THE MUFFLED BLEATING OF THE DOOMED
1. THE MUFFLED BLEATING OF THE DOOMED:
Somewhere I'd found a quotation that stuck in my mind - for a long time - like one of those recurring things which for a while you forget until then somehow something else causes it to pop back into your consciousness and this was but a simple quote really meaningful but indistinct enough as to be but a broad warning about 'something' : 'States are insitutions that exert a monopoly over the legitimate means of violence in a given territory' and as I thought about that every time it did seem to conjure up something for me - some 'image' if you will of the lot of the life we are leading (societally) as right off the bat it makes quite apparent the whole enticing idea that ONLY enforcement personnel carry guns - whether it be plain cops or 'agents' of any of the varied enforcement groups - border drug alcohol fraud banking immigration on and on - it is THAT personnel which is given the means of legal armament so as to 'enforce' some one or another ruling dictate of those in power and that then underscores right away a certain validity of the statement OBVIOUS as it is - and then that very statement I recalled is followed up immediately by another one even more startling in its boldness : 'effective imperial and political power also requires controlling the subject people's sense of time' ! and if Max Weber had not seen fit to utter these comments then I do suppose someone else would have but I find both of them (still) extraordinary and if they do not fit today's format of what we're going through then I don't know what does.
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posted by gary j. introne @ 10:25 PM
2 Comments:
that quote seems strangely familiar to me... I tried to google it, but couldn't get anything. I think I read it in my second year during my Poli Sci 210 class - history of political thought. I didn't really like the class, and am not a huge fan of the history of political thought ie: Aristotle, Hobbes, Rouseau, etc. Upon reading that quote, I immediately thought of Hobbes. I don't know, but I did. I'm a quasi-Hobbesian myself. I don't have much faith in "mankind" "humankind" or whatever the hell you want to call it.
Haha, on a totally different note that made me think of a comment my friend Jason made the other night. Should "man-holes" be called "person-holes" from now on?
I'm checking that one out. I can't say if it is or is not something you may have heard - it obviously filtered up to me, as quoted, from something that I retained. Since I'm unable, other than in this format, to repsond to you - should I find something on this I will let you know.
On the other item, yeah, person-holes would work, but now you'll probably havr trouble over the very word 'holes'itself. Such people who go after these sorts of things are NEVER satisfied.
Thanks. Gary
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