I got to thinking about my Three Worlds concept: The War World of politics and activism; the Abstract World of the market economy; and the Life World of the family and neighborhood.
Then I thought: whatabout the culture of the people inhabiting those three different worlds? Who are the different people and how do they think, and how do they relate to each other? OK, correction: I didn’t think about it; it was my usual two-in-the-morning aha moment.
Am I talking about “culture” or “custom”or “values” or “nomos” (nomos is a fancy Greek word that means law or custom or who knows what)? I don’t know. But let us start by saying “culture.”
Master/Slave Culture This is the culture of War World, the world of politics and government and force and battle and killing. The fact is that where you have the ruler, you also have the ruled; where you have the tax man you also have the taxed. And when you have an army the individual soldier is not free to come and go. He is a Slave under orders, under the rule of the Master, and the Master has the power of life and death over the individual Slave soldier. It is the same in government and politics. The government has the power to tax and regulate. In other words, it is the Master with the power to force the Slave to give up money, and to force the Slave to conform to its orders and regulations. And the activist is no different. Activism — whether “demonstration”or “protest” or “lawfare” or even “mostly peaceful protest”— is a show of force, suggesting to the Slave in no uncertain terms that, unless the Slave caves to the activist Master’s non-negotiable demands, real force will be deployed.
Adventure Culture This is the masculine culture of the abstract Market World, the market economy. The people that start up businesses are adventurers, journeying into the unknown, hacking their way into the unexplored jungle. They are brave, ready to deal with uncertainty, to deal with risk and reverses and losses in the hope and the determination to persevere and hack through the undergrowth to the goal. Adventure Culture is hierarchical because men are hierarchical: some men lead; other men follow. But the hierarchy does not extend to force; the leader leads because of his charisma. We are not talking Masters and Slaves, but leaders and followers.
Care Culture This is the feminine culture of Life World, the family and the neighborhood. It is person-to-person and intimate. That is what caring means: looking after people that you know, and knowing their individual needs and abilities. It is egalitarian, because every woman experiences herself the equal of every other. There are no Masters and Slaves, no leaders and followers. We are talking about a hive culture where everyone knows where they fit in and what needs to be done, just by being a member of the particular Life World.
Of course, what I am doing here is trying to devalue War World, that our educated ruling class has dishonestly described as a heroic battle of the oppressed against the oppressors where somehow the governing class is not oppressive. Sorry about that. The slaves, the taxed and the regulated, cannot be the oppressors, because they do not have the power. Those with the power — the Masters, the governors, the sovereigns, the administrators, the regulators, the politicians, the activists — that’s where you need to look in your search for oppressors.
Let’s say it again. The culture of War world is Master and Slave; the culture of Market world is risk and Adventure; the culture of Life World is Caring.