When thought and ego, let alone concept-based authority and self-justification take precedent over the priority of forging new agreements that are ethical for everyone involved, factions are going to vie for resources and exploit each other with the authority’s as a capitulation. People are born without signing a contract of responsibility for their parents’ agreements. When they grow up new agreements are made or there is a perpetual breakdown in the family. The same perpetual breakdown dominates American political dialogue, with old stereotypes being used against each other in profitable media, to the advantage of the factions. Yet remarkably, people in still find ways to work together.
Can you imagine what might be possible if people were freer to form new mutual agreements and not be bound by old disempowering ones? A continuously empowering democracy is possible without much of the control infrastructure that’s been built as an authority to validate it. My proposal is to decentralize responsibility, only create laws that make all forms of slavery untenable, abandon aspects of democracy and compromise that diminish peoples’ choices and replace them with standards people agree on actively.
And trust people to have authority over themselves.
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This article would not have happened without the sense of inquiry my father fostered for my brother and me. Intense discourse with my good friend Tome Oshaiya informed nearly every element in the piece, his contributions and questions regarding family in particular being of immense help and insight. I also want to thank my mother Kathryn Grace Smith, who is and will always be the best example of the least tyrannical person I have every known.
