The Ethics of Breakaway I

Prelude

In our unlimited exchanges of speeches, acts, desires and insinuations, we wonder, “where does it all lead?”. The forces behind our actions are already acting. The donors of the two-party system, the charlatans and the priestly substances, are knocking at our door. Our primary concern should be to exit from the circle of exchange and move towards an ecstasy of production, speed, honour, and stake. It is not to say that the former sphere is useless. This much is impossible to state as long as this circle of discursivity is actual. Rather, it is to shift our perspective to be able to do anything at all. What are the steps for such a relation? This is an inherently ethical question. Analysis and ethics are at a disjunction. So much so that they are separated and keep separating within the political system. One actor, one analyzer. The one who analyzes is subjectively rational. He tends towards repetition, accumulating information and most importantly, a desire for social recognition. The researcher wishes for others to recognize his analysis to be true. Hence, he is an identitarian. Implicitly and unconsciously, he also wishes for others to act upon his identity. He leaves the action to another. On the other hand, the one who acts is motivated by different factors. He is transgressive, passionate and simplistic. Many thinkers have touched upon such a separation and its relation to human action; whether Apollo and Dionysius, Master and Slave, Monarch and Bureaucracy, Intellectual and Masses, etc. But the question that concerns us is how to short-circuit either of the spheres to break away from the false choices that are presented to us.

The concept of a “breakaway civilization” is prescient as a guide for our dilemma. A breakaway civilization is a hypothetical, highly advanced society that has separated itself from mainstream civilization, often in secrecy. The concept suggests that a group—whether a government faction, a corporate elite, or a hidden scientific community—has developed technology or knowledge far beyond what is publicly known and has chosen to isolate itself from the rest of humanity. This breakaway group may operate independently, either on Earth, underground, or even in space, using classified advancements in science, energy, or space travel to maintain their secrecy and dominance. This concept is mostly used within conspiracy communities to explain the explosive and exponential cycles of history; k-waves, nomadic invasions, floods, catastrophes, etc. To understand these phenomena as repeating, while the course of normal humanity continues, makes the necessity of a part of humanity separate from the rest evident. More concretely, in the sphere of political economy, groups that achieve separation from the rest are always associated with power, whether classes, scientists, priests, parties, etc. Hence, an analysis of separation and difference from the normal discourse is necessary for an analysis of power. Inevitably, an analysis of power becomes synonymous with ethics after sufficient formalization.

Let us imagine a member of such a breakaway civilization. He is a normal person. He attends his daily activities. He has a family and a job. He participates in discourse, to some extent. But he also has a code of honor, rituals and connections that others do not have. What distinguishes him is the fact that he can enter a wholly other sphere with his fellow members. He is only temporary in the world of exchange. From the perspective of the civilization, the whole of society, culture and language become a game. As an individual, this can be seen as cynicism. But as a collective, this is an artwork. We can say that the fundamental difference between the normal citizen and the sovereign citizen is that the sovereign citizen’s sphere of interaction is curated. There are often very strict rules to enter such breakaway civilizations, whether geographically, ritualistically, religiously or intellectually. The membership has consequences, hence the honor and the sacred associated with the group. In the sphere of exchange, the world is a chaotic free for all. There can be no honor on the market. Thus, the identitarian will always necessarily be disappointed. The ones he seeks recognition from have no stake in preserving an identity with him. But the member will not be disappointed. As soon as he is, he can reform his pact, curate his surroundings and create a new bubble for production. This is a difference in the ethics of these two types of persons. Delineating their characteristics will help us transition from one to the other seamlessly.

Masters, Slaves, Mediums and Games

Our two characters start from the desire to have an inner-truth verified, recognized or represented. The sole difference is how they go about doing this. The slave wishes for recognition of his mere identity as a slave. The master wishes for the representation of his inner truth universally. This is precisely why we say he is ready to die. The master does not mind death if his inner truth remains represented beyond his death. This is why the master can truly act in the world. This is also why they are often religiously intoxicated. The master and slave separation is also defined as a technical difference in mediums. The medium of the slave’s recognition is the tool bestowed upon him. The medium of the master’s representation is curated and private. They have contact with the spirits, the arts, and literature. We can establish a line of historical and technical development for the sake of analysis. The more societies develop, the more sociological spheres are added to “discourse” and “exchange”. Everything is up for exchange. This is our contemporary position. The cynic will see that the sublimation of everything to an object of exchange removes all possibility of honor. However, exchange is necessary for separation. To keep the slaves active and for their sustenance, the masters are forced to exchange. This is not out of their will, they would rather wish to produce the artwork. Hence, mastery grows with exchange. Exchange within society allows for masters to self-challenge and prove their inner-truth when faced with other masters. This is the inner-master struggle. The inner-slave struggle is the struggle to achieve higher recognition than their peers. When these two impulses go to their extremes, we have a universal exchange; for the slave to be recognized everywhere in society (women entering the workforce, peasants entering the cities, etc) and for the masters to use everything against their enemies (state access, ideological access, etc). This is only possible at a specific stage of the development of mediums. The masters compete for the universe, the slaves compete for each other. The slave is *defined* by their enemy while the master is merely inconvenienced by him.

With modern society, the masters seem to disappear. The truth is that the process becomes more cyclical. There is no longer a clear technical and mediatic line separating master and slave, whether aristocratic, biological, educational or other. Every once in a while, a new master along with his sphere of mastery, appears and enslaves the sphere of exchange. He can even come from slavery. The state becomes an emergent property and not a relic or physical delineation. The impossibility of masters is not because the system is too mediatic (in the sense that mediums are available for everyone) but that using media is prohibited. As soon as the media is properly used, you are working for a foreign agent. Breaking away from the media requires creating a separate sphere from it. It requires using tools differently from how the discourses use them. The paradox is that the ability for freedom of the media is not itself free. Radically different principles of usage are no longer possible, whereas in the master societies they were. Each master had his honor on his land. His own rules.

Experimentation is dead. To break away is to experiment, play and challenge. It is the opposite of a discursive relation. Experimentation is non-dual, open-ended, ironic and honorable. Discourse is a closed loop. With the universalization of the medium, it is now also possible for the apparent masters to be slavish, i.e, to wish recognition from the other slaves. It is also possible for a slave to be masterful, to reject the discoursal game and have a shot at the artwork. Since we have shown separation to be power, the slave needs to reject the choices that are given to him. Since his object is the artwork, he will desire a reconfiguration of the objects, shifting their latitudes and longitudes, and not their eradication. He can not wish mastery for the sake of mastery, that is a slavish identitarian position.

In the depths of the inner world, he finds inspiration. The master’s ploy is a trick to re-enact the honor of the children. This is the reason self-conscious rituals form a fundamental aspect of any sphere of mastery. It is also here that the fine line between evil and good is traced. But this preservation requires transformation. How far is the master willing to go to preserve his honor? Out of this limit arises art, politics and the religious sphere. This constant transformation exhilirates the master towards proving his honor. It makes his honor a living flame.

But what is honor in this context?

To know what man wants is to ask what he can do for eternity. The only thing man can do for eternity would be to *play*. Man would not be eating, running, reading, or sleeping for an eternity. Only play contains infinity within itself since it is fundamentally relational to both the environment and the socius. It feeds back upon itself. It is also the only way man can prove himself, beyond recognition and towards representation. Since the system of play encourages certain behaviours and discourages others, man’s nature is infinitely reflected back to him in his play. Hence, the drive for globalization is also a hidden drive to establish the universal global game. The difference between a child and an adult master is that the master plays with death, or the possibility that he is ontologically wrong. The slave can not pay the price for failure, he subsists in it.

Continued soon…