I haven't read the book and therefore can't review it, but I do note that there is a grave difficulty in the project. Archaeology is indeed an obvious way to proceed, because our written records don't go far back into a matter that began somewhere between 12,000 and 300,000 years ago.
What the historical record does suggest on the question, as far back ago as we can really go, is that there were a lot of different things in play. Chesterton remarked that the dawn of history (from his perspective) shows it dawning on the bulk of cities, perhaps civilizations already old, but also on nomads and tribes with no real government beyond family ties. That is contra Aristotle, who argued that politics arose naturally whenever family ties weren't enough: in fact, we see that throughout history there were places where family ties sufficed, and families were just melded in marriage as necessary.
Plato, meanwhile, included this discussion (which you may remember from the Laws, Book III).
Ath. Why, do you think that you can reckon the time which has elapsed since cities first existed and men were citizens of them?Cle. Hardly.Ath. But are sure that it must be vast and incalculable?Cle. Certainly.Ath. And have not thousands and thousands of cities come into being during this period and as many perished? And has not each of them had every form of government many times over, now growing larger, now smaller, and again improving or declining?Cle. To be sure.
"Every form of government" does not necessarily include anarchy, though it does include forms of democracy, constitutional governments, oligarchies, aristocracies, kings and tyrants: we know that because those forms are all named in Aristotle's Politics. Anarchy, too, is a word we have from ancient Greece: αναρχία, 'without a ruler.'
As for the analogy, I don't think it's very impressive. Asking someone from a warzone if they prefer that to a state at peace is a highly biased way of framing the question of whether egalitarian societies are preferable to ones with a hierarchy based on dominion: it is a frame that is almost guaranteed to produce the Hobbesian response that it does. Ask someone who lives in a peaceful agrarian society whose members come together voluntarily to do things like raise each others' houses and barns, have dances and celebrations, attend church services together, drink together at their local feasts and festivals, and so forth -- and then compare that to the response of someone who has lived in a stable but oppressive state. Even mildly oppressive states are quite unpleasant, and some societies become sufficiently unpleasant that a warzone really is preferable to them.
The review goes on to suggest that the author finds it implausible that, if life in such societies were really so much better, they wouldn't have out-competed hierarchies and become the norm. Sadly, that is probably not true: the great challenge isn't whether it would be better without oppressive force, but whether it is possible to resist the introduction of oppressive force from abroad without adopting governments, armies, and police at home. My sense is in many places that possibility awaited the introduction of the rifle, a technological change that empowers the individual sufficiently that a large enough number of individuals voluntarily choosing to cooperate can keep themselves free.
17 comments:
Rifle, or yew Longbow, I suppose.
Kind of an interesting observation -- how an accurate long range weapon shapes government structures. Somewhere about the 14th Century (as we mark historic eras) a whole new category of "outlaw" seems to have sprung up.
Among the old myths we might as well begin with our own. Is there any earlier analog of Robin Hood? Robin, and his band of Merry Men, archers, living freely in the greenwood and -- basically, more or less, from the perspective of the bards at least -- keeping and enforcing the King's Law while the King and his Sheriff in Nottingham abuse their positions?
The Swiss "William Tell" seems no earlier, but contemporary (about 14th century). Tell, of course, defended his home and family with a crossbow against irrational demands ("Salute My Hat!") of the appointed governor Geller, the German.
The Greeks raised "Klephts" in the 15th Century, holding their mountains against the Ottomons. "Koljas" has a song -- but it's a modern backcast to the tales of the middle ages. The Ottomon archers optimized for mass flights at distance, the bandit Klepths -- somewhere in the era -- innovated composite bows that shifted techniques towards sniping.
I can find no close analogy of a marksman of the Robin Hood/William Tell variety among the bandits of the era. But even without a fabled leader, these "outlaws" seemed to have set up their own laws and customs distinct from the nominal parent Empire.
I'm sure I'm stretching. Plus or minus a century or two in any direction.
I think, though, it's true that to whatever extent unknown, very early, governments operated, each was essentially like all the others we do know of. The big mob stomps on everybody else. It's not remarkable that this notion persisted. What's odd is that at some point -- things shifted.
Sailing ships, also. Two of the examples I think are of most use historically are early Iceland, when it was a stateless society made up of Vikings who left Scandinavia to settle the far flung regions; and the Pirate's Republic, when men who knew how to sail seized ships and made themselves a free life thousands of miles from the courts of kings and the seats of power. Or it's horses, or camels, combined with deserts or mountains. Sometimes space can give people the power not to be ruled by tyrants with armies; sometimes it's rifles, or longbows, or crossbows: the Pope at one time was incensed about crossbows because they could penetrate armor, which threatened the whole social order.
I guess my question is: what specific "peaceful agrarian societies" are you talking about? Because it's easy to imagine utopia, even write about it like JRR Tolkien's Shire, but the question is whether this could ever come about in practice. Because the specific examples you're citing here-- Ireland and the pirate statelets (I assume in the Caribbean c.1600 or 1700) were anything but peaceful in reality. The Icelandic sagas are nothing but brutal blood feuds, even between close family members; and the pirate statelets enforced their hierarchies with extreme violence against any and all, as well as routine betrayal even among close confederates, if we look at the actual historical record. This is far, far more violent enforcement than anywhere in the first world now, and much of it wildly capricious.
Anybody can write up a convincing and attractive society, so long as it's fictional: anybody from St. Thomas More to Karl Marx. But here in the real world, I want to see at least one place where this has actually been carried out, before I bet my future and the future of my society on it. So I wonder what specific examples you are thinking of from the historical record.
For my part, I think that third worlder woman has it right: anarchy will, always and everywhere, devolve into the strong doing what they will, and the weak suffering what they must.
Janet
I get your objection to Henderson's analogy. The Ukrainian given an ovation by the Canadian Parliament because he fought the Russians during the unpleasantness in the early 1940s apparently without realizing that would make him at least Nazi-adjacent (and fighting a country then aligned with Canada) is a good illustration of the choices people have to make in troubled times.
In some sense, however, both students were caught into thinking their personal experience was universal. I'm sure the woman would have as much trouble explaining how any society could eventually organize into some form of ordered liberty like the ancient Greek democracies or the Roman Republic as the man would in explaining the path that lead to modern South Africa or Weimar Germany.
The myth of the Noble Savage, expanded with now-ubiquitous Marxian criticisms of modern capitalism, seems to me to have a very strong and almost subconscious hold on Western thinking. All hierarchies are oppressive but I think we tend to focus on the bondage of the serfs and the seemingly limitless freedom of the King, and forget all the layers in between as well as the fact that obligations flowed both up and down the chain. At the very least minor nobles had to work to keep their peasants alive to fulfil their obligations to the powers above them.
At the risk of falling into that myth myself, I'll disagree that it is the development of ranged weapons that created freedom. It seems more likely to me that the development of modern communication and information processing technologies enabled the creation of the surveillance state, culminating in the emerging possibility of using "social credit" as an enforcement mechanism. Pogroms happened before 1940 but it's hard to imagine the scale of Holocaust in the West if house-to-house searches were required, as did happen in Eastern Europe where killing was indiscriminate. What would slave revolts and escapes in the American South have been like without the telegraph to pass information (and rumors)?
Responding to Christopher B: I suggest that the definitions and question of "civilizations" is separate from the notions of the Noble Savage. Civilizations embed, I think, the ideas of a principle city, trading with or raiding from surrounding areas of agriculture producing slightly more than subsistence amounts of food.
The Noble Savage subsists on the ability to grow or hunt or scavenge or gather or raid and, I think, is definitionally unable to progress beyond that sort of subsistence level culture.
The Iroquois Confederacy presents an interesting intermediary case. Five (approximately) Tribes coming to agreement on trade and dispute resolution and common celebrations of events or holidays. Apparently the tribes shared a common law and a common culture of epics and origin stories, all in a oral tradition with iconographic art forms. (Beaded wampum fabric.) We sometimes call this alliance by the title "Five Civilized Tribes" but, absent a city, I think we're misleading ourselves. That said, I can easily imagine dozens of really big and successful alliances among tribal hunter-gatherers, all existing before written records were in use and all in such damp and verdant climes that few artifacts have survived to our present analysts.
Janet,
"But here in the real world, I want to see at least one place where this has actually been carried out, before I bet my future and the future of my society on it."
Then you should be interested in this book, which claims that most of the last 200-300,000 years is filled with such societies. They were, it is argued, the norm until technological changes enabled armies that made the oppressive state-style society possible. Reviewers have been raising criticisms of that claim, but the claim is fully argued and the reviews are just hole-poking (by, admittedly, intelligent critics). You can see what they have to say and see if you find it compelling.
All I'm saying here, in a review of the reviews, is that the historical record hardly penetrates this at all: only at most 4,000 of the 200,000 years, or the last 1/50th, of which there is minimal penetration even in much of the historical period. As far back as we can see, though, people were doing everything, not one or the other.
"Because the specific examples you're citing here-- Ireland and the pirate statelets (I assume in the Caribbean c.1600 or 1700) were anything but peaceful in reality. The Icelandic sagas are nothing but brutal blood feuds, even between close family members, and the pirate..."
The sagas are exciting stories, but bear in mind that they weren't written down at the time of the events they describe. They were written down in the centuries of peaceful co-existence that followed, when moments of clashes and tension were recounted at great length in order to fill the winter hours with something more interesting. In fact Iceland's whole history has been mostly peaceful; they just liked to tell the stories of the 'old days,' just like Americans have made Westerns for far longer than there ever was a Wild West. Since you mention the Shire, this is like the comment Tolkien makes about Bilbo's stay at Rivendell: the parts that were pleasant to enjoy are soon told, but the hardships are where the tale gets interesting enough to expand upon.
What I think the historical record shows about the pirate republic is that it was exterminated by state violence, as the British decided to devote a fleet to it. The kinds of internecine betrayals you mention, e.g. Henry Morgan's apparent betrayal and theft of much of the plunder he took on various raids, are more regularly the feature of privateers acting as agents of the state. Morgan himself was knighted and made deputy governor of Jamaica by the same British government that wiped out the pirate republic.
Which is not to say that pirates were nice people, of course; just that, in their historic context, they weren't doing anything the state wasn't doing even harder. They didn't keep slaves, though; in fact, freed slaves often found a home among them.
@Christopher B:
"...I think we tend to focus on the bondage of the serfs and the seemingly limitless freedom of the King, and forget all the layers in between as well as the fact that obligations flowed both up and down..."
Yes, that's right. The feudal system was about obligations that flowed in both directions, and it depended on them to transcend family ties. The king couldn't rule without his barons' support (as John discovered at Runnymede), and the liberties we enjoy have their origins in the ones that the knights extracted thereby, which later extended to free men as such (see "Feudalism and Liberty" on the sidebar).
"I'll disagree that it is the development of ranged weapons that created freedom. It seems more likely to me that the development of modern communication..."
I'm not suggesting that only one thing 'created freedom' -- see the discussion above re: sailing ships and or deserts, mountains, etc. But notice that the ships, deserts, and mountains cut against the idea that communication is a freeing technology. It was the difficulty of communications and travel that made it possible to be freer in those places; it was the improvement of communications and travel that made it possible to rule the Scottish Isles or Highlands the way that you ruled in Edinburgh or York.
it was the improvement of communications and travel that made it possible to rule ...
All Roads Lead to Rome.
This raises the notion that without archeological evidence of roads, we have little evidence to suggest cities. I use "roads" loosely to include bridges, piers and ports on bays and rivers, even signposts and mile markers. Tribes randomly wandering around might develop and enjoy many interesting concepts and (perishable) artifacts, but differ from what we consider cities and civilizations.
Incas, it's said, wove rope for all their bridges, threw stones from slings as a primary weapon, and knotted cord for all their records -- most technologies now rotted and forgotten.
Were I an archeologist I'd seriously resent "rope" turning up in my digs. Gimme fired clay pot shards, hammered metals, even sharp stone chips... If we'd never found stone structures that WERE indisputably city-like, we might not number the Inca among civilizations, either.
I think I'll pass on the book, actually. If the author is an activist, of whatever sort, then there's really no reason to believe that he's dealing honestly with the facts as he finds them. This would be true, even if I was in favor of his ideology. All the worse, then, given that the tangible record is both very sparse and easy to misinterpret, in the best of cases. Life is short; why read flawed material?
That said, I'm very ready to believe that humankind has lived in many different practical arrangements, in the distant past much like we see today. But what I do believe is that the possible configurations at any one time and place, that are stable over time and conducive to survival of the culture and the people who comprise it, are quite tightly limited. The main drivers are the realities of human reproduction (and the sexual dimorphism that results), resource availability, population density, the means of producing or providing necessities, and technological overmatch.
The US student came from a society that had no serious resource shortages, and which overwhelmingly had methods of production which required long periods of stability and freedom from unilateral renegotiation of terms. Since everybody he knew, more or less, accepted this and knew that they benefitted from it, he assumed that it was "natural" and "obvious". But, put him in Somalia, where none of that is true, and he would either rapidly start acting like the Somalis-- or he'd die.
What a lot of people think anarchy means is, living in a society where everybody more-or-less agrees on all major issues, there are no critical resource shortages, and informal social pressure is adequate to prevent freeloaders and cheaters. The places where this actually works are low- or medium-density places where everyone looks like your second cousin. This is rare, and to maintain it over generations, the community has to be able to enforce its population controls aggressively. (E.g. the Amish drive out about 15% of their own kids, who won't kneel down and pledge the Ordnung; and no one enters the Amish as an adult, not the least because they won't know any of the practical skills they'd need to survive.)
As for Iceland: for the most part, if people tell stories that they are wildly violent, and other people who encountered them say they were wildly violent, and all the males (and even some females) are buried with weapons and armor and often with obvious wounds, and their gods were all said to be wildly violent, and violent death was how you got to heaven-- I pretty much take it for granted that they were in fact wildly violent. The big change, according to the Icelanders themselves, was accepting Christianity around AD 1000-- i.e. abandoning the free-wheeling culture of paganism, accepting the Roman Catholic ideas about judicial process, and accepting a second, totally different pathway of moral authority (other than family/clan). The way the Icelanders tell it, it was essentially a way to avoid killing themselves off, given how severe the environment and resource constraints were. And even until the 1800s, they were not shy about enforcing "banishment" (which was functionally execution, as living in the hills alone for 2-3 years was very likely fatal) for violations of the rules.
If you look at where the "last frontier" is now, where misfits and idealists go to live their own way-- the closest we have for that would be Alaska, I guess. My mother in law lives up there, and we see the reality of it. It's less "the community gets together and raises a barn for the newly married couple" and more "your neighbor is a meth addict with a rifle". Ultimately, more complex public goods, like hospitals, decent roads, electric power, etc. are dependent on stability, low violence, and yes, enforcement of known rules, by violence if need be. Not anarchy.
Janet
Hi Janet,
To me you read like you saved your real objection for last:
"Ultimately, more complex public goods, like hospitals, decent roads, electric power, etc. are dependent on stability, low violence, and yes, enforcement of known rules, by violence if need be. Not anarchy."
This is a form of utilitarianism, the philosophy that what ought to be done is to maximize happiness, which they define roughly as minimizing pain and increasing pleasure. The Church thinks of this as a modern form of Hedonism, which also argued for increasing pleasure as the best human good, but I think that's too strong. Utilitarianism as a personal philosophy does approach hedonism, but as a political philosophy it's not particularly oriented towards individual pleasure-seeking: indeed, as here, you're asking that humanity be subject to violence in order to compel them to pursue other people's pleasure.
I've never been convinced by utilitarian arguments. They have a general problem of incoherence: you have to make a decision about what to do by its outcomes, but its actual outcomes won't be known until after you've done the thing you have to decide about. That makes it really a form of gambling, rather than a coherent philosophy that you can steer by.
But I'm especially unconvinced by the political philosophical form, which you're invoking here. You are arguing that all of humanity should forever be subject to political violence and compulsion in order to make them serve the interests of others. That's not slavery, and certainly not chattel slavery, but it's a commitment to a permanent un-freedom of humanity: indeed, it's an argument that humanity being unfree is good and proper. I don't accept that, and I don't agree with the principle that it's better that we should make everyone do what we think is 'best' for 'everyone,' even if we could find a ruling class that would actually pursue what was 'best' for 'everyone' rather than -- as they actually do -- what is best for them and their class.
(Theologically, too, it's difficult to accept that God, who might have ruled humanity for its own good, elected not to do it but wanted some human beings to do it instead less perfectly than he could have done it himself.)
Now, it is true that the question of financing public goods is a problem. Even when it's clear that there's a good that is widely desired, like a Fire Department, it's hard to get people to commit to funding it at the level that such a good requires. It's not clear if that problem is surmountable; but it is also true that the high level of taxation already present is part of the problem. My ability to support charitable causes, even ones in which I have a self-interest, is lowered by the fact that my income is taxed, any savings taxed again when I spend it, or if I still have savings again if I make capital gains on them, etc., etc.
Still, I'm open to the idea -- at least the hope -- that there might be a way of attaining the public goods we want without committing to a permanent subjugation of humanity to violence and compulsion. I also think, in general, that human liberty is a greater good than what travels under the name of "utility," which is not to dismiss the idea that things like hospitals and roads aren't goods worth pursuing. I just don't agree that they're the chief good that should guide us, even onto the point of committing ourselves and our children to being ruled by people with a whip-hand over us, forever.
Of much less import than that basic philosophical issue:
"As for Iceland: for the most part, if people tell stories that they are wildly violent, and other people who encountered them say they were wildly violent, and all the males (and even some females) are buried with weapons and armor and often with obvious wounds, and their gods were all said to be wildly violent, and violent death was how you got to heaven-- I pretty much take it for granted that they were in fact wildly violent."
I don't think that follows; our own society is a kind of counter-example. If we were still in the habit of burying people with 'grave goods,' I might be buried with many weapons of all kinds. Americans own more guns than there are people. Our stories are wildly violent, television and movies and novels alike. Murder mysteries are one of the top genres, and war movies, and so forth.
Yet America is not in fact a violent society. It has violent places, but certain neighborhoods in certain cities account for most of our murder rate. Most of our counties have either zero murders a year or a very few. If you omit major cities, America's murder rate approaches zero percent -- and yet that's where we own so many of the guns, where almost every family owns at least one and often several (a deer rifle, a bird-and-small-game shotgun, a handgun or two...).
Japan, too, has wildly violent fantasy stories and cartoons -- almost no violent crime.
I think Janet's criticism is solid. I think the appeal to "oh, those ancient societies did this all the time" is almost entirely unsupported in their work. It's their fantasy. We have ample experience of societies which do not write their record now, but others write it for them, and do not see such societies. The exceptions, including the North American exceptions, are enclaves within a protected space. Grim looks at Appalachian freedom as outposts of Real Independence and spontaneous organisation. They could just as easily be described as protected children. That society has always required numerous safety valves of people moving on and letting the helpless fend for themselves. That the Americans, raised with a very specific set of values, who consider the risk of living in high independence achievable is not in any way a representative sample of society. We know how to defend ourselves, find food, build shelter, and negotiate according to Western norms - if you can't because of age or disability or being physically weaker, well, too bad. We've got ours. That's not real independence, and even that doesn't seem all that common. We can find devil-take-the-hindmost societies, sure. But whatever the Davids claim, I'm not seeing it. Aragorn tells the Hobbits that the Shire is safe because he and his Rangers have voluntarily protected it. It's a protected enclave.
The New England (and M idwestern) utopian societies existed within the defended boundaries of others. And even they folded.
I don't think the other societies are out there.
Papua New Guinea has hundreds or societies which appear to living in peace, except for occasional raiding. Oh, and occasional complete extermination of rival tribes for no clear reason. I think that's the norm.
"I think Janet's criticism is solid."
Indeed, I hope it's clear that my disagreements are not meant as dismissal. I am trying to conduct the discussion in the respectful and proper manner that we so rarely see done today. This includes conceding where I think the argument is particularly strong (e.g., "Now, it is true that the question of financing public goods is a problem.... It's not clear if that problem is surmountable").
"The exceptions, including the North American exceptions, are enclaves within a protected space. Grim looks at Appalachian freedom as outposts of Real Independence and spontaneous organisation. They could just as easily be described as protected children."
Your choice of the word 'children' reminds me of one of Tex's favorite stories, of a British official who ordered the evacuation of 'women and children,' and a lady who replied, "Is that one class, or two?"
It does, however, nicely point up the paternalism of the view. Now paternalism is also a problematic approach, because in fact these aren't children you're discussing but adults; and also because the people who would be entrusted to be the bosses have no claim to being considered 'more adult,' or as parental figures. The parental analogy is thus doubly improper; it denies adulthood except to an upper class, and suggests that honor (even obedience) is owed to that upper class as it is owed to one's father and mother.
Note, indeed, that your particular focus is those who can reasonably claim, "We know how to defend ourselves, find food, build shelter, and negotiate according to Western norms[.]" IF they're not adults, who is? They're capable of all the markers of adulthood, and if anything are highly functioning adults.
Who are you going to find to put over such people who is better than they are? Presumably, given the structure of your claim, it is 'the protectors.' Yet the protection is often done by these people, in terms of actual protection: there are lots of Veterans from the rural areas; they rely especially on volunteer emergency services, so that ordinary people are also the rescuers and fire-fighters and first responders; and it is this class of working people who also provide most of the nurses, who do much of the real work of caregiving. They are part and parcel of the protection being provided.
Indeed, it is my experience with the volunteer fire/rescue service that has most persuaded me to consider a voluntaryist/Tolkien-anarchist view plausible. It is the fact that I now know so many adults who conduct themselves as adults, take responsibility for their communities, and are willing to do the right thing even for no reward. It is them who has made the view plausible to me.
I'm no utilitarian-- for the simplest possible reason, that I believe none of us can actually calculate the true utility of anything at all. I am, in fact, an unworthy disciple of Jesus and daughter of the Church.
And what I read in the Gospels is that Jesus himself put great emphasis on how we must strive to provide the necessities of life (physical, social, and spiritual) to our fellow men. He himself gave them not merely good food, but even wine, and told us that if we did so for the least of these, we did it for him. (So, at least in this case, we know for sure what God elects to do in the finite world.) The Church includes feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, and visiting the sick as works of mercy.
You know what's a great way to feed the hungry? Grocery stores. With freezers and coolers in them, so the food doesn't rot or lose its nutrition. And big trucks on big roads to bring the food in. And the law abiding stability so that they don't get looted by criminals. There are many saints who emphasize that honest work, of any kind, is a form of prayer and fit worship to God. Every farmer, grocer, and restauranteur is feeding the hungry every day, and this is a good and holy thing, if they have right intentions. God’s ordinary providence for us, is to give us brains and brawn, and expect us to use them.
I don't think it's "hedonism" to think that, actually, it’s better if people can eat well from the work of their own hands, not subject to violence. And if you look at our two examples here, Iceland and Somalia, if anything, Iceland has even fewer resources and much worse climate. Yet, nobody starves in Iceland, and thousands starve in Somalia, year after year. And if you think Iceland is doing without police, I would suggest you go Reykjavik and get drunk in public-- see how fast four guys with guns and batons have you give the pavement a big, wet kiss. As I said, Iceland today is exceptional: everyone looks like they are second cousins, it's small enough that “Mary John’s-daughter” works for a legal name, and they very tightly control immigration. In that case, informal controls work pretty well; but again, step significantly outside the informal controls, and you’ll end formally controlled pretty darn quick.
Janet
Oh, and to be equally clear: I also mean no disrespect, and in fact only partial disagreement. The people you're describing, are my people as well as yours. I definitely believe that the US federal government, in particular, would do much better if it did much, much less, as you seem to believe.
But I also believe that true anarchy is not feasible, in this fallen world-- there is always the need for force, in the end, and the government providing that force is much less prone to abuse than private individuals operating on their own, or gangs/posses/vigilantes/etc. without laws or right of appeal.
Janet
"paternalism is also a problematic approach, because in fact these aren't children you're discussing but adults; and also because the people who would be entrusted to be the bosses have no claim to being considered 'more adult,' or as parental figures."
Comes back around to the Yeoman/Rifleman thing. Or the Heinlein "Starship Troopers" thing. A citizen of the society has a physical stake anchoring his life and wealth to a place -- his farm, his mill, his smithy, his shop -- and is ready and armed to secure, protect, and defend it. Defending against three threats: individually against outlaws, internally against oppressive/excessive government (making of the citizen, an outlaw himself); and in concert with his comrades against large forces of wildfire, hurricane, invasion -- whatever. The adult citizen may even prefer that non-combatant women, children, pacifists, peddlers, foreigners, journalists, hobbits and kibitzers all form up and march themselves away, if possible, from the front line of troubles. Much more often than otherwise these duties are fulfilled as jury service, bucket brigades, search-and-rescue posses, those coastal guys who put out to sea in little boats to rescue sailors from foundering ships (I forget what they're called?) ANY how, that citizens/adults organize and equip themselves to be ready to secure their property and community from foreseeable threats seems to be the whole idea. They don't wait, like some peasant, to be rounded up in a general levy by the local baron and marched off to a battlefront where they have no stake or choice.
Well, thus so theoretically, ideally, and in English Literature.
I wonder -- what fraction of the community must answer the call of duty for the notion to work? In LoTR, the arrival of two veterans, Merry and Pippen, with swords and armor is sufficient to rally hundreds of oppressed hobbits into revolt over Sharkey's kleptocracy. The U.S. at present enjoys a fraction of 1% to about 3% who serve or have served in the formal military. What's enough?
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