible. This is clear. Putting the race vs. civilization issue differently: civilization is built not upon facts, mainly, but upon logical--that is, "purely human"-- principles. Such principles, I will show, are trust as opposed to distrust, certainty as opposed to uncertainty. Nation is opposed, simply, to race. But racelessness ("pure citizenship"?) is only a logical idea not a factual one. What society and civilization do is to oppose a logical idea to what is essentially a factual one. What fact is on the one hand and logic is on the other will be explained. This is my basic line of reasoning. I will elaborate on these point in subsequent pages.
In the meantime we must say, simply, that the fundamental, pivotal and pronouced sacred ideas of civilization are not factual so much as they are logical. Race is only one fact among many that have no factual opposite but only a logical opposite. My overall principle can be stated as follows. I will endeavor to prove that civilization, as an inference based on a point of logic, is a logical response to what is a fact. A more general example might suffice to explain this rule. Much of civilization is a response to the distrust human beings show in one another; laws and finally the infrastructure of civilization is a response to distrust. Here I risk the accusation that I am making sweeping inferences from small observations.
Certainty is a word "of man" that means not-uncertain. I have already talked about animal hestiancy as prefiguring human uncertainty. Uncertainty is these terms is simply the human--abstract, symbolic--form of animal hesitancy. The human being realizes, by virtue of his human thinking, that he is uncertain; also by virtue of this same thinking he arrives at the opposite of uncertainty. Towards this opposite, or certainty, he strives. But the idea of certainty was arrived at through logic. Certainty remains then, insofar as it is only a logical idea, a purely human--as opposed to a natural--idea. This consideration, that certainty does not obviate uncertainty so much as it focuses uncertainty, leads to a further idea. This idea that attempts to alleviate uncertainty by making certainty "real" is the basis of the (likewise purely) human idea of "trust." At this point we have advanced, as human society itself advances, from the notion of uncertainty to the notion of distrust. It is correct to call distrust a "higher" human form of uncertainty. Distrust encompasses uncertainty while evoking an idea of society that is increasingly focused; wherein, in other words, human beings as a group are presented to "witness" the distrust of one human being toward another. Thus while uncertainty is "of nature," still--the human being is contemplating a nature of which he is uncertain--distrust is purely "of man." Distrust simply focuses the issue of uncertainty and identifies the source of the uncertainty as human beings in their various relations.
Distrust is real. Just as uncertainty, the general source of distrust, is real, so distrust itself is real. The human mind arises to a realization of distrust, abstracts the distrust and presents the distrust as legal material. This truth can be ascertained from any reading of court records or for that matter newpapers. I am calling the comprehension of distrust "human" while at the same time seeing distrust ancored firmly in the relationships of man and man. What is unreal on the other hand is trust. Trust is the not-A in the equasion presented above. The human being logically, that is dialectically by the programmed movement of the mind, moves from the concept of distrust to the concept of trust. An animal comprehends only its own hesitancy and could not grasp uncertainty let alone uncertainty's focused form, certainty. The animal knows neither distrust or distrust's logical opposite, trust. Human beings not simply know distrust and by logical inference distrust's opposite, trust, they build their lives upon trust. But trust does not exist in reality or in nature. Trust is a purely abstract, or logical human idea. Now I have already said that distrust properly exists. That is true. But trust on the other hand, as (as I say) a mere logical inference, exists only if distrust does not exist. The fact is, however, that distrust does exist. Therefore trust does not exist. It is a momentarily perplexing paradox that human beings build entire societies and cultures on a non-existent thing or non-thing (no-thing). If distrust is a thing that is, then trust--and the society built on trust--is a no-thing.
What follows here is general material that preceded what is above and what will follow. (Performance Philosophy does not delete past material depending, of course, on continued relevance.)
Society begins with a conception of a confrontation, in a State of Nature, wherein human beings threaten each other with the leveraged violence of weapons. Following from this conception of hyper-violence, and the natural human fear that comes with such a conception, comes also an "agreement" or a promise to set aside weaponry and to have, instead, a weaponless relationship. There must be inevitably a notion, in the minds of principals to the agreement, of an original lurking possibility of a confrontation. So long as there has been an agreement, however, it is assumed that any dis-agreement will be settled, not by the principals themselves, who now have no force to settle disagreements, but by persons or agents outside the agreement, here called a third party.
I will be making two points:
1. Where there is no agreement there can be no disagreement, and there can be no "fair" settlement of an agreement. Because there was no agreement among groups settling America, but only a relationship of armed violence (in slavery, for example), there can be no disagreement; nor can there be any thought of a "fair" redress of past disputes. Indeed, there is no real or viable conception--one agreed upon in advance--of right and wrong, or good and evil.
2. Out of agreements, however, which do engender ideas of fair and unfair (and so forth), there arises a certain "legal person" drained of personal attributes. Such a person does not submit himself to ideas of good and evil, so much as he himelf becomes such an idea. But there is more. In the process wherein, through constant agreements, personaliity--a State of Nature so to speak within the person--the personality of the individual is finally projected large as a group personality, that is, the race. It follows that race, as I construe the word here, is the personality of the individual in the modern age.
We search for a definition of the word society that is coherent and consistent. Society in the human sense--as opposed to the group life of animals--is an organization, first and foremost, around the uniquely human capacity for agreements. Society as we think of it, as a human phenomenon, begins with an agreement. An easy example of this would be an agreement between two paleolithic hunters who, needing food for their families, talk together; in their talk they plan a hunt for the following day. There is nothing here that is difficult for us to understand. But in their talk they soon realize that their plan is complex and there is the possibility that some dispute will arise between them. They know that such a possibility of disagreement exists because of their past experiences together in the "crowded" environment of the hunting band, where small numbers of men are together throughout their lives and living in close quarters among themselves. Men of such tiny bands would be inclined to argue. The men know also that the weapons they use in the hunt, that extend and leverage force beyond what any other animal is capable of, can be used against one another. So disputes that inevitably appear are potentially very dangerous. At this point in planning the hunt each vows to the other that, in the event of such a dispute or disagreement, no weapons will be used to settle the dispute. This is all there is to the agreement. To finalize the understanding each touches the hand of the other to signal that weapons are not to be used, and to determine, if only symbolically, that no one holds in his hand a weapon. In human terms "weaponless" means friendly. (Even animals, in their long acquaintance with human beings, have come to understand this symbolism.) We have now understood human society as it first appeared since the beginning of language--and the promises and agreements made possible through language--seveal hundred thousand years ago. There was nothing to human society originally except the agreement among hunters.
At the basis of the Force Theory of Society is the assumption that, for there to be a disagreement--and society itself is largely a record of human disagreements--there must be, or have been, an agreement. As a model for past and present society I have chosen a civil court of law, or a proceding the assumption of which: before there can be a disagreement, heard by the court, there must have been a prior agreement or contract. To bring a civil suit one must first have "standing." But society itself is modeled on this very assumption of "standing." The original agreement between hunters as they planned a hunt for the next day has the same basic structure as a proceeding in civil court. This point must be stated in more detail. We may safely assert that any statement about law would have to begin with a notion of agreements. In law this is called "standing": no one may file a complain in civil court without having, first, standing as a participant in a prior agreement. To settle such agreements is all there is, basically, to civil law. (Criminal law is something else we can discuss later: in a criminal act there is usually no prior agreement.) To say that all there is to law is the settlement of disagreements that occur within agreements is a true statement. We may also make a strong case that all there is to society is laws. From moral laws evolve laws in the modern sense; from the early concept "should" appears the more modern idea of "must." Society itself, whether pr not we must always insist that all there is to society is these laws, it would still be convincing to assert that society grows up around these laws. Society may not always appear to "run on" laws, or have laws as its mainspring; laws are invoked when there is a disagreement, when, in other words, society does not function properly. Then, at the time the disagreement is turned back into an agreement, the true role of laws in society appears clear.
As an anthropological forum, whose perspective on modern law is secondary, and as speculation as to the origins of human society rather than the details of its recent development, our consideration of law must be brief. It is stated here, simply, that the agreement was the original human (Hegelian) Idea, but one as every Idea must, carry within it its own negation--the dis-agreement. We may be explicit on this point. The point of an agreement is to eliminate the main agent of violence--weaponry-- within the framework of the agreement; but, as the hunters know all too well, the possibility of disagreement still exists. The agreement, an arrangement for peace, is still about disagreements that may occur. In fact, the dis-agreement remains as the (Hegelian) negation of the agreement. The dispute, here called the dis-agreement, is the potential dis-solution of the agreement. We may get ahead of ourselves here to say that, in the event of dis-solution of the agreement, there can be no re-solution (resolution) within the agreement. Parties to the agreement can expect a "settlement" of their differences, but no resolution of differences (settlement to the satisfaction of all parties). I strive here to keep matters as simple as possible. The dis-agreement was anticipated in the agreement; and the disagreement appears, then, first within the agreement explicitly. I suggested earlier that there would be no disagreement possible without there being an agreement. This is true. Men in the primal situation of hunting together would simply be self-ish, thinking of only themselves. Each would take what he wanted from the hunt without explaining to others or even thinking of them. With the agreement, on the other hand, this potential for self-ish behavior is explicity or implicitly recognized and taken stock of. Provision is made for the eventuality of self-ish behavior; that, namely, no weapons will be used in settlement of the dispute; that, also, the settlement of the dispute will depend on some reference (perhaps) to a law that is impartial "mediator" in disputes. At that point in history there was no government, so no active human agent present to settle disputess; appeal had to be made to some "higher" or "authority" (a god?).
The fact remains, on the other hand, that the dispute or disagreement was still "within" the agreement as what the agreement was essentially "about." I am going to say here that the disagreement was "implicit" in the agreement; that, finally, for the disagreement to become visible and present in the relationship between the men, some man had to explicitly disagree with the others. In the event one man evoked a dis-agreement, the agreement itself would be ended, virtually, in dis-solution. What would be required at that point would be that the agreement be reconstituted or "resolved" at a "higher level," which would be through moral authority. In Hegelian terms, the thesis of the agreement would, in having evoked within itself the antithesis of the dis-agreement, be resolved at a "higher"--moral--level. In this event, that thesis and antithesis resolved themselves into a moral group, that group would be a "full" social group in the modern sense of the word "society." All society is, in the sense that it exists today in its tiny or massive forms, from the society of the Bushmen to that of modern America, is the primal relation that existed between paleolithic hunters. These hunters lived in groups not larger than 15 persons and had only the basic elements of language. The point of philosophical anthropology, as I have discussed the discipline in this forum, is to extract this basic sense of society and apply it to present human life.
To settle a dispute and resolve a dispute are two different things. I will talk later about this distnction. Society as it exists today in a "modern superstate" such as America is largely a "fabric"--as fibers are to a cloth--of settled and unsettled disagreements, most of them unresolved. Society is viable and functioning so long as disagreements are settled. But in most cases parties to the agreement are left unsatisfied, and the agreement is injured. Reolution of disputes can only be symbolic, through the "majesty of the state, or some final "negation of the negation" such as Hegel's Absolute Idea." In fact, everyday modern life is an ongoing process of making agreements, completing them or violating them--disagreeing--and submitting these violations to a civil authority.
I said in finalizing an agreement two hunters shake hands, symbolizing that they both abjure weaponry in the settlement of disputes. This symbolism carries over into the present day. All society is is agreements and the settlement of agreements. Thus today as earlier the basic human relationship, the agreement, is an abjuration of weaponry--and that is all there is to human society. We may continue however to think about weaponry. If two men abjure weapons, do they also abjure anything else? That question emerges now, at this stage in our argument, as important. Do the hunters also abjure anything further of themselves, for instance part or the whole of their personality? This is the question that I will raise and the one that leadus to "race theory." Race is the personality of the human being in modern society. This is the thesis I will shortly develop. First, on the other hand, we must try to discover if, when two men abjure weapons, they abjure also something of their personality that, over perhaps millions of years (humans have had weapons this long), has grown together with, and has become instinctively associated with, tool and weapon use. There may be inhibitions associated with tool use they are abjured, along with weapons, in the simple agreement. There may also be a certain cunning (German: List) that, having originated to soften group perception of weapons--which are always laying about a given campsite--actually conceals weapons or distorts perception as to what they are. Weapons bode ill for some hapless animal; weapons may be source of anxiety for group members as well. Does the human hunter, then, in planning a hunt, agree to forego all hidden thoughts that as a human hunter he is bound to have? This is another question we must ask. What I am suggesting is that there is more to an agreement, in the formal sense of the word, than merely an abjurement of physical weaponry. Such an understanding may be merely implicit in an agreement. The very foundation of the individual personality may be called into question.
Last edited by richard_swartzbaugh (2010-12-08 15:27:40)