The Nature of the Civil War
Critically
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian neo-Marxist that his social theories transformed the discourse of social science and the views of culture and domination. Even if you are not a Marxist, most of his concepts and theories are relevant and even vindicated in modern political science, albeit in non-Marxist terms. If we look at Critically's article he gives some background information which I think is messy. I think overall, the so call civil war can be best explained on the Gramscian notion of cultural hegemony.
This article will discuss the origins of the civil war, the battle itself and the fate of the conflict. This article is my analysis of it.
The civil war begins with NLSP's No Pain No Gains Act. While I am not saying that he is the instigator of the war, but it is his bill that started the conflict. There is a fundamental difference in the Praxis of the bill. What NLSP argued passionately for the bill was purely structural and while the opponents of it raised structural concerns, most are alarmed and disgruntled by the agency of the bill. For the disagreement. The Praxis or engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing of ideas is highly different and the different ontology, weltanshauung, philosophy, (Praxis) began the antagonizing relationship between the Wardist/ Elites with capital 'E' (institutionalized elites) and the Shadowist/elites with lower case 'e' (semi to non-institutionalized with the exception of Shadow himself).
Fundamentally, the Elites do not want to give up any power while the Shadowist wants to cease power for their own. However, the Elites in my opinion like with Ward with his bureaucracy and ThomasRed's "traditions" this creates what Max Weber feared the Entzauberung der Welt or the Demagicfication of the World. What that means is that he fears that the bureaucratic structures became so abundant and restrictive that it robs individuals its humanity. In the end, we are mindless automatons in a system of rule. Politics and policies becomes meaningless but just an extent of an production line and nothing more. I would suspect that the Elites and the Wardist is fighting for the status quo and is reactionary. Fearing the demagicfication of the self, the Shadowist lost all trust for the Elites who many of the Shadowist are power mongers who are oppressive. Therefore, the battle for hegemony (civil war) is waged on agency of moral and intellectual leadership.
After NPNG was repealed, distrust from both sides are high. The idiosyncratic variable of a possible land rent of German territory instigate more distrust with a possible need of taxation for the rent to be possible. The timing of this was far from ideal. The mindset of the Shadowist was that NPNG was oppressive and will rob our creativity and agency. Days after the debate, the same issue came up with the issue of taxation which was also one of the main issues with the NPNG act. We have Critically suggesting a tax for a land rent to be possible. Therefore, instead of the issue dying down, the issues of NPNG continued for many weeks after NPNG.
The issue expanded to the BAF which in my opinion is a MU. We have an institution that gets 50-80 percent of eBE tax that ThomasRed owns. I say that ThomasRed owns the BAF since he controls all of the companies of the BAF. The MoD have no say in the command of BAF in regards to ownership of the orgs and companies, and this issue is a matter of justice and legitimacy. On the one hand, the Shadowist view that we are in a process of demagicfication but why is a private group that is not even state run or controlled get so much? What is the benefit of the individual in funding the BAF whose members are mostly rich, player who pays RL cash for gold, and owns many company for profit themselves? Why should we subsidize the rich and powerful? For Shadowist, we are asked to sacrifice our liberty and financial resources, but what sacrifices are the BAF members making? A force that cannot defend eBE against anyone but sucks the most money for the top 1 percent of eBE also antagonized many. If the BTA gets most of the funding and the BAF gets like 20 percent, I believe that this will reduce a lot of the tension. Also my recommendation for ThomasRed to give up the BAF companies and that the BAF companies should be under the MOD's account. If this is the national army, it should be run by the MOD.
I can go into many more details, but I hope you can see that there is a fundamental disagreement on a moral and intellectual level. While interest is a huge factor which I equate interest to power, but I mainly think that the civil war is mostly a philosophical battle. We can see players like ThomasRed and Ward who relates RL patriotism into the game level. They are reactionary and does not like change. I cannot speak for them but I have a feeling that they believe if nothing is broken, do not change it. Their belief that the Shadowist maybe based on the attitude of Shadow himself, as nothing more but just an disruptive force and nothing more. The dismissal of the Shadowist as a bunch of whiners or nay sayers is a flawed attitude that contribute to the problem.
To be fair, the Shadowist are disorganized and a bit trollish, feeding the notion that this is nothing by whining etc. The biggest problem with the Shadowist is their lack of centralization and organization in the movement. They are frustrated and want change. But their biggest error in their revolution is that there was lack of a "war of position" but they moved into a "war of position". War of position is a struggle for creating a civil society that is ready for their vision (Praxis) of what the state should be. Some Shadowist, moved into the war of movement, the actual attempt to overthrow the state, with the forum issues as well as MG's immigration issues that really damage and stalled the revolutionary efforts. The lack of organization led to a lack of war of positions which resulted in the lack of legitimacy of the war on movement which makes the battle a lost cause before it began. If the war of position was done well, TR can complain and cried all he wants, but the new forum would be respected and legitimacy.
I believe that Ward will have a really high chance in winning the CP. This also means that eBE will have a lot more problems in the days to come. I see that the lack of organization of the Shadowist will cost them greatly. While they are in agreement that Ward should not be CP, but they cannot even get a clear agreement on who will be their main CP candidate. There is no war of position at all but they want to engage in a war of movement. This is a sure sign of failure. This lack of organization and maybe even communication must be remedied if they want to have any chance of having any election and policy victory.
In my opinion, the war will not end. The war might have a bit of calm between the next battle, but unless some of the philosophical issues are resolved, there is no chance for a real cessation for the hostile relationship. The lack of trust is still evident and is high. On the one hand there is a compromise on the forum and the next, members of the Elites are trying to use the constitution to kill the compromise, this only feeds distrust. Both sides are fatigued and frustrated, but I do not see there will be any change. Especially with Ward becoming CP and the Elites will not give up power, we have one side that strongly does not want change. I am not even sure if they think that the concerns of the Shadowist are legitimate and sincere. The Shadowist are not organized and are just pissed off. They want revolution when they do not have the means to wage it. The current situation of eBE is a mess. Either the Elites should take the Shadowist more seriously or the Shadowist really needs to organize and become a real threat to them. Until then, you will have this stalemate and will see really heated and unhealthy conflicts in a cyclical pattern.
Konrad Neumann
-German President x3
-Officer of Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw (Political dedication and service)
-Knight of Orde van Oranje Nassau (Societal dedication and service)
-17 time congressman
-Advisor to the Raidoh Administration
-Former Minister of Interior of Netherlands
-Former Minister Foreign Affairs of Netherlands
-Former Party President of Green Liberal Democrats [GLD]
-Former Party President of Open Minded Germany [OMG]
-Retired Emeritus of the now defunct Phoenix
-Co-Author of the Frankfurt Treaty
-One of the negotiator, author of the Phoenix alliance under then President Donnie Bronco
-Vice/MoFA of eGermany from August to January
-Former eGerman ambassador to eAustralia, eUK, and UNL
-Adviser to the Ilphen admin
Comments
Nice article Konrad !
LOOONG Voted 😉
no pics, still vote will read later... maybe
Daniel Parker won't read xD
will vote if you can summarize it in 10 words 😃
This article is rearly awesome and you should read it
Another attempt to revive the artificial divide. Almost unreadable btw. Let's unite behind an understandable project ; )
@Ward
"Another attempt to revive the artificial divide. Almost unreadable btw. Let's unite behind an understandable project"
This is the attitude that is the problem with eBE.
good article with a clear view on the situation of eBelgium.
10 words for Zen Mahong
eBE election-fever fear power drama nonsense Wall-of-Text success revolution failure
tl;dr
Revolution is wanted...
Democracy is needed!
Not many armies in the RL world succeed with only democratically elected generals at their head. In eRep, MU's are led in-game in a 'hereditary' way, with a capable general nominating his own capable successor.
Democracy however is useful when Congress votes the allocation of the state's budgets - and that is exactly what happens in Belgium almost forever now. The funding laws are democratically approved and will be changed only in a democratic way. If you vote for Ward De Bever, the current good funding of MU's (the mixed-funding BTA for all new and aspiring citizens and the BAF, an elite squad open to all committed 1000+ strength soldiers) will continue, in accordance with the current will of Congress. Overall taxation levels are quite low in our country, also a democratic feat to be proud of.
The forum situation is similar: the current admins are doing a good job (among others we now have democratically elected moderators, the forum laws and Supreme Court are still in effect when we take into account the boundaries of enforceability, ...) and in the end it's the community's free (de facto democratic) choice to have the role-play game activity there, or not.
Why make things difficult if they can be simple?
I was surprised that it was coming from Critically, but it's Konrad, so it's a relief😁.
lol Ward.
First, this is not RL, this is a game. I do not think you understand this topic at all. If this is an national army, then the MoD should have direct command of it. Not via a middle man but direct control.
Also for the other stuff, what are you talking about? You have no idea on what you are talking about and you are just being partisan. If people see your track record, you are nothing but supporting benefits for the Elites and not the weak. You defended more funding for the BAF and not the BTA. You justify BAF getting 80 percent of the tax not the BTA.
The forum situation is crap as you support aristocracy for the admins and serfdom for anyone else. The people voted the mod but you and your camp resisted the movement until people strong armed you to comply with the will of the congress.
Why make things difficult when they can be simple? Why are you making things so difficult Ward?
Also instead of address the issues of this article which you are using this for your CP campaign in a lame and desperate attempt to divert the intent of this article to your personal propaganda.
I choose the other way for my cabinet: to make the MU commander the MoD. How is that not good? Also, I was the one who pushed for budget increases and payment of due amounts to the BTA and I won't bother providing reference unless you start to provide some reference for your unfounded accusations too.
The forum situation is relatively good now that shadowukcs, you and Mikhail/Rowan limited your flaming.
For your reference: I supported and voted in favour of the Forum Moderation Act - http://www.erepbelgium.com/t4327-forum-moderation-act-voting-thread-mk2-accepted#82267
So please stop your lies Konrad. This is not funny, especially not on election day.
Here you are anyway: http://www.erepbelgium.com/t4107-bta-law-amendment-passed#77557 and http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/aum-gov-withholds-new-citizen-funds-1868404/1/20
If Konrad did not run away from Belgium, he could now introduce a new proposal to further increase the BTA budget. Sad however that he chose to leave Belgium. I think one cannot serve two masters.
Ward, you just follow the bandwagon since your original position was and is still not popular. Also your Withholding funds etc is not related at all. Once again you Ward de Beaver is lying. The BTA and BAF at that time was not constitutional and instead of explaining the whole story which you yourself fought against the meaning and spirit of the law but only the word of it, you have no right to blame the withholding of funds on anyone but yourself.
Also, your logic is deeply flawed about serving two masters etc. Under what context. You are the PP of Aum and you are loyal to Aum. If you are loyal to Aum you cannot be loyal and to serve eBE for Aum is your master etc. This logic is flawed base on being so absurd.
viva revolution down with the corrupt democracies of the past
Half of this article I did not understand(maybe my lack of knowledge of certain words), the otherhalf I understood completely. For someone that has an idea of what you're talking about, this would be an awesome article hands down. For someone like me who has no idea on whats going on, it just leads to more questions.
My opinion on this whole mess;
People need to put their personal bullshit aside, come together, help ebelgiun, and get the fuck over themselves. I do see a lot of people going for personal gain rather than group gain. I talk to few people here, but each person is on a different side than the previous person I was just chatting with. To much mistrust within a country turns into a failing country. We might not even bother doing presidential electiona because it doesn't even seem like people run for president to better the country, only to get their wishes that couldn't be done by the last president.