that the 'governors' of 'quasi-states' decry Western interventions by insisting upon the sanctity of the doctrine of non-interference when such interference is intended to implement international standards.
reminds me of The White Man's Burden
4 Matching Annotations
- Sep 2021
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In fact, sovereignty represents an historical mode of global governance intended to effect a moral order of identity and subjectivity. The current moral order corresponds to a historical distribution of power and strategic resources initiated in Europe during its ascendancy to global hegemony.
i feel like the idea of international sovereignty and separating human populations into bordered blocks creates an illusion of disunity which further allows for self-interested strategy-making/ foreign policy. I guess it's just natural for humans to separate into groups like that and I'm just stating the obvious 😁
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But consider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering.
I think this is very specific to oppressive regimes, otherwise he would be describing all cases of tax collection as racketeering. There are cases in which taxes really are spent on public welfare.
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imagine what life would be like in astate of nature
For some reason, this reminds me of Bandura's Stanford Prison Experiment.. He said one of its purposes was to find out if humans are naturally "evil".. and whether altruistic behavior is developmental rather than (at least partially) innate. Participants who were assigned the role of an officer were shown to abuse their power because they were unregulated and anonymous, but I remember that they may have also been encouraged by Bandura, not just unregulated. In any case, the experiment makes me think of the Abu Ghraib prisoner camp in Iraq, which completely breaks my heart.
Still, I honestly don't agree with Bandura's suggestion/ conception of human nature. Humans still feel guilt.. I like Hobbes' argument about the necessity of order nonetheless. It's common sense at this point I guess.
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