Yeah, the legal system really didn't sound like it was for justice when I learned about it in school. I asked questions but the teacher reacted as if I was the crazy one for seeing the logical holes. Like medicine, law somehow gets a pass because of their own bullshit lingo called legalese which like medical speak, disconnects one from the reality in front of their faces.
One annoying thing that I don't see lawyers challenging is how did the Jacobson case, which allowed for a fine, a civil penalty for not getting the immunizations turn into the ability to exclude people from work or school, which is a criminal punishment??
Instead the lawyers fight whether Jacobson applied to covid shots, ignoring that even if the shots were effective, Jacobson was only a freaking fine!
I enjoyed this, Professors d'Errico and James. I will work on some catch-up reading up in September when I can get my head above water. I love how you are nipping away at fundamental jurisprudential issues, even metaphysical philosophy, as you both agreed. (I use to do enforcement of Federal and delegated state law as it intersected with Indian/indigenous peoples' law.) In another context, I had already planned a reading list of Aristotle and St. Thomas on Law.
Will do, God willing. I am also trying to do an indepth study of consciousness, sleep-wakefulness, dreaming and psychoses (kind of my neurobiologist and amateur mind-brain philosopher thing), and the cultural consciousnesses of different ethnicities. Clearly, this should end in discussions about intersecting systems of law and "ways of life," critical aspects of every peoples' culture, that is, the combined and negotiated, sometimes colliding, sensory-motor extensions of their internal lives. How those intersections of culture and law can be made to better approximate Justice is a question in which you have long-advanced experience and from which we are sure to benefit.
Okay, but I am not sure I understand, professor. Can you explain? At any rate, my goal is to be accommodating and begin with conversation where we are all conversant. Trust me, between you two, I am the student here.
Sorry, I suppose my response was not the best. Just meant that integrating a theory of consciousness, a theory of cultural consciousness, a theory of law, then to get that down to neurological aspects of ways of life, etc… is ambitious to say the least. It’s really cool you’re thinking along those lines. Most of my intellectual ambitions are a bit more limited at this point. I would be humbled if I were able to contribute anything conversationally to that project. The neuro science aspects are well beyond what I’ve studied though. It will be interesting hear more of your ideas though.
WDJ asks is the law just? The answer is: Yes! The law is just because justice is, if I recall Peter's comment correctly, equal access to the law. This is too self-referential, which I take as Peter's point. Had Marshall moved differently, the justice of our law might have conformed more closely to a morality that recognizes our relationship with each within a wider context.
Native cultures have been for a very long time way more advanced than we know! from 'Debt: The First 5,000 Years' by David Graeber. "The supposedly virtuous act of giving is often instead an act meant to create an obligation, an act whereby the giver measures himself against the receiver and requires a repayment, even if that repayment is gratitude:
"[Here] are the words of an actual hunter-gatherer -- an Inuit from Greenland made famous in the Danish writer Peter Freuchen's Book of the Eskimo. Freuchen tells how one day, after coming home hungry from an unsuccessful walrus-hunting expedition, he found one of the successful hunters dropping off several hundred pounds of meat [for him]. He thanked him profusely. The man objected indignantly:
" 'Up in our country we are human!' said the hunter. 'And since we are human we help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs.'
"The last line is something of an anthropological classic, and similar statements about the refusal to calculate credits and debits can be found through the anthropological literature on egalitarian hunting societies. Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began 'comparing power with power, measuring, calculating' and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt."
We have a ways to go to get back to this kind of knowledge!
“Trading is fairy tales. Free people never traded within their communities and also rarely with strangers. They were only bartering with those who they couldn't trust. Free people were always living in share and gift societies and find it extremely disrespectful if their gifts are returned in some other way. The process of trading is against human social nature and that's where people always return to as soon as the market religion collapses. This can be seen after every big war. The Soviet Union and Germany are great examples for that. People return to trust each other. They stop trading and forget about private property. Things are there and used as people need them, and if there is not enough it is getting reproduced. That's exactly how natural tribes still organize t heir society, and that's how I grew up on a kolkhoze. There was no psychotic child thinking: "mine mine mine". Things were just there, used and brought back, and if not, we knew where they were. We didn't use money within our community and did everything just like that, "I see, I can, I do, who if not me?", real natural self-esteem based on the feedback from our environment, from the product of what we did and the satisfaction and happiness of others. Trading is antisocial, anti-human, anti-trust, anti self-esteem. Trading is resulting from the psychotic child thinking; trading is disgusting, destructive, and murderous.
There are SI units that represent actual value, money doesn't represent anything but money, but for example calories represents the nutrients of various foods, and there is no need to determine any abstract value, what is required are needs assessments and production and distribution based on needs and availability of resources."
Yes, it is very provocative. I got a degree in philosophy and psychology. But interestingly none of the study in either of these fields incorporated world views apart from so called 'modern' social systems. Yet the analysis by 'natural people' (native cultures as described in the story from the likes of Graeber) and by Willi Wilson above is that the 'modern' social orders have lost their humanity and are literally psychotic.
Willi Wilson offered the above commentary to a conversation wherein I had offered the perspective of correcting our ideas about money from the bibocurrency.com writings. And his response indicates that even if we correct 'money's misrepresentation' we likely do not recover our genuine human nature, which is to share and contribute and not even bother with record keeping.
It is interesting to note that in places where TimeBanks and Mutual Aid Networks get going the eventuality is that the doing keeps going while the record keeping fades away. Graeber and others document these kinds of 'spiritual' practices in ancient cultures. It is the expectation of myself and those associated with the MSTA (bibocurrency) that the 'learning' of genuine human capacity first becomes known by those using TimeBanks and such tools, which then allows for the letting go of even the record keeping.
I don't know how 'the law' may be used in our present systems. But there is this thought that if we prove that 'modern legal systems are predicated on basic illiteracy that even the law itself must act to correct this. I would be very much interested in the professor's take on this:
Interesting. Makes me think of an early scene in William Morris’ News From Nowhere when the time traveler to the future England receives a ride from a boatman. He wants to pay him or at least thank him and the boatman is confused: taking people places in the boat is just what he does as everyone else just does what is needed so that overall all their needs get met. They don’t need to exchange things to get that done.
Yeah, the legal system really didn't sound like it was for justice when I learned about it in school. I asked questions but the teacher reacted as if I was the crazy one for seeing the logical holes. Like medicine, law somehow gets a pass because of their own bullshit lingo called legalese which like medical speak, disconnects one from the reality in front of their faces.
One annoying thing that I don't see lawyers challenging is how did the Jacobson case, which allowed for a fine, a civil penalty for not getting the immunizations turn into the ability to exclude people from work or school, which is a criminal punishment??
Instead the lawyers fight whether Jacobson applied to covid shots, ignoring that even if the shots were effective, Jacobson was only a freaking fine!
The truth about "all men are created equal".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63AZ4wcGu4A
Succinct critique of the professions.
The constitutional critique by Mark Charles is hampered by his reliance on a “we” that his critique shows does not exist.
I enjoyed this, Professors d'Errico and James. I will work on some catch-up reading up in September when I can get my head above water. I love how you are nipping away at fundamental jurisprudential issues, even metaphysical philosophy, as you both agreed. (I use to do enforcement of Federal and delegated state law as it intersected with Indian/indigenous peoples' law.) In another context, I had already planned a reading list of Aristotle and St. Thomas on Law.
Thank you David. Value the comment. Can’t go too wrong with Aristotle, Aquinas, and d’Errico.
I look forward to hearing more from you David!
Will do, God willing. I am also trying to do an indepth study of consciousness, sleep-wakefulness, dreaming and psychoses (kind of my neurobiologist and amateur mind-brain philosopher thing), and the cultural consciousnesses of different ethnicities. Clearly, this should end in discussions about intersecting systems of law and "ways of life," critical aspects of every peoples' culture, that is, the combined and negotiated, sometimes colliding, sensory-motor extensions of their internal lives. How those intersections of culture and law can be made to better approximate Justice is a question in which you have long-advanced experience and from which we are sure to benefit.
I think I’ll mostly just stick with Aristotle- that sounds hard😅
Okay, but I am not sure I understand, professor. Can you explain? At any rate, my goal is to be accommodating and begin with conversation where we are all conversant. Trust me, between you two, I am the student here.
Sorry, I suppose my response was not the best. Just meant that integrating a theory of consciousness, a theory of cultural consciousness, a theory of law, then to get that down to neurological aspects of ways of life, etc… is ambitious to say the least. It’s really cool you’re thinking along those lines. Most of my intellectual ambitions are a bit more limited at this point. I would be humbled if I were able to contribute anything conversationally to that project. The neuro science aspects are well beyond what I’ve studied though. It will be interesting hear more of your ideas though.
I agree... David's project is daunting... but intensely fascinating !
Excellent and enlightening!
Thanks Tobin.
WDJ asks is the law just? The answer is: Yes! The law is just because justice is, if I recall Peter's comment correctly, equal access to the law. This is too self-referential, which I take as Peter's point. Had Marshall moved differently, the justice of our law might have conformed more closely to a morality that recognizes our relationship with each within a wider context.
Native cultures have been for a very long time way more advanced than we know! from 'Debt: The First 5,000 Years' by David Graeber. "The supposedly virtuous act of giving is often instead an act meant to create an obligation, an act whereby the giver measures himself against the receiver and requires a repayment, even if that repayment is gratitude:
"[Here] are the words of an actual hunter-gatherer -- an Inuit from Greenland made famous in the Danish writer Peter Freuchen's Book of the Eskimo. Freuchen tells how one day, after coming home hungry from an unsuccessful walrus-hunting expedition, he found one of the successful hunters dropping off several hundred pounds of meat [for him]. He thanked him profusely. The man objected indignantly:
" 'Up in our country we are human!' said the hunter. 'And since we are human we help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs.'
"The last line is something of an anthropological classic, and similar statements about the refusal to calculate credits and debits can be found through the anthropological literature on egalitarian hunting societies. Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began 'comparing power with power, measuring, calculating' and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt."
We have a ways to go to get back to this kind of knowledge!
Willi Wilson offers this:
“Trading is fairy tales. Free people never traded within their communities and also rarely with strangers. They were only bartering with those who they couldn't trust. Free people were always living in share and gift societies and find it extremely disrespectful if their gifts are returned in some other way. The process of trading is against human social nature and that's where people always return to as soon as the market religion collapses. This can be seen after every big war. The Soviet Union and Germany are great examples for that. People return to trust each other. They stop trading and forget about private property. Things are there and used as people need them, and if there is not enough it is getting reproduced. That's exactly how natural tribes still organize t heir society, and that's how I grew up on a kolkhoze. There was no psychotic child thinking: "mine mine mine". Things were just there, used and brought back, and if not, we knew where they were. We didn't use money within our community and did everything just like that, "I see, I can, I do, who if not me?", real natural self-esteem based on the feedback from our environment, from the product of what we did and the satisfaction and happiness of others. Trading is antisocial, anti-human, anti-trust, anti self-esteem. Trading is resulting from the psychotic child thinking; trading is disgusting, destructive, and murderous.
There are SI units that represent actual value, money doesn't represent anything but money, but for example calories represents the nutrients of various foods, and there is no need to determine any abstract value, what is required are needs assessments and production and distribution based on needs and availability of resources."
Provocative.
Yes, it is very provocative. I got a degree in philosophy and psychology. But interestingly none of the study in either of these fields incorporated world views apart from so called 'modern' social systems. Yet the analysis by 'natural people' (native cultures as described in the story from the likes of Graeber) and by Willi Wilson above is that the 'modern' social orders have lost their humanity and are literally psychotic.
Willi Wilson offered the above commentary to a conversation wherein I had offered the perspective of correcting our ideas about money from the bibocurrency.com writings. And his response indicates that even if we correct 'money's misrepresentation' we likely do not recover our genuine human nature, which is to share and contribute and not even bother with record keeping.
It is interesting to note that in places where TimeBanks and Mutual Aid Networks get going the eventuality is that the doing keeps going while the record keeping fades away. Graeber and others document these kinds of 'spiritual' practices in ancient cultures. It is the expectation of myself and those associated with the MSTA (bibocurrency) that the 'learning' of genuine human capacity first becomes known by those using TimeBanks and such tools, which then allows for the letting go of even the record keeping.
I don't know how 'the law' may be used in our present systems. But there is this thought that if we prove that 'modern legal systems are predicated on basic illiteracy that even the law itself must act to correct this. I would be very much interested in the professor's take on this:
http://bibocurrency.com/index.php/downloads-2/19-english-root/learn/174-a-legal-approach-to-cancelling-all-current-money-contracts
I will try to make contact with him directly. Please also let me know your response.
Thank you for a great guest and a great interview!
Mark Heffernan
Richland Center, WI
Interesting. Makes me think of an early scene in William Morris’ News From Nowhere when the time traveler to the future England receives a ride from a boatman. He wants to pay him or at least thank him and the boatman is confused: taking people places in the boat is just what he does as everyone else just does what is needed so that overall all their needs get met. They don’t need to exchange things to get that done.