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Originally Posted by atari 2600
The human problem, in general, is the psyche's obedience to its master, which is fear. Instinctual fear is one thing. It helps keep us alive in accordance with natural selection and natural law itself. Instinctual fear cuts right through our bullshit filter.
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I'm not familliar enough with Kiekegaard to know if he considers self-made fear an inessential part of our human make-up or whether he thinks of it as a basic, insummountable factor in our being. If it's the latter, which for Freud it certainly has to be, then ultimately it's just another
type of 'instinctual fear' - one of the drives. This would have to mean that power (as a potential
source of fear) is itself equally natural. However, even given this, and the very point that renders Darwin and Nietzche (but not Hegel or - more problematically - Marx) intolerable in anything beyond the most primitive point in human history, is the fact that power is almost always
un-naturally allocated. The only instance I see of natural power allocation is that between an infant and an adult. Otherwise, as we know, the greatest gateway to power is wealth which is obtained either by good fortune or labour (depending on the circumstances) rather than nature. If I understand you correctly, and that power is indeed a natural force (which
I believe it is) then there's the obvious possibility that the wrong people may have it, and that oppression may not stem from the withholding of
freedom, but the denial of power to its rightfull owners - freedom is not power, and vice versa.
Which sort of brings us back to Marx I suppose, but only sort of, in that I definitely don't believe labour to be a natural phenomenon, any more than principles of ownership. If fear is natural, then so is power. Consequently neither can be 'earned' or even allocated because of some idea of 'justice' - natural justice, like karma, being something that frankly doesn't exist outside of New Age bookshops and vigilantee groups.
The question then has to be who
does warrant power, on what basis do they warrant it, and what purpose should it serve?