Notes: the text below represents the consensus of the undersigned and
them alone, not of anyone else, nor of any organizations with whom the
undersigned may be associated. Readers uninterested in "Forestal" posts
on public are kindly asked to skip this instead of spending 1000 gold
sovereigns to inform me and/or the rest of the world that they are not
interested in reading "Forestal" posts on public. Finally, there are
various way in which one can read the below. Open letter, manifesto,
statement of principles or tentative suggestions. One way is not
inherently superior to another. - Narses

THE FOREST, THE FORESTAL DEFENCES AND THE FORESTALS

1. Loyalty and love towards an ideal or a common cause are at the basis
for the coherence of any organization, Forestal or other. However, alone
it cannot, without the presence of other centripetal factors, ensure the
coherence of an organization when it is put under stress. Therefore, any
organization that asks its members to put themselves in harm's way for
the defense of an ideal, whatever this ideal is, has various means at
its disposal to ensure that its members do not flinch or defect in the
face of danger.

1.1. One of these means, present incipiently in even the most
rudimentary hierarchical organizations, is the assertion of absolute
ideological authority of its members, the demand of unquestioning
obedience to whatever orders emanate from its leadership. Since Man is,
unfortunately, naturally inclined to defer the arduous task of thinking
to others whenever possible, this principle of organization is all too
frequent inside and outside of the Forestal Community. It is the natural
end-point of any hierarchic association of Men, if not warded off by
conscious intervention.

1.2. The other means to ensure loyalty from members when it is needed is
a silent contract between the individual and the group that neither will
abandon the other in face of danger. The acts of the individual on
behalf of the group will be answered by the acts of the group on the
behalf of the individual, whenever needed. Since Man is naturally
inclined to love and empathy, this principle, too, is, to various
extent, manifest in every organization.

1.3. No organization that sincerely believes in the truth and
righteousness of its own ideological position can extract obedience by
the assertion of authority. Authoritarianism is a manifestation of
entropy in a political organization that, as entropy does, will
eventually and inexorably lead to the total disintegration of the
political organization. If an organization is to remain vibrant and
adaptable, it must make clear that the reasoning of the individual
member, and unconstrained discussion on the basis of such reasoning, is
the ultimate and only measure of truth and error.

1.4. The only means to ensure the coherence of the group, then, is the
loyalty of the group towards its members. This loyalty must be
unconditional: the member must be certain that, even where he or she is
wrong, the group as a whole will not abandon him or her. Our ideal model
of organization is one where adherence to an ideal is tempered by
individualist critical thinking, where individualism is tempered by
adherence to a common ideal, and where a contract of mutual loyalty
between the group and the individual, rather than the unilateral loyalty
of the individual to the group, assures the coherence of the group,
which should be permeated, at all times, by the healthy wind of freedom.

1.5. During our practical activity in a variety of political
organizations, Forestal and other, we, the undersigned, have grown to
understand the importance of these principles. In as far as we
understood them enough to apply them, we have done so in a haphazard,
inconsistent and occasionally unbalanced way with the hesitation and
tentativeness that is a hallmark of any process of learning. It is time,
though, to draw lessons from our experience for our own future, in the
context of the future of the Forestal Community as a whole. The
following is a tentative proposal as to some of these lessons.

2. Means and aims are inseperable. Since the aims one strives for today
are the means of tomorrow, and since the aim that one actually attains
is constantly created by the means that one uses, they cannot be
distinguished. The main contradiction that plagues the Forestal
Community at this moment is an imbalance between means and aims, or,
rather, the application of means that are no longer appropriate in the
situation we find ourselves in today and will therefore no longer serve
the proclaimed aim.

2.1. Our main mean of defending Nature is designed for outside enemies,
rather than the resolution of internal conflicts. However, the threat of
extermination is much, much smaller compared to a century ago - this is
a success we can be content with. The application of magical rituals to
damage the Forest, while having been performed a few times lately, is
unlikely to emerge as a similar threat because of the political
distribution of those powers accross the existing city-states. The
external enemies of the Forest are few, and unlikely to significantly
grow in numbers in the foreseeable future.

2.2. In the absence of external enemies, the prospect of the Forestal
Community turning onto one another looms larger. We do not wish to go
into detail here, but we believe that the experience of the past eighty
or so years has been one of increasing ideological uniformity within the
Forestal Community combined with one of organizational hypertrophy - a
blooming of organizational structures and substructures which serves to
effectively fracture the Forestal Community. We do believe that this
situation, combined with the virtual absence of external threats, is
lethal to the political health of the Community.


Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Ero, in the year 376 AF.