A man and elf looked across a field got to talking. Then they disagreed about something they saw. Why weren’t they seeing eye to eye? Probably, they weren’t actually looking at the same thing, that or they literally saw it differently.
Definition-talk seems much the same way. Some defs. point across the field at “that thing over there” and probably some do that more precisely than others. Anyway, I was just reading that Libertarian Anarchy book, and that’s pretty much what I saw Dr. Gerard Casey doing with this gem: “Anarchy is the position in which the members of a society naturally find themselves when they are not subject to the power of a state.” With “anarchy” he means statelessness, with anarchism: a-statism.
After positively saying what he means, Casey gets more precise, winnowing away what he doesn’t. He reminds us of how liberals and conservatives often use the state as a tool, and he explicitly disassociates his subject from that. (It also seems to me that those conservative and liberal types depart from their true dispositions when using statist means, but that’s beside the point.) Then, he also winnows away the idea that statelessness approves of an activity (morally) just because it disapproves of its being illegal. A person may well believe the state is in the way and making matters worse.
Next Casey does something very different. He uses examples of how libertar*ians* typically view things to elaborate on libertarian*ism*, itself. My first thought was that people can be inconsistent, and libertarians are kinda infamous for leveling the charge at each other. So, libertarian principles speak to positions, but the positions don’t necessarily speak back. That said, I have to admit that such examples can be suggestive of the guiding principles in play, and it helps in introducing statelessness to the new and averse. Ultimately, it all seems to work.
Finally, and wrapping this little review of the book's beginning, I like how Casey points out that anarchy gets weighed in two ways, principles and pragmatics, and that he’s focusing on principle. Fine by me. I'm looking forward to it. (I'm also interested in the relation of those two considerations, and I touch upon it briefly in “I Will Do Mine!” in the resources.)
Well, it is time for my Friday salute on the twitter, and then who knows. Wherever thee fareth, terrans, fareth thee well.
Pen