[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> It's the law!-Or is it the money?

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

"It is the best thing going thus far" was never good enough reason 
for me to be idealistic and hopeful about any particular "thing."
Particularly because this is how many people defended self-
management in Yugoslav socialist system. And I always scorned 
Leibnitz and others belonging to the 'positivist' phylosophical 
concept. I guess, when somebody becomes a 'dissident' before 
reaching US legal drinking age, then he is cursed to be a heretic 
for the rest of his life, questioning validity of every belief and 
practice.

The general purpose of the rule of law is to protect, I agree. But to 
protect whom or what, that's the question I beg to ask. How would 
the state of lawlessness look like? Where nothing and nobody 
would be protected and everybody could do whatever he wanted, 
did you ever thing how would that look like? When I think about 
that, I always start with myself: what would I do? Given that there 
is no laws and no police, the rule of power should prevail, the 
common sense of our education and upbringing would suggest. I 
could, given that I am young and athletic, go around and beat up 
weaker individuals and take what they claim to be their property. I 
could kill them if I chose so. Also, I could be beaten up and killed 
by some gang paid by somebody who has more material resources 
at his/hers disposal. Therefore, it would be benefitial for me to 
accept the beneficial side of the compromise that the rule of law 
offers and demands from its adherents. 

However, I don't think in those terms. I do not have an ambition to 
beat other people, to take their possessions or to kill them. I just 
want to live, have fun and let others live and have fun. I put my 
relations with the nature, the world and the other people in more 
cooperative and less competitive terms. And I don't need a law for 
that. I can manage my relations with others without the written law. 
I am not afraid of others, nor do I threaten anybody. And I could 
defend myself to a certain point, after which I am ready to accept 
the risk of losing my life for the price of greater liberty. That's 
precisely what endeared the American system (as advertised by 
Hollywood, of course) to me, despite my grandmother's nagging 
that the U.S. is 'unsafe' to live in.

I am actually quite disappointed with the U.S. and the proliferation 
of restrictions. What is the purpose of legislation that majority of 
population disobey (like the drinking age and the speed limit, for 
example)? Freedom entails risks. Risks require courage. That's 
what 'land of the free, home of the brave' slogan suggests. 
Excessive legislation curtails freedom, in order to diminish risks. 
The intrinsic risk-aversive quality of the 'rule of law' not only lowers 
the need for individual courage, but also perceives individual 
courage with suspicion and annoyance. Therefore, 'rule of law' as 
practiced today may be inherently dangerous to the lambasted 
ideals of Democracy in America. There is that great song of the old-
school British punk band The Clash with lyrics that go like: "I am 
so bored with the U S A ..."

ivo


Ivo Skoric
1773 Lexington Ave
New York NY 10029
212.369.9197
ivo@balkansnet.org
http://balkansnet.org


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold