It’s existential in both cases. I think that’s where the purpose comes from. In war, you are told: “Do this, or we will be destroyed.” Rounding Cape Horn, you are told: “Do this, or you will die.” The state in one case and nature in the other— ultimately both are nature.
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Replying to @tomxhart
Soldiers are frequently hostile to their commanders, though, and those who have been in combat report that their sense of mission is tied to their sense of comradeship. I'm not sure this can be subsumed under a workable conception of "authority".
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Replying to @IDJennings
1. They are hostile to remote “desk jockeys” & bureaucrats (soldiers beyond a certain rank are the same as any stupid bureaucrat, because they must play politics to rise). They may also be hostile to an incompetent local commander who is a “paper tiger”, not a natural leader.
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Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings
2. They are, as you observe, fiercely loyal to and motivated by their comrades, rather than abstract ideology. This is because the small team is the most natural state for a man in evolutionary terms. A natural leader will emerge in any such group.
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Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings
3. This leader may not be the “politically approved” leader, since the paper qualifications to be an officer or commander often do not accord with reality in war. See, cases where the officer is killed and a more natural and effective leader rises from the ranks.
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Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings
4. Why does this create meaning and purpose? It is the same as an expedition: a small group of comrades fighting to exist. Heidegger and Sartre agree meaning springs from confronting death. This is terrifying for an atomised individual, but in a small group it is canalised.
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Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings
5. The authority they submit to is nature: the need to survive & to do what is necessary. In the contemporary technocratic/technological world, this authority is veiled from us. The world of adventure, sailing, and war is a meaningful world for men. Dr. Johnson knew!pic.twitter.com/GEBEmmYltS
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Replying to @tomxhart
We disagree merely over what seems to me your overstretching of the word "authority". Being compelled by reality to do something or other seems to me something importantly different to submitting to human authority. But perhaps just as satisfying.
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Replying to @IDJennings
Humans and nature are one. There are eternal laws of survival—deviation from these laws, the laws of reality, means death. Legitimate human authority is that authority which is closest to the eternal laws of survival and so reality.
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Replying to @tomxhart
I understood the initial impetus for this thread to come from the worry that people are attracted to authority per se, whether legitimate or not. That's a valid worry, but not one connected to the desire to do what nature requires, surely?
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I think a trick of our current regime is to characterise all “authority” as suspicious while acting in an authoritarian manner itself. In actuality, our regime is only against legitimate authority—authority bounded by reality and nature.
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