this is a brief thread presenting an alternative third view point to this dichotomy identified in the recent @slatestarcodex article http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/ …pic.twitter.com/coM7FnYNf1
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The state is a parasite when it serves to impoverish, delude, sicken, and endanger its people.
No state is purely a mutualist or purely a parasite. Both modalities are operating at all times, but not always in balance. States can be relatively more mutualist or relatively more parasitic, and which side of the balance you're on often depends on your societal status.
Politics is the discipline that seeks to shift the modality of the state, and shift for whom the state is a mutualist and for whom it is parasite, in which proportions, and under which circumstances.
Politics is NOT healing an injured state or repairing a damaged state. Politics is gaslighting an egregore to behave more closely aligned to your factional interests.
Politics is NOT fighting a psychic war for control of the state egregore. As tempting as this analysis may seem in 2018 its just wrong on a fundamental level. Politics isn't psychic war, and if you treat it as such (most Americans do this year) you become deranged.
Politics is mass scale shadow work. Politics is working your way through an endless bad trip. Politics is learning how to paint. Politics is getting the fingering wrong on your saxophone valves. Politics is trying to figure out who is worth talking to at the party.
When we do our shadow work the right way, we learn what is dark and wicked within us, and how to integrate the darkness and use it for good. This is politics when it works. Mutualist states are purifying their own bodies.
When we do it the wrong way we succumb to base instincts and act out our predatory urges. This is politics when it doesn't work. Parasitic states are preying upon their own bodies.
America in 2018 has a near fatal parasite load. We're really close to collapse here.pic.twitter.com/Wgl70hX2bm
We may be able to recover but NOT if our metaphors are wrong. The "Ship of State" metaphor is delusive. Our entire culture is captivated by this broken metaphor which leads to the dichotomy of "repair the broken ship" vs. "win the battle against the mutineers".
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