Fixing Ourselves

The only way out is through

As discussed earlier, the problem we have is the managerial state and what it has done to us-namely, hyperdomestication. Without fixing this, no political or religious solution will work. You could build the Temple tomorrow, or it could fall from the sky, and it would only be the capstone on a pyramid of slavery, Egypt built in the Land of Israel. Slackjawed Israelis would stop watching Fauda and start learning Daf Yomi and bringing their sacrifices, and nothing else would change. A thief, breaking into someone’s house, prays to God with great focus and intent, but remains a thief.

While the Religious Zionists would probably welcome this development, as it would be the culmination of their ideology, the rest of us would find it quite repellent. In fact, it would be worse than the current situation, where we can at least hope for redemption; in this hypothetical situation, we would have nothing more left to hope for.

Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about either possibility. If we do nothing, the State will just continue its steady trajectory of decay, grinding through its human capital until it collapses on itself.

Hegel described historical progress as the clash of a thesis and its opposite, the antithesis. Through this clash, a synthesis is born. What would this look like applied to our situation?

The thesis is hyperdomestication. Its antithesis is not feralization. Its antithesis is autonomy.

Autonomy means reclaiming control of those functions which were formally in the hands of every man, his family and community, and now are the provenance of the state’s institutions and large corporations. It means creating transparency where there is now opacity. It means creating capacity where there is now helplessness.

How do we give others the gift of autonomy?

The answer is that we can not give it. Autonomy must be gained by each man for himself, but with the help of others. None of us is Robinson Crusoe. We must rely on others to show us what we don’t know, or to walk together with us as we discover it. Like a bundle of sticks, we are stronger together, though each of us must make his own path.

We can help others gain autonomy, while gaining it ourselves, by creating a place and a framework for people to learn and build capacity through creation. In other words, an educational institution. We’ll call it Machon HaShihrur, the Liberation Institute.

The Philosophy

By its nature, autonomy is fractional and modular. It applies to all areas of individual, family and communal existence. Therefore, any person can gain autonomy through a number of avenues. The curriculum of Machon HaShihrur will cover multiple areas of autonomy, which can be developed on their own or combined synergistically.

The institution creates a network, and each member represents access to capacity, resources and information which others can leverage. The value of a network grows proportionally to the square of its size. Therefore, the curriculum will carry no overt political loading; people from across the political spectrum can seek autonomy, and we all benefit from autonomy gained by any of us.

A slave is 0% free, and freedom seems impossibly distant to him. Once he is 5% free, he starts thinking about 10%; at 10%, he’s thinking about 20%, and so forth. A network of people interested in autonomy and seeking it in practice in all spheres of their existence is a ridiculously powerful and unprecedented thing.

Synergetic effects will make a system which has grown lazy dealing with atomized Israelis easy to manipulate to the advantage of the network’s members. For one example, our politicians are ridiculously cheap to lobby, due to the small size of the country and the extremely dynamic nature of its political system. This effect exists on the municipal, regional and national levels, and should be easy to leverage with even a modestly sized and resourced network. In another example, our courts have eliminated the concept of “standing”, which means that anyone can sue anyone else for anything, leveraging the court system to support their agenda. Even a modestly sized network pooling its resources cohesively can drive the system in directions which benefit it, especially in the absence of an overt ideological or criminal signature to trigger an immune response from the system.

The Place

Education in physical skills has to take place somewhere. So Machon HaShihrur has to be a place. The workshop I’m building is fine for starters; enough room for 10-15 people, electrical power, water, light, a set of basic power tools, cool in the summer and warm in the winter. An hour from Jerusalem, or Tel Aviv. Two hours from Haifa and Beer Sheva. As the project grows, spinoffs and branches can be established elsewhere, nationally and internationally.

The Method

The curriculum will consist of short courses, several meetings long, run on nights and Friday mornings. Courses will be free or inexpensive with fee waivers available upon request. As mentioned above, the true value is the network being created, and it would be foolish to lose the opportunity to extend the network in order to profit a few hundred or thousand shekel.

Each course will have a hands-on component. In general, the endpoint of a course is that the students will be left knowing how to do something which will measurably improve their lives and increase their autonomy. There should also be a roadmap for students to build on the ability they’ve gained, to continue to increase their autonomy and that of their family and community.

Areas of Autonomy

1. Security: the ability to provide interlocking spheres of security for yourself, your family and your community. This includes communications, weapons permit application processes, mobility (vehicular and dismounted,) tracking, surveillance systems, human terrain development and awareness, security canine training and employment.

2. Construction: building rapidly deployable shelter systems in which one can live over an extended period of time (yurts and tents) out of inexpensive and available materials, sustainable long term structure building (panels, foamcrete, compressed earth block, rammed earth, sandbag building, concrete form work,) work spaces, greenhouses, livestock shelters, heavy earthmoving equipment operation, maintenance and management. Heating systems (rocket mass heaters.) Water storage. Sewage systems (biogas and vermicompost production.) Plumbing and electrical work.

3. Agriculture: extensive (permaculture, building ecosystems) and intensive (greenhouse, hydroponics, aquaponics, nursery development and operations.) Food forest development. Animal management: bees, fish, poultry, livestock. Composting operations and feedstock production (earthworms, black soldier fly larvae.)

4. Food storage and preparation: canning, freezing, drying, salting, fermenting,

5. Fabrication: additive and subtractive manufacture. CAD design. 3D printing. Metal casting. Machining (lathe, shaper, router building and operation.) CNC. Electromachining. Laser, plasma and water cutting. Welding. Open Source Ecology pipeline.

6. Mechanical repair: vehicle, generator, agricultural, earthmoving equipment.

7. Legal: dealing with the Land Authority and various other stakeholder bodies in the process of acquiring land to work. Legal advisors and consultants on retainer to support members’ projects.

8. Financial/investment: writing a business plan, acquiring capital, whether debt or investment based, managing accounting operations.

9. Energy production and storage: biodiesel, waste vegetable oil, biofuel pellets, biogas from animal and food waste, firewood (from planting to harvest to processing,) solar and wind electricity setup and storage.

10. Education: home schooling curriculum creation and implementation, paperwork via Ministry of Education.

11. Software: writing server side code, web and mobile applications. Leveraging machine learning tools. IOT for personal and community needs.

12. Electronics: open source systems such as Arduino, circuit design and production.

13. DIY bio and chemistry: biohacking, chemical synthesis and purification as necessary.

None of these are super complicated or beyond the ability of an average person to learn. A network of people, all of whom have some of these capacities, would be incredibly powerful.

Next Steps

I am building the site this summer. Once the site has been built, I will register a non-profit organization to handle administrative issues and fund flow, and begin running classes. If you are interested in participating or contributing, please drop me a line.