Interstices

by Peter Saint-Andre

2004-12-03

I've been emailing with William Marina of anti-empire fame, who pointed me to his essay Surviving in the Interstices on finding freedom and preserving civilized values in times of imperial crisis. Surprisingly (at least to me), one of his models is the early Christian community (before it was co-opted by the Roman state). Fascinating. There are connections here to what Claire Wolfe calls gulching (though I'm not as pessimistic or Thoreauvian as she is) and to the latter parts of my recent essay Toward a Practical Objectivist Politics, in that all three address the challenge of strengthening the bonds of civil society in an environment characterized by inexorably increasing state power.

(Marina calls himself a "jewnitariantaoist" -- presumably some combination of Jewish, Unitarian, and Taoist; along the same lines I'd probably have to call myself a taoepicurandian or somesuch.)


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