Thread by @_kruptos

1. It is useful to remind ourselves as we discuss politics, that “feudalism” is not a political system. It was a set of loyalty relationships made among a warrior elite, the foundation of which was honor and hierarchy. It was organic and maintained by many who could not read.

2. Towards the end of the feudal period, this hierarchical honor culture was under great pressure to adapt to the new, emerging power of the merchant class who operated not by “honor” but by “efficiency.”

3. As the monarchies centralized and began to adopt the methods of the merchants for managing their kingdoms in regards to administration, taxation and the military, eventually the old system of honor and obligation was threatened.

4. What was replacing the old order of hierarchical loyalty relationships was this new emerging idea of “the state.”

It is important for us today to understand that “the state” is not merely a content free set methods that are employed to better run things more efficiently.

5. If we take McLuhan’s analysis seriously, and we do, that the medium is the message, that the very introduction of the idea of “the state” represented a fundamental shift. “The state” is inherently tied to the rise more broadly of enlightenment liberalism.

6. “The state” emerges as the dominant form of government during the revolutionary period in which the old order of the person centered loyalty relationships of feudalism were put away for the new forms of abstract rationalized systems.

7. Governance would no longer occur through a set of personal loyalty relationships maintained by the force of arms, varying wildly in quality and effectiveness depending on the person.

8. Now men would meet together, would discuss abstractly the various forms of governance as found in the historical record and then set about to lay out a new system of governance.

The key thing is to see that this impulse itself is of a piece with the new liberal spirit.

9. To make the argument that these new systems of popular and democratic governance drew on past models and had a respect for the past, thus making them “conservative” (ie they preserved in their new forms the best of the past) is to miss the point.

10. The very fact of these new forms of government was the decisive reality. These forms of government were made for the new emerging world of liberal rationalism towards efficient, consistent and (it was hoped) which limited the power of men over other men.

11. System would limit persons.

Again, the fact of the internal logic of feudalism (honor and obligation) was swept aside for the new logic of “the state.” The very concept idea, the very fact of “the state” was an attack on the old world of feudalism.

12. Carl Schmitt made this observation:

“Thus the epoch of monarchy is at an end when the sense of the principle of kingship, of honor, has been lost, if bourgeois kings who appear to seek to prove their usefulness and utility instead of their devotion and honor.”

13. Once the internal logic of feudalism (honor and obligation) was replaced by the utilitarian efficiency of “the state,” Schmitt argued it was only a matter of time before parliament and the idea of the social compact was replaced by the current administrative state.

14. This is in part why Ellul makes the argument that the political problem we face is not one of which party is in charge of “the state,” but rather it is the fact of “the state” itself. The whole notion of the state is itself part and parcel of the liberal ethos.

15. “The state” which is now the dominant form of governance everywhere, regardless of which party or how well or poorly they are run. The basic idea is to run the affairs of a country like they are a business.

16. Liberalism must be seen as a product of the merchant classes and their challenge to the old feudal way of doing things dependent upon persons, loyalty, honor and obligation.

This old way was swept aside to implement systems that would allow better controls and management.

17. Again, the medium is the message.

The problem is not who controls “the state,” but rather the problem we face is the reality of “the state” as an idea and as an instantiated reality. The problem is the fact of the state in our lives.

18. To think about the problem in terms of “system” is to be thinking as one with the mentality of “the state.” To be thinking about “solutions” is to be thinking as one infected with the mentality of “the state.”

19. The problem we face is we know of no reality other than “the state.” We are so used to thinking in terms of “the state” that it is almost impossible for us to think about it any other way.

20. To think in patterns and terms set by our experience of and living within “the state,” is to think about the world and the problems of governance always in terms and patterns that are fundamentally liberal. As long as we talk in terms of the state, there is no conservatism.