I grew up in a household where manipulation was the primary form of coercion and I've lived the rest of my life since then fighting authority ever step of the way.
Has it made my life harder? Undoubtedly, but at least I can look anyone in the eye and truthfully state that as an adult I have never bowed to anyone.
This is how I have always felt since my teen years, though you expressed it better than I could. Chillingly I sometimes find myself slipping into the The Clueless mindset just to make my lack of choice more bearable
I think there's narrow cases of CNC and broad cases.
I think the broad cases are a function of comparing imagination to reality, not reality to reality.
Ie, you mention that we don't have the "choice" to work, or be governed. Similarly, you mention we didn't have the "choice" to be born.
I agree, but similarly, we don't have the "choice" to require water, food, shelter, human emotions, et cetera.
So work and government are a necessity in the modern world in the same way "work" is a necessity for animals to eat, migrate, build nests, have kids, et cetera.
And, if it makes you feel better, being governed isn't really a necessity. You can still move to a remote part of the world and live off the land. No one does this because we are social creatures. And social creatures with large brains engage in large scale contracts (government) because they choose to do so.
There is no clan or society that has ever lived without rules (including social rules, eg, what Zizek mentioned.) And this is because good, rational people think rules increase freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpPuTaP68Dw Zizek quoting ethnic nationalists and the paradox of freedom "I want to eat whatever I want, I want to smoke, I want to steaI, I want to beat women, rape them..."
Is it more free to fight with sword and gun? Is it more free to rape and pillage? Or is it more free when, both of us, wanting to rape, pillage, eat ice cream for dinner, et cetera, talk about how much we like whole wheat avocado toast and the vagina monologues.
There's a fundamental difference between natural constraints (needing water) and human-designed systems (specific economic arrangements). While some constraints will always exist, my critique focuses on arrangements that force participation, require pretending we chose freely, and aren't necessary for social functioning.
Your suggestion about "moving to remote areas" isn't realistic in 2025 - virtually all land is governed and requires money/permits. This theoretical exit doesn't constitute meaningful choice.
I'm not against rules or governance per se. Some coercive systems are justified (laws against violence). Rather, I'm questioning specific systems that:
1. Make alternatives unrealistically costly
2. Demand performance of enthusiastic consent
3. When better arrangements are possible
With birth, reproduction itself is necessary, but we could acknowledge bringing people into existence without consent creates moral obligations toward them, rather than blaming them for struggling within arrangements they never chose.
The question isn't whether constraints exist, but whether we must pretend they don't.
To take an example of a single rule, let's look at speed limits.
Imagine a county where speed limits are decided by democratic vote (take the average.)
For half the population, the speed limit is too high, for the other half, too low.
For me, multiply this phenomenon many times over, mix in less direct democracy (a practical conceit) and you end up in modernity.
I view problems like the necessity of labor and national government (and national law) as "natural" constrains, because I think they are the result of scaling natural human behavior (wanting to make societal limits on behavior like speeding.)
But do you have a way to design a society of modern scale that eliminates this problem? Are you arguing for more local power and less nationalized power? Would you allow for speed limits? Are speed limits fine as long as they're democratic and we complain about them? What do you think are specific examples of non-democratic government that we cannot complain about? How do you feel about wokeness?
you are giving too much benefit of the doubt to people who do not believe in giving benefit of the doubt, aka, people who have normalized transactional solidarity through the normalization of hivemindidioms that commodify emotional labor
First, and foremost, you need a job to feed yourself, but the company does not need labor to continue going. The short-term needs of labor are decoupled under any financial engineering. Yes long-term that is true, but that is a problem for another quarter.
This fundamental issue is why our capitalist system will be failing to non-market socialism within the next few years, and from there a little time after that and we'll have full scale socio-economic collapse. Legitimate business cannot compete with companies that are funded through money printing, which is done through non-fractional reserve debt issuance at preferential terms. Profit still must be made; leaving the alternative, price fixing, or specifically artificially constraining supply.
The coercion talked about also doesn't touch on the its physiological or psychological impacts on the people involved. For that I'd recommend Joost Meerloo and Robert Lifton. Coercion in certain circular structures forms trauma loops that are intended to destroy rational thought, and segment people into dissociative and psychotic segments. The imposition of psychological stress in its many forms, in sufficient quantities and exposure, causes involuntary induction to hypnotic states towards mindlessness automata action where they adopt aspects of the torturer becoming him/her in ways most closely resembling infection vectors.
You can't have genuine consent if you can't think, and quite a lot of this is intended to ensure you can never think.
Excellent, thank-you.
I grew up in a household where manipulation was the primary form of coercion and I've lived the rest of my life since then fighting authority ever step of the way.
Has it made my life harder? Undoubtedly, but at least I can look anyone in the eye and truthfully state that as an adult I have never bowed to anyone.
Thank god I'm now retired.
This is how I have always felt since my teen years, though you expressed it better than I could. Chillingly I sometimes find myself slipping into the The Clueless mindset just to make my lack of choice more bearable
Excellent, thank you.
I think there's narrow cases of CNC and broad cases.
I think the broad cases are a function of comparing imagination to reality, not reality to reality.
Ie, you mention that we don't have the "choice" to work, or be governed. Similarly, you mention we didn't have the "choice" to be born.
I agree, but similarly, we don't have the "choice" to require water, food, shelter, human emotions, et cetera.
So work and government are a necessity in the modern world in the same way "work" is a necessity for animals to eat, migrate, build nests, have kids, et cetera.
And, if it makes you feel better, being governed isn't really a necessity. You can still move to a remote part of the world and live off the land. No one does this because we are social creatures. And social creatures with large brains engage in large scale contracts (government) because they choose to do so.
There is no clan or society that has ever lived without rules (including social rules, eg, what Zizek mentioned.) And this is because good, rational people think rules increase freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpPuTaP68Dw Zizek quoting ethnic nationalists and the paradox of freedom "I want to eat whatever I want, I want to smoke, I want to steaI, I want to beat women, rape them..."
Is it more free to fight with sword and gun? Is it more free to rape and pillage? Or is it more free when, both of us, wanting to rape, pillage, eat ice cream for dinner, et cetera, talk about how much we like whole wheat avocado toast and the vagina monologues.
There's a fundamental difference between natural constraints (needing water) and human-designed systems (specific economic arrangements). While some constraints will always exist, my critique focuses on arrangements that force participation, require pretending we chose freely, and aren't necessary for social functioning.
Your suggestion about "moving to remote areas" isn't realistic in 2025 - virtually all land is governed and requires money/permits. This theoretical exit doesn't constitute meaningful choice.
I'm not against rules or governance per se. Some coercive systems are justified (laws against violence). Rather, I'm questioning specific systems that:
1. Make alternatives unrealistically costly
2. Demand performance of enthusiastic consent
3. When better arrangements are possible
With birth, reproduction itself is necessary, but we could acknowledge bringing people into existence without consent creates moral obligations toward them, rather than blaming them for struggling within arrangements they never chose.
The question isn't whether constraints exist, but whether we must pretend they don't.
To take an example of a single rule, let's look at speed limits.
Imagine a county where speed limits are decided by democratic vote (take the average.)
For half the population, the speed limit is too high, for the other half, too low.
For me, multiply this phenomenon many times over, mix in less direct democracy (a practical conceit) and you end up in modernity.
I view problems like the necessity of labor and national government (and national law) as "natural" constrains, because I think they are the result of scaling natural human behavior (wanting to make societal limits on behavior like speeding.)
But do you have a way to design a society of modern scale that eliminates this problem? Are you arguing for more local power and less nationalized power? Would you allow for speed limits? Are speed limits fine as long as they're democratic and we complain about them? What do you think are specific examples of non-democratic government that we cannot complain about? How do you feel about wokeness?
Thank for this definition and perspective. It really helped with something that bothered me that I didn't know how to put into words.
you are giving too much benefit of the doubt to people who do not believe in giving benefit of the doubt, aka, people who have normalized transactional solidarity through the normalization of hivemindidioms that commodify emotional labor
You are mistaken about a few things.
First, and foremost, you need a job to feed yourself, but the company does not need labor to continue going. The short-term needs of labor are decoupled under any financial engineering. Yes long-term that is true, but that is a problem for another quarter.
This fundamental issue is why our capitalist system will be failing to non-market socialism within the next few years, and from there a little time after that and we'll have full scale socio-economic collapse. Legitimate business cannot compete with companies that are funded through money printing, which is done through non-fractional reserve debt issuance at preferential terms. Profit still must be made; leaving the alternative, price fixing, or specifically artificially constraining supply.
The coercion talked about also doesn't touch on the its physiological or psychological impacts on the people involved. For that I'd recommend Joost Meerloo and Robert Lifton. Coercion in certain circular structures forms trauma loops that are intended to destroy rational thought, and segment people into dissociative and psychotic segments. The imposition of psychological stress in its many forms, in sufficient quantities and exposure, causes involuntary induction to hypnotic states towards mindlessness automata action where they adopt aspects of the torturer becoming him/her in ways most closely resembling infection vectors.
You can't have genuine consent if you can't think, and quite a lot of this is intended to ensure you can never think.