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Krev wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 am Heavy: How Metal Changes the Way We See the World by Dan Franklin. My better half got it for me from HPB. I don't appreciate all the bands he covers, but it's a well-written and thoughtful book.

Not sure how I missed this, but defs will put this on my list.

I just finished The Sprawl by Jason Diamond. Well presented history of the American suburbs. https://coffeehousepress.org/products/the-sprawl. Just starting Set The Night On Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener. Movement history of 1960's LA. https://www.versobooks.com/books/3752-s ... ht-on-fire

Uecker wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:46 amSet The Night On Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener. Movement history of 1960's LA. https://www.versobooks.com/books/3752-s ... ht-on-fire

Great book.

Nothing! My eyes are getting so bad I had to have my reading glass prescription updated. I guess I could go to CVS and get some OTC readers...hmm...maybe I will today!

Just finished Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño and Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, both of which were pretty good.
Just started Transgender History by Susan Stryker.

The Sopranos Sessions, Hitting Against the Spin, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and several thrillers of varying merits

Just started Late Victorian Holocausts by the aforementioned Mike Davis.

Moby Dick

Trying to gauge the homoeroticism between Ishmael and Queequeg.

Been reading Vineland, which is my first Pynchon since I re-read Inherent Vice before the movie came out 7+ years ago. Starts out strong and then absolutely craters in the middle. Has the problem I've found with a lot of books that change perspective between a bunch of characters, where inevitably at least one of those sections is way less compelling than the others. Unfortunately that one is by far the largest chunk of the book. I love the themes he's working with (exploration of govt undermining 60s leftist movements, the boomer progression of hippie to Reaganite, etc), and it's good enough on a prose level that I'm willing to stick with it without feeling like I'm finishing it just to finish it, but would love just a little less "white people doing kung fu."

Continuing on with Hobbes a bit.

Summary:
Natural right is the liberty that each individual has to make their own decisions about how to use their own power for the preservation of their own life, and the liberty of doing whatsoever they consider apt to this end.
Natural law is a prescription which must be obeyed in order for an individual to be able to preserve their life.

Natural law is in other words the circumstances which make human community (commonwealth) possible.

Natural law is discernible through reason.

"Natural passions" are contrary to natural law.
Natural passions are what drives people in the state of nature (i.e. a state of war, a state of no visible power being present).
A visible power is the only means by which natural passions will be kept in check, and thereby that which makes commonwealth possible.

Part of natural passions is the love of liberty. Liberty means absence of external constraints or obstacles.

Commonwealth is the result of individuals renouncing their respective claims on liberty, and placing mutual restraints on themselves, restraints which are enforced by the visible power.

Even in the presence of external constraints, in the remaining sphere the individual retains full use of their reason and judgement.
In other words, the one boundless freedom which remains for each individual in the commonwealth is freedom of thought and freedom in the use of their own judgement.
This freedom furthermore is, it seems, necessary to maintain the commonwealth, since the natural law which governs the commonwealth is knowable only through the use of this freedom.

Commonwealth is established by each member conferring their own power on one individual or assembly.
This individual or assembly so constituted bears the person of each member collectively.
Each member, by this act, "acknowledges himself to be the author" of every decision made by that one bearing their person.
The one who bears this person is called sovereign.
That power as such is called Leviathan.

The international arena is an arena with no visible power, and therefore it is in a state of "war of all against all".


Reflections:
Commonwealth is formed by all individuals fusing their wills into a single will, which then holds the commonwealth together. In a sense, they create a new being, a being which then rules over them. Ostensibly this is for the preservation of the individual's life, but that same preservation of life is for the benefit of Leviathan, since Leviathan has its own being from this. The preservation of the lives of the members is the means by which Leviathan maintains its existence. Everything that is harmful to the lives of individuals is harmful to Leviathan. Thus legislation of health.

Going a little wild with this "another being" thing, but I'm interested in this demonic image of the state, the fear of the state, of this thing which threatens to swallow you up, to turn you into a mere machine part, to destroy your soul - literally, the faculty of awareness, thinking and judgement; your individual proper, the only sphere in which unconstrained freedom reigns, in this view. It is said however that this freedom is also necessary to maintain the Leviathan, since through it is discovered the law which says that Leviathan has to be maintained...
Italian fascist theory was based on the idea of the state as an organism with a will of its own.
Marx would probably tell me it's just a function of alienation/estrangement, since it is actually your power that constitutes this being, only a power which no longer appears to you as yours, but as foreign, antagonistic and constraining.

It's interesting though to think of the various "freedoms of" in this context. Under this framework, the freedom you are entitled to is the freedom to do that which is not contrary to the preservation of your life. Therefore the freedom accorded you by the power which rules you is the freedom to do that which does not challenge the rule of this power. bruh
Even in the case of freedom of thought (here taken to be unconstrained), there is certainly not an uncommon view among philosophers that this means specifically the freedom to think in accordance with reason. Or in other words, that only rational thought is free thought. Similarly then for everything else.
Maybe I'm mixing things up here, because freedom to and right to are different things. Anyway.

The liberty of the individual was sacrificed to Leviathan.
No individual fully owns their own life anymore. Leviathan allows their life to be preserved, but that life is now preserved for the sake of an other - something not really belonging to any one individual.
The individual renounced their power, and that power which was their own is now wielded by an other and might be directed against them. Furthermore this power is melded with the power of every other member - all those people who were previously antagonistic toward each another. Mutual antagonism remains in the governing power. The power is in some respect always antagonistic toward everyone.

Hobbes seems to suggest that there is one circumstance in which commonwealth is possible without a visible power, when men are "governed and directed by one judgement for a limited time", and this is when united against a common enemy, i.e. in war against another community. This will only last for as long as the war does.
War therefore allows a temporary escape from the everyday discontent of mutual deprivation and mistrust (early Italian fascism again built a lot on this).
War also allows the individual to do that which is forbidden in the commonwealth - the liberty constrained is set free (moving into Zizek here).
(Hobbes' natural law would however not allow wanton cruelty, since natural law still holds in the absence of a visible power, it just cannot be enforced. Individuals engaged in war are still bound by the law that says they must seek peace, i.e. they must seek the means for their own preservation. Does that mean then that when two communities meet in war, the result of this is the establishment of a new commonwealth? (which is to guarantee the peace between them))

The tragedy of human existence in the world is that force tends to win over truth, the strong over the good. Commonwealth is supposed to realize the good and the true (to be in accordance with natural law, which is the law instituted by God, God thereby lending his sanction to the sovereign who enforces this law), but the only way of instituting it is through an act of force. Force establishes a legal order in which justice is enacted, and force is the only way of establishing such an order, but this force itself is inherently unjust, since it is an imposition of will on another, precisely that thing which is forbidden within the commonwealth.

This appears to be the "exception" of Carl Schmitt. The law of the commonwealth says that no one shall impose his will on another, but the legal order is founded on such an imposition. The sovereign who establishes legal order, is himself exempt from this order. The source of legal authority is one who himself is not beholden to this authority, who is a law unto himself. He acts not according to law, but according to "what is necessary" to preserve the commonwealth (which in Hobbes is taken to be the law, but one which clearly allows for a degree of arbitrariness which is not allowed the subjects.)

Leo Strauss comes to the conclusion that even that freedom of thought previously considered sacrosanct, if allowed to run its course will pose a threat to the sovereign. Naturally - reason works in the sphere of law, it seeks to justify, and the sovereign is unjustifiable by the law that it itself lays down. Reason in its natural course will eventually uncover the illegality of the sovereign. Therefore the free use of reason must be counteracted by a noble lie which justifies the sovereign.