Thursday 24 September 2015

If Freedom is Nature, the State is Tillage


Here is a patch of ground - how does it get along? With a natural order each organism appears to struggle for success against others, the worm is eaten by the bird, the trees take light from the ground. Soon a more stable, infinity flexible, order becomes prevalent; one that is optimal for the situation and for the life that can best flourish there. It needs no maintenance, the system is self-correcting. If rabbits boom the fox population grows too and counters that occurrence.


And it is deeper than that. It appears that each organism is an actor in this process but it is not entirely because each organism is a conglomeration of individual cells that are all acting individually in their best interest; which is to work in an ordered but highly complicated system of cooperation to form the organism they comprise.

This patch of ground needs no central planning and nor could that be achieved so supremely as it organises itself just fine. The systems are so intensely complicated it would be imposable to manage 'top-down' but left to operate as it naturally does, ground-upwards, it always produces a harmonious balanced and optimised environment.


Now the alternative is to attempt to work against that natural order and impose some apparently unified mono-culture on the patch - a lawn. It is going to take a lot of work, it is going to require force and resources. It is going to be unsustainable without constant attention and even then it is only going to look like a lawn when its is still just endlessly a natural environment struggling to return to its proper balance.

For what. Why does it need to be a lawn? Human society is not the sum of blades of grass to be unified and simplified, forced and controlled. That is not necessary if the idea is to see life flourish on this patch. Humans are as diverse as they individually wish to be and, acting as individuals, will make the vast plethora of decisions they need to work in their own best interests which then, as parts of a whole, adapt and develop to allow a balance order to flourish.

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