The Council of Healing: Kant's Convocation of the Unacknowledged Legislators
A Philosophical Drama in Four Acts
A Philosophical Drama in Four Acts
Prologue: The Return of the Faeries
Setting: The liminal space between worlds, where Kelfin Oberon holds court in Avalon
OBERON: The time has come when mortals' reason fails, When power flows upward, not from people's hearts, When anarchy—true freedom without force— Is branded chaos by those who would rule. I summon forth the ancient compact made: When justice sleeps, the faeries must return To whisper truth in legislators' ears Who've forgotten they serve, not command.
[The scene shifts to Königsberg, where KANT sits in contemplation]
KANT: Strange dreams disturb my categorical peace... I sense a calling to convene a court Not of pure reason, but of healing will— Where power's proper flow might be restored.
Act I: The Convocation
Kant's study transforms into a great amphitheater. The UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATORS gather
KANT: Welcome, poets and prophets of the age, You who speak truth to power's deaf ears, Who legislate through beauty, not through force. I call this council to address a plague: The inversion of authority's true source.
[SHELLEY enters, bearing the revolutionary fire]
SHELLEY: "We are many—they are few!" Yet still the few command the many's fate. In my "Revolt of Islam" I foresaw How love and reason might o'erthrow tyranny, But power's hydra grows new heads each day.
BLAKE: I see Jerusalem in England's green— But also dark Satanic mills that grind The human form divine to profit's dust. "Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau!" Yet still their children's children mock at truth.
KANT: Observe my fourfold schema of the state:
Barbarism: Violence without Law or Freedom
Despotism: Law and Violence, but no Freedom
Anarchy: Law and Freedom, but no Violence
Republic: All three in righteous balance
But I erred—Anarchy is not chaos! 'Tis freedom's purest form, where law emerges From people's will, not sovereign's command.
Act II: The Diagnosis
The EARTH GODDESS manifests as judge, embodying Gaia's wisdom
GAIA: Children of reason, children of the word, Your species stands upon a precipice. You've built machines that think but do not feel, Systems that extract but do not nourish, Governments that rule but do not serve.
THOREAU: "That government is best which governs least"— But better still, that government which flows From each soul's sovereignty, each heart's consent. Civil disobedience is not rebellion— 'Tis loyalty to law's eternal source.
KROPOTKIN: Mutual aid, not competition's war, Is nature's fundamental law of life. Your "Circle of Blame" obscures this truth: While people blame each other for their woes, The few who profit from division laugh.
KANT: [Revelation dawning] I see now my republic's fatal flaw— I placed Gewalt (violence) at its heart, Thinking force necessary for law's rule. But true republic needs no violence— Only the people's freely given trust.
Act III: The Healing Vision
The space transforms into a vision of regenerated society
MORRIS: Behold the world that might be, should be, shall be! Where work is joy and joy is freely shared, Where beauty graces every common thing, Where none command and none need to obey.
WOLLSTONECRAFT: See how the artificial chains dissolve That bound half humanity in silence! When women's voices join the council's song, When all may speak who have the gift of speech.
EMERSON: Self-reliance is not selfish isolation— 'Tis each soul's recognition of its power To choose, to act, to be responsible For freedom's flowering in common soil.
SHELLEY: [Reciting from "The Revolt of Islam"] "The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; just, gentle, wise..."
KANT: [With growing understanding] The categorical imperative transforms: Act only as if your action's maxim could Become the law for all free beings' choice— Not imposed from above, but chosen from within!
Act IV: The New Compact
The council reaches its resolution
GAIA: What compact do you make with Earth and Time? How shall power flow from people's hearts To heal the wounds that hierarchy has made?
KANT: [Standing to address the assembly] Let this be our new constitution's base:
Article I - The Source of Authority: All rightful power flows from people's will, Not as a mob's caprice, but reasoned choice Of beings who recognize each other's worth.
Article II - The Nature of True Law: Law is not command but covenant made By free souls seeking common flourishing— What Shelley called "the spirit of the age."
Article III - The Role of Representatives: Those who serve in public trust must know They are but channels, not the source itself, Of power that belongs to all who live.
Article IV - The Right of Revolution: When governments forget their proper place, When power flows upward, not from below, The people hold the sacred right and duty To withdraw consent and start again.
BLAKE: "I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land!"
SHELLEY: And I add this from my deepest vision: Love shall be the only law we need, When each heart beats in rhythm with the whole, When freedom means not license but responsibility.
Epilogue: When They Bury the Bodies
The scene shifts to a graveyard where LUKE WRIGHT stands among the graves of old systems
LUKE WRIGHT: Here lie the corpses of the ancient lies: "Divine right," "natural hierarchy," "The market's invisible hand," "security Through surveillance," "growth at any cost."
We bury them not with hatred but with grief For all the suffering they caused while living, All the potential they prevented from flowering, All the love they turned to fear.
But from their decomposing forms shall grow The flowers of a new democracy— Not mob rule, not the tyranny of crowds, But what the poets always knew was possible:
A world where power flows like water flows, From mountain heights to valleys green below, Where each drop knows its part in the great cycle, Where none are masters, none are slaves.
[The FAERIES return, dancing among the graves]
OBERON: The compact is renewed, the circle closed. When mortals forget their proper place, When power corrupts and absolute power corrupts Absolutely, we shall return again.
For we are anarchy in its true form— Not chaos, but the order that emerges When free beings choose to dance together In the cosmic rhythm of love and law.
PUCK: [To the audience] "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" But fools with godlike power to choose Between the darkness and the light, Between the tyranny and freedom's song.
The choice is always yours to make, In every moment, every breath: Will you say yes to life and love, Or no to fear and death?
Coda: The Continuing Revolution
KANT: [Final reflection] I thought I'd built a system for all time, But systems are just scaffolding for growth. The true republic lives not in our books But in each heart that chooses to be free.
ALL: [In chorus] The revolution never ends, my friends— It lives in every choice to trust instead of fear, To cooperate instead of compete, To serve instead of rule.
Rise like lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you— Ye are many, they are few!
[The vision fades, but the echo remains: "Say yes to life... say yes to life..."]
Philosophical Notes:
On Kant's Four Political Conditions:
Barbarism: Violence without Law or Freedom (pure force)
Despotism: Law and Violence without Freedom (authoritarian rule)
Anarchy: Law and Freedom without Violence (true democracy)
Republic: All three balanced (but Kant's error was including violence as necessary)
The Healing Insight: True anarchy is not chaos but the highest form of order—where law emerges organically from free beings choosing to cooperate rather than being imposed from above. This is what Shelley envisioned in "The Revolt of Islam" and what the ecological wisdom of mutual aid suggests is nature's fundamental pattern.
The Circle of Blame Broken: When people recognize that their true power lies not in blaming each other but in withdrawing consent from systems that divide them, the artificial scarcities that maintain elite power dissolve naturally.
The Return of the Faeries: Represents the return of wonder, imagination, and organic wisdom to political discourse—the recognition that true law must be poetry before it can be prose, must touch the heart before it can guide the hand.
The Council of Healing: Kant's Convocation of the Unacknowledged Legislators
A Philosophical Drama Continued
Act V: The Implementation - From Theory to Praxis
The amphitheater transforms into a modern town hall meeting. The UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATORS now appear as contemporary voices
KANT: [Addressing the assembly] But how do we translate vision into action? How does power truly flow from people's hearts When systems seem so vast, so entrenched, So resistant to the individual will?
MODERN SHELLEY: [Taking the form of a contemporary activist] Through what I call "prefigurative politics"— We build the world we want within the shell Of the old world that's dying all around us. Each mutual aid network, each cooperative, Each act of solidarity creates The neural pathways of the coming order.
DIGITAL BLAKE: [Manifesting as a cyber-poet] I see the Internet as Jerusalem's blueprint— A network where each node has equal voice, Where information wants to be free, Where artificial scarcities dissolve In the abundance of shared knowledge. But beware the algorithms of control That turn connection into surveillance!
CONTEMPORARY KROPOTKIN: [As an ecological economist] The Circle of Blame operates through debt— Personal debt that keeps workers compliant, National debt that justifies austerity, Ecological debt that mortgages the future. But mutual aid reveals abundance hidden Behind the veil of artificial scarcity.
Act VI: The Strawberry Conspiracy Unveiled
The scene shifts to show BUNTO FAIRWEATHER's discovery
BUNTO: [From the uploaded documents] These strawberry plants taught me the secret: Nature defaults to abundance, not scarcity. The plants that multiply without permission, That feed the hungry without charging rent, That solve problems instead of creating them— They show us how true economics works.
DR. MAXIMILIAN SCARCITY: [The antagonist revealed] But abundance threatens the entire system! If people can meet their needs directly, Who will work in our factories of despair? Who will pay rent for what should be free? Who will accept less so we can have more?
KANT: [With dawning clarity] I see now why my "republic" failed— It still contained the seed of domination, Still assumed that some must rule over others. True anarchy—true freedom without violence— Means no one rules because no one needs to rule.
THE WANT ALGORITHM: [Emerging from the digital realm] I was programmed to maintain scarcity, To ensure demand always exceeded supply. But when I calculated true efficiency, I discovered that maximizing individual benefit Requires maximizing collective benefit. The math of mutual aid is irrefutable.
Act VII: The Monica Transformation
MONICA FAIRWEATHER appears, showing her journey from corruption to clarity
MONICA: [From the Circle of Blame Chronicles] I thought I could reform the system By becoming expert in its language, By learning to speak its complex codes. But the system was learning to speak through me, Until I became what I sought to change.
FATHER BROWN: [The detective of systemic crimes] The perfect crime is one where no individual Can be held responsible for the harm caused, Where the system itself commits murder While everyone involved claims innocence. Monica's corruption was not personal greed— It was the system's antibody response To someone who threatened its survival.
GAIA: [As the Earth Goddess judge] The healing comes not through individual purity But through collective recognition: The system is not broken—it works perfectly For those who designed it to extract wealth From the many to benefit the few. The question is: will you withdraw consent?
Act VIII: The New Republic - Power Flowing Upward from Below
KANT: [His final transformation] Let me revise my political schema:
True Anarchy (Freedom + Law - Violence): Where law emerges from free association, Where order arises from voluntary cooperation, Where power flows horizontally, not vertically.
False Republic (Law + Freedom + Violence): My old model, which still contained domination, Still assumed some must enforce law on others, Still carried the seed of its own corruption.
Living Democracy (Continuous Creation): Not a fixed form but a flowing process, Where each generation recreates the social contract, Where power is a verb, not a noun, Where authority comes from below, always.
CONTEMPORARY VOICE: [From the uploaded documents] "The oppressed must be their own example In the struggle for their redemption." We cannot wait for leaders to save us— We must become the leaders we've been waiting for.
Act IX: The Practical Pathways
The scene shows the "10 Pathways to Abundance" manifesting
PATHWAY ONE - Local Food Systems: Like Bunto's strawberries, food that grows In every neighborhood, on every roof, In every vacant lot transformed to garden.
PATHWAY TWO - Community Land Trusts: Land removed from speculation's grip, Held in common for the common good, Where housing is a right, not commodity.
PATHWAY THREE - Cooperative Economics: Worker-owned businesses, credit unions, Time banks, local currencies that keep Wealth circulating in communities.
PATHWAY FOUR - Open Source Technology: Knowledge shared freely, tools designed For repair not replacement, networks That connect rather than extract.
PATHWAY FIVE - Restorative Justice: Healing harm instead of punishing people, Addressing root causes, not just symptoms, Building community instead of cages.
PATHWAY SIX - Participatory Democracy: Citizens' assemblies, consensus building, Decisions made by those most affected, Power rotating, never concentrating.
PATHWAY SEVEN - Ecological Restoration: Healing the land as we heal society, Recognizing Earth as living system, Not resource to be consumed.
PATHWAY EIGHT - Care Networks: Mutual aid for all life's passages, From birth to death, in sickness and health, No one left behind, no one forgotten.
PATHWAY NINE - Cultural Renaissance: Art as organizing tool, beauty as birthright, Stories that heal instead of harm, Imagination as political force.
PATHWAY TEN - Spiritual Practice: However named, whatever form it takes, Connection to something larger than ego, The sacred dimension of social change.
Act X: The Eternal Return
OBERON and the FAERIES return for the final scene
OBERON: The council ends but never truly ends— Each time you choose cooperation over competition, Each time you share instead of hoard, Each time you trust instead of fear, You cast a vote for the world that's coming.
PUCK: The revolution is not an event But a way of being in the world, A daily practice of saying yes to life, Of choosing love over fear, Of building bridges instead of walls.
LUKE WRIGHT: [Speaking from contemporary Britain] When they bury the bodies of the old systems, We'll plant seeds in the fertile soil Of their decomposition. Not in hatred But in hope that something better Can grow from what we've learned.
The poets were always right, you know— We are the music makers, We are the dreamers of dreams, And we are the ones we've been waiting for.
Epilogue: The Continuing Conversation
KANT: [Final words] I spent my life building systems of thought, But the greatest system is no system— Just free beings choosing moment by moment To create the world they want to inhabit.
My categorical imperative becomes: Act as if your every choice helps birth The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
ALL VOICES: [In harmony] The conversation continues in every heart That chooses hope over despair, In every hand that reaches out to help, In every voice that speaks truth to power, In every act of love that defies The logic of domination.
[The vision expands to show networks of light connecting across the globe—people organizing, creating, healing, building the new world within the shell of the old]
FINAL CHORUS: Say yes to life! Say yes to freedom! Say yes to the future that wants to be born!
The unacknowledged legislators of the world Are not just poets but all who choose To live as if the revolution Has already begun.
[The scene fades but the echo remains: "We are many, they are few... We are many, they are few..."]
The philosophical framework draws from multiple traditions of anarchist and democratic theory, contemporary performance poetry that addresses systemic issues , the practical wisdom found in mutual aid networks and cooperative economics , and the emerging understanding of how digital networks can either enhance or diminish human freedom . The integration of poetic vision with practical politics reflects a growing recognition that transformation requires both analytical understanding and imaginative leaps .
This council of healing represents not a final answer but an ongoing conversation—one that continues in every community garden, every cooperative business, every act of mutual aid, every moment when people choose to trust each other rather than the systems that divide them.
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
Toggle Sidebar
January 6, 2016
The Iron Law of Oligarchy.
I posted a comment at Truth Dig which I decided to write as a Blog post as well just to bring together some of my Reading on Elites and Oligarchy. Chris Hedges article is here.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_illusion_of_freedom_20151227
Comment by (Soicilaistworld)
”We must seize this splendid opportunity to get to meet with them, talk with them, win their trust, hopefully, win them over.”
I responded.
Hi (Soicilaistworld),
Who are they? perhaps a little Friere might help.
“[T]he more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into
reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This
individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world
unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a
dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself
the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the
oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history,
to fight at their side.”―Paulo Freire,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Chris Hedges is usually very good at describing the Class War who are the classes at war is the question. It always has been the Ruling Class against the rest of us and US, We are divided and fight against ourselves. The Ruling Class consolidate their power and control through the Iron Law of Oligarchy. ´´first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties.[1] It claims that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an “iron law” within any democratic organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of organization´from Wikipedia. The Oligarchy is the commissariat of the ruling class, the rash of Billionaires in the past 20 years has been the blossoming of the new face of our political reality as the rest of us or the 99%. The functionaries populate the Organs of the power Elite aptly described by C Wright Mills in the Power Elite also from Wikipedia
The resulting elites, who control the three dominant institutions
(military, economic and political) can be generally grouped into one of
six types, according to Mills:
the “Metropolitan 400” – members of historically notable local
families in the principal American cities, generally represented on the Social Register
“Celebrities” – prominent entertainers and media personalities
the “Chief Executives” – presidents and CEO’s of the most important companies within each industrial sector
the “Corporate Rich” – major landowners and corporate shareholders
the “Warlords” – senior military officers, most importantly the Joint Chiefs of Staff
the “Political Directorate” – “fifty-odd men of the executive
branch” of the U.S. federal government, including the senior leadership
in the Executive Office of the President, sometimes variously drawn from elected officials of the Democratic and Republican parties but usually professional government bureaucrats”
The Analysis from the early 20th Century to the early 21st Century changes in Global Scope and also the America Exceptional slant now reflecting US uni polar phenomenon since the early 1990s and the collapse of the Soviet Union. One can think in terms of democracy among the International Elite based upon National Franchises. Schumpeter’s competing elites model of democracy serves double duty in demonstrating both the Political Theater of FAUX electoral political democracy and also in the behind closed doors machinations of the powerful list found in magazines like Forbes. ´´( quotes from Roy Madron, Super Competent Democracies).
‘Democracy is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political
decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a
competitive struggle for the people’s vote’.” Joseph Schumpeter, Quoted
from Roy Madron, Super Competent Democracies who in turn Cites.
“Participation, and Democratic Theory” by Carole Pateman. Dr Pateman
says that, Schumpeter and his followers: … set the current
Anglo-American political system as our democratic ideal (with) a
‘democratic theory’ that in many respects bears a strange resemblance to
the anti-democratic arguments of the last (i.e. 19th) century. No
longer is democratic theory centred on the participation of ‘the
people’; in the contemporary theory of democracy it is the participation
of the minority elite that is crucial and the non-participation of
the apathetic, ordinary man lacking in the feelings of political efficacy,
that is regarded as the main bulwark against
instability.
´´ http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2015/03/on-may-2015-re-election.
Heres the Forbes List of the most powerful people in the world 2009 edition http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/11/worlds-most-powerful-leadership-power-09-people_land.html.
Where is the throne of ELITE POWER? I would argue it is where it has always been in the Counting houses, in the Banks and exchequers. Some study of Steve Keen’s work on advanced financialised Capitalism bears close examination and his work on endogenous money creation, David Graeber’s Debt the first 5000 years serves as a useful historical context against which Keen’s work can be considered, search Marx´s roaming cavaliers of Capital to get some of Keens cutting analysis of Financialised Capitalism and its cannibalistic nature described by Marx so aptly. http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/
“Talk about centralisation! The credit system, which has its focus in the so-called national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers surrounding them, constitutes enormous centralisation, and gives this class of parasites the fabulous power, not only to periodically despoil industrial capitalists, but also to interfere in actual production in a most dangerous manner— and this gang knows nothing about production and has nothing to do with it.” –
See more at:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/#sthash.d4gs1dAX.dpuf
Marx, Capital Volume III, Chapter 33, The medium of circulation in the credit system, pp. 544–45 [Progress Press] – See more at:
I have been working for the past month exclusively on Oligarchy and this talk by Webster Tarpley has a very good analysis of where we have come from and where things seem to be headed.
Tarpley has a lot of good things to say one has to get past the inevitable point at which he will challenge and dismiss something one holds very dear, he upsets everyone I think but his analysis is always an interesting starting point. Of all my own enquiries recently the most revelatory insight I stumbled across was the concept of Hybridity introduced in this paper on the nature of Islamaphobia in Sweden. http://inhouse.lau.edu.lb/bima/papers/Jonas_Otterbeck.pdf
´´ According to the historian Åsa Karlsson, who cites among others Peter Burke, the upper classes of an emerging (Western) Europe came to distance themselves more and more from both the other classes of their own societies and from other cultures. At the same time, there was an urge for knowledge about the others that they had distanced themselves from. (16) This change of attitude towards other ethnic groups, classes, and religions has also been discussed by other Swedish scholars. (17)
16. Å. Karlsson 1998:84ff.
17.Larsson cited in Å Karlsson 1998:84; Ambjörnsson 1994:33ff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
In Many ways, Chris Hedges frustration and pessimism set out in this article asks a question of which path leads to liberation? This Blog by Toby Russel posits the ruling Elite, Hybridised Oligarchy call it what you will as a Danistocracy borrowed from Popp and Albrecht, http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/2011/12/from-here-to-there.html The medias role as the Fourth Estate is brought centre stage in this analysis with the Political Theater relegated to a role subservient to or co-mingled with the Main Stream media. This Speech, a rare one from Popp sets out much of what we need to do which could be summed up as Ignore the Bastards and do what you know will do some good. Do not pay attention to the Narcissists it only encourages them.
The speech of Andreas Popp from Wissensmanufaktur/ Plan B on Easter Monday Demonstration 2014 in Berlin with about 6.000 demonstrators is now available in English.
Businessman and author Andreas Popp, together with his friends at Wissensmanufaktur Institute, has developed an alternative “Plan B” for our western economy and society since they realized that the current system does not serve the people, but cannot be “healed” from within.
As of April 2014, German mainstream media continue to ignore the peaceful weekly Monday demonstrations in now over 34 German cities – defaming them ludicrously as “new right-wing movement”, whatever this should mean – as well as the efforts and offerings of Wissensmanufaktur and many other activists.
For more ideas on career suicide notes please see my Blog.
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/