No Such Thing as Anarchy

[darcyshirley33]

ants-and-communists

darcyshirley33

The-Vampire-Mikhail

ObscureEnigma

Heh. There... is that point of view. I meant that anarchy could not exist with humans, darling.

actually, if you really look at how nature works, there is no anarchy among animals either, there are still controls, darwinism, the food chain, social structures and mating rituals of all animals are all without a doubt forms of control.

the entire nature of the universe is not chaos, the concept of physics, chemistry, and, dare i say, theology are all evidential controls on all forms of nature in the universe.

the only form of true anarchy in terms of a human experience, is only evident in a Riot.

There are two definitions of anarchy as social order. The one you're referring to isn't the one that political anarchists refer to. They refer to the definition that means "lack of domination/coercive power" not "chaos."

i would say pretty easily that democracy is anarchy then, the government is ultimately at its peoples control, there is no domination held by a higher power unless that position of presidency or organization. in terms of coercive power... the people tell the politicians what their policies.

representative democracy is still coercive. It's majority rule, so that means not everyone agrees with the policies, but have to follow whatever is voted into pla And people don't always have control of what politicians do. If that were the case, I'm not so sure waste sites and chemical plants would be more prevalent near minorities and the lower class. It doesn't matter if the lower class voted against policies regarding waste disposal in their area, if the majority vote is for centralizing waste disposal in lower income areas, then the people who live there didn't exactly agree to that. Now I know you'll say they agree by participating in the voting system to begin with, like they give tacit consent to whatever the outcome is, but because larger power structures keep the majority vote in place (laws are created, rights, etc.) is why there can't be any resistance or isn't any resistance to what's put in place through voting.

The mere fact that we have to have police forces shows that not everyone agrees with what's been put in place. We're coerced into our positions more than we vote for them. Because votes have to be enforced shows that not everyone agrees with what's put in place.

So the solution would be direct democracy, which has existed, and was the main means of decision making for most of human history. The only problem with direct democracy, is that it really can't exist in huge collectives of people like our countries today, otherwise nothing would ever get solved. So the question ends up being, would you rather live under coercive power structures in a large centralized collective that is both alienating and completely mediated, or would you rather live in smaller societies where you always have the means to resist any policy and live in immediacy?  

[Elochai Sammael]

Finally someone in this thread I agree with. I still think someone needs to lay it out straight though. Anarchism teaches that we can live in a society where there is no compulsion of any kind. A life without compulsion naturally means liberty; it means freedom from being forced or coerced, a chance to lead the life that suits you best. You cannot lead such a life unless you do away with the institutions that curtail your liberty and interfere with your life, the conditions that compel you to act differently from the way you really would like to. What are those institutions and conditions? Let us see what we have to do away with in order to secure a free and harmonious life. Once we know what has to be abolished and what must take its place, we shall also find the way to do it. What must be abolished, then, to secure liberty?

First of all, of course, the thing that invades you most, that handicaps or prevents your free activity; the thing that interferes with your liberty and compels you to live differently from what would be your own choice. That thing is government. Take a good look at it and you will see that government is the greatest invader; more than that, the worst criminal man has ever known of. It fills the world with violence, with fraud and deceit, with oppression and misery. As a great thinker once said, "its breath is poison." It corrupts everything it touches. "Yes, government means violence and it is evil," you admit; "but can we do without it?"

If I should ask you whether you need government, I'm sure you would answer that you don't, but that it is for the others that it is needed. But if you should ask any one of those "others," he would reply as you do: he would say that he does not need it, but that it is necessary "for the others." Why does everyone think that he can be decent enough without the policeman, but that the club is needed for "the others"? "People would rob and murder each other if there were no government and no law," you say. If they really would, why would they? Would they do it just for the pleasure of it or because of certain reasons? Maybe if we examine their reasons, we'd discover the cure for them.

Suppose you and I and a score of others had suffered shipwreck and found ourselves on an island rich with fruit of every kind. Of course, we'd get to work to gather the fruit. But suppose one of our number should declare that it all belongs to him, and that no one shall have a single morsel unless he first pays him tribute for it. We would be indignant, wouldn't we? We'd laugh at his pretensions. If he'd try to make trouble about it, we might throw him into the sea, and it would serve him right, would it not? Suppose further that we ourselves and our forefathers had cultivated the island and stocked it with everything needed for life and comfort, and that some one should arrive and claim it all as his. What would we say? We'd ignore him, wouldn't we? We might tell him that he could share with us and join us in our work. But suppose that he insists on his ownership and that he produces a slip of paper and says that it proves that everything belongs to him? We'd tell him he's crazy and we'd go about our business. But if he should have a government back of him, he would appeal to it for the protection of "his rights," and the government would send police and soldiers who would evict us and put the "lawful owner in possession." That is the function of government; that is what government exists for and what it is doing all the time.

Now, do you still think that without this thing called government we should rob and murder each other? Is it not rather true that with government we rob and murder? Because government does not secure us in our rightful possessions, but on the contrary takes them away for the benefit of those who have no right to them, as we have seen in previous chapters. If you should wake up tomorrow morning and learn that there is no government any more, would your first thought be to rush out into the street and kill some one? No, you know that is nonsense. We speak of sane, normal men. The insane man who wants to kill does not first ask whether there is or isn't any government. Such men belong to the care of physicians; they should be placed in hospitals to be treated for their malady. The chances are that if you or Johnson should awaken to find that there is no government, you would get busy arranging your life under the new conditions.

~Excerpted from chapter XX of What is Anarchism by Alexander Berkman.  

[darcyshirley33]

That was a nice post. lol. I was going to ask how you got it so clear and coherent, but when I saw it was from a book it made a lot more sense. lol.

All those things you described are conditions that have existed in societies before, and are anthropoligically studied and understood.

Now, as for what creates the conditions for there to be government, there are some myths that should be cleared up. One myth is that people at one point needed a government to take care of them. This argument has extended as far back as to the Agricultural Revolution. The argument basically goes, that people couldn't support themselves without agriculture, so developed the system and division of labor to support their society. It was then necessary for a bureaucracy and government to exist in order to keep track of and organize all the fragmented and specialized labor. And the more fragmented and specialized the labor got, the more the government needed to keep track of everything. Now, the problem with that idea is that it's been proven that people did not struggle to survive before the Agricultural Revolution. In fact, they lived healthier lives than even the most well off members of our society today do. To put it bluntly, no one really knows why anyone developed agriculture, because all it did was make humans' lives more miserable, alienating, and unhealthy.

People like John Zerzan, though, think that the mere concepts of distinct numbers, time, and even symbolic thought played a huge part in the development of agriculture and the need for government, but that the development of numbers, time, symbolic thought, agriculture and government are by no means inevitable. It isn't "natural" to develop these things. People don't have a "tendency" to count things, measure time (or measure anything, for that matter), but that those developments were consciously made for specific and interested reasons (part of which is to dominate and domesticate).

Here are some essays of his on these subjects...
Time and Its Discontents
Language: Origin and Meaning
Number: Origin and Evolution
The Case Against Art

He writes a lot of good stuff. You can find anything written by him by just googling John Zerzan, cuz none of his books are copywritten (actually inside the books where the copyright should be, it says "anti-copyright" and it says "This book may be freely pirated").  

[ants-and-communists]

darcyshirley33

ants-and-communists

darcyshirley33

The-Vampire-Mikhail

ObscureEnigma

Heh. There... is that point of view. I meant that anarchy could not exist with humans, darling.

actually, if you really look at how nature works, there is no anarchy among animals either, there are still controls, darwinism, the food chain, social structures and mating rituals of all animals are all without a doubt forms of control.

the entire nature of the universe is not chaos, the concept of physics, chemistry, and, dare i say, theology are all evidential controls on all forms of nature in the universe.

the only form of true anarchy in terms of a human experience, is only evident in a Riot.

There are two definitions of anarchy as social order. The one you're referring to isn't the one that political anarchists refer to. They refer to the definition that means "lack of domination/coercive power" not "chaos."

i would say pretty easily that democracy is anarchy then, the government is ultimately at its peoples control, there is no domination held by a higher power unless that position of presidency or organization. in terms of coercive power... the people tell the politicians what their policies.

representative democracy is still coercive. It's majority rule, so that means not everyone agrees with the policies, but have to follow whatever is voted into pla And people don't always have control of what politicians do. If that were the case, I'm not so sure waste sites and chemical plants would be more prevalent near minorities and the lower class. It doesn't matter if the lower class voted against policies regarding waste disposal in their area, if the majority vote is for centralizing waste disposal in lower income areas, then the people who live there didn't exactly agree to that. Now I know you'll say they agree by participating in the voting system to begin with, like they give tacit consent to whatever the outcome is, but because larger power structures keep the majority vote in place (laws are created, rights, etc.) is why there can't be any resistance or isn't any resistance to what's put in place through voting.

The mere fact that we have to have police forces shows that not everyone agrees with what's been put in place. We're coerced into our positions more than we vote for them. Because votes have to be enforced shows that not everyone agrees with what's put in place.

So the solution would be direct democracy, which has existed, and was the main means of decision making for most of human history. The only problem with direct democracy, is that it really can't exist in huge collectives of people like our countries today, otherwise nothing would ever get solved. So the question ends up being, would you rather live under coercive power structures in a large centralized collective that is both alienating and completely mediated, or would you rather live in smaller societies where you always have the means to resist any policy and live in immediacy?

 

[Weazel]

chaos- a lack of order or organization
order- a way of organizing and put into proper place
organization- the logical way of placing or doing things

Now I'm no genious, but if Anarchy means Chaos wouldn't there be a circular chain to follow within language to connect Anarchy to Chaos?
All I can find is the that Anarchy has Chaos listed as an explanation, but Chaos isn't defined by Anarchy, not even in a long shot sense from even origins of words or suffixes or anything.

Last time I checked, if a word is defined, the definition should be tied back to the word as well, circular not linear.

Chaos isn't Anarchy. Chaos is some stupid crap people like catagorize as Anarchy. A bomb goes off in the middle of a city, the culprit's reason for the bomb was to steal money from a bank while everyone frantically panics about the bomb... There is Chaos, but it's not anarchy in the political sense, and amazingly if this were to happen you'd see "Natural Anarchy".

The Nature Anarachy would be something as simple as a man is knocked to the ground by the blast, he isn't badly harmed but in the panic another man helps him up so they can continue to evade the harmful event. After the event the men realize they know each other. They have hated each other for many years for an incident involving a childhood toy they fought over and destroyed.

This has been displayed in harmful events, the only reason anyone harms anyone else is for gain of some sort. Also this situation depicts another metaphor that can be seen within society today.

The preverbal tug-of-war. Our gov'ts tussling over control, money, land and ultimately domination in the name of innocent retalliation. I don't know how any of you grew up, but last time I checked retalliation isn't innocent, it isn't even an option as a child. "walk away", "ignore it" etc.

And the tug-of-war doesn't end there, money is one thing and with gov't comes money as a means of exchange. But if you were to look at the funds of every gov't in the world, which one's do you think hold the a better percentage of the currency after it's all been translated into an undeniable unit.

Control. That's the most obvious one, it's something they put in front of us every day. The media, though it is usually just something there to have fun, entertain. It is ultimately not used to discuss, in any way that the rational average citizen would find understandable or even slightly worth while, used to discuss anything political or partly concerning the lives of the citizens. Most often if a matter is aired on television the parties involved used such legaleese that even lawyers have difficulty understanding it sometimes.

I'm sure you've all seen a tug-of-war, granted sometimes one team can hold the other for awhile, but when your rope has been pulled on for as long as humankinds, sooner or later everyone on one side is just going to let go. The gov'ts aren't permanent, they might be powerful, but in no way are they going to be constant. History shows that, even current events. Everything keeps swaying from one point of view to another. It's only a matter of time now until the majority is no longer listening to what the gov't has to say.  

[darcyshirley33]

I think it was Jean Baudrillard that talked about the possibilities of government ceasing to exist. I believe there were three kinds of governmental disintegration, but two that stick out in my mind when reading your recent reply, Weazel, is that of explosive upheaval and the end of belief.

I think "explosive upheaval" speaks for itself. People would just violently reject the government and tear it down.

the "end of belief" speaks more to the sort of ideological contract people hold with their governments. Governments are not real tangible things, right? They're just ideas that can only actualize themselves and actualize power and control when everyone agrees that that should be the case. If everyone stops believing in this ideological contract, Baudrillard says, then the government would simply rot away and cease to exist. He and others, such as John Zerzan and Derrick Jensen, feel like this has been happening lately. Before 9/11, people would literally laugh at the suggestion that the government does anything good for people. Baudrillard suggests, though, that after 9/11, people began to believe in the idea of government again, so since then its rotting has been postponed. I dont' know, what do you think about this idea?

With the whole rotting idea, I have to ask the question of how exactly does this rotting take place. In the case of the whole 9/11 situation, it seems that people's belief in some broad decentralized identity of being "American" and their belief in the symbolic value (or it might be more accurate to say that their belief in the REALITY of symoblic acts... because symbolic thought pretty much presents itself as reality in our society) of the World Trade Center really prevented people from ever allowing a complete "rotting away" of the government. People were still subscribing to things that make up a government. They just ceased to believe in a part of that ideological contract.  

[ashemountain]

I think in the case of governmental rot, it's a more gradual change than an immediate revolution ("explosive upheaval"). It's a more slow breaking down and building up of the old and new ideas respectively. In the case of 9/11, I think the concept of the ideaological rot would've presented itself nicely in allowing (or possibly staging) the events. Cause I'm sorry, but one simple fact regarding 9/11 prevents me from thinking terrorists did it...the planes disappeared from radar and then reappeared, how the ******** does that happen? It doesn't.

Anyways. You said those events postponed the rotting or slowed it down, and such events would've served that purpose wodnerfully. And as far as the concept goes, I've always wondered what would happen if everyone in the US just stopped using the dollar as our currency. I'd love to see that happen, honestly I would. If everyone just decided with one, harmonious mind, "We're not gonna play by their rules anymore." What is currency anyways but a symbol of an agreenment. You take a one dollar bill and it says, "I am a piece of paper that your government declares to be worth 1 unit of currency." Well, what if we all switched to monopoly money? Or what if we all offered our services or goods for other services and goods (oh noes, trading!)? It's an interesting thought.  

[darcyshirley33]

Nice to see you here! smile

that's kind of like what happened in the Parisian general strike in May 1968. It started as a student strike. Everyone just left school cuz they were sick of being indoctrinated ideologically and physically by school systems run by a particular ideology (they were pissed with western society in general, not just Parisian schools or Parisian/French government). A couple days after that everyone just left their jobs too. No one was in school and no one was working. For about two weeks the entire population of Paris, France just did whatever they wanted. lol. They basically rejected "playing by the West's rules" by refusing to work in order to be able to live. The reason everyone went back to work and school though, wasn't because the police, army, or some other human coercive force made them go back to school and work, but because they realized they didn't know where their food would be coming from (if no one's growing it and/or importing it, distributing it, shelving it, and selling it, then no one can get it, lol. You can thank centralized and delocalized food production for that). They didn't know how to live without the system they were raised to live in. It's all they knew, and all they could really afford to live with.

And with the 9/11 thing...
Your comment about how 9/11 might have been staged seems to me to point to the possibility that even our government's own leaders don't necessarily believe in the government anymore. They may have realized that the only way to keep it going (because they acknowledge government as a lie) is to completely fabricate its effectiveness and worthwhileness (is that a word? lol). I really don't know if 9/11 was a conspiracy, and I don't really care. I wouldn't be surprised if it was, though. Being a politician has rarely been about helping people, and has always been about advancing social prestige and insuring benefits for the company that politician was and will later again be a board member of (at least in America).

That idea about needing to indulge in the fabrication of something in order to keep that something alive reminds me of an essay I read by John Zerzan. It's called "Media, Irony, and 'Bob.'" He basically talks about how everything is openly ironic about itself now to the point where irony isn't subversive anymore, and doesn't mean anything anymore. For example, think of the sprite commercial that was on tv a few years ago. it had some basketball player that was shamelessly plugging sprite, and after every time he mentioned sprite, a moneybag would appear in the lower left corner of the screen. We're supposed to be like "haha, that's ironic because it shows that he doesn't really like sprite, he's just doing it for the money." But the commercial ended up being a huge advertising success, upping sales for sprite. The irony of the commercial didn't reveal sprite and the basketball player as slaves to an economy and the media, and as such, the irony ceased to have any potential to be subversive, and in fact that irony helped the ironic situation continue to exist.

edit: I just tried to find that essay online. Usually you can find any of John Zerzan's stuff online. But this essay is only like two pages and it's kind of obscure. I have the book it's in though so I might type up a little later...  

[ashemountain]

Had to jump in sooner or later, eh? biggrin

I would love to see something like that happen. The next logical step (to me) would've been for everyone to acknowledge that they didn't know what to do next and start figuring it out. Granted, that might be harder that some people are willing to put up with, but in my life, I've had to live off ramen and water before so it's all gravy to me. Ironic considering I don't like gravy... (Laugh Darcy. razz )

And yeah, though in all honesty, what politician believes in government? They believe in having power. I think those "in power" are very aware of what it is, that's why they're in power. The thing about being a politician though, is that you're a professional liar. You see people trying to really use the system to help their fellow man (communities, states, small areas like that) but unless this area is basically rural, that person doesn't generally succeed. I know a guy on the Megadeth forums who's my age (22) and he ran for Mayor of Philadelphia this year. He was obliterated but he tried and he knew he was gonna lose but he wanted to stir some stuff up. You have to campaign and earn money and where does that money come from? That's right, banks and big business who have their own agenda and that agenda involves more cash. I do so love that quote from V for Vendetta, "Artists uses lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover it up."

And that sprite commercial really doesn't surprise me. Companies being ironic about themselves. Whatever happened to satire being towards something other than yourself?