From thelema93-l-owner@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Sun Jun 2 02:00:30 1996 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com ([156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA13365 for ; Sun, 2 Jun 1996 02:00:29 -0700 Received: from bitsy.hollyfeld.org ([38.240.235.1]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id CAA09741 for ; Sun, 2 Jun 1996 02:00:19 -0700 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.6.12/8.6.9) id FAA07494 for thelema93-l-outgoing; Sun, 2 Jun 1996 05:55:29 -0400 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (root@nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id FAA07490 for ; Sun, 2 Jun 1996 05:55:16 -0400 Received: from jobe.shell.portal.com (jobe.shell.portal.com [156.151.3.4]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA09539; Sun, 2 Jun 1996 01:53:53 -0700 Received: (tyagi@localhost) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) id BAA13205; Sun, 2 Jun 1996 01:53:52 -0700 Message-Id: <199606020853.BAA13205@jobe.shell.portal.com> Subject: Thelemic Politics: ISONOMY (Was Re: OZzy Speaks...) To: thelema93-l@HOLLYFELD.ORG (Thelema93-Listserv) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 1996 01:53:51 -0700 (PDT) From: tyagi@HOUSEOFKAOS.ABYSS.COM (xiwangmu) Orientation: House of Kaos, St. Joseph, Kali Fornika, US -- Kali Yuga X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 4024 Sender: owner-thelema93-l@HOLLYFELD.ORG Precedence: bulk reply-to: thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Status: RO 49960602 (4 days before the Aeon of the Adversary) Do as you please, for that is my Law. |From: Jeffrey Smith |Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 23:13:57 -0400 (EDT) |"no-rule" should properly be "anomy" |"Iso" is a prefix with meaning of even or balanced or symmetric (as in |isometrics or isoseceles triangles); so isonomy *ought* to mean |something like "ruled balanced out among the parts"--i.e, a society |where all people really are equals, in fact as well as in theory, and the |government is on all their shoulders. I was likely unclear and/or mistaken, being relatively new to the book by Arendt and the concept. Let me quote a little from _On Revolution_ and also from my Bible: Freedom as a political phenomenon was coeval with the rise of the Greek city-states. Since Herodotus, it was understood as a form of political organization in which the citizens lived together under the conditions of no-rule, without division between rulers and ruled.* This notion of no-rule was expressed by the word isonomy, whose outstanding characteristic among the forms of government, as the ancients had enumerated them, was that the notion of rule (the "-archy" from [Greek text omitted] in monarchy and oligarchy, or the "-cracy" from [more omitted] in democracy) was entirely absent from it. The polis was supposed to be an isonomy, not a democracy. The word "democracy," expressing even then majority rule, the rule of the many, was originally coined by those who were opposed to isonomy and who meant to say: What you say is "no-rule" is in fact only another kind of rulership; it is the worst form of government, rule by the demos.** * - I am following the famous paragraphs in which Herodotus defines - it seems for the first time - the chief three forms of govern- ment, rule by one, rule by the few, rule by the many, and discusses their merits (Book III, 80-82). There the spokesman for Athenian democracy, which, however, is called isonomy, declines the kingdom which is offered him and gives as his reason: "I want neither to rule nor to be ruled." Whereupon Herodotus states that his house became the only free house in the whole Persian Empire. ** - For the meaning of isonomy and its use in political thought, see Victor Ehrenberg, "Isonomia", in Pauly-Wissowa, *Realenzyklopa:die des klassischen Altertums, Supplement*, vol. VII. Especially telling seems a remark of Thucydides (III, 82, 8), who by "fair-sounding names," some preferring to invoke isonomy and some moderate aristocracy, while, as Thucydides implies, the former stood for democracy and the latter for oligarchy.... _On Revolution_, by Hannah Arendt, Viking Press, 1969; pp. 22-3 as well as notes from p. 289. ________________________________________________________________ isonomy... *n.* equality of political rights [Gk. *isonomia*...] Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Barnes and Noble, 1992. ______________________________________________________________________ [most of the balance of Jeffrey's letter included below - mu] |I was intrigued by all your comments. You did skip over the best |argument for laws against drug use, sexual commerce, etc.; namely, that |they protect those who are unable to properly decide whether or not to |act in a certain way--in Ozzic terms, they protect the slaves from their |own bad choices; but the Law is unable to distinguish between kings and |slaves and therefore binds the kings as well.... |If you want to expand on this onlist, please do so, but please cc me |privately, .... |Yours in luxocentric antiterranism... | Jeffrey Smith f901030k@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us |Ten Sefirot Ineffable: Their end is in their beginning, their beginning |is in their end, as the fire and the fuel. For the Master is singular, |He has no second. And before One, what is counted?--Sefer Yetzirah 1:7 Free love, right now! mu tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com