Melian Myopics

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Until a point of state supremacy is reached," Max explained, a hint of caution in his voice, "in which the state's primacy of resources is not just assumed, but put in legitimate practice, then two strategies will be put into place. Initially, attempts at deals would be made. The private company can become aligned with the government and allowed to continue business unimpeded in return for protection via military forces from the numerous marauders and barbarians undoubtedly roaming the countryside in the wake of no federal intervention and a total breakdown of governmental structure—outside, of course, of the state governments scrambling to recapture power."

"If they refuse this offer, then they will likely be met with taxes. Taxes, and if they refuse to pay them, force, followed by re-appropriation of resources under the banner of the state. If they have something worth taking, then it will be taken."

Max shrugged his shoulders, cognizant of the controversy within his statement. It was brutal, but it was necessary, given the constraints of the situation. Reduced to such blunt language, it was unfamiliar, but it was not dissimilar to the method behind the way the federal government currently ran their operations.

"And ultimately, the incident will be presented as a matter of national security to the public, if informing them was at all necessary."

[Frozen Smoke]

Parker nodded and thought for a while.

It wasn't so much the content that caught his attention, but the through-point between all the content, which was by Parker's estimation that Max focused in quite intently on power as a linear resource. Rather than thinking about what would allow this theoretical state to lead in the future, he focused in on using existent power to retain control of any emerging, disruptive power in order to assumedly incorporate it into the larger societal whole.

It wasn't an entirely alien concept, in fact nothing Max was saying was untrue about the current state of affairs, the only difference was the lower predicted barrier between violence as a result of the failure of the federal government as a mediatory system. It was conservative, but little c conservative.

The silence between them grew for a few moments, the realisation slowly dawning on Parker that Max was expecting acknowledgement. And most likely a response.

"Sorry, yeah, that makes sense." He wasn't entirely sure if there was any meaningful feedback he could give. He'd been far more focused on reading between the lines of what Max was saying, than actually paying attention to his words, and it wasn't like he could ask him to repeat it. His best option was to put something forwards himself and try and move on.

"I suspect, on some level, we do agree at our core here." he posited, using it as a verbal buffer as he tried to formulate a point carefully. He didn't want it to come off as weird as it probably could. “But fundamentally I don’t really think ideology has a place in politics. Politics is the art of pragmatism, of doing what is possible, not doing what is right. And I mean right in the most literal sense there, not just the moralistic one, I mean right as in the way things are supposed to be, if that makes sense.”

He paused for a moment, but didn't see outright confusion on Max's face.

"Your plan relies on the assumption that things would fall into a natural order, and I dispute that there can be any such thing in society, which is by nature constructed by people."

Weak conclusion, but it was better than stuttering.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Politics," Max said, "good politics, that is, is guided by ideals. It is not the execution of the American Dream that guides so many to our shores, but the promise of it. Politics is a means of compromise between what is possible and what is ideal. Striving for the pragmatic above what is right is needed in rare circumstances, but in times of peace, a good and well-to-do state has strong philosophical backing behind its laws."

And here, he would open up a potential hole, if he had not done so already.

"Take Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. That would be a most pragmatic political stance, if meant sincerely, but it is our ideals of what morals should be, of the way that things are supposed to be, that has kept nearly every human society in history from actually considering something like it, at one point or another. Recall the first Sumerian city-states, and the Ancient Egyptian civilization. Leaders had the divine right to rule—their actions, their politics, were only given legitimacy by ideals, however primitive they were."

"And rest-assured, my state, built from the ground up, would have an idealistic through-line. Something that its citizens could hold onto and look up to, a set of principles from which the rest of politics would be derived. 'Things' would not 'fall' into a natural order; they would willingly place themselves there."

He smirked.

"And if you want to be technical, biologists have observed social relationships and semi-complex structures of interaction in many animal species. I think societies are a very natural occurrence indeed."

[Frozen Smoke]

"Don't strawman me, Max. I never implied that animals weren't capable of forming societies."

He had been looking a little harder at Max now, and his eyes had caught onto the movement of the small metal cross that hung from a necklace that he wore. It had been somewhat hidden by his shirt, the simple design not catching the eye in the way most jewellery did, but it wasn't hard to figure out what it meant. And it made an excellent point to draw on.

"I simply said that I didn't believe there was a natural order to it. For example, you believe in God, and regardless of whether or not your faith is correct, it shows that humans are able to make decisions about how to best shape their society outside of the natural order. After all, people - at least in the modern day - choose to be religious."

He paused for a moment. His tone had been a little too sharp there. He tried to fix it, to sound less sure of himself and like he was giving a lecture, and more like he was trying to present his case in a friendly manner.

"I don't really consider something like 'Divine Right' to be an ideology - It's a form of control, isn't it? I doubt that the person who first came up with the concept was..." he tried to think of the word. The opposite of disingenuous. "doing it with sincerity."

That was a bit better. His voice was softer, he'd relaxed his shoulders a little, he even managed to bring a smile back to what had been a decidedly neutral expression.

"The problem I really draw is that ideology is something that naturally brokers no compromise, but equally is something people rarely agree on. Even if your own particular set of cultural and social beliefs are the undisputed best ones, and everything makes sense, you cannot guarantee that people will understand them. Not everyone knows the same things you know, and as a result will draw different conclusions on what is right and wrong, at least as I see it. When two differing models of right and wrong come into conflict, and ideology guides their actions over pragmatism - Well."

He smile deepened, growing wry as it spread it's way across his face.

"I needn't go on."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max's smirk grew wider and wider. Now, Parker was truly invigorated, his personal stake and investment in the conversation clearly shown by the expression of his facial features and, more importantly, the gradual shift in his body language. This was something that could be used against him, if he so desired. Emotional involvement preceded the loss of logical faculties, in Max's experience. In matters both impersonal and inter-personal, momentary glimpses of feelings could often override common sense.

He would concede the straw-manning point. It had been done on purpose, anyway, though not for the purpose of humiliation but humor. But this meant that he could hit Parker for the ad hominem in return.

"My own personal faith has little to do with this," Max said.

"People outside of my state do not need to understand my ideology, in this hypothetical post-apocalypse you seem all too keen to stray from. A common ideology will bring together a greater bond for the formation of the society, and more reason to compete with others. Purely pragmatic action is cold, and people have difficulty latching on to leaders who speak only in the truths of their immediate reality. Ideology gives people something to aspire to. In this imagined world, so cruel and unjust, people will turn to ideas in order to find reason to continue living. That's just a survival mechanism.

"You imply too that compromise is desirable. Though mutual compacts with other states have their uses, ideological differences prove crucial in justifying, say, wars, to some people. The strong opposition some groups have in this country towards each other seems like the honest rumblings of a civil war, at times—put those forces on opposing sides militarily and you not only have causes people are fine with fighting for—I'm referencing more generally the kind of person who serves in the military for pragmatic reasons, such as having their college education largely paid for and employment guaranteed, for a time—but one they are willing to put themselves in harm's way to defend for its own sake. The rest is tactics. Strategy now cannot address the purely contextual issues that would present themselves in the course of future events.

"For all the criticisms you put forth, you have yet to propose solutions. Socrates believed the purpose of arguments to be constructive—so let's hear some ideas."

[Frozen Smoke]

Parker considered the question being posed for a moment. Max had focused his argument on the power of ideals, and clearly felt as though pragmatism was not a goal unto itself, despite couching his beliefs of how the world should be ordered in pragmatism itself. An odd contradiction, that, but one that coloured what Max wanted to hear. He wanted to try and figure out where exactly he lay on the political compass, in order to better tailor his argument, and he wasn't overly predisposed to giving him that. Not that he could pinpoint exactly where that was, anyway.

So, to the root of the question, solutions. If he was put in charge of some civilisation, an alliance, what would be his primary concern?

"I guess... I just don't think there's one solution that works in all circumstances. The way a group functions isn't something that can just be ordained, I mean - Look at China for that, right? How many VPNs tunnel under the Great Firewall? Or the Prohibition, or bribery in India - The state can't meaningfully enforce it's will on the people it holds sovereignty over, people will work within the system in the way that works best for them."

He shrugged as he collected his point into something approaching a conclusion.

"My personal focus on governance would be on securing my base of power and legitimacy in whatever political system the people of Tennessee were willing to accept."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"All of those examples are fairly recent," Max observed, "which reminds me that though the hypothetical precludes that society has received some kind of setback structurally, we have yet to observe whether or not it has undergone a technological regression as well."

He sighed, and looked briefly at his fingernails.

"That veers too closely to speculative fiction for my tastes."

Max could feel the well of conversation drying up, a feeling that increased exponentially when he heard Parker's sorry excuse for a counter suggestion. The response was both a blessing, argumentatively speaking, and a curse, subjectively speaking. It informed Max very well about Parker's actual stance on the issue, and disappointed Max greatly. He did not legitimately believe that the general public knew what was best for them in today's political climate. This would likely go doubly so if they were to, say, have to form society all over again.

However, Max could feel his interest in the discussion waning slightly. He decided to let Parker off easily on this one.

"That's wishy-washy," Max said, "I believe that anyone attempting to be successful in a post-apocalyptic scenario has to offer legitimate benefits to joining a state instead of becoming self-sufficient. Starting out, you won't have any people of Tennessee to call on, likely."

[Frozen Smoke]

"Neither would you."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"I would not have the people of Tennessee, because there would be no more Tennessee," Max said, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back in his seat.

"But I very well might have, say, the Catholics, if I choose to appeal to their demographic. Or I might choose to gather the conservatives in the bounds of this former state under my flag. By tapping into already extant ideologies, I have an audience of those who have something in common with me that is not so easily shaken by the apocalypse. People will abandon the idea of Tennessee fairly quickly, but they will not abandon their God quite so fast. Nor will they pass up the opportunity to shape a nation the way they wished to."

He turned inwards towards Parker, moving closer and lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Actually," he corrected, "the more broad and unchangeable the unifying characteristic, the easier the formulation of a society around said characteristic. And, well, let's just say that were I to start a state from the ruins, I might choose to play on people's fears of an other."

[Frozen Smoke]

That was, at least, a coherent argument. It made sense, bond people who shared a characteristic and build up tribalism in order to ensure one's community coherency, and establish an outside threat to justify one's control of that community. It was pretty basic ethno/cultural-nationalist operating procedure, but he couldn't disagree that it had worked, for most of human history at least. It was how the Romans had conquered the Mediterranean, but equally it was how the Balkans had torn themselves apart without the steadying hand of the Soviet Union, and how Belarus had stagnated as the last dictatorship in Europe.

What was slightly more concerning was that Max was suggesting that to him as if they were both in on it, in some capacity. It felt like the precursor to an offer to join him in his beliefs, and he felt his expression sour a little as that realisation hit him, before he steadied it a little. He wasn't entirely sure to react to that. It wasn't like he could argue it wouldn't work. Max clearly didn't care about the efficacy of the system.

The pause was short though, this time. He didn't want to seem uninterested. After all, Max was feeding him information about himself, based on the fact that Max thought he was interested in what he was saying.

"Then what?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max leaned back and away, putting distance between himself and Parker. He suppressed a sneer. It was a long-shot, but he had placed his hopes on Parker ascertaining his meaning from that sole farthing of information. It was improbable, but he had hoped not impossible. Still, Parker's response disappointed him greatly.

"I don't know," he said, "you tell me."

And now, he was bored. Ennui settled in, and any potential entertainment value in the argument was not in getting Parker to uncover Max's (insincere) meaning, but, since he could not anticipate Parker being able to make the correct logical leaps, it was now in hedging wagers on his ability to unmask Max as a momentary contrarian, to realize that the position he was taking was not a personal one. Truth be told, the act itself was growing tiresome. Maybe the time for recreational sparring was over.

"I have a book of my own to get to, so I'll pester you no longer," he said, "though our discussion certainly was entertaining."

Was it?

He pulled a pair of earphones from his bag. Though Max was not one for music, he had recently discovered a compilation of music for solo piano online that made for decent accompaniment for reading. Besides, it would drown out the cacophony of the bus-ride, which he now recognized was aiding in his dialectical fatigue.

"Anything you'd like to add?" he asked as an afterthought, "Final remarks?"