A STEEL-cameralist Manifesto Part 3b: The Age of Crisis and the Predator’s Diorama.

 

Contents

1: Introduction.

2: The Crisis of the Paradigm.

3: A Political Crisis.

4: The Power and Process of the Planet’s Apex Predator.

5: Democratic V Technocratic Creatures; Form V Reality.

6: The Art of Ruling.

7: The Sovereign Decides the Exception.

8: The Clear and Simple Way to Abolish Democracy in a Technocracy.

9: The Philosophical and Historical Significance of the “Abolish Democracy” Strategy.

10: Summary.

1:Introduction.

Last time, we diagnosed all the different claims that there exists a crisis as a crisis of state.

The fundamental source of the crisis and what prevents the crisis from being correctly diagnosed and treated is Imperium in Imperio.

We also covered the Science of the State; the key players: Elites, Essentials and Expendables and the Rules for Ruling.

This week, we examine the crisis of USG using a very different, but complimentary frame; if last time, we looked at the crisis in terms of structure (“scattered authority”); this time, we will look at the crisis of state as a crisis of information.

Information will be explored by transforming our understanding of the state. Here, at Imperial Energy, we view the state from a completely amoral, scientific standpoint: the state is an entity – a predator.

A predator, like all organisms, is a complex adaptive system. In order to function, it requires accurate and useful information and the ability to adjust and adapt to changing conditions

2: The Crisis of the Paradigm.

A scientific crisis occurs, according to historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, when the basic assumptions of a theory and or the theory itself, can no longer account for a series of “anomalies”.

An anomaly occurs when a scientist observes (and forms an initial judgement) that his observation either contradicts what the theory predicts or is something which the theory cannot explain.

If, to use an anachronism, you were a “scientific creationist” and believed, like Bishop Ussher, that the earth was only six thousand years old, then the contrary claims emerging from geology – that the earth was older, far older, than any biblical view – this would be an anomaly for your theory.

Fossils records, moreover, showing ancient but now extinct creatures, especially sea creatures found on mountain tops were further anomalies for the creationist theory. More anomalies would be the ancient (fossils) and the contemporary variation of living organisms (Darwin’s Finches for example). Consequently, these anomalies would constitute a crisis for creationism and the Christian worldview. Darwin himself confessed that his discoveries made him feel like he had committed a “murder“.

The creationist theory could not account for these anomalies – but Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural section could. So, what happens, according to Kuhn, is that after a protected series of intellectual fist-fights, a paradigm change or a “revolution” occurs.

In a scientific revolution, scientists adopt a new paradigm and the crisis is resolved. Then, with the new paradigm, scientists enter a period of “normal science”.

Normal science consists of replicating experiments, extending the theory into new areas and unifying different theories into a more basic, fundamental, theory.

The critical difference between “normal” and “crisis” is that the paradigm and its basic assumptions are not questioned.

3: A Political Crisis.

A political crisis occurs when the governing assumptions (which are often implicit and unstated) can no longer account for – in intellectual terms – a series of anomalies, and – in practical terms – predict and control actors and events.

One example of a political crisis leading to a paradigm change was post-Mao’s China. Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, observed that while Communist China was poor, Hong Kong was rich. Deng reasoned that since both were populated by Chinese people the problem was not the people, but the system.

Deng’s “paradigm change” began with the commitment to learn “truth from facts” and then later to “try” things out; the consequence was that China began a series of economically revitalizing political experiments. The result, eventually, was a complete re-structuring of China’s economic and social policies. It was, by far, the greatest political revolution of the 20th Century and one man stood at the centre of it – “little peace” or Deng Xiaoping.

The model of paradigm change, in general, is the following:

A: Paradigm Building.

0: You begin in wonder and confusion. What explains this? What explains that?

1: You already have your basic assumptions. These assumptions are often un-examined, and usually unjustified – knowledge is cumulative. You begin to theorise on the presumption that your assumptions are correct.
2: Next, you come up with a theory. Your theory consists of a number or just one major If-Then logical statement. The purpose of the theory is to explain something, and or predict and control something.

3: Next, your paradigm must have a model. A model consists of both theory and a set of facts that illustrate how the theory works or that “proves” the correctness of the theory.

4: Next you extend your theory to cover new cases, or unite with other, auxiliary theories or absorb subordinate theories.

B: Standard Procedures.

5: No mysteries or confusions, only problems; with time, money and effort you can solve them. This is the period of “normal science” or “normal politics”.

C: The Beginning of the Crisis.
6: You begin to observe puzzling and confusing anomalies which the theory cannot explain, or which is incompatible with one or more of the basic assumptions.

7: Response and Reaction. In response to these anomalies, you can reject the observations, reject the theory or revise the theory. Finally, you may be faced with a crisis so severe that your only choice is a revolution: where you completely reject the basic assumptions of the paradigm itself.

8: Return to 0 and the cycle continues.

Critical questions:

1: if we apply this model of paradigm change to the concept of the state itself and its current governing assumptions, theory and model along with the anomalies seen last time (see the list at the start), what stage of the process are we at?

2: What is, formally, USG’s internal process of paradigm change?

3: Does the process share similar features to the above process of paradigm change?

4: Is that process, whatever it is, being followed correctly?

5: Is it even the right or the optimal process for resolving “confusion” aka conflict?

Before we answer these questions, we will now adopt and begin to develop a different framework for understanding the state.

4: The Power and Process of the Planet’s Apex Predator.

Last time, we described the origins, composition and purpose of the state. This time, we begin to describe the state as a complex adaptive system. A state should be seen as an organism. In contrast to Alrenous, who conceives of the state as a “parasite”, the state should be seen, on the contrary, as a predator.

Predators, like all living organisms, are complex adaptive systems. A predator’s three main concerns are feeding, fighting and, well, fucking. In order to successfully navigate a hostile, dynamic environment, the organism must be capable of taking in information, forming some kind of judgement (at the primitive level, it is a response) and then being able to act upon that judgement.

For animals, and even for most human actions, much of this process is unconscious. Humans, however, have cognitive powers which allow them to imagine, anticipate and adjust their behaviour long in advance of encountering either potential prey, predators or potential mates.

What is true of humans is also true of the state.

How do organisms learn? How do complex adaptive systems adapt?

Dan Dennett, in his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, describes five types of “animals” and their different learning methods, which resemble different leaning paradigms; each successive “animal” is a better “learner”, better at adapting – better at surviving.

The following summary, taken from this blog, captures the essentials:

Dennett presents us with five hypothetical creatures arising from Darwin’s evolutionary process. Each of them uses generate and test but the process becomes more sophisticated with evolution.

Darwinian creatures are created by random mutation and selected by the external environment. The best designs survive and reproduce.

Skinnerian creatures can learn by testing actions (responses) in the external environment. Favourably actions are reinforced and then tend to be repeated. Pigeons can be trained to press a bar to receive food.

Skinnerian creatures ask themselves, “What do I do next?“

Popperian creatures can preselect from possible behaviours / actions weeding out the truly stupid options before risking them in the harsh world. Dennett calls them Popperian because Popper said this design enhancement “permits our hypotheses to die in our stead”. This is Dennett’s enhancement of behaviourism. Popperian creatures have an inner environment that can preview and select amongst possible actions. For this to work the inner environment must contain lots of information about the outer environment and its regularities. Not only humans can do this. Mammals, birds, reptiles and fish can all presort behavioural options before acting.

Popperian creatures ask themselves, “What do I think about next?”

Gregorian creatures are named after Richard Gregory, an information theorist. Gregorian creatures import mind-tools (words) from the outer cultural environment to create an inner environment which improve both the generators and testers.

Gregorian creatures ask themselves, “How can I learn to think better about what to think about next?”

Words / language are necessary to sustain long predictive chains of thought, eg. to sustain a chain or combination of pattern recognition. This is true in chess, for example, where the player uses chess notation to assist his memory.
…

Learning from mistakes is an important and hard to learn part of this process. To learn from mistakes one has to be able to contemplate them and language / communication assists that process. For example, by being told by someone else you have made a mistake.

Finally, we have Scientific creatures which is an organised process of making and learning from mistakes in public, of getting others to assist in the recognition and correction of mistakes. (Bold mine.)

We will only concern ourselves here with “scientific creatures”.

Recall our critical questions:

1: If we apply this model of paradigm change to the concept of the state itself and its current governing assumptions, theory and model along with the anomalies seen last week (see the list at the start), what stage of the process are we at?

2: What is, formally, USG process of paradigm change?

3: Does the process share similar features to the above process of paradigm change?

4: Is that process, whatever it is, being followed correctly?

5: Is it even the right or the optimal process for resolving “confusion” or conflict (to use a more political term)?

A crisis of state is like a crisis in science; so, as Master Future noted here, we must first answer if the scientific process (political process) has been followed correctly and if that failure is responsible for the crisis.

We, of course, answer that the process has not been followed; moreover, we answer that the basic assumption about the process of learning itself is irredeemably flawed.

Let’s begin with Question 2: What is, formally, USG’s process of paradigm change?

5: Democratic V Technocratic Creatures; Form V Reality.

Is the following the answer to question 2?

Finally, we have Democratic creatures which is an organised process of making and learning from mistakes in public, of getting others to assist in the recognition and correction of mistakes.

Or is this the answer:

Finally, we have Technocratic creatures which is an organised process of making and learning from mistakes in public, of getting others to assist in the recognition and correction of mistakes.

The fact that we can coherently pose this question for USG is itself an anomaly.

The “anomaly” or contradiction resides in the fact that Democracy cannot be a Technocracy any more than it can be a Monarchy or Aristocracy.

Why?

Before we answer, let’s set out are definitions.

6: The Art of Ruling.

Definitions:

Ruling is judging rules and their application.

Nicholas Rescher says:

“In a complex and volatile world, we cannot manage without rules, but nevertheless cannot manage to function via the rules alone. In the management of human affairs they require the supplementation of judicious judgement.”

On Rules and Principles: A Philosophical Study of Their Nature and Function. Nicholas Rescher. p.47.

On the art of judgment itself, Rescher writes:

“The function of “judgement” is to adjudge cases when the rules proves insufficient to provide adequate guidance, to do this effectively we must proceed in the light of the purposive setting that provides the rationale of the relevant range of rules. It requires judgement, appraisal of fitness, assessment of suitability, in short the exercise of an evaluative oriented skill.”

On Rules. p.47

Ruling involves the following options:

A: To create new rules (a rule is If X then Y.)

B: To change rules (if X1 then not Y but Y1.)

C: To clarify rules (in case Z, which appears to resemble circumstance X and A, do not do either Q or I but C). (The ruler must distinguish what the critical variable is in the case and why one action should be taken and not another.)

D: To revise rules (rule 76 no longer applies because of facts a,b,c and so in case K you must do J or J1 if P.)

E: To reject rules (Experience has taught that Rule 42 does not bring about its intended result; thus, this rule is to be abolished.)

7: The Sovereign Decides the Exception.

Now, when you come to analyse and categorise any political system, the key question to ask and answer is: who or what is it that rules. More specifically, who has the right to make the final decision on some rule; critically, who is it that decides the exception to some rule?

USG, as a political system, consists of one of the four following options which are Democracy, Aristocracy, Monarchy or Technocracy.

The definitions:

1: Democracy is rule by the many.

2: Aristocracy is rule by the few.

3: Monarchy is rule by one.

4: Technocracy is rule by…?.…principles, procedures, processes, protocols, plans, prescriptive philosophies…?….TECHNIQUE…..??……But it is Still Humans who Rule…..

So who rules?

Who rules on what is to count as a mistake?

Who rules on how mistakes are to be corrected?

Who rules on the design, implementation and supervision of the learning process itself?

Who rules on who-what-when-why and where the process of learning is organised?

Who rules if it is the learning process itself that is at fault?

In a democracy, the answer to every single question is: the “people” – the majority of the people.

In a Technocracy, it is the “educated” few, the credentialed few, with official positions, with informal influence, who rule.

The rulings of the technocrats, however, are not necessarily public, legal or open to any kind of official political challenge. Indeed, if you privately challenge or question the rules or the rulers, you may suffer personal and professional harms, including losing your job and even your life.

If you want to test this proposition, I suggest you do the following.

8: The Clear and Simple Way to Abolish Democracy in a Technocracy.

The first step is to go on campaign and argue and attempt to persuade the majority of the people that democracy should be abolished.

That’s it.

Just abolish Democracy.

Of course, provide as many reasons as to why, keep it clear and simple, but make it emotional. Make the people furious. That’s it.

In the second step, once you have as much focus and attention and anger from the Technocrats on you, you then make your single proposition, which is:

Just establish Monarchy.

The test, then, is that if you experience any negative consequences, such as losing your job, or going to jail, or being fined for political speech crimes, then you do not live under a democracy.

You do not live in a democracy because a democracy necessarily requires public deliberation and debate; thus, any restrictions upon that practice necessarily results in the very termination of Democracy itself.

Democracy simply disappears in puff of logic; but it is the public’s perception, and the rage and resentment they will feel at the destroyers of Democracy (the Technocrats) which will create the conditions for a Monarchy to emerge.

It is as simple as that.

9: The Philosophical and Historical Significance of the “Abolish Democracy” Strategy.

The anomaly (contradiction) between “democracy” and “technocracy” is what the Grand Master refers to as the contradiction between political form and political reality:

“I’d say a fair definition of an Orwellian government is one whose principle of public legitimacy (Mosca‘s political formula, if you care) is contradicted by an accurate perception of reality. In other words, the government is existentially dependent on systematic public deception. If it fails in its mission to keep the lie alive, it at least stands some chance of falling.” (Underline mine.)

What is written on a constitution, a party platform or policy or what is said by a politician is contradicted by the real structure and composition of power or what the real reason for the political policy actually is.

Democracy means majority rule. By contrast, a technocracy, like an aristocracy, means rule by the few. This circle cannot be squared.

If the political form (democracy) is contradicted by political reality (technocracy) then, how did such a thing come about?

The Grand Master provides the following extract from Sir Henry Maine’s Popular Government (1885) to tell us how, in three successive stages, democracy becomes a technocracy.

Maine:

The most interesting, and on the whole the most successful, experiments in popular government, are those which have frankly recognised the difficulty under which it labours.

At the head of these, we must place the virtually English discovery of government by Representation, which caused Parliamentary institutions to be preserved in these islands from the destruction which overtook them everywhere else and to devolve as an inheritance upon the United States. Under this system, when it was in its prime, an electoral body, never in this country extraordinarily large, chose a number of persons to represent it in Parliament, leaving them unfettered by express instructions, but having with them at most a general understanding, that they would strive to give a particular direction to public policy.

The effect was to diminish the difficulties of popular government, in exact proportion to the diminution in the number of persons who had to decide public questions. But this famous system is evidently in decay, through the ascendency over it which is being gradually obtained by the vulgar assumption that great masses of men can directly decide all necessary questions for themselves.

The agency, by which the representative is sought to be turned into the mere mouthpiece of opinions collected in the locality which sent him to the House of Commons, is we need hardly say that which is generally supposed to have been introduced from the United States under the name of the Caucus, but which had very possibly a domestic exemplar in the ecclesiastical organisation of the Wesleyan Methodists.

The old Italian toxicologists are said to have always arranged their discoveries in a series of three terms – first the poison, next the antidote, thirdly the drug which neutralised the antidote. The antidote to the fundamental infirmities of democracy was Representation, but the drug which defeats it has now been found in the Caucus. (Bold mine.)

The Grand Master then comments:

By “Caucus” Maine means, of course, the modern political party. Note his perfect description of the same paradox we see in Lippmann’s work – the spontaneous appearance of an antidote to democracy, often promoted under the very name of democracy itself. You knew, of course, that representative government was an antidote to democracy; you also knew that progressive scientocracy was an antidote to democracy; you never connected these two points. Or associated them with “the old Italian toxicologists. (Italics and bold mine.)

Maine then describes what this state of political scientists will be like:

“But some of the keenest observers of democratic society in our day do not share this opinion Noticing that the modern movement towards democracy is coupled with a movement towards scientific perfection, they appear to be persuaded that the world will some day fall under intellectual aristocracies.

Society is to become the Church of a sort of political Calvinism, in which the Elect are to be the men with exceptional brains, This seems to be the view suggested by French democratic society to M. Ernest Renan. Whether such an aristocracy, if it wielded all the power which the command of all scientific results placed in its hands, would be exactly beneficent may possibly be doubted.” (Bold and italics mind.)

The question is why can’t the Harvard-educated technocrats just admit that they are the ruling class; that they – and they alone – will govern the state.  

Take modern China as another example, the Party rules and not the people. There are no lies in China about the lack of democracy. The Party does not need to pretend with elections, but it does have to pretend with Communism.
Why? What is the reason for these two contradictions between political Form and Reality?

We have given our argument before, but now we will summarise it formally.

1: Politics is the struggle for power – the power to rule.

2: Politics and war exist along a continuum – there is no clear or essential distinction between politics and war.

3: Deception, lies, manipulation, camouflage and concealment – Form – is essential to mask the Reality of one’s resources, intentions and actions in war; if your opponent knows your resources, intentions and actions etc., then they can anticipate, adjust and arrest your strategy and then attack you at your weakest point.

In politics, as in war, you face an opponent, thus the same constraining logic that applies in war, also applies in politics: you must conceal Reality behind the Mask of Form.

4: A democracy cannot have a ruling class, because all the people are supposed to rule. Since this is impossible, a ruling class must necessarily emerge.

5: If, however, the political regime is still formally committed to democracy, then the ruling class must conceal their true nature behind a Mask.

6: The Ruling Class must therefore destroy or diminish anyone or anything who threatens to expose their act of concealing and camouflaging.

7: The Ruling Class cannot simply use violent methods; they must manipulate via propaganda, the deployment of proxies and the implementation of policies that are designed to fail in order to degrade and defeat their political rivals.

8: The Logic of the conflict then is that Elites need Essentials to keep the Game of Democracy going; the Essentials wish to change or reject some of the rules, or stop the Elites changing some of the rules; the Elites, angered and scared of the potential power of the Essentials, enlist the Expendables in order to degrade and defeat the Essentials.

9: The result is conflict. This conflict, however, manifests itself in the form of a feedback loop:

A: Conflict.

B: Conflict is resolved via greater centralisation of power in the state itself (the current Elites only occupy the seat of power).

C: The process of centralisation, which causes fear and frustration among the Essentials, results in causing more conflict between them and the Elite. Return, then, to step A.

10: In war, you must never reveal your true intentions, or at least your strategic intentions; in politics, you must deceive; and to deceive you must distort or degrade information and information channels.

11: Unsecure power corrupts; a centralising, unsecure power corrupts absolutely.

12: Thus, following 11, in an unsecure, centralising power, information will be exponentially corrupted by the process of centralising power itself.

The rule is: the more the unsecure state centralises, the more information and information channels are corrupted.

We call this the Iron Law of Information Corruption.

13: Thus, just as truth is the first causality in war, information is the first causality in an unsecure, centralising state.

14: Since a state, as a complex adaptive system, needs accurate information in order to feed, fight and fuck, the act of an unsecure power centralising itself is for information what cancer is for the body.

15: The diagnosis then, is that USG has cancer.

16: Treatment is possible, but it will require extensive surgery. The problem is that the patient, half the time anyway, considers themselves to be not terminally ill, but in the full bloom of youth itself.

17: The treatment will involve removing the tumour: Imperium In Imperio.

18: After this, the patient will require a new “brain”. What that brain is, and what the personality of the brain will be, is an open question.

10: Summary.

A scientific creature (state), as we saw above, requires others to assist it in recognising and pointing out mistakes. However, a state which maintains “political correctness” and fires or threatens with violence people for speaking or writing or even thinking is a state which has corrupted its ability to operate “scientifically”.

While the attempt to not only think as a state is old, the attempt to see as one is as well. That many of these attempts failed, does not disprove either the ends or the enterprise itself, just as bad science does not disprove science.

Pseudo-science, like pseudo-democracy or pseudo-technocracy, looks and sounds like the real thing, but the core difference is the way it responds to anomalies. In a pseudo-science, when the facts contradict the theory or undermine the core assumptions, the facts are dogmatically rejected and distorted or denied and the messengers who bring the “bad news” are punished.

So, the test then for a pseudo-technocracy is to find a set of facts that not only contradict the political form, but are suppressed, distorted and denied.

Can this test be applied to the West?

The “Abolish Democracy” strategy is one such test; but the following is a good place to start seriously considering the question before you even try what we have suggest.

Napoleon said: “Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately.”

Next time we examine the assumptions underpinning USG’s governing philosophy as it pertains to security, economics and, what Richard Fernandez calls the “Narrative”.