Ask an Anarchist

What's going on here. Are the local anarchists too busy working for the man to answer the questions of the people? :D

Why would anarchists give a rip about the questions of the people?

PS: I think I'm probably the closest thing we have to a genuine anarchist, since I've been willing to live in a raw "might makes right" world for pretty much my entire adult life. But willing certainly doesn't mean eager.
 
Why would anarchists give a rip about the questions of the people?
I dunno, one started this thread.

Also, getting along w people and at least making a pretense of listening to then is gonna be important even in some sort of pure anarchy society (which I'd love to hear defined btw)
 
I dunno, one started this thread.

Also, getting along w people and at least making a pretense of listening to then is gonna be important even in some sort of pure anarchy society (which I'd love to hear defined btw)

Only if you can't beat them down.
 
Lol yeah, violence is a great answer to marital problems, child-rearing, work issues, friendship problems, etc.
 
Lol yeah, violence is a great answer to marital problems, child-rearing, work issues, friendship problems, etc.

As an anthropologist once said, tongue-in-cheek - "Violence has been with humanity ever since, at least, Ug the Caveman whacked Mug the Caveman over the head and dragged his wife, Ugla away by the hair. Of course, sitting on the stony ground rubbing his bruised head, Mug plotted revenge. And the cycle began!"
 
Lol yeah, violence is a great answer to marital problems, child-rearing, work issues, friendship problems, etc.

WTH do any of those have to do with Anarchism?

Oh, wait, was this just another lame attempt to "get the better" of your perceived bully?
 
Not sure what any of your posts have to do w/ anarchism, I was replying to your idea that as long as you can beat someone up you don't have to worry about listening to them or their opinion. I guess that's a caveman's vision of anarchism...

You're not "my" bully but you seem to have some wistful idea about how nice it is to be one.
 
Not sure what any of your posts have to do w/ anarchism, I was replying to your idea that as long as you can beat someone up you don't have to worry about listening to them or their opinion. I guess that's a caveman's vision of anarchism...

You're not "my" bully but you seem to have some wistful idea about how nice it is to be one.

You misunderstood me entirely. It seems being misunderstood - or worse, deliberately malinterpreted and having words put in my mouth and false motives and beliefs made about me - is the source of a large number of responses to my posts on these forums.
 
You misunderstood me entirely. It seems being misunderstood - or worse, deliberately malinterpreted and having words put in my mouth and false motives and beliefs made about me - is the source of a large number of responses to my posts on these forums.

Wrong fake bully. Narz's false accusation obsession has currently focused on me.
 
You misunderstood me entirely. It seems being misunderstood - or worse, deliberately malinterpreted and having words put in my mouth and false motives and beliefs made about me - is the source of a large number of responses to my posts on these forums.
Yeah, i think he was responding to tim....

Anyway, although i have little respect for anarchists and wouldn't give a hoot if this thread was shut down, if serious discussion is expected, shouldn't this be an RD thread?
 
I'm interested in a (real) anarchists view of what kinds of law you'd see in an anarchist society? Obviously anarchy does not equal lawlessness, which I think might confuse a lot of people?

How does an anarchist society guarantee the safety and protection of vulnerable persons?
 
Do you guys dream for a failed state so you can arises from chaos? Or you don't dream it but pray for it? or even working on it?
 
Obviously anarchy does not equal lawlessness

Isn't anarchy a "state of disorder due to the absence of authority" ?

So obviously since you have no legal frameworks, technically there is no lawnessness, since there is no rule of law. So yeah, in that sense anarchy doesn't equal to "lawlessness"

But in practice all hell would break lose and we'd end up with a Mad Max type situation, with worse costumes and more boring storylines. And a lot of people dying and suffering, no central authority to provide needed services like education, hospitals, fire fighters, police officers.. no military for national defense.. warlords consolidating territory.. people doing what they want, looting, pillaging, looting, raping..

I don't care how you define "lawlessness", but how can that be a goal anybody wants?
 
You can look at anarchy from a scale size perspective

A pirate clan on our Frisian coast in medieval time was for sure for some Frisian Kings and Dutch counts an area of anarchy
But within that pirate clan, I guess, things were well ordered with "traditions".
The same applies to our "farmers republics" we had in medieval time. Nobility wanting to tax those anarchists.
Think about militia "ruled" areas currently in Brazil.

Some degree of sovereignity of smaller scale societies can be seen as anarchy by centralist large scale entities like states in which "territory" those smaller societies are.

There is simply a competition between smaller societies and centralist state society.
And there are many ways to organise that.


EDIT
How "horizontal" is your society ? ... is the fabric, informal and formal of your society ?
Thomas Hobbes influenced State thinking in the 17th century by making a very vertical approach between the individual and the central state, up and down.
In effect he lessened the legitimacy of the "horizontal" society.
Which is to some degree understandable because the horizontal society at that time was cracking each others skulls in the religious turmoil.
 
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Sure, if you get rid of the government, it will create a power vacuum that will eventually be filled by somebody else. I have no idea what sort of "anarchy" anarchists are after, but none of it makes sense to me. The only way you'll get pure anarchy is if you walk into the middle of some dense forest in the middle of nowhere somewhere, and stay there away from everybody else, and live on your own.
 
Been a long time since I’ve commented here so I won’t defend anything I’ve said before because I’ve long forgotten it.

I suppose the simplest way of putting it for me would be like the Golden Rule writ large. Would I do something to intentionally harm another person, or put a person at risk? I couldn’t in good conscience, unless I suppose there was some immediate threat to my own security in one way or another.
 
Sure, if you get rid of the government, it will create a power vacuum that will eventually be filled by somebody else. I have no idea what sort of "anarchy" anarchists are after, but none of it makes sense to me. The only way you'll get pure anarchy is if you walk into the middle of some dense forest in the middle of nowhere somewhere, and stay there away from everybody else, and live on your own.

You are quicker than the EDIT to my post.

I think there is no vacuum without a central government... unless you remove a central government that has been long in place.

Before central governments, or effective control by them on for example peripheral areas, there were organised more communal fabrics in place.
 
You are quicker than the EDIT to my post.

I think there is no vacuum without a central government... unless you remove a central government that has been long in place.

Before central governments, or effective control by them on for example peripheral areas, there were organised more communal fabrics in place.

Yes, of course. That's what I mean - you can't just have a power vacuum forever. It will get filled with something else. You take out a democratic institution with checks and balances.. and replace it with what? Some guy with a shotgun who just happened to have the right people by his side and enough weapons to take over?

And that's supposed to be a thing some people want?
 
Yes, of course. That's what I mean - you can't just have a power vacuum forever. It will get filled with something else. You take out a democratic institution with checks and balances.. and replace it with what? Some guy with a shotgun who just happened to have the right people by his side and enough weapons to take over?

And that's supposed to be a thing some people want?

yes
I think a revolutionary approach where you create that vacuum and then scramble to fill it in will indeed lead likely to what you describe !
and could very well cause bad precedents and bouncing back to worse.

But if you build up your alternative society within the restrictions of your old system, and get that done well enough to get to a good degree in sharing your thoughts, to a good degree participating in what you are building up, a majority of the people with you, you end up replacing a shell.

if you build up your alternative society within the restrictions of your old system

It's abit like: "tomorrow starts today"
 
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