Grounding our situation in terms of our evolved predispositions for small-group hunter-gatherer lifestyles—and taking something maximally approximating anarchy as reflecting the default social-political expectation for humans—provides a way of framing the question that puts the onus on promoters of the state to demonstrate that it offers us something better than we had before the state came along and relieved us of the burden of autonomy.
The anarchist challenge is essentially this: is there a social-political design of any kind that can improve upon the evolution-supported default for the human species?
If "the human condition" is recognized as an abstraction, a conceptual place-holder for the condition of numerous unique individual persons, then logically, the answer has to be "no." There is no design that can improve upon the human condition as it relates to the expression of individuality and individual autonomy because autonomy is at a maximum under anarchy, and any systematizing of human relations necessarily involves a reduction in autonomy for someone.
[from Part 1]
No comments:
Post a Comment