Any Anarchist in the forum?

[calebprime]

Music is fantasy, there's nothing contemptible about it any more than it is contemptible that Anthony Hopkins isn't really a psychopathic serial killer in real life.

For Wynton Marsalis, for K. Jarrett, for calebprime, it's a way of life, perhaps deeper than religion could be. Not a fantasy.

http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Higher...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224432916&sr=1-1


and, just to be silly, even Anthony Hopkins gets confused about his own identity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxVQFgo39Xg

(worst movie ever)


The Sex Pistols and their ilk are an idiotic fantasy. Fodder for Greil Marcus, but I can't read him without shutting the book in complete boredom and disgust.

I'm an elitist when it comes to art. For the rest, I believe in some form of moderate liberal democracy--which allows crap like this to flourish, along with good stuff.

 

[WildCat]

For Wynton Marsalis, for K. Jarrett, for calebprime, it's a way of life, perhaps deeper than religion could be. Not a fantasy.

http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Higher...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224432916&sr=1-1

Bores me to tears. But I guess doctors need something inoffensive to play in their waiting rooms.

I'm an elitist when it comes to art.

No kidding!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

they are really saying that "my freedom matters more than your starvation" and I cannot see that is much more than kleptocracy.

Well said.

The OP also seemed to be interested in other ways of organising society which we might be able to envisage. So I will put forward my most radical idea for the amusement of others. What I propose is that we stick with the units we have now or something close to them: and we continue to have representative democracy (because of size): but that the government is appointed on the jury system for a fixed term: and at the end of that term each member must return to the position he or she held before they served...

... Far from anarchy, but at least another idea. I hope this is in line with the wishes of the OP

Fiona! thanks for a brilliant post and the exposition of your arguments. Pixy (and others) have tons to learn from you. I do believe anarchy is related to what you expose here, authority do not necesarily needs to be centralized, it can be shared. As I have said in this thread, this is what, historically, have happened, so I don't see why we shouldn't think about whats next.

Regarding your idea, I have been thinking in something similar. Every member of a society should be the government at some point (say from 40 to 42), so there would be no more a "political class".

 

[UserGoogol]

The world is not a single society.

Wait, what? A society is nothing but a collection of people. The only difference between a nation and the entire world is one of scale. I do think anarchism probably could work, if you had a system of competing self-defense agencies. (As anarcho-capitalists tend to favor.) Essentially, the only difference between such a system and actually having a government would be that there wouldn't be general elections, instead people voluntarily into organizations and voting and paying from there, but it would still technically anarchist, and I don't think that the differences that would exist are necessary for social stability to hold. (If someone wanted to set this up, it seems like it would be a simple matter of taking current governments and making gradual steps like making it easier for people to revoke their citizenship and ignore laws and taxation and beefing up the ability for people to enter into arbitration agreements to the point that arbitration starts to overtake the original government. Revolutionary anarchism scares the hell out of me, though.)

That said, I think liberal democracy is still preferable to anarchy. Coercion is necessary in order to maximize the overall happiness. If society is in a situation which is pareto optimal but increases in overall happiness can be made by harming some for the sake of others, then such a transaction should be made, and in an anarchist society there would be no mechanism to do this, since although some people might support such actions, those being harmed would be free to find their own agency to fight back. Liberal democracy is best because on the one hand it attempts to consider everyone's preferences so as to determine the (democracy) but it is also uses the power of coercion with some caution, making blanket restrictions on its own behavior to assure that it does not cause harm to people unnecessarily (civil rights). Actually, I go in the opposite direction to Bodhi Dharma Ken and think that world government would be a pretty neat idea, although too impractical to implement in the immediate future.

 

[dudalb]

I don't even think anarchy can even exist. Governemnts of a sort WILL form, even if that government is something as simple as the local thug strongarming people into doing what he wants and other people banding together to keep that from happening.

That's is what I was trying to say.
It is interesting that the only place where Anarchsim has any kind of a real following is among college students and academic intellectuals...whose existence is on the college campus, and, beleive me, no place on earth can be further then reality then a college classroom.

 

[calebprime]

Bores me to tears. But I guess doctors need something inoffensive to play in their waiting rooms.


No kidding!

Doctors don't play this in their waiting rooms. (Some solo Jarrett is mistaken for easy listening, though, sometimes.) You obviously are pretty ignorant of what you speak in this case. There's a world of difference between this kind of jazz and easy-listening music.

I'm probably talking to someone for whom the last word about taste in music is that it's a consumer preference--like what kind of car you drive, or what wine you drink.

So no point in continuing further.

 

[ponderingturtle]

It is unfair yes (fairness is a matter of opinion), because you only reckon the simplest, least interesting meaning of the word, ignoring its political use.

So you started that dirrectly in your opening post, with your pulled off the web definition of anarchy.

Here is doing the same for anarchy

anarchy [an-ark-ee]
Noun
1. general lawlessness and disorder

link

 

[Cleon]

Music is fantasy, there's nothing contemptible about it any more than it is contemptible that Anthony Hopkins isn't really a psychopathic serial killer in real life.

He isn't?!?!?!

One of my personal heroes, and you tell me it's all a fantasy.

I feel betrayed!

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Artists are parasitic. They depend on a more or less orderly society. Artists who flirt with revolutionary thinking change their tune. Wagner is a good example.

As an artist, guitarist and song-writer, in a Noise Rock group I find that statement offensive. The idea that because I'm artist means that I somehow leech off of society is deeply innacurate. I have a job!

I depend on cops, garbage men, teachers, truck drivers, my wife's income.

Many artists are obsessed with trying to realize their vision of order, of beauty in order, or at least the interplay between order and chaos.

Well duh! How else do you expect any of them get where they are? They obsess about it.

The ones that just begin and end in chaos, or that adolescent "young, dumb and full of come-hither" are only of sociological interest, or are briefly entertaining like the Sex Pistols. Brief, in my case, means less than 20 seconds.

I guess I shouldn't play Bolt Thrower around you. Or Dead Kennedys. Oh well, can't convince everyone to adopt open-minded, non-elitist stances on everything. I guess I'll just retire and play some SRV on my guitar.

 

[PixyMisa]

Regarding your idea, I have been thinking in something similar. Every member of a society should be the government at some point (say from 40 to 42), so there would be no more a "political class".

Wrong.

When you have such a rapid turnover of politicians, real power devolves to the senior staff in the civil service - people who aren't elected and need represent no interests but their own.

Which has nothing to do with anarchy. It has its own name - bureaucracy.

 

[PixyMisa]

For the rest, there is often an acknowledgement that some residual power must be reserved for the state: and in that case there is nothing principled left in the position: they are really saying that "my freedom matters more than your starvation" and I cannot see that is much more than kleptocracy. Others will of course disagree.

That's not what they're saying.

They're saying that freedom is a right, something innate, and to take it away is inherently wrong.

Getting enough to eat is not a right. Sometimes there isn't enough to eat. Tough.

When there is more than enough to eat - which is certainly the case today - then it is both a kindness and sound economic policy to see that those short on food get some of the surplus. How this is to be organised is left as an exercise for the reader.

Of course, most instances of starvation today are due not to absolute food shortages, but due to men with guns taking the food away. If you're looking for a kleptocracy, that's the real deal.

 

[WildCat]

Wait, what? A society is nothing but a collection of people.

No, the world is a collection of different societies but is not one big society. And it doesn't really help your case at all if you define it the way you want, since the history of the world is one in which the strong countries control, dominate, and even exterminate the weak.

Hardly the sort of thing you'd wish to repeat in more conventional definitions of "society".

Any examples of an anarchist society that doesn't end up like Somalia yet?

 

[Kopji]

I'm curious about how many of you are skeptics regarding supernatural stuff, but have no problems whatsoever and just accept the current political and economical systems. Can we be "true skeptics" if can reject the church but not the government?

I think about this a different way: Skeptics are problem-solving oriented people. If religion or the supernatural do not illuminate or create problems for a skeptic, they may not seem as important to focus on. If our lives are fairly comfortable and unburdened by government, maybe we are less likely to make that a focus. I put the word problems in italics because when I use it I mean it as being a good thing. A problem is an opportunity to grow in knowledge.

Regardless, it is a mistake to look for 'true skeptic' labels, it falls into a class of fallacy called 'no true Scotsmen'. I can accept any person who calls themselves Christian as one, and also 'skeptic'. (Although I am still free to point out when behavior does not align with the professed goals).

I would have to state that I'm sort of a "anarchist communist", but I'm not quite sure if there is really a label for what I consider it would be a more advanced system of production, distribution and consumption of human made stuff and natural stuff.

To say you are anarchist-anything seems like a contradiction to me. Noam Chomsky calls himself a 'socialist libertarian' and equates it with a type of anarchy. Noam is an interesting read.

Heck, I don't even agree with most current beliefs, like what exactly constitutes "a property". To put an example, we all can use the bus to get where we want, but it is not "ours" in the sense a car is. In the end "a property" is just a convention, a custom, and nothing more...

I might disagree here. Property is a symbol and symbols can be very powerful things.
If you have not read any Noam Chomsky you might like him. Sorta 'out there' but very smart guy.

...it is not real outside a determinate culture (exactly like Allah or Jeovah)

Again, I would call them symbols or thought objects. This is a deeper more fundamental thing than culture or custom. I might go out on a limb and say that they are socially evolved in a way that we have difficulty looking at objectively.

I'm not enough of a philosopher to argue that well, but the idea of God is different than culture or custom. As maybe an example, a deity can be used to promote any cause you want, but it is harder to use a culture to do that because a culture is not a symbol like the idea of a god is.

It would be a shame to have a thread on anarchy end without mentioning Noam Chomsky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

 

[Fiona]

That's not what they're saying.

They're saying that freedom is a right, something innate, and to take it away is inherently wrong.

Getting enough to eat is not a right. Sometimes there isn't enough to eat. Tough.

.

I think your first sentence is contradicted by the rest. I think you actually agree with my point. Perhaps you do not like how it was expressed but I see no substantive difference in content at all

 

[Cain]

Any examples of an anarchist society that doesn't end up like Somalia yet?

Human beings lived as communist anarchists for a lot longer than they have had governments.

Kopji

I think about this a different way: Skeptics are problem-solving oriented people. If religion or the supernatural do not illuminate or create problems for a skeptic, they may not seem as important to focus on.

Narrowly, I do not disagree. Skepticism in this sense appeals to the engineer because we can subject claims to testing, marshaling empirical evidence. However, the question of values is inescapable. A skeptic might debunk the claim that one race (or "race") is intellectually superior to another, but whether or not one chooses to investigate this area has quite a lot to with one's moral values.

It's sometimes said that too many atheists believe in a god called Government. Others believe the Almighty takes the form of the Free Market. I understand skepticism to mean "not taking things for granted." People assume things as natural and inevitable because of ideology. In the introduction to his book In Defense of Anarchism, Robert Paul Wolff recounts his experience as a young professor (or maybe grad student) teaching a political philosophy course. He had plotted it out, allotting time to explain why government was necessary and then moving on to the usual topics. The problem was that neither he nor his class could generate good arguments justifying government.

Being a vegan is more substantively skeptical for me than not believing in psychic powers.

 

[WildCat]

Human beings lived as communist anarchists for a lot longer than they have had governments.

The first time I asked this question I specified it had to be a group bigger than a dozen-member hippie commune. After all, it is no longer 40,000 years ago and the human population ahs increased just a bit since then. Even by 10,000 years ago tribes had grown to the point where living as a "communist anarchist" was no longer viable. Perhaps if your society was small enough and isolated enough (think the !Kung of the Kalahari, not Omaha Nebraska) you could pull it off, but for 99.9999% of the population it's simply not going to happen.

Somalia is what you end up with, funny all our self-described anarchists don't leave the cozy comfort of the society for which they claim to have such revulsion for the anarchist utopia of Somalia.

Anarchy is like Libertopia, only even more stupid.

 

[geni]

The first time I asked this question I specified it had to be a group bigger than a dozen-member hippie commune. After all, it is no longer 40,000 years ago and the human population ahs increased just a bit since then.

You can sort of get there with some of the smaller polynesian islands although it would be more correct to say that they are more ruled by tradition than goverment.

 

[dudalb]

The first time I asked this question I specified it had to be a group bigger than a dozen-member hippie commune. After all, it is no longer 40,000 years ago and the human population ahs increased just a bit since then. Even by 10,000 years ago tribes had grown to the point where living as a "communist anarchist" was no longer viable. Perhaps if your society was small enough and isolated enough (think the !Kung of the Kalahari, not Omaha Nebraska) you could pull it off, but for 99.9999% of the population it's simply not going to happen.

Somalia is what you end up with, funny all our self-described anarchists don't leave the cozy comfort of the society for which they claim to have such revulsion for the anarchist utopia of Somalia.

Anarchy is like Libertopia, only even more stupid.

But Cain said that a professor of Political Science proved Government is not necessary!
Surely if it is said by a college professor it has to be true.
And Cain can't resist shoving his fanatacism about vegetarianism down our throats.

 

[Giz]

Human beings lived as communist anarchists for a lot longer than they have had governments.
QUOTE]


Michael Shermers "Why People Believed Wierd Things" mentioned the noble savage myth. I seem to remember the stats (based on archeaological findings) as being:

Proportion of adults dying violent deaths in stone age or hunter gatherer societies: 30 - 40%.

(The proportion was similar all over the world).

Try comparing that to the rate of violent death under present day western governments...

 

[Cain]

Human beings lived as communist anarchists for a lot longer than they have had governments.
QUOTE]


Michael Shermers "Why People Believed Wierd Things" mentioned the noble savage myth. I seem to remember the stats (based on archeaological findings) as being:

Proportion of adults dying violent deaths in stone age or hunter gatherer societies: 30 - 40%.

How is this relevant to my observation? Where and when did I assert anything resembling the myth of the noble savage? I've read Shermer's book along with Pinker's The Blank Slate, which makes the same criticism. What's only slightly amusing about your comment this is that Shermer was an admitted anarcho-capitalist at the time he put together that book, and only began to develop serious reservations about Libertopia while writing The Science of Good and Evil. Finally, it's unwise to make such broad generalizations. We can make distinctions between the government of Sweden versus N. Korea vs. Venezuela.

------

The first time I asked this question I specified it had to be a group bigger than a dozen-member hippie commune.

Actually, you didn't: compare post #18 against #29 (wherein the hippie commune comment can first be found). Anyway, I'm pretty sure most of these tribes were in the 50-150 range, which is between 4 and more than 10 times your number.

After all, it is no longer 40,000 years ago and the human population ahs increased just a bit since then. Even by 10,000 years ago tribes had grown to the point where living as a "communist anarchist" was no longer viable. Perhaps if your society was small enough and isolated enough (think the !Kung of the Kalahari, not Omaha Nebraska) you could pull it off, but for 99.9999% of the population it's simply not going to happen.

Somalia is what you end up with, funny all our self-described anarchists don't leave the cozy comfort of the society for which they claim to have such revulsion for the anarchist utopia of Somalia.

Anarchy is like Libertopia, only even more stupid.

Somalia is an example of anarcho-capitalism and, for some, one of the closer approximations to Libertopia. Anarchism in the traditional understanding involves eliminating hierarchies, balancing power. If we were to look at human beings 10,000 years ago, we'd probably say they are irredeemably egalitarian, whereas now ninety-nine point blah blah blah blah of blah blah blah cannot fathom the notion. Anarchist thinkers vary considerably in how they want to organize their own affairs, which is no great surprise given the value placed on freedom. Self-described anarchists are not obligated to support, let alone live in, anarcho-capitalist or anarcho-primitivist societies.

---------

Another swing n' a miss from a Dublab:

But Cain said that a professor of Political Science proved Government is not necessary!

No, I illustrated a point on skepticism by drawing on a eureka moment from an oft-cited book on anarchism. Also, Wolff is a professor of philosophy, not political science. Also, I said he came to the conclusion that he could not find arguments to justify government.

Surely if it is said by a college professor it has to be true.
And Cain can't resist shoving his fanatacism about vegetarianism down our throats.

Two extraordinarily dumb comments in a row. Sadly this post of yours is about what I'd expect.