What do you think the “pursuit of happiness” means? It’s this public virtue/private vice false opposition that makes so much of the “deep state” writing slide into, if not noxious Bilderberg anti-Semitism, then “we are a republic, not an empire” idiocy. A good Marxist, and even an intelligent liberal, however, knows that under capitalism, ambition is considered a virtue, not a vice, and that the whole point of government is to collectively organize subversion. The problem with the phrase “deep state” is that it is used to suggest that dishonorable individuals are subverting the virtuous state for their private ambitions. Trump might not have control of the deep state, but he does preside over a very sad state. Third servant: “No but I have for the sad state of my deserted bowels.” 10 But thou, dull fellow, hast no great regard for plots and state affairs.” 9 Second servant: “Then art thou come in right good time: there’s glorious feasting here. I will see what cheer the buttery yields.” 8 Third servant: “Thus mayst, for aught ’tis worth.… Would I could pry into a venison pasty…. Second servant: “Oh, could I but pry into these deep state secrets! I would give my very head to- 7 The first use of the exact phrase I managed to find is this: In 1817, John Fitzgerald Pennie’s “ The Varangian, or Masonic Honor,” offered this dialogue of two servants working a large banquet hall filled with contriving earls and knights. So at least as long as there has been private property, there has been private plotting, and talk of a “deep state” has been a vernacular way of describing what political scientists like to call “civil society,” that is, any venue in which powerful individuals, either alone or collectively, might try to use the state to fulfill their private ambitions, to get richer and obtain more power. ![]() The problem with the phrase is that it’s used to suggest dishonorable individuals are subverting the virtuous state. (Even the dogged Seymour Hersh didn’t have much luck when he tried to investigate “the private sector,” as opposed to his métier, the national security state: “The abuse of private power” proved “a much dicier subject for many editors even than the CIA.” Hersh gave up, and wrote his book on Henry Kissinger instead.) 5 ![]() ![]() “Good luck researching a private firm,” writes the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It created the private sphere, centered on the ideal of the property-owning individual and private corporation, and which during our modern times have enshrined Bacon’s and King James I’s ideal. This, in a way, is appropriate, since these activities have to do with the “obscure” interior life of individuals-that is, the opposite of collective categories such as the “public” and the “social,” realms that are presumed in modern democracies to be subject to procedural scrutiny and “freedom of information.” 4īut what we call modernity didn’t just create the public realm subject to public law. If you do a search on a scholarly database, like Jstor, for the term, you’ll get lots of returns having to do with hypnosis, psychology, and spiritualism. At least as long as there has been private property, there has been private plotting.
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