{"id":4277,"date":"2023-12-29T09:49:01","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T08:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/?p=4277"},"modified":"2024-02-11T04:31:43","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T03:31:43","slug":"ocalans-solution-for-our-crises-restoring-social-ethics-to-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/ocalans-solution-for-our-crises-restoring-social-ethics-to-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00d6calan\u2019s Solution for Our Crises: Restoring Social Ethics to Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is trapped in a vicious cycle of crisis. In other words, as Barry Gills and Hamed Hosseini claim, \u201cwe are living through a great implosion.\u201d The environment is decaying, poverty is widening, inequality is growing, and war is spreading. The recent data from The Armed Conflict Survey <\/em>indicates the growing number of armed conflicts globally. While the intensity and duration of these conflicts are rising, humanitarian aid is decreasing<\/a><\/span>. For example, in Turkey\u2019s recent unethical and unlawful airstrikes on Rojava and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East (DAANES), the Turkish state intentionally and systematically targeted the civil infrastructure of Rojava, leaving the residents of the region with nothing but misery and trauma. Another recent example is the ongoing post-October-7 Israel-Palestinian war. It is a conflict that has taken the lives of more than 18,000 Palestinians so far, including many women and children. Isn\u2019t it time to ask ourselves why the world is decaying?<\/p>\n

One possible response to this question underscores the growing separation between morality and politics. In a world where \u201cregimes of truth\u201d and ethics are constructed to facilitate the government of societies (Foucault, 2014), the imperative for governing techniques to reinstate hierarchical relations of domination and exploitation leads to a distortion of the moral foundations of life. This paper explains this dilemma and explores potential solutions by examining the relationship between morality and politics, drawing insights from the works of Abdullah \u00d6calan<\/a><\/span> and the broader tradition of social ecology. Moreover, the paper argues that highlighting the relation between morality and politics has the potential to address criticism regarding the accuracy, as well as the potential naturalism and essentialism underlying \u00d6calan\u2019s historiography. This approach suggests that the value of \u00d6calan\u2019s historiography lies in the heuristic potentials embedded in the contrasting ideal types it constructs for the nexus of politics and ethics. These categories are highly valuable not only for comprehending our present dilemma but also for imagining alternatives to the political orders producing it.<\/p>\n

A key aspect of grasping the relation between morality and politics in \u00d6calan\u2019s work and in the broader tradition of social ecology is the difference between politics and statecraft. \u201cThe state is a craft, whereas politics is an art\u201d (\u00d6calan, 2020, 173). This crafting involves operations the state engages with, directing its efforts towards the \u201cgovernance of society by means of professional legislators, armies, police forces, and bureaucracies\u201d (Bookchin, 1999, 173-174). It integrates individuals and groups into a \u201cmegamachine,\u201d which, as Mumford (1966) notes, orchestrates social stratification and hierarchization of bodies based on factors such as class, gender, sexuality, culture, age, and so on. Megamachines, manifesting in various forms and with diverse features across times and spaces, rationalize order and use physical power to establish power monopolies, confining the society\u2019s political life and power (\u00d6calan, 2020, 196-204). In contrast, politics is \u201cthe art of freedom,\u201d with its role being to enable free, equal, and democratic existence and coexistence (\u00d6calan, 347-348). In Viroli\u2019s words, it is \u201cthe art of preserving the republica<\/em>, in the sense of a community of individuals living together in justice\u201d (Viroli, 1992: 2-3). It stands in opposition to statecraft as it necessitates direct democracy as a form of self-management of a community through the equal participation of all its free members (Bookchin, 1999, 173-196).<\/p>\n

The contrast between statecraft and politics extends to the differentiation that \u00d6calan draws between law and morality. \u00d6calan maintains that politics is inherently moral, to the extent that he makes references to morality when attempting to define politics. Politics, which is nothing if not democratic, \u201cis the practical implementation of what the voice [of conscience] expresses\u201d that is \u201cto make the art of freedom\u2014or social politics\u201d (\u00d6calan, 2020, 43). He further argues that \u201cpolitics as direct democracy is effectively morality itself\u201d (\u00d6calan, 336). Why is that?<\/p>\n

The hierarchical structure of \u2018megamachines\u2019 anchors itself in a set of norms that are reflected in instituted law as well as in the dominated society\u2019s common sense. These frameworks serve to justify the hierarchical structuring of societies and their dominance. In this context, it is not that morality lacks a function; rather, its function has become subservient to power monopolies (\u00d6calan, 335-337). Religions, when deployed in the ideological and ethical justification of megamachines, exemplify this state-centric construction of ethics. In the modern era, nation-state-centric norms are predominantly guided by principles of progressivism, individualism, maximization of profit, and national monopolies. The Hobbesian paradigm that life before and outside states is dominated by an anarchical state of war of all against all (cf. Waltz, 1959) has further provided ethical justification for [nation-]states\u2019 monopolistic and hegemony-seeking tendencies internally and internationally. The violent consequences of this situation, in which imperialist, policing, and militaristic tendencies find ethical justification have been severe. Indeed, the endorsement of violence in service of state-centric survivalist and\/or progressivist norms plays a significant role in the works of prominent political theorists such as Kant and Hegel.<\/p>\n

In contrast to state norms and laws, \u00d6calan introduces morality as a component of social-political life. In his framework, morality could be defined as a collective mode of thought that guides political deliberation and decision-making. Morality, for Abdullah \u00d6calan (2020), is the conscience, culture, or mentality of a society. \u00d6calan defines morality in social terms as \u2018social morality.\u2019 Social morality is only possible with freedom. Therefore, \u00d6calan defines morality as the solidified state and organized expression of freedom. Morality, in other words, is the institutionalized and traditional state of freedom with truly democratic politics. The fundamental role of morality is to equip society with the capacity to freely govern itself. A moral-political society maintains its right to self-defense but refuses militarism and its application for hegemonic and monopolistic dominance. An ethical and political society is a society free from domination and hierarchy, both internally and in relation to other societies. Domination is related to power. It is an accrual of power as a consequence of the existence of an asymmetry of power. To be dominated is to be in an uneven power relationship.<\/p>\n

That said, \u00d6calan does not only conceptualize the two categories of social relations but rather concretizes them through historiography. On the one hand, \u00d6calan, similar to Arturo Escobar and Murray Bookchin draws on anthropological and archeological evidence that reveals that pre-civilizational societies, which \u00d6calan refers to as natural or organic societies, followed a different concept of life based on their active consciences. A life that is governed by a set of egalitarian and free moral values is one characterized by its conscience, and this mode of living was common prior to civilization. Organic society, a society based on matricentric culture, was a non-hierarchical, non-dominating society. In other words, it was a libertarian, egalitarian communal life. Values such as inclusion, harmony, solidarity, sharing, cooperation, respect, and mutual acceptance guided life. \u00d6calan labels such a society an ethical and political society. It was a society that upheld the values of equality and diversity, as well as solidarity. This society hypothetically had all the characteristics of a moral society mentioned above.<\/p>\n

Society, \u00d6calan argues, gradually lost its moral and apolitical foundations as relations of domination and hierarchy emerged. Patriarchy is one of the first and oldest forms of hierarchical order. Hierarchy also emerged in the economic sphere, as it was accompanied by the accumulation of power and surplus production that gradually dissolved the morality of society. This was the origin of capitalism, which necessarily complimented and joined forces with patriarchy. Sexual and economic domination were coterminous with the advent of civilization. Values such as extreme competition, profit, egoism, and individualism characterized the unnatural society of civilization. These were values that actively encouraged war and unleashed destruction. Patriarchy and capitalism dissolved the moral foundation of natural society, thereby destroying the existence of the first free and equal society we have ever known (\u00d6calan, 2023, 140). It has substituted morality\u2014the collective conscience of society\u2014for a positivistic \u2018rule of law\u2019 that functions only to protect the private property of the wealthy. Law replaced morality and conscience and it functions in accordance with authority, not truth, as Thomas Hobbes put it. Civilization\u2014through patriarchy, capitalism, and the state\u2014therefore atomized society and established individualism. Today, politics is amoral for this very reason. Today, politics is an expression of the hierarchical and dominating features of civilization, an expression of the loss of the moral basis of natural society.<\/p>\n

The reliance of \u00d6calan\u2019s theorization of the relation of ethics and politics to this historiography, particularly within the framework of a polarized narrative of \u2018natural\u2019 versus contractual societies, is not without controversy. It could be criticized for leaning towards \u2018naturalism\u2019 or \u2018essentialism\u2019 and for being susceptible to critiques regarding the historical accuracy of its narrative. While acknowledging the importance of these arguments, we argue that the significance of \u00d6calan\u2019s historiography may be understood in relation to the political-ethical project he advocates, not as its precondition. Moreover, the importance of calling his moral-political society \u2018natural\u2019 lies in its denaturalization <\/em>of commonly accepted and inherently violent hegemonic ethical norms, which then enables imagining alternatives.<\/p>\n

To give some examples, \u00d6calan\u2019s historiography plays a crucial role in denaturalizing and fostering imagination in the reconceptualization of power and hierarchy. By contrasting his depiction of a moral society with one dominated by state norms, \u00d6calan encourages imagining power with a positive connotation in the natural society insofar as it involved symmetrical relationships. It also denaturalizes hierarchy as the only social structuring paradigm. To be non-hierarchical is to be at the same level as others, to be equal to others, not only legally but also politically. The polarization also denaturalizes the predominant duality of state versus anarchy and enables imagining a life outside state-centric norms that is more peaceful, not less.<\/p>\n

All in all, in our reading of \u00d6calan\u2019s historiography, to say that a natural society was a moral and political society is to defend the possibility and necessity of having a society based on non-domination and non-hierarchy, or freedom and equality. It involves imagining a society whose power dynamics empower individuals and communities. In such a society, politics is practiced in democratic terms. Politics is an application of its moral or ethical base. Politics follows the communal values of society. It is not based on a struggle for power but on conscience. Moreover, to label such a society as \u2018natural\u2019 is not to suggest it has some static ideal form to which it must return and cling. Rather, it is to emphasize that despite progressivist, homogenizing, and positivist hegemonic norms, there remains the possibility of a form of coexistence based on understanding \u201cfreedom as pluralization, diversification, and differentiation in the universe\u201d (\u00d6calan, 2020, 30).<\/p>\n

Bibliography
\n<\/strong><\/span>Escobar, A. (2020) Pluriversal Politics: The Real and Possible, <\/em>translated by David Frye, United States of America: Duke University Press.
\n<\/span>Bookchin, M. (1999). The Murray Bookchin Reader<\/em>. Edited by Janet Biehl. Black Rose Books Ltd.
\n<\/span>Foucault, M. (2014) On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the Coll\u00e8ge de France, <\/em><\/span>1979\u20131980<\/em>, ed. M. Senellart, trans. G. Burchell, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
\n<\/span>Gills, B. K., and Hosseini, S.A.H., (2022) \u2018Pluriversality and Beyond: Consolidating radical alternatives to (mal-) development as a Commonist Project,\u2019 Sustainability Science, <\/em>17, pp. 1183-1194.
\n<\/span>Mumfor, L. (1966) The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development<\/em>. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
\n<\/span>\u00d6calan, A. (2020) Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: The Sociology of Freedom, <\/em>USA: PM Press.
\n<\/span>\u00d6calan, A. (2023) Beyond State, Power and Violence<\/em>, USA: PM Press.
\n<\/span>Viroli, M. (1992) From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics<\/em>, 1250-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
\n<\/span>Waltz, K.E. (1959) Man, the State and War<\/em>. New York: Columbia University.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is trapped in a vicious cycle of crisis. In other words, as Barry Gills and Hamed Hosseini claim, \u201cwe are living through a great implosion.\u201d The environment is decaying, poverty is widening, inequality is growing, and war is spreading. The recent data from The Armed Conflict Survey indicates the growing number of armed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[142,737,734,299,736,575,738,735],"ppma_author":[83,748],"class_list":["post-4277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-abdullah-ocalan","tag-historiography","tag-megamachines","tag-murray-bookchin","tag-ocalans-philosophy","tag-social-ecology","tag-social-relations","tag-thomas-hobbes"],"authors":[{"term_id":83,"user_id":7,"is_guest":0,"slug":"rojin-mukrian","display_name":"Rojin Mukriyan","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/313971111_1479853045867026_6957322257336982562_n-e1667995006666.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/313971111_1479853045867026_6957322257336982562_n-e1667995006666.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""},{"term_id":748,"user_id":593,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sara-kermanian","display_name":"Sara Kermanian","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Sara-K-2.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Sara-K-2.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4277"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4445,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions\/4445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4277"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}