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[ox-en] Re: OHA/ODA in English



Hi ThomasB and list!

When we finally start to discuss this issue in English then I have a
language question. I'm not sure which word to use for the German
"Herrschaft". There is "domination" but to me this seems to focus very
much on the repressive aspects. Webster says:

  One entry found for domination.
  ...
  Date: 14th century
  1 : supremacy or preeminence over another
  2 : exercise of mastery or ruling power
  3 : exercise of preponderant, governing, or controlling influence
  4 plural : DOMINION 3

Indeed I think "dominion" which is listed as the plural form does fit
better. Webster says:

  ...
  Etymology: Middle English dominioun, from Middle French dominion,
  modification of Latin dominium, from dominus
  Date: 14th century
  1 : DOMAIN
  2 : supreme authority : SOVEREIGNTY
  3 plural : an order of angels -- see CELESTIAL HIERARCHY
  4 often capitalized : a self-governing nation of the Commonwealth of
    Nations other than the United Kingdom that acknowledges the British
    monarch as chief of state
  5 : absolute ownership
  synonym see POWER

I think this is better but I really don't know. I'll use it until I
learned something else. However, this ambivalence alone how much these
terms need clarification.

Today Stefan Merten wrote:
2 hours ago Thomas Berker wrote:
Ok, so I'll pose some questions in English now. May be I get answers
this time.

Or let me put it this way: Answers I understand and find useful for my
questions.

I was one of the people 'bashing' Stefan for approvingly citing mainstream
sociological theory, which  tries to legitimise power and domination by
naturalising it ('when groups reach a certain size they have to be ruled in
one way or another, if they want avoid chaos'). [Stefan may provide you
with another story]

Indeed my story is different. I'll spare you of it.

One point I think I should make however. To me OHA is far more than
using power, domination, force and the like. To me OHA is the
collective term for all kinds of social organization. Consensus is as
much OHA as it is a kingdom.

In the beginning I used the word Herrschaft for this but I learned it
the hard way that this is far to misleading. Then I used H. and now
I'm using OHA. As you can see in the "O" standing for "organization" I
already picked up some of the essential results of the discussion on
the German list. The "A" standing for "anarchism" BTW stems from a
funny idea of FranzN to put the H in a circle ;-) . This exactly
matches in what I'm interested.

Seeing things this way my initial question was what prerequisites lead
to OHA processes which do not lead to all these negative things which
may be part of OHA like (structural) force, repression and all that.
Free Software to me is an interesting area to study these questions.
My goal is to understand this. And if I understood it to help its
implementation as far as I possibly can.

Instead I'll pose some questions:

I have some more regarding the term organization which in the German
discussion you suggested to use instead of dominion.

* Does your term of organization include use of power?

  - If so, how can it be distinguished from the power used in
    dominion?

  - If not, I'd be really interested in what this term means.

And there are some more questions about legitimization:

* Do you think there can be any legitimization for using power at all?

  - If so, what do you think can be sources of such legitimization?

  - If not, this means the use of power can not be legitimized in any
    way. Then:

    -- Would you say that the use of power should be refrained from
       completely?

       --- If so, what about using creative power like Holloway
           suggests?

    -- Would you say that the use of power does not need any
       legitimization at all?

       --- If so, how is this distinguished from club law?

Of course everybody is invited to give answers. As I said I'm really
interested in shedding some lights on these question - at best with
Free Software in mind.


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/



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