Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
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Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
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Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#2Yes, apparently he died last week. The person said to be behind the phrase we are the 99% at the Occupy Wall Street movement. He was an interesting character.
My question would be: do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? Aren't you a 'system man' at that point?
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#3Yes, apparently he died last week. The person said to be behind the phrase we are the 99% at the Occupy Wall Street movement. He was an interesting character. My question would be: do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? Aren't you a 'system man' at that point?
That's kind of like saying you can't criticize capitalism while still using an iPhone. I don't feel it holds.
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#4He said, "If you and I can agree that we will both do our share of the work of the
world" -- that's the work 'round the Joe Hill House -- "If you and I agree that we
will only take what we need and put back what we can; if you and I can agree that
we'll care for the afflicted: and mostly, if you and I can agree that we won't hurt
anybody" -- all the things you can't get from the boss and from the state -- "then we
can begin to build between us that voluntary combination and get the work of the
world done without the boss and without the state."
Well, I've said that t'so many young people, especially lately, who get this idea that anarchy is some kind of nihilism: "Oh you can't tell me what to do". No! Anarchy, you've got to tell _yourself_ what to do because you've got to learn to become your own best government. And believe me, you can do it better and cheaper than they can.
Utah Phillips, "I will not obey" https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=h5Ro4rTvDcw
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#5Yes, apparently he died last week. The person said to be behind the phrase we are the 99% at the Occupy Wall Street movement. He was an interesting character. My question would be: do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? Aren't you a 'system man' at that point?
Anarchists are not an alien species, nor is there an anarchistan yet. They live among us
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#6Yes, apparently he died last week. The person said to be behind the phrase we are the 99% at the Occupy Wall Street movement. He was an interesting character. My question would be: do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? Aren't you a 'system man' at that point?
You can be a capitalist and still say true statements about anarchism, both supportive and unsupportive. Or vice versa.
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#7what a bunch of bad examples.
I (used to, pre-covid) see daily plenty people cutting bus lanes, so these exist, and what you going to do to protect society from them? even a stern look is not the anarchist way.
most sport teams have a captain and a trainer and most volunteer forces are under supervision of more experienced staff around here. sure they don't strictly command the squad, but they're the one responsible for organizing participant to minimize internal and external friction
that capitalism is unfair is so generic it's extremely disingenuous to make that critique as a sign of anarchism
there's quite a logical jump from "two wrongs don’t make a right" to "abolish the criminal justice system", which isn't about punishment to begin with in most societies.
"Pretty much every achievement has been based on cooperation and mutual aid" - pretty much most of the contemporary technological jump came from wwii, and the modern technological jump came from private holdings competing and one upping one another.
"Do you believe that human beings are fundamentally corrupt and evil" uh, there's psychopathology that need to be cured; how many people submitted to rehab vs how many people were forced into?
"certain sorts of people are inferior specimens, destined to be ruled by their betters? " of curse I wouldn't call them "inferior" and "ruling", but some people require continuous assistance or guidance. this question has been loaded with negative term to cause a certain predefined answer to seem the only right answer. ask yourself is someone with dementia would need a tutor to manage their finances instead and help them trough surviving in decent condition, and suddenly the answer is not as much black and white.
hope this is because it's a very short essay to a large introductory text, because otherwise is severely lacking both in arguments and the logic by which what's there has been built.
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#8Most people do behave "decently" in this sense. However some do not. Under an open system, these outliers will eventually eat the decent. It strikes me this is likely the exact journey we have come on to arrive where we are. We have created a structure in which the monsters can eat a certain proportion of us in order that we may not be eaten.
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#9It's great to have people with diverse opinions - we are richer for that.
... but some people like Graeber, make the transition from spreading a mesage form of activism to violent and destructive activism.
Not only does that alienate people, it's also findamentally wrong in a democracy.
If you cannot convince people to vote differently with your words, then using violence and intimidation makes you a cancerous part of the system.
Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
#10The fundamental nature of politics is that it’s about relationships of power- how power is exercised, who has power, who doesn’t, and what the relationship is between people or groups of people. Whenever one person or group of people is above another in some kind of power hierarchy, the same kind of dynamic develops, no matter whether it’s in a corporate office or medieval Europe or anywhere else- its always the same. The people on the bottom will always display resentment and resistance towards those who have power over them, because nobody likes having explicit or implicit violence threatened on them and being exploited or told what to do. The person or people on top will always display contempt and fear towards those underneath, contempt because in order to justify being on top one has to believe that they are superior or more deserving in some way, and fear because on some level they know that they are outnumbered by a lot of very angry people. They know that the sword of Damocles hangs over their heads. The discourse of the political right wing is therefore always going to be dominated by both contempt and fear, for exactly those reasons. The contempt manifests in talking about a “culture of victimhood” and “welfare queens” and “black on black violence” and “snowflakes” and the fear manifests in calls for law and order, more aggressive policing, border walls and increased military funding. But the source of the discord is the power hierarchy itself, whether it be racial or class or gender or whatever, and until that is abolished the same poisonous political dynamic will persist. It cannot be papered over by advocating for everybody to “just get along” or “give peace a chance”; that’s just one more way to tell the people at the bottom that they need to stop complaining and accept their situation. Even if the discord calms down for a while, it will inevitably bubble back to the surface again as resentment and anger build up, and fear and contempt to meet it. Only equality can resolve the conflict.