Part 3
So, combining these elements in Aristotle,
one finds an underground questioning
of that
value of community predominant in Plato.
The reality of the “presencing” of
objects
as Ideas that are divine is rapidly
losing
ground to the “insufficient”, “improper”
but more “understandable” of the person
standing
as an outsider to community. This is
not
to define desire for “community” as
childish
for even Hobbes and Hume saw its ABSOLUTE
necessity for the literate human being.
But
obviously we do not come into it AND
STAY
so naturally as people did in Plato’s
day
through initiations defining stages
of growth
recognized and validated by that community.
No, we are in the age of Sartre: “A
man is
what he does,” or as David Hume or
Adam Smith
could put it and probably did, “Produce
or
starve”. Each person, now, is uniquely
defined
by the products of their actions. No
stages,
no growth, no recognition, no classes,
no
privilege—not unless you buy it. The
child
of the polis was never thrown out of
community
unless it violated law. The modern
child,
however, is partially or wholly severed
at
an arbitrarily set age, the so-called
“age
of reasoning” in which no reasoning
is involved
whatsoever other than political convenience.
One severe and profound form of this
severing
is forced induction into the armed
services.
All community whatsoever, with even
the displacement
of language, is destroyed deliberately
and
deliberately rebuilt from the ground
up.
This is why, in boot camp, Marine drill
sergeants
call the new recruits “maggots”: They
are
now the lowest form of life on earth.
The
soldier as professional has no loyalty
to
a home town, a polis. This is precisely
true
of the American Army. This “destruction”
grew out of the inconveniences and
conflicts
that arose between units identified
by state
and to some extent governed by state
law
during the American Civil War on both
sides.
The Induction Act many consider unconstitutional
that was used in two massively murderous
world wars has erased, other than as
a mere
abstraction, all national identity
and tradition
in America. How does this compare to
the
British and German Armies that any
of you
know about? I remember reading that
at least
during World War One units were identified
in both armies by county or state of
origin,
that is, Sussex or Bavarian. Some British
officers thought they could classify
German
units on the cleanliness of their trenches
from the “properly” clean Prussians
to the
filthy Bavarians. But one must remember
all
parties lived in a mud-broth of death.
Essentially what has happened is that
at
a certain point in life a person is
arbitrarily
defined as “grown up”, adult, and therefore
LIABLE to independence and OBLIGATED
to become
self-sufficient. This is not at all
how the
Greeks and Romans did it (Israel?).
One was
integrated, for better or worse, into
the
polis from birth to death. One’s proper
‘place’
always went through fixed stages of
tradition
that had the force of law. It even
became
a scandal in Rome where sons constantly
poisoned
their fathers because as long as the
father
lived, the pater familias, the son
was dependent
and subservient to him. This is a major
difference
between modern and classical culture,
along
with the whole tradition of firmly
structural
patronage that lasted even into the
19th
century. Remember Dr. Johnson’s definition
of a “patron” in his dictionary? Community
has now, however, ceased to have reciprocal
responsibilities to its members (except
when
explicitly written down as law) after
someone
legally becomes an adult. The obligations
in classical culture were burdensome
but
the privileges were substantial. But
this
may be giving a far too idealized version
of classical culture as Jacob Burckhardt
and Heidegger point out on pages 90-91
[133-135]
of PARMENIDES because as you lived
in your
polis you also died with your polis.
And
the polis Thucydides and Burckhardt
described
was extraordinarily violent internally
and
externally. The structure that the
polis
was essentially formed by was polemos,
war—war
with outsiders and war with insiders.
The point is Ideas can only function
perceptually
in cohesive community. If that community
dissolves, then of course those “Ideas”
become
incomprehensible however much residual
survives
in a language which that community
has created
over thousands and thousands of years.
It
also is a key explanation of why Islam
is
fighting the rest of the world: Community
is still a prime essential to Islam
and they
see us as wanting to destroy that.
And we
do. It is similar to the conflict Lincoln
faced with the tradition of slavery
in the
South, long economically outdated and
continually
in conflict with the North. The world
has
become “a house divided” that “cannot
stand.”
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