Government or Politics? Or neither?
I was thinking about this a few weeks ago and it has engulfed the rest of my thought processes in its shade again. It stems from the fantastic Words Of Advice For Young People bit by William S. Burroughs.
That line near the end -
There are no honorable bargains
Involving exchange
Of qualitative merchandise
Like souls
For quantitative merchandise
Like time and money.
This really caught my attention for whatever reason.
When I think of the source of a government or political body, I think of Mesopotamians requiring a system of law and labor for their advanced agriculture. I think of Grecians and the representation of a body of people. It has all blown so out of proportion by now seeing as how, in a sense, our irrigation ditches are beginning to run into each other, not to mention the complex structure of world cultures which makes it nearly impossible to accurately represent a body of people. The wars for nation-building and expansion compounded by obvious major differences in culture lead to nationalism and imperialism and what have you. I just think of what a failure not just any form of government, but all forms of government have become. Laws that allow people to live and work peacefully are a far cry from what exists today. Now there have surfaced certain primary dividing lines, like phallocentrism and abortion and God and how reproduction should lawfully be practiced. All government is now is an attempt to control what cannot be controlled. It is a tool for a majority rule. Someone's got the power; someone's got to adhere to their will, or the will of the collective majority. I don't think we can have any sort of completely thriving society where complex individuals are expected to package their qualitative merchandise (life experiences, beliefs, customs) and funnel it into any quantitative form. It's where both science and my intellect fail. We can't study what cannot be measured. Government attempts to package people and ideals into bundles for use. I don't think so, man. Noooo way. What we write up on parchment is Government. When you try to apply it, all you get is Politics. The absolute mess resultant from attempting to categorize the impossibly complex.
NAMU!
That line near the end -
There are no honorable bargains
Involving exchange
Of qualitative merchandise
Like souls
For quantitative merchandise
Like time and money.
This really caught my attention for whatever reason.
When I think of the source of a government or political body, I think of Mesopotamians requiring a system of law and labor for their advanced agriculture. I think of Grecians and the representation of a body of people. It has all blown so out of proportion by now seeing as how, in a sense, our irrigation ditches are beginning to run into each other, not to mention the complex structure of world cultures which makes it nearly impossible to accurately represent a body of people. The wars for nation-building and expansion compounded by obvious major differences in culture lead to nationalism and imperialism and what have you. I just think of what a failure not just any form of government, but all forms of government have become. Laws that allow people to live and work peacefully are a far cry from what exists today. Now there have surfaced certain primary dividing lines, like phallocentrism and abortion and God and how reproduction should lawfully be practiced. All government is now is an attempt to control what cannot be controlled. It is a tool for a majority rule. Someone's got the power; someone's got to adhere to their will, or the will of the collective majority. I don't think we can have any sort of completely thriving society where complex individuals are expected to package their qualitative merchandise (life experiences, beliefs, customs) and funnel it into any quantitative form. It's where both science and my intellect fail. We can't study what cannot be measured. Government attempts to package people and ideals into bundles for use. I don't think so, man. Noooo way. What we write up on parchment is Government. When you try to apply it, all you get is Politics. The absolute mess resultant from attempting to categorize the impossibly complex.
NAMU!