Pirates and terrorism

theoria, a buddy from my undergrad alma mater, has started an eponymous blog, after switching to Typepad from his LiveJournal, which I would like to welcome to the internets.  (No relation to the popular Daily Kos participant by the same name.)  theoria specializes in political philosophy.  Many of my readers may find some of the style of philosophy rather off-putting, and I myself often find it either impenetrable or implying what are to me rather absurd results.  But after having been reading his writing for a while, some of it makes sense, and some of it is fascinating.

His first few steps into non-LJ blogging are definitely on the fascinating side, where he contemplates parallels between pirates and terrorists and their moral and political status.  Some of it includes details that quite surprise me, even though I suspect they shouldn't:

theoria: Pirate Democracy: First, pirates are the lowest of the low; the most disenfranchised; they chose a career path that leads to certain death -- i.e., piracy as capital offense -- in order to enter into war against "all mankind" or "all the world". Burgess, however, is happy to leave the point stated simply: it isn't the world understand in a particular way or "mankind" or "civilization" understood in a particular way; rather, it is the entire world and everyone living in it. Pirates aren't, as Burgess tells us, opposed to a particular constituted juridical order -- one, for instance, that would kill them for taking their disenfranchisement to its logical conclusion -- but are rather opposed to order as such. This is interesting given his second paragraph: he cites Sam Bellamy who claims, by virtue of capturing and commanding a ship, to be on the same level as anyone else possessing means of violence. Bellamy describes himself in two ways: as a "free prince" and as having "authority". Clearly, Bellamy isn't opposed to order at all: he understands order for what it is and wants a part of it. Finally, we come to the most troubling aspect of piracy for Burgess: "pirate democracy". Not only do some bands of pirates organize themselves around constitutions and democratic principles, they also create forms of social welfare approximately two hundred and some years before comparable schemes are governmentalized in the European states.

If you read the rest of the post, theoria is definitely not afraid to push the envelope and open himself to claims of sympathy with the Bad Guys, even when the claims are pretty illogical themselves (something that, between him and I, we wasted a heck of a lot of time fighting on another forum).

Anyway, welcome theoria.

Comments

[theoria]

First, I should disclaim that I don't have the authority (or certification) to call myself a "political philosopher". Political, yes; philosopher, no. As it is practiced in most of the English speaking world, philosophy is pretty much a dead discipline concerned primarily with the meaning of the word "the" and what book from two hundred years ago Danny Dennett can rip off his. (His last, Freedom Evolves, has a strange resemblance to the Phenomology of Spirit -- strange!) As such, I get to call myself a "sociologist" even though the more than vast majority of sociology is a piece of shit. (Empiricist and positivist... sorry: scientific.) More specifically, because I do what is "actually" political philosophy (Anglo-Americans have forgotten what that means), I have to call myself a "social theorist" or "political theorist". The general distinction being between one who has degrees in sociology or political science. The latter being a generally more conservative discipline that the latter (as undisciplined as either are), "social theorist" it is.

Second, I hope I make sense!

Third, not being "American", it is impossible for me to be "anti-American" under the classic definition of the term (i.e., McCarthy's). The term is rather disturbing in the same way that Chavez is called "anti-American" (to use a recent example) because his policies are generally pro-nationalist and quasi-populist. It appears that the Monroe Doctrine has been extended over the entirety of the globe! (I have been called, oddly enough, a "hypernationalist". Not sure what that means; I have no particular love or affinity for Canada beyond the fact that, ultimately, the Minister of Finance pays my salary! Doing everything I can, of course, to stop that brain drain. Speaking of which, traitor!)

[Mandos]

Go tell that to the University of Toronto. Bleah.

And hey, don't knock "the". The meaning of the word "the" is a pretty complicated issue!

IIRC didn't the Monroe Doctrine always apply to Venezuela?

[theoria]

The Monroe Doctrine determined "the Americas" to be the imperial domain of the United States vis a vis the European powers. First, this is just crazy -- but quite important nonetheless. On the imperial ambitious of the American "founding fathers" and their Constitution, Hardt and Negri (in Empire) are quite right. But, in a sense, they say nothing more than what Tocqueville said in that Bible of all things American, Democracy in America. (Especially the chapters on (1) conquest of the West and (2) American democracy produces private citizens.) But what I meant (and wasn't too clear about) is that the Monroe Doctrine has been globalized: even the French when pursuing what they see as their own national interest (i.e., non-participation in the invasion of Iraq), they are deemed to be "Anti-American". (Note: I'm not defending nation-states as a desirable form of political organization; they clearly aren't.) Regardless of who you are and where you are, the global interest is the American interest. There is no distinction. The distinction only holds in non- or quasi-globalized places, like China.

Afterall, France is the world's largest exporter of "Anti-Americanism"; if you believe the Washington Post.

The University of Toronto was doing fine until they lost Ian Hacking to le College de France. (First foreigner to be appointed; to Bourdieu's former chair, IIRC.) Well, I'll change what I have said: Toronto could be tolerated if you were working with Hacking. Now you can't.

[Heronimus Tosticles]

It is easy to undervalue a subject that you don't understand - and I'm afraid this seems to be the case here.