Thursday, July 21, 2005

Paradoxes

Order without authority.
Is that a paradox? A teasing question.

FLEX offered to gather and make available voluntary information on the society's resources. That's an order. But it didn't tell anybody what they must then do with it. That's non-authoritarian.

Thirty-five years after vainly offering this service I'm still tickled by the contrast between the anarchist nature of FLEX and the autocratic rigidity necessary for its administration. The director must cleave to the ideal: entirely undemocratically; but then the public could use it however they wished.

Order

Order: that's what we have (with or without civilization).
Authority: that's what we also have (under ciilization become kleptocracy).

Order
without
Authority


That's what I'm for!