For people who have no critical acumen, a state is a mythical entity, for those who think critically it is a rational fiction, created by man in order to facilitate human coexistence.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.
'State' can be a word that is a noun or a verb or an adverb - it's kind of why I chose that title. It's not to confound the audience but to keep me from painting myself into a cul-de-sac in the early stages of making a record by having too high concept or having some really strict set of rules I have to adhere to.
Within the realm of fiction, it is always tempting to set one's stories in a dystopian future, where all our misgivings about state power can be shown in full force.
It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.
And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.
The state has physical power and uses it when necessary; the power of religion is love and beneficence.
The state, the state apparatus, is not an abstraction.
It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.
The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.
The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.