Proteus214 said:
It reminds me of violence unfortunately. I wasn't introduced to the concept until I met this kid who thought it would have been funny if churches were bombed during midnight mass on Christmas. I was sickened by the idea, and then he went into a huge rant about how anarchy rules and that we should be doing whatever we can to destabilize society. I just don't agree with that kind of thinking.
I'm gonna start with this one, because this is more so the standard stuff I hear. He adheres to the concept of a violent revolution. However, this is the ideals that journalism seems to wet themselves over. I and most other anarchists I know, have a firm disbelief in violent, albeit against other living beings, to be morally reprehensible. That kid that you were talking to is not truly an anarchist at all. Anarchy believes in the preservation of autonomy, and killing people, and hurting them in anyway is a direct violation of that principle. These are the kinds of people who give anarchy a bad name, where they often do not even understand the principle of what it is, and think lawlessness and chaos are anarchy. They are mistaken, they are the equivalent of people who fire bomb abortion clinics on the right, and the people who fire bomb animal testing clinics and claim to be liberals. They exist, but they are not what the movement represents.
Mr.Tea said:
Well first, it's a word. A word that basically means 'Absence of order'.
Though it can refer to the Utopian concept of a society living totally free of government, it remains exactly that: A Utopia. An impossible ideal that can only end in bloodshed.
Smudge91 said:
In theory its a nice idea however in reality i think it just isn't able to work. There are examples where anarchist societys have been created and failed. The society depends on everyone wanting the same thing and everyone being good and striving for the "general will". I'm with Mill on this one, people are greedy and will disguise their actions for the general will when it is fact for their own interests. Which is quite sad to be honest.
I'll pretty much group these arguments together, essentially that anarchy will collapse into chaos. To somewhat put words in your mouth Mr. Tea, the most common example I hear is "What if there is a bigger man and he wants something that you want?" Well then once again, this is disrupting the true purpose of an anarchist commune. An anarchist commune is a choice association of a group of people. Now why would this occur in the first place? Why do people assumedly want to take things from other people. Using the Lack as described by Lacan (a psychoanalytic philosophy that states desire arises from a feeling of the physical and mental lack of being), and combining it with the views of the philosopher Mikael Bakunin (a anarchist who often explained how the state deprive us of being and autonomous decision) the exact reason we believe something bad is going to happen, is because the government is creating a Lack for the subjects under it. Then how 'bout the question, what if I just want to kill someone? Why would they do that. They want to be secure themselves, is at the essence of it. But why do they think that? Because they think someone is going to try to kill them. When Rousseau talked about the State of Nature, we must also examine what he was also purporting. He was one of the key fathers of the social contract. The people who sanction your government are the same people who defend its existence. Does this not seem at all odd? An unjust system must actively work to keep its self alive. The only true preservation of rights is not under a government with a social contract but a absence of government which allows people to live without fear.
To the point of people "policing" themselves. This would be unnecessary. No need to commit crime. The only fundamental rule of anarchy is to not fringe upon the rights of others.
Leftnt Sharpe said:
I don't believe in Anarchy and I don't believe in freedom. Law and order will always exist in some form even if it is totally unrecognisable from what we consider it to be.
What is a law? If you're saying they will always exist, is a codified law a law? Or is a man's private morality a law? Both enact a punishment upon a transgressor, one physically and the other mentally and emotionally. And what's the point of life if not for freedom? If you have no choice on what to do what is
your life for? Then there is no meaning to life, as you're living out what society tells you to do. There is no purpose in that word and without purpose life would not exist. As we're all still alive, there must be some purpose, so that argument is empirically denied.
Thank you all for your input, I found this very enjoyable, as I hope you all did too.
