This piece originally appeared on October 2 at The Troubler, rigorously devoted to “perverting the dialectic” and revealing the lie in binary thinking. If you have a dichotomy that needs troubling, don’t hesitate to ask.
Elijah asks:
The government shutdown has got me thinking: is there really a difference between governance and anarchy? Isn’t the social contract merely a social construct?
Thanks for the dichotomy, Elijah. The anticlimax of the partial government shutdown has made many wonder if things are really any different. (Indeed, the nonsensical phrase partial shutdown warrants extensive troubling itself.)
Those who insist on dividing the two states, viz. before/after, may point to the suspension of WIC, the Library of Congress, NIH clinical trials, or the panda cams. However, this dualism is predicated upon the assumption that these programs were constant in the first place. But as any regular panda cam visitor knows, the feed was down for upgrades for a large portion of the summer. And though the Library of Congress is, in fact, closed today, it was closed on Sunday, the day before the shutdown, too.*
If the shutdown has accomplished anything, it has been to underscore the government’s ability to arbitrarily prioritize functions. Yet to deem some functions essential and others non-essential, to deem some laws more lawful than others, is to blur the line between governance and anarchy. Where does the Department of the Interior (closed) end and the Department of State (open) begin? At the border? Not so fast — the International Boundary and Water Commission is closed . . . partially.
DICHOTOMY TROUBLED
* Also note that both the physical and digital gateways to the Library of Congress are closed, undermining those who would argue that these facets are fundamentally separate.
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