/lit/ - Literature

>>15716508
This is just blind functioning, Kantian ethics applied to the self-destruction of the old world.Let's take, for example, the Luddites. Their insurrections against textile machines may appear as power over the era, or at least its minor instruments, but this would be incredibly short-sighted. What they did not see was the relation of technical power that existed beyond the machines and the sacrifices made by both man and machine in this increase of power. This could be seen as an opposed economy in which power exists as a form of barter.
This is much closer to how the ancients understood power. In many cases it is much better to retain one's enemies, as the exchange of power causes the one to elevate the other. The code of honour betrays any need of a descent into punishment and the fragile territory retains a boundary that acts in place of nature, strengthening both leaders and their nations.

To eliminate one's enemy is to have to descend into his polluted territory: the extension of the nation is also its division. Of course, this should not be understood dogmatically, but rather as one of the hidden enemies or a messenger of some unknown state. The Christian mythology of war sounds powerful in its total elimination of nations, but there is a double-edged sword that resides in the underground kingdoms of conquered territory. Perhaps this is the reason why old kingdoms buried their kings beneath the governmental palaces.
The descent into Catholicism and Protestantism may thus be seen as an attempt to reconcile with these invisible forces of an ever expanding, but also dead, territory. The mills of realpolitik grind slowly but completely.

Likewise, Machiavelli's Chiron. Descent into the bestial realms becomes necessary where kings and their catacombs have been plundered - the Maginot Line of the Wild Hunt is sacrificed for hundreds of years of mercenary wars and material elimination of impossible armour. The intricacies of mythic power are lost to generals of profane peace, where death becomes the only victory and treaty.
Where questions of power appear with simple solutions one can be sure that a great trick is about to be revealed. The Trojan Horse can only become more subtle or brutal with each use, this explains planned obsolescence in power relations.