The Transnational Order

The root cause of national politics is structural, and the end result of politics is war and murder.  But at the same time, there is a possible way above politics.  The fundamental structural problems that give rise to sovereignty are doubt, and the desire to protect a way of life, and to expand a way of life through control of territory.

We can imagine a form of life that is in its essence anti-political, anti-national, and anti-war, as follows:

1.)  A voluntary community predicated on absolute obedience, where there is no individual doubt, and no self-will, and in which members focused their collective efforts on rooting out the causes of individual disobedience: the confession of sin, penance and mortification.

2.)  A voluntary community predicated on the renunciation of property and territory, where there is no ownership, and all live in poverty.

3.)  A voluntary community which avoids the partiality of family, where there are no children, no families, only a collective life based on a love of all.

4.)  A voluntary community based on collective slavery, where members voluntarily sacrifice their own sovereignty, and are prepared to die rather than use force. 

In such a community, to the extent that it embodies its ideals, there is nothing to protect and nothing to fear provided all members uphold vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  However, any community which rejects these restrictions binds itself to the order of recurrent human sacrifice demanded by history and the law itself.  Further, any community that rejected renunciation but upheld a set of "international and humanitarian" ideals would find itself an ugly admixture of superficiality, greed, hypocrisy and brutality.

To quote Wittgenstein:

In former times people went into monasteries.  Were they stupid or insensitive people?--Well if people like that found that they needed to take such measures in order to be able to go on living, the problem cannot be an easy one!