Odp:

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 644
Date: 1999-12-19

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller
To: Piotr Gasiorowski ; cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 1999 7:02 PM
Subject: [cybalist] 

Hi Piotr,
Back to the definitions for the word state.  Were you a bit surprised
that the first 25 or so definitions referred to things other than "a
settled government" for the term "state".  I know I was.

Here are a few:
#1: a combination of circumstances or attributes belonging for the time
being to a person or thing.
#2: a condition (of mind or feeling); the condition in which a person
finds himself at a particular time.
#4:  physical condition as regards internal make or constitution,
molecular form or structure, and the like.
#7:  the chief stage of a process; the condition of full vigor.
#9:  a person's proper form, shape, or nature.

And the earliest citations were from early British references.  When
Egypt was supposedly "forming a state" the concept for "state" hadn't
been invented!  So I question the role of Pharoah -- I think Pharoah had
to have been some form of "god".  And the "servants" who built the
pyramids were likely dedicated "believers" doing good works for a decent
afterlife; similar to the followers of Jim Jones in Guayana who sipped
cool-aid because their leader had convinced them that he was god and
directed them to the libation.  And I'll bet those folks in Guayana had
dreams of an afterlife.  But in final analysis, the Guayana folks were
sheep to Jones' god-lurings and all they got was freedom from this
life.  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.  The End.

Gerry
 
Gerry:
 
I don't quite understand some elements of your conclusion. The concept of 'state' may surely be older than the ENGLISH WORD for it. The Polish word is państwo, unrelated to state but carrying precisely the same meaning. The fact that Latin status meant 'posture' or 'condition' rather than 'state' in the political sense, doesn't mean that the concept of 'state' was unknown to the Romans. They simply had a different term for a body politic. The term was res publica, and referred to a common legal and political authority, settled government, the good of the commonwealth, the nation's coffers, home and foreign policy, and whatever constitutes statehood in out times (also civitas could be used in a similar sense).
 
The Old Persian empire was undoubtedly a well-organised and powerful state, even if by our standards it was somewhat totalitarian. It would be perverse to claim that the Greek city-states (poleis) were NOT states. Their free citizens (politai) enjoyed a jealously guarded right to take part in the legislative and judicial functions of the polis; they cherished their sovereignty. We owe to them our concepts of politics and democracy as well as our words for them (in both English and Polish). Would you be so difficult to please as to demand more?
 
If you deny that the Egyptian kingdom was a state because it was a theocracy founded upon the cult of the ruler, you must make it clear why, in your opinion, such a cult should be ruled out as a state-forming principle. A state need not be democratic. The Soviet Union under Stalin was in some respects one huge Jonestown, but wasn't it a state for all that? Louis XIV was 'the Sun King' and 'the Gift of God' (Dieudoné), and most of his subjects MEANT it; he was worshipped almost like some kind of pharaoh. But when Louis said, L'état, c'est moi, he identified himself with the concept of STATE.
 
Piotr