Here, as in the preceding articles, it is not a question of philanthropy but of right. Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility. It is not the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand. A special beneficent agreement would be needed in order to give an outsider a right to become a fellow inhabitant for a certain length of time. It is only a right of temporary sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have. They have it by virtue of their common possession of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth. Bolding mine - there's also a lot more context to this...
Kant, 'Perpetual Peace'
Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
Kant, 'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'
I was once a philosophy scholar. I absconded to follow my heart and play music instead, but a strange thing happened when I studied Kant - generally held to be one of the greatest philosophic defenders of Republican capitalism and the supposed Protestant ethic that accompanies. Kant, not Marx, Foucault, Goldmun, Nietzshe, or any other, is responsible for turning me into an anarchist - the content of the above two quotes are why.
1. No one has any natural right to property - the earth is common [whatever rights exist now are artificial - not wrongly so, but not rightly so either].
2. Every human being must be treated as and end in themselves - never as merely a means.
While I certainly had predilections towards anarchism in my youth, and had studied Kant then too, it wasn't until I bounced these two idea off of the epistemological ideas of his First Critique and contextualized them within the secular tradition of the Pre-Socratic Sophists, that I really understood what Kant ultimately implied. Let me repeat:
1. The earth is common.
2. Every human being is an end in themselves, i.e. any hierarchy [social, political, economic] violates universal moral law.
Every position, action and opinion I have is based on these two tenets of Kantian universalism. It is why I am anti-nationalist. It is why I am anti-capitalist. It is why I am anti-religion. It is why I am a pacifist.
It is why I believe our species, for all of it's idiocies, foibles and clear instincts for self-annihilation, should make every effort to preserve itself.
It is why I am a humanist.
It is why I believe that if our institutions fail us, we must forge a new world.
I don't know what that new world looks like, but I've been advocating that since the day I joined dkos in 2004 - before it became a 'democratic party blog'... While I see that as shortsighted, I don't advocate against it - but I might mock it from time to time.
I'm still here because I want to remind people that there are still greater stakes, and there are greater possibilities. We will certainly live with the consequences of our own current governance, but that doesn't have to obtain.
We just need to stand up, and be human beings, in the face of every instance that seeks our dehumanization.
***Please note the title of this diary is jab at those that believe 'anarchism' has something to do with 'lawlessness'. Anarchism means only one thing - no leaders - an [no] archos [leaders].