The Anarchy Thread

Of recent there has been a fair few threads about the actions of so called 'Anarchists'.

What is your opinion of them as individuals and the movement as a whole?

hashtagsarestupid

Different organisations are different.

There is no singular anarchist movement. Some will be rational and aim for a more meritocratic model of living and others will inevitably be full of dumbshits.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

There are many kinds of anarchist, who cannot be generalized in a single category. Yes, there are idealistic freedom fighters, there are also nihilistic terrorists, there are numerous other kinds of them, but to me, all are equally harmful.

edited 25th Jun '11 12:05:20 AM by MilosStefanovic

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Why can't they be both?

I'm an anarchist in the Noam Chomsky style (or at least what I interpret in the professor's style; I admit I inevitably have biases). Governments are no more than another social contract, and the nation state model has some intrinsic flaws that do not allow it to properly perform a lot of the functions for which it is being currently used.

My ideal model of social organization? Scale back to city-states with a loose confederacy of co-operatives allowing experts in given areas to govern meritocratically in their fields of expertise. In medieval times, I would have been a big fan of countries run by the guilds.

But as has been pointed out, there's a large variety in what constitutes anarchists, and many who call themselves anarchists wouldn't agree with some or even any points of my ideas and definition. So YMMV.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

People like JRR Tolkien or Chomsky who think things could work well with much less state and government tend to be reasonable and have well-thought out philosophies.

Idiots who dress in black and whose idea of improving the world is fighting "the system" by wearing masks and breaking stuff should be shot on sight.

Point that somewhere else, or I'll reengage the harmonic tachyon modulator.

And let's not even get into the Leon Csolgosz types.

Again, the concept of anarchism makes it anathema as an umbrella ideology, so my regard for them varies from person to person.

"Wait, it's IV. Of course they are. They'd make IV for Dreamcast." - Enlong, on yet another FFIV remake

I don't have enough info, but the answer seems to be both.

Now we see the violence inhered in the system!

edited 25th Jun '11 3:14:08 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

And that's bad?

Point that somewhere else, or I'll reengage the harmonic tachyon modulator.

It was ment to voilence not voice, god dam predicate text.

hashtagsarestupid

You also probably also meant "inherent" not "inhered" (and what does "predicate text" mean?).

The threat of violence is a time-tested way to get large amounts of humans to collaborate and follow rules that are beneficial for all, such as "don't steal other people's shit" and "don't burn and break shit that's not yours".

edited 25th Jun '11 3:21:11 AM by SlightlyEvilDoctor

Point that somewhere else, or I'll reengage the harmonic tachyon modulator.

It means I should stop adding posts by phone >_>

hashtagsarestupid

Idealistic freedom fighters. That's not necessarily a good thing. I regard anarchists as idealists who seek a level of freedom which I tend to consider unattainable, unsustainable, or undesirable. "nihilistic terrorists" is really not called for, even when it comes to the most extremist anarchist views expressed here.

Thread Hop: as in many ideologies, it depends on the person. Some anarchists believe in their goals and want to fight for them because they think it's the right thing to do (the idealists; if they aren't too violent, they are usually the good guys, if they are violent, they are usually fanatics) while some are... well, nihilistic terrorists, as the thread title says. There is also a lot of those 'I am anarchist because it's cool' kind of guys or 'I am anarchist because I like punk and all the punks I know are anarchists'. Those are the least dangerous but the most stupid kind

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

@Taoist: Umm... nation states have been sucessful in Europe, and the reason for it's success. Guilds are no different then politcal parties.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Violence is doouble edged. It does attract the attention of law enforcement, but it also attracts the attention of the public, and a good riot by a few dozen black bloc hoods might raise mroe awareness than a peacefull march by a thousand peacefull protestors. Speaking from experience.

Anyway, I'm not idealistic enough to believe in people being farsighted enough to keep society running by themselves. An agricultural society with some ndustry, maybe, but an entire world without governemtns... not so much.

the statement above is false

Have they now? Some have worked, and others haven't. They've got a nice setup now but it's not without its flaws. Some guilds were, I was talking about more of the co-operative/syndical types. I've yet to see political parties wherein voting membership required admission based on expertise and years of training.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

All forms of governce are flawed in some way shape or form.

Some anarchists are not that bad.

It is those that choose to be overtly violent and destructive that are a problem.

Who watches the watchmen?

If rather than simply scaling back to city states, you nest such organizations within each other (I.E.: neighborhood/business-city-region-country-continent-world) through recallable delegates, it's called anarcho-syndicalism.

Eric,

I'm aware of anarcho-syndicalism and I think it's a great trick, I just don't know how to keep it from becoming another government.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Care to elaborate?

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Well, say we have our anarcho-syndical volunteer leadership for the co-ops, and communities. They elect/appoint/establish leadership for the next level upwards. It has a set of regulations limiting and expressing what powers are and are not available to leadership at any given level.

This differs from a republic how?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

They nominate and revoke, at will, the next layer of leadership.

No body enjoys any sort of coercive authority on social issues, under any circumstances.

Those in positions of leadership don't enjoy any special rights and are not considered any different than anybody else.

No body enjoys general regulatory power. A group's decisions bind only its members, not anybody else.

That's just for starters.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Nigh-impossible to organize. Plus, it defeats the purpose of creating the leadership, as if you can ditch it whenever you disagree, then you just want to make decisions for yourself anyways. Then nothing gets done. This makes bothering with the social organization redundant. We might as well have none whatsoever. Governments are pointless enough as is. Define social issues. Boom, you've got restrictions on acts against freedoms in a constitutional sense. This is just a more thorough version of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is a cultural change we should do now, even while governments exist. How does this apply to scaling up anarcho-syndicalism?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.