Anarchists?

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

I'm Anarchopretentious

 

[Hosker]

It really just sounds like people are describing communism here...I know they're both far left, but I'm struggling to see the difference.

 

[Numb1lp]

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Then they should just go f*ck sh*t up.

 

[DieMitternachtFuchs]

But anarchists must be aware that in a overly individualist society we may constantly end up undercutting each others' interests this of course leads to conflict of various kinds including violence and endless revenge cycles. so what defines our interests must also change, so that we no longer become obsessed with monetary and material gain, for such resources are finite in a tremendous way that leads toward neo-liberalism, a kind of capitalism that is taking hold today that leads to the privitization of all resources and utilities and institutions. When things are owned privately as such it means that they may control all access to it in an effort to simply maximize personal profit. In the example of Cochabamba Bolivia, after water was privatized, the corporation Bechtel that won the contract greatly increased the price of access to water in a way the Bolivians simply could not afford, so many resorted to attempting to catch rainwater as an alternative, the corporation controlled government was told to outlaw such a practice. This lead to uprisings across the entire city of the people to oust Bechtel and its control of water. Which was seen as an affront to basic human dignity and the rights of all to essential resources. These are greatly complex times we are living in. The corporations in control of Bolivia were U.S. by the way.

 

[Jamous]

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Um....what?
Your a kid, are you not? No offense, that was just a kids version of anarchy. Anarchy has nothing to do with being against organization, it's usually just against a government that is too powerful.
Communities deciding what's best for the community, that would be anarchy.
It's not about chaos and destruction and murder like people seem to think.

BTW, your comment "I laugh at anarchy" is pretty silly when you have proven that your view of anarchy is the stereotype we are fed by television and angsty kids.

Post above yours makes a good point. Anarchy almost always results in chaos, people are not ruled and therefore do anything they desire, whether it be raping, killing or simply keeping to themselves, at the end of the day, nothing gets done, humanity doesn't progress and we're sent spiralling back to stone age tribalism.

Right, and why do you believe that?
Maybe we get fed that on tv but I don't buy it. The world isn't filled with serial killers and rapists, most of us are appalled by these acts being committed on helpless people.
Believe me, we would keep order.
Tribalism? Really? First of all, what's so bad about that? Oh that's right, they didn't have tv and the internet to entertain themselves all day.
I get your point but I would rather live gathering food for my people, a group that I can respect, rather than working every day for a corporation I hate just so I can eventually reach my breaking point and blow my brains out or rot my brain out with idiotic television. Call me crazy, I guess I like tribalism.

Of course things can go bad, but things could also go good. We could start from the beginning and rebuild society again, one that values human life over gold and one that doesn't see a slaughter as another statistic or news report to be ignored.

Yes the "sociopaths" of the world could organize (unlikely but it has happened before) and enslave us and force us to follow their rules, but we already have that. It's called a government.

Anarchy in general really has no real downside for me. Sure I would probably die (I have no delusions about the kind of person I am, I'm part of the feeble nerd generation) but if I do, I would die happy and free.
I would rather be killed in my prime in a moment of intense violence than work all my life only to get a break if I make it to 60 (or whatever they're changing it too) so I can slowly die in my own filth.

I think I've come across as hating anarchy, which I don't. In an ideal world anarchy would work, as would communism, but human as we are, there are people who are not satisfied with working with others on an equal level, it could succeed from a sociological standpoint, but from an evolutionary standpoint, people want to be better than other people. It could work, but only in a parralel universe where human sociology developed differently.

The reason you come across as hating Anarchy would be that you described it wrong. You said that Anarchy 'is chaos, complete and utter chaos.' But it isn't. It's just living without masters; society could and would still exist, it would just be people peacefully coexisting for their own and each others' sakes, or at least that's how I've always understood it from friends who are actually Anarchists...
I understand your viewpoint. You're right. Anarchy will and can never work for Humanity any more. Maybe at some point in the past, but not now. Mainly because of Human greed. It's quite disappointing, I consider myself a sort of Hypothetical Anarchist, if you will; going with Rawls' theory of Hypothetical Consent as a base. I would be an Anarchist, but only if it worked out. As it won't, it's kind of a moot point. Oh well...
So yeah, I like Anarchy as a theory, and if it worked out it'd be awesome. Unfortunately, it won't. :/

I won't say your wrong, because I'm not even close to that level of arrogance. In fact, logic dictates that your probably right but I personally believe we could go back. Not all of us, most people probably wouldn't survive because they are so addicted to this culture, but many of us could thrive with total freedom.

I suppose. What I meant was it would be too easy for one guy to get a bunch of other guys together, and then take over. Yeah, the others would probably fight back to keep their freedom, but it'd be just too easy to fuck up, if you see my point? It's really quite sad.

 

[Olo_Burrows]

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Anarchy is not Chaos. It's anarchy. Essentially leaderless organisation

 

[Ampersand]

I am. I'll leave it at that.

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Wrong.

Not really, anarchy can only really work on a small scale, it could never run a country, there's just too much stuff to deal with without some sort of structured higherarchy.

Well I won't argue on that. We humans are stupid after all.
But when you said that Anarchy is nothing but Chaos, that's where I utter wrong because it isn't.

I suppose it can be considered CHAOTIC but if anything, it lies within the neutrality field.

I would argue that a genuine anarchist should be striving for harmony and understanding, not chaos.
Because that is the only way an anarchic society could or rather should work.

Precisely.

Groovy.
Peace = D

 

[DieMitternachtFuchs]

It really just sounds like people are describing communism here...I know they're both far left, but I'm struggling to see the difference.

Communism is everybody being forced to be a part of the system with very little control over the system itself. Anarchy would be deciding how you want to live and who you want to live with.
They are very different.

Not inherently, communism is described as having steps in it which eventually lead to its idealized form being: Anarcho-communism. But there earlier stages feature a very strict state controlled system.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Agreed

Hey, in the future, you may want to use the "quote" button, on the bottom right of the post, that way they get a little "you've been quoted!" message, and can then quote you back if needed. It also let's everyone else see what post you quoted, because "Agreed" all on it's own is kind of hard to tell who you were talking too.

Did you use the reply button instead? There are people with thousands of posts that still do that...

 

[CoL0sS]

"Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals". First I heard this while I was watching Sons of Anarchy, and it didn't really make much sense. It reminded me of that "nothing is true, everything is permitted" crap. Living your life without moral restraints is pointless and chaotic because every action has a consequence, and you have to be held to account for your decisions. Rebelling only makes sense when its for a right cause, be it against prejudices, injustices, racism, narrow - mindedness... But then again who can say what cause is right, and even if it is generally accepted as right, should you do it if you don't believe in it?? It's all too philosophical for me to be honest, and I learned from Monkey Island that philosophy isn't worth my time

 

[Danik93]

Somalia is in total anarchy, and that worked out...

 

[SinisterGehe]

People want organization, rules, guidelines and hierarchy. These provide peace and control in even modestly working society.
When there are hierarchy, people don't need to take responsibility about things they can't/shouldn't take care of, it relaxes them.
Guidelines help those who are lost and can't tell what would be the right things to do (Right here is defined by the societies moral standpoint which varied person to person, but I am referring to the "baseline" moral).

What about those that are not lost?
And our current system does not promote peace at all. It also allows people that are responsible for horrible acts to pin the blame on somebody else and that person does the same. People in power are rarely punished for things that normal people like us would get the death sentence for.
We have the right to decide what's best for ourselves. No human has the right to decide what's best for other humans, we are all on the same level. Our current system ignores that and treats people in power as if they are above everyone else.

As I mentioned above "Even in modestly working society". I think society that is run by corruption and/or abusing dictators is not functioning society.
I am strong believer in the idea that human behavior can be reflected straight from nature. When theres is a pack of animals there is the leader and the underdog (And there are revelations going there), but by this force the pack stays together and survives.
I am myself pro-choice, but in order to live together in a functioning society we must have some rules and perimeters of which we live. I can not say that "I see that it is the best for me to kill the next person I meet". Society wouldn't exists if something like this is possible. I understand that this is possible in our current form of society, I can just go rampage if I want to, but I will be punished by the community according to my actions. Trough out the existence of communities (pack/herds/societies) There been revenge against those people who break the rules of that specific community, even if they wouldn't be part of that community, this fact has caused tremors trough out the history of life.
By my understanding and by my definition of functioning society I mainly refer to Platon's idea of Polis.
Which virtue is justness.
And the people who are not lost are either aware and in harmony with the set guidelines or part of another community (Or possibly a subdivision of it and its values are set by the meta community's values in certain range of allowance. If the values of this subdivision's are way too different that the meta community it can be considered to be a community of it own. )
Ofc.. Achieving something like this is just a idea and dream in the heads of people like me, who spend their time thinking about idea and theories of different situations and the perimeters they set to a specific being.
We can state a fact that, no matter how functioning a real (Real by definitions of "something that exist in this world that we the people by our own personal experience have deemed to be real) society is, there will be something that can be considered to be wrong and/or people abusing their powers/status, that is the human nature combined with our own unique personal traits.
I live in a country that was stated to be least corrupt on earth by the aspect, perimeters and views of people who are outside my community (Country). But I see the fundamental flaws in things that were supposed to bring well being in to my society. People abusing their own well-fare system. Immigrants using a loop-hole in the bureau system to bring their families to this country by illegal manners, condemning them to be illegal immigrants by the aspect of law (Law is not moral, but a solid guideline to define the agreed perimeter of right and wrong). Politicians lying and taking benefits that are legal but can be considered immoral (Blanket crisis of Finland). But everyone that been caught of breaking the law has been punished.
Law is not moral because morals are defined by individuals, by the means of their own ideas and experiences. Is situation like; I steal something from you, I get caught and the agreements inside the community lets you punish me as you see fit." In this situation you can do ANYTHING to me, because you are not bound by guidelines. This type of system also removes my fundamental rights of "humanity". In situation where there are set guidelines you can not; for example kill me for stealing an item from you, if the guidelines state that the punishment for stealing must be below some perimeter of severity.

Sorry got bit carried away there, tends to happen to me. But hey what you going to do? Punish me for making you read too much?

I know that discussing wont lead to anything real and I am sure that we can not reach as understanding about this subject between us, since my experiences, morals, culture, personality and aspect about this subject and it sub-subjects (Human behavior, Moral/Ethics and humanity), etc...)

 

[Wicky_42]

In an ideal world anarchy would work, as would communism, but human as we are, there are people who are not satisfied with working with others on an equal level, it could succeed from a sociological standpoint, but from an evolutionary standpoint, people want to be better than other people. It could work, but only in a parralel universe where human sociology developed differently.

Yeah, a lot of these sort of political theories are built on a society without any pre-instilled notions of what a society currently is. I find it frustrating when people dismiss things without even giving them a moment of thought just because they are different to the social and economic expectations of the life that they've been exposed to in their lifetime. Sure, communism's struggled to work, but there's barely any example of it being introduced according to the principles of the theory, and capitalist nations have always sought to undermine or are outright hostile to them. Is it any surprise?

Really, the fundamental issue is that humans are inherently selfish and jealous. Possessions are something we're introduced to since we're born, the idea of 'ownership', 'that's mine' exclusive ownership and all that. It's a pretty huge shift to even begin to successfully imagine a society without that sort of instilled ownership, but that's pretty much what you'd need to start a successful communist society.

 

[katsumoto03]

Anarchy would be a great system if people weren't complete asshats.

 

[Double A]

In a perfect world anarchy would be the perfect system of government.
The reason it doesn't work is the same reason communism doesn't work, because you always have some corrupt ass hat minority who take advantage of it for personal gain, forsaking the good of society.

In addition to the completely rational people who want to be rewarded appropriately for their efforts?

 

[Samus Aaron]

Government IS anarchy. It's not like government was an alien force that enslaved us all against our will; we legitimized our governments ourselves. Government is a product of the people. People ARE government

 

[loc978]

I've always been attracted to the idea of anarchy. Everything is simpler when you live as an antisocial animal. That said, I know firsthand I'm not that good at killing, so any conflict that I encountered in such a state would be pretty risky.
No, I think I'll take the system we've got... despite how it sickens me.

 

[CoL0sS]

There is no true right and wrong or good and evil, it's subjective. We are all the heroes in our own life story, but not all of us are good people.

Decide what you like about the world and what you want to see in the world, then think about the things you don't want. If you are happy with your reality, fight to defend it. If the world you want isn't the one you live in, either find your world or create it yourself.

Exactly my point. I don't need anyone to teach me difference between right or wrong, and I won't force my beliefs on others, but I will fight to preserve my reality. I like what you said that one should find or create a world for themselves, but it is difficult to search for happiness these days since you are limited by factors I mentioned in my former post (money, property, government). I guess that's what anarchists are trying to do; create a world for themselves and if their views of this "ideal" world weren't so different they'd have a good chance of succeeding.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

In an ideal world anarchy would work, as would communism, but human as we are, there are people who are not satisfied with working with others on an equal level, it could succeed from a sociological standpoint, but from an evolutionary standpoint, people want to be better than other people. It could work, but only in a parralel universe where human sociology developed differently.

Yeah, a lot of these sort of political theories are built on a society without any pre-instilled notions of what a society currently is. I find it frustrating when people dismiss things without even giving them a moment of thought just because they are different to the social and economic expectations of the life that they've been exposed to in their lifetime. Sure, communism's struggled to work, but there's barely any example of it being introduced according to the principles of the theory, and capitalist nations have always sought to undermine or are outright hostile to them. Is it any surprise?

Really, the fundamental issue is that humans are inherently selfish and jealous. Possessions are something we're introduced to since we're born, the idea of 'ownership', 'that's mine' exclusive ownership and all that. It's a pretty huge shift to even begin to successfully imagine a society without that sort of instilled ownership, but that's pretty much what you'd need to start a successful communist society.

What I've always wondered, and feel free to educate me if need be, if anarchy and/or communism are what people want as their political system, why are they not already in place? Is it because capitalism got there first? Or is it simply because humans developed with an inclination towards capitalism over communism?

 

[Lilani]

I've always seen anarchy as an easy out for those who have a problem with the current establishment, but don't want to put enough thought and effort into it to come up with something that will actually work.