The Secret Art of Power - Part IV
An Epistolary Dialogue Between
Roberto Calvo Macias and Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love -
Narcissism Revisited"

Dear Sam,

Your letter broaches some of the great problems of the (post)-modern
world. Though I am not sure whether your conclusions are right. My
lack of knowledge of economics hinders my argumentation, but, I
would like you to explain to our readers (and to me) the
relationship between Market and State. It seems that you consider
the market to be FREE of the state. But, is it not precisely the
state which guarantees that your copyright will be respected? Who is
going to close the factory which is copying your products without
your permission? You, perhaps? Your private police?:-). Market is a
free market. If there are any regulations (and there are many) then
it is not a (free) market (that is to say an exchange between free
individuals according to their values), it is simply a state market.
It is a great error of economists to observe the market in isolation
from reality. So, the decentralized market, the invisible hand, the
re-distribution of economic powers and all that jazz are just what
they have always been: illusions. But, let us take a look at history
to see some examples of market expansion and its supposed de-
centeredness.

One of the best, longest and largest use of "the secret art of
power" is, undoubtedly, the Roman Ecclesia (which, contrary to the
wishes of its master, wanted to establish "a kingdom of this world":-
)

"The Catholic Church was not only the great moral authority of that
time but also a great financial power" (Pirenne, 1963, 16-17).

"Clerics were the directive elite in matters of rights,
administration and organization and the Church itself is the one-and-
only solid organization, under whose model grow up the rest of the
immature political forms of kingdoms" (Troesch, 1925, 130).

"All the semiotic universe of the Middle-Ages rests on "the
sacerdotal monopoly of writing" of the centralized ecclesiastical
hierarchy" (Moya, 1984, 253).

By controlling both the knowledge and the financial resources, the
Roman Church reigned over the feudalist kingdoms. This monopoly was
broken by technology (in a way similar to the one you regard the
Internet). The techno-industrial development of the "printing
machine" was going to be key, instrumental in the bourgeois
revolutions. (This is the main theme of "The Hunchback of
Notredame".)

"With Gutenberg, Europe entered the technological phase of progress,
when change itself is now the archetypal norm of social life"
(Gutenberg Galaxy, McLuhan).

These changes were rounded up with the invention of "Double Entry"
by the genial Fray Luca Paccioli. The biases towards the modern
world were thus set.

Instead of the supposed free scenery of Reason of the "Homo
Tipographicus" (McLuhan), coercion and violence did not disappear,
neither did power and fear.

It was Hobbes who first "stated" the state as the real imago of the
reason of "homo tipographicus". His words are revealing
indeed: "This is the generation of that great Leviathan, better said
(stated more reverentially) of that "mortal god", to whom we owe,
under the immortal God, our peace and defence". No need to tell you
who was Leviathan:-)

Hobbes himself being a weak and fearing person, it is no miracle
that all his theory of state is founded on Death, Fear and Violence.

"The passions which moved men into peace are the fear of death..."
(Leviathan, Hobbes)

"Death is the political instrument par excellence" (Savater)

"The last instance is in manipulation, it is in the administration
of death that power is founded" (Léchange symoblique et la mort,
Baudrillard).

This is why secrecy appears where life and death are committed:
weapons, food (genetics), state control, etc. The rest are not
important: they are open to public.

The belief in liberty, gained through technological improvements is
naive. It is lack of authenticity at its highest expression.
Political de-centralization was not offered by the printing press
(just remember the totalitarian states that followed) nor will it be
offered by the Internet and by modern technologies. These are
matters not of technology but of men. It was E. Gibbons, the great
historian, one of the first to provide a "realistic" counterpoint to
the mechanical philosophy of Hobbes and his Leviathan:

"(Monarchy) is simply defined as a state wherein a sole individual
has at once the execution of laws, the management of finances and
the command of the army command. But, if there is not, for the self-
guard, the concern of hard watchers, then that lordship degenerates
and ends in despotism. Only a fighting nobility and indomitable
subjects, handling the steel in defence of their possessions and
solemnly represented in constitutionals boards, can balance the
state and conserve its form against the immoderate prince".

Insert "political parties" instead of "prince" and "technology"
instead of "state" and you will have a picture of the modern world.

He who places his hopes for liberty upon technology is like the one
who calls a lawyer while his mother is being raped. The Internet and
other new technologies can offer some possibilities to the
individual but they are nothing without a free spirit without fear.

In fact, state control has reached the highest levels ever known. As
far as the masses are concerned, nothing have changed - being as
atheist and non-religious as they are, they are slaves of their own
body (and fear of death). A great, populated city is easy
controllable by technology (energy and communications control, food
and water, etc.). Kosovo gives us the picture of that modern (anti)
war between machines: some neural points hit were enough to reach a
techno-military agreement.

The individual, though, always has new answers to these powers. In
response to that total coercion of the state and other groups, he
can disappear into the net, giving to the word "personae" its old
meaning: mask (prosopon in Greek). Converted into a phantasm of
information, the individual can attack real state without being
attacked. The fight metamorphoses into a Pythagorean one, the new
weapons being the crypto-maths. "A small elite will be the guardians
of the Temple´s Doors" ( Global Village, McLuhan).

If the old "contras" used cellars to print their pamphlets and make
their reunions - the new free-phantasm could be everywhere, its only
contact with reality is its own PC (these situations were studied by
mangas (Japanese comics) some years ago). His security now depends
on his capacity to maintain in secrecy his own position (the contact
point with the web). In a detective/criminal way he must erase his
own traces. Is that possible? Which answer would have given our
dear great detective Dupin?:-) (I would like to listen to Poe about
this one :-))

Another, different question is technical knowledge, which cannot be
maintained in secrecy, not only because technical processes are
against secrecy but because over all, technicians, as servants of
machines, are against secrecy. They want to spread machines and
technical knowledge in the universe. In my next letters I will try
to make some detective genealogical pursuits (Nieztsche) of secrecy,
science and its different ways in East and West.

Wishing you the best and waiting for your response

roberto

(continued)

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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com