On Friday 01 Apr 2011 2:18:21 pm Alaric Snell-Pym wrote: > I think the challenge, rather than trying to find a form of society that > is Best For Everyone, is to try and find ways for different people to > live in different kinds of societies... without then trapping people in > the wrong one due to birthright
Your article is long, but interesting. I find that many of your thoughts echo thoughts that I have had about society and government. Your approach is certainly different. You are taking existing society and trying to come up with a model society that works better than what you believe is currently the case and you have specifically stated that you are >trying to avoid tainting the search for a solution with knowledge of what > has gone before I see some problems with this approach. Perhaps the most important problem is that the language you are forced to use with reference to governing systems are all words that have been used in the past to describe specific structures and entities - such as "politician", "vote", "police", "national service" etc. You are taking what exists and are well known and examining those entities to decide whether they are appropriate or not for your model. The second hurdle is that control of society is so important that humans have done it for millennia in different ways. You cannot escape that and impose something new without revolution. Failure is the most likely outcome. I have written about this in the past, on this list as well. Initial societal organizations of a few people in a village or settlement probably organized themseves into family tribes who were headed by a tribal elder who was the prototype monarch. Groups of monarchs with their own tribal laws came into conflict and I believe that the religions Christianity and later Islam were both attempts to break down tribal disunity and create a larger organized society by creating a mytical super-monarch called "God" It was only the advent of democratic nation states and later communism that added to the above mix of governmental systems. But none of them has been totally replaced. All still exist somewhere or the other. You ask: > live in different kinds of societies... without then trapping people in > the wrong one due to birthright >(I wonder if you Indian chappies might > have something to say about caste systems here ;-) > I note with interest that you use the word "national" in the sentence >perhaps controversially, I believe there's a place for a system of "national > service". The problem about "national service" is that you have to first define what "nation" means. In the last couple of centuries "nation states' have become the rule rather than the exception and every nation state is expected to have a national flag, a national anthem, national passport etc. If you look at this syetem of nations you find that 1) It did not exist 1000 years ago. Anyone could theoretically migrate anywhere wihout a passport or a visa. 2) It is a a form of "caste system" where the accident of your birth in a particular place ties you down to that place . Like if you are born in Bradford you are Pakistani, in mind if not in passport. If you must have a nation, you must have borders. Christianity and Islam are failed attempts at imposing an ideal society without borders. Democratic nation states are nations with borders that need all the structures you have analysed to keep the nation working within those borders. If you don't have borders you have no nation. If you have no nation you can have no national government. But no immigration issues either. If you don't want immigration, and want control, you need organization and borders. Do you want borders or not? shiv
