Saturday, February 14, 2009
I recently had some thoughts that are along the lines of anarchism being "beyond good and evil". Of course, strictly speaking, I am not an amoralist, I know that Neitzsche was not formally an anarchist and I am not an outright Neitzschean. But there is a sense in which I think anarchism is beyond good and evil, viewed in a certain historical context. My reasoning for this is quite simple: rational anarchism (which is involves atheism) in particular is beyond good and evil in terms of the authority that defines good and evil.
At first, the authority that defined good and evil was "god". But as history progressed, the moral authority of "god" had worn out as the enlightenment occured and the secular age was ushered in. So "god" no longer is the authority of good and evil. But this didn't overcome the problem, as the authority merely shifted to "the state". "The state" became the authority of good and evil. But as classical liberalism radicalized, it came to reject even "the state" as an authority of good and evil. And as thought becomes more individualistic, we progress to the point where "humanity" in the abstract is rejected as the authority of good and evil. Max Stirner was the first thinker to really drive this particular point home, with his analysis of the way in which many early atheists still clung to a Christian concept of morality and merely shifted the authority from "god" to "state" or "humanity". They had merely spiritualized the material, not done away with the spiritual.
Of course, under the guise of "god" and "state", it was always human beings at work the entire time. It was human beings who invented "god", and "the state" is not transcendant of human beings, despite people's tendency to act as if it is. But the point I'm making is that a radically secular and individualistic anarchism transcends good and evil as it has traditionally been defined, since it rejects the three main authorities that usually determines what is good and evil: god, the state and humanity. Does this mean that rational and individualistic anarchism is amoralist? Strictly speaking, it doesn't, but if our standard for morality is constituted by this trinity of authorities, then in a sense the answer to the question is affirmative.
I think there's a sense in which so-called "amoralists" like Neitzsche and Stirner are not really amoralists so much as people who took historical context into account and put foreward an evolutionary theory of sorts about how our concepts of morality have changed over time and where they initially derive from. They clearly predate post-modernism, although they are often cited as influences on it or a point of transition into it. Perhaps it's wise not to take certain words or statements literally, and to realize that they are being used in the context of a historical analysis, and that what's being denied is a transcendental concept of "truth" and "morality". In this sense, I think that their ideas are very conductive towards rational anarchism.
At first, the authority that defined good and evil was "god". But as history progressed, the moral authority of "god" had worn out as the enlightenment occured and the secular age was ushered in. So "god" no longer is the authority of good and evil. But this didn't overcome the problem, as the authority merely shifted to "the state". "The state" became the authority of good and evil. But as classical liberalism radicalized, it came to reject even "the state" as an authority of good and evil. And as thought becomes more individualistic, we progress to the point where "humanity" in the abstract is rejected as the authority of good and evil. Max Stirner was the first thinker to really drive this particular point home, with his analysis of the way in which many early atheists still clung to a Christian concept of morality and merely shifted the authority from "god" to "state" or "humanity". They had merely spiritualized the material, not done away with the spiritual.
Of course, under the guise of "god" and "state", it was always human beings at work the entire time. It was human beings who invented "god", and "the state" is not transcendant of human beings, despite people's tendency to act as if it is. But the point I'm making is that a radically secular and individualistic anarchism transcends good and evil as it has traditionally been defined, since it rejects the three main authorities that usually determines what is good and evil: god, the state and humanity. Does this mean that rational and individualistic anarchism is amoralist? Strictly speaking, it doesn't, but if our standard for morality is constituted by this trinity of authorities, then in a sense the answer to the question is affirmative.
I think there's a sense in which so-called "amoralists" like Neitzsche and Stirner are not really amoralists so much as people who took historical context into account and put foreward an evolutionary theory of sorts about how our concepts of morality have changed over time and where they initially derive from. They clearly predate post-modernism, although they are often cited as influences on it or a point of transition into it. Perhaps it's wise not to take certain words or statements literally, and to realize that they are being used in the context of a historical analysis, and that what's being denied is a transcendental concept of "truth" and "morality". In this sense, I think that their ideas are very conductive towards rational anarchism.
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