The State

Benjamin Silverman

Greek Tragedy

The State exists like any other social grouping in any society, a gathering of human beings (or being) bent on some common goal. The difference for the State lies in that it’s goal is govern, in whatever way that may implies. To govern the State has two inalienable powers that define it as the ‘State’, the power to create laws or other guidelines to be used over whoever the State wishes, and the power to enforce these laws with force. What must be understood is that the State is not a grand institution sent down by the heavens (though it has often be considered that) by a creation by mortal humans, and as such it is subject to all other flaws attributed to people and their inventions, it is inherently flawed and eventually doom to fail out.

Law is often viewed almost holy in the sense of scripture, infallible, able to create order in structural guidelines should conceivable bring calmness to chaos. In modern thought we believe that everyone is equal under the law, including the State, and we most all follow it. But was not always the belief. For most of the organized State’s history, the people had immunity from the laws they created since they were seen as the voice from the higher power. The early founder of modern sociology, Max Weber says, “Obedience is not owed to enacted rules, but to the person who occupies a position of authority.” From a purely practical stand point this is logical since the State is the only one who has the so called ‘right’ to create the law in thr first place, it is easy to see how the State may easily create it to be immune from it. The king Lycus of Thebes from the tragedy Heracles says it so bluntly, “I am your master, I suppose I may ask what I like.”

The power of the law progressively leads to the idea of justice, or the ability to carry out the law. Justice is such a strange concept that it in planning and practice it is nearly indivisible from revenge. They are both reactionary actions when a group seeks vendetta retribution for a perceived wrong. The difference lies in whose vengeance is being seeked. When a singular, normal, man is on his vendetta for a wrong it is called ‘revenge’. When the State is on a vendetta for someone breaking the law it is called ‘justice’. This also relates to State as a social mechanism; when one man seeks revenge it is usually considered a privet matter away from normal public concern, but when someone breaks the State’s law it is considered a crime against society as the whole and must be treated with more severity and morality.

We see in the Greek tragedy Sophocles’ Antigone this idea play out between the characters Creon and Antigone. Antigone has committed a crime against, what crime it was doesn’t matter at this point, what matters is the law has been broken. Creon acting on first consideration as the voice of ordered reason says in lines 663-665, “So, if someone goes too far and breaks the law, or ties to tell his master what to do, He will have nothing but contempt from me.” To reiterate, the law must be maintained as sacred, even if in reality it is not, and violators must be treated like committers of blasphemy if justice is to be served.

This bring up the most important and principal power of the State, it’s ability to use force. Max Weber gives the base definition for all States as, “.. a human community that (successfully) claims monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force..” Combined with our already established ideas, the State is the only defined human group who has the rightful legitimacy to create laws, enact judgment from the laws to review ‘what is justice’ and then implement the search for justice/revenge by what ever means it views necessary. The Sate can be the only ones with the legitimacy to seek justice; a angry mob after an offender has no legitimacy but a phalanx of riot cops does, though often times the line is hard to define.

But what happens when the logic proposed by these simplistic definitions meets up with real world paradoxes and contradictions? Let’s look at the case of Clytemnestra, queen of Argos, from Aeschylus’ The Orestia. Here’s an individual caught in a conundrum of State; her husband Agamemnon, the king of Argos, and in this culture thereby the embodiment of the state, has committed a high crime. He has spilled his own flesh and blood by killing his daughter Iphigeneia for the petty reason to ask for fair winds from the gods so he can sail off to war. Clytemnestra is put into a position where A) Agamemnon must pay for his crime against his household and Clytemnestra’s daughter, but B) Agamemnon, as the absolute ruler, is the only person who has the legitimacy to carry out the judging and sentencing.

Supposively the state would or should be infallible since it has a monopoly over the legitimacy. But can this idea one set of laws for the ruled and one set of laws for the rulers necessarily work out for the betterment of society. It creates a world where the State are free to whatever they please, and as the state is made up from people no different from the populous, wouldn’t it create the potential scenario where the State is nothing but a gang of bullies seeking only their own ends? This cannot be allowed.

But back to the case of Clytemnestra, what is she to do? What do you do when it is the government itself that has carried out the crime, not the people it’s responsible to govern over, and you most certainly can’t trust the government to judge itself on crimes it committed?

The answer lies in the Greek invention of democracy. To quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when a group of peasants was refuting King Arthurs claim to legitimacy, “Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.” True legitimacy to govern and use execute judgment can only be rightfully obtained by the consent of those being governed, since it must be the unanimous (or as near unanimous as you can get) will of the people that they wish to be controlled by an authority. Otherwise the authority in question has no legitimacy to carry out any of it’s duties.

It may also be the will of the masses to strip their State of all legitimacy and depose it at any given time, they can theoretically do this just as easily as they instate it. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Government is instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it..” Through a process of second degree responsibility we concluded that if the people are the ones to give legitimacy to a State and the State uses that power for negative means then it’s partially the fault of the people for the negative actions. Thereby it is not merely just the people’s right, but their duty to depose a State when it has become, say, a ‘Bad State’.

To define how a Good State should act we must first understand what is it to be a Bad State so that the two can be compared, and proper actions can take place in the case of a Bad State. What constitutes a Bad State is whether or not said State has corruption, lack of transparency, or kleptocracy. In our modern age of Democratic Republic the term ‘corruption’ is floated around often, but our dictionaries define corruption as any public institution that is abused for personnel benefit. Transparency of Government, the right of the citizens to have a freely uncoerced view of their State actions, cannot be underrated. An example would be in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex when King Oedipus’ brother in law/uncle was recommending for certain dealings of the State do be done behind closed doors in lines 91-92, “Here? With all these people around us?.. we can go inside.” But King Oedipus, the symbol of a proper transparent government replies in line 93, “Let everyone hear.” For a government to be maintained in check the people must be well informed of it’s dealings or else it might lead to the State’s freedom to become a Kleptocracy, literally meaning “Rule of Thieves”. Like King Agamemnon who has no one above or below him to keep him in check, he is left free to do as he please and commit any crime.

But we learn now that no State can be above it’s own law for the system to work, Agamemnon has no right to kill his own daughter without due cause. Clytemnestra has the responsibility to bring her husband to justice for his crimes against his blood, which she does, murdering her husband in cold blood. Crime on top of crime, yet this normally noble event of killing your husband because he killed your daughter is besmirched by Clytemnestra’s corruption. She, with the help of Agamemnon’s and her lover Aegisthus take advantage of the power vacuum and declare themselves monarchs of Thebes breaking just about every general principle of legitimacy we have come to learn. In the play this leads to Clytemnestra’s son Orestes seeking out revenge against Aegisthus and his mother for killing his farther for killing his sister, and hilarity.

We come back full circle, as we see this method of revenge has no visible end, everyone honor bound to kill everyone else’s life. That’s why we for the moment need the State to step in and logically stop the violence by saying what is justice and what’s not. In the end the State’s purpose is for the betterment of society, whatever self-interest of the statesmen most be put aside for they are servants of the civil. And when the States intentions don’t match up with the welfare of the people then arrangement of the governed and the governors has run out and governors need replacing. Yet for all the myriad of negatives and needing checks and balances over the State, we are still very slightly better off with authority then without it. As Creon said, “But reject one man ruling over another, and that’s the worst. Anarchy tears up a city, divides a home..”

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Euripides Heracles and other plays translation by Robin Waterfield. Published and copyrighted 2003 by Oxford University Press

Aeschylus The Oresteia translated by Alan Shpiro and Peter Burian. Published and Copyrighted 2003 by Oxford University Press