responsibility / a mess

As a follow up to the previous, I'm also thinking about my relationship with the state -- or maybe, more generally, what social and political institutions look like in my ideal mind. I'm also having great conversations (that I wish I could recreate but I can't) critiquing the current libertarian/lifestyle anarchist mode of seeing "freedom" as the ultimate political goal. I believe very strongly in responsibility, rather than freedom, as the thing we should be cultivating and nourishing. I believe that these huge systems of dominance and oppression implicate us all -- and there is no easy way out. There is no escape hatch.

We must respond to these things. We must understand our relationships to them. We must be accountable. We must let others call us into account. And given that this doesn't mesh well with the political ideals of unencumbered "freedom" (unless it's along the lines of my existentialist freedom, which is choice, which is responsibility), it is unlikely that most people would desire to do this on their own.

So what is the role of the state, or of social and political institutions, in potentially moving us toward a more responsible future? Can the state have a transformative function? Can it help bring about greater equity? Of course we can and should reconfigure political formations, but doesn't the state have a responsibility?

Right now, I am clumsily slamming together two different strands of thought -- which I know are connected, but probably not exactly where I articulated them in this crude rendering. But I guess this is just a thought bookmark for myself.


==> Edit/update:

For one thing, it seems this blog is receiving page views, which is totally unexpected and weird. Who is out there?

For another thing, I am completely unsatisfied with anything I have articulated here so far.

I wanted to share a quote by Gustav Landauer which is closer to my thoughts and inclinations than what I have so far written here:

The State is a condition, a certain relationship among human beings, a mode of behavior, we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one and other... We are the State and continue to be the State until we have created the institutions that form a real community... 

 I also wanted to share a thoughtful piece by someone with whom I have become acquainted recently, which highlights and takes down the "liberal thought-magic" that imagines and assumes that the only politics worthy of consideration happen at the state level and within so-called civil society ("the public").

I'm re-introducing myself to collectivist anarchist ideals. I think there is a lot within these currents of thought that resonates with me. But I am trying to grapple with and understand what my assumptions, thoughts, and hopes are about about political and social institutions. And it's messy. So pardon me.