Or, who is sovereign in my life?
When I was an idealistic college sophomore, I was the editor of a tiny journal published with the sponsorship of the philosophy department at Memphis State University, Being all idealistic and hopeful that one could know the truth and that the truth would set one free, and that the truth could be expressed and known in words, we called our little rag Logos.
Our policy was a noble one: we intended to provide a platform where anyone could publish their ideas on any subject. Our first issue was about the size of a poster for lost cats. But the second issue included the beginning of our longest series, a commentary on Wittgenstein's Brown Notebook that was wonderfully obtuse and long. Each time a new issue came out, one of us young colosssi from the Logos staff would stand outside the student center around lunchtime and distribute these pearls of freedom of thought to the hungry students yearning to breathe free. The MSU students wer almost always more interested in the macaroni or chicken-friend steak, so we never needed a very large print run.
About the fourth issue of our Logos, however, the reaction of the masses changed. After a few copies had been taken, there were some folk who wanted more. who wanted multiple copies., who wanted all the copies. That was the issue to which a very slightly-built young man who called himself Vernon Pow-El Cox had submitted a little letter to Logos criticizing the growing war in a place few of the kids in the lunch room could find on a globe, but where many of them would find their death, Vietnam. Vernon's uncle had been killed there already, and he didn't like it. Apparently there were folk who didn't like that he could say that he didn't like it, because they were trying to get all the copies of Logos not to read but to burn.
In the next issue, Vernon had another letter, and he wanted to distribute it himself. Vernon's 110 pound ferocity was no match for the members of the Memphis State Football team who grabbed all the copies of our journal and tossed him aside. So, we reprinted that issue. This time David Dybek and I decided to distribute it. We were the studliest members of the Logos staff, each weighing in at around 137 pounds, and we were both long-distance runners, an asset which would prove important for our journalistic futures. We, too, were surrounded by members of the football team, who punched us to the cheers of the crowd around. The campus police intervened, because we were in their jurisdiction and they should have the first kicks and jabs at us trouble makers. The university president quickly summoned the Tennessee State Police--if this hadn't happened to me, I don't think I would have believed that it could happen--who kicked us, literally, off-campus where we were given a short period of protection, now by the stick-wielding Memphis Police. from the now large crowd gathered to watch free speech and those who protested it. Vernon Pow-El Cox climbed on top of a car and talked about his now-two uncles who were early fatalities of the Vietnam War, although I doubt anyone much heard him. Then we were told to run, and the crowd was let loose. Vernon actually hid under a car. (His later fate needs a post of its own.) David and I ran probably our best times to the red door of the Newman Foundation and took refuge in the Church. (photo above) The crowd got tired or hungry and dispersed. David and I walked unnoticed back to our classes, although Memphis State refused to readmit me for my junior year, even though I was a National Merit Scholar and had about a 3.8 average. (I would probably have had a 4.0, but I didn't do well in mandatory ROTC). The University dealt with the immediate problem of free speech by installing racks for student publications, making it easy for anyone to destroy them all or to ignore them as they wished, without beating up the paper boys.
I was reminded of the Logos Incident as US presidential hopefuls attack Facebook. I actually left Facebook for a short time, because my friends were so repetitious and thoughtless in their posts. Although sually less obtuse than commentary on Wittgenstein, cat photos and sunsest soon have a sameness. I didn't think that Facebook was evil, just that it was boring, and it was a place where my friends could post embarrassingly under-thought responses to 'issues' that I felt a friendly duty to consider.
But I am returning to Facebook because it is a sort of successor in spirit to Logos. Obviously it is much larger and has much more power. Because of its success, Facebook has become unlike anything previous to it. It's in an odd new category beyond being a community bulletin board but not really a newspaper, either. It's easy to hate on Mark Zuckerberg and notice his blunders. I wish he had gone to the mat sooner and fought to be a bulletin board. Yet Facebook remains an entity from which one can opt out, and which one can choose to ignore entirely.
Elizabeth Warren does not have a plan to let me opt out of her Brave New World. She wants sovereignty with all its perks, and she wants it bigly. Sovereignty is a fascinating concept. It could be theoretical if it were not for the easy exertion of force. It was very hard for Vernon Pow-El Cox to exercise the individual sovereignty he felt he inherited as an idea of the Enlightenment when he was cast aside by football line men with the force they had inherited from the Neanderthals.. By the time of the Logos incident the sovereignty of the Church had long been cast aside by the sovereignty (how many divisions of troops does the Pope command?) of the state, but it had been granted some at least symbolic jurisdiction because it still contained voters.
I think we are seeing the emergence of new sovereignties, post-state entities which will largely replace the nation states. Bernie Sanders' real foe in controlling the health care of the United States isn't the republicans but Amazon Prime Care. What I find hopeful in this development is that the new sovereigns could remain voluntary. I was baptized into the Church. I was born into the State. Both claim pretty much absolute power. I can still opt in and out of Facebook.
So, I am not swearing fealty to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. But I am choosing the voluntary participation in the Facebook community as a glimpse into a world which might exist after the collapse of the compulsory nation-state. I am also looking into Gab, which at this time seems closer to the goals of my sophomore idealistic Logos.
Preach!
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