Should nations provide an anarchic zone for disgruntled citizens?

[eternal-chaplain]

After trying to write several responses, each tackling the issue fro a different angle, I have compromised to say no, suffice it to say that an anarchic 'zone' cannot be smaller than the entire nation itself. Throughout history, since centuries in the past, experiments such as this have been done on scales such as this, and they have all failed.

I will only grant that these experiments used a form of anarchy in which the people in these zones worked laborious jobs for the common good; their settlements were highly successful at first, but soon succumbed to the society around them. This is because no zone smaller than a country can sustain itself without trade, and even then chances are slim. Presently, no technology presents a route around this. The only real answer one can find is in theories like the Zeitgeist, and even then, while technology has very well come far enough to initiate such plans, man kind's foolish attachment to a monetary economy confounds these efforts.

In the outline you described, I do not think we'll progress to the point of success.

 

[mrhappy1489]

There is no way you could establish some free anarchic zone anywhere for a number of reasons. Firstly, if my memory serves me correct, the only place left on earth that is part of a country is Antarctica, which would not be able to sustain a population. Second, even though there are uninhabited lands, they are all under the jurisdiction of Countries and they would never give that land for anarchic purpose because, third, countries don't agree with anarchy on any stage, if they did there would be anarchic lands. Anarchy is the last thing any country anywhere wants, so they would never actively help it by giving up land.

 

[renegade7]

They do. It's called prison.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

The Norway bomber is a different matter. He wanted to change his own culture to something radically different. It was less about himself than what he saw around him. His situation is not one I'm concerned with - it is one which must be dealt with by the state.

You don't get to throw him out of the discussion just because he disproves exactly what you claimed. You said people do these things because culture "doesn't have room for them." He did those things, but not for that reason. That doesn't make him irrelevant, quite the opposite in fact.

Of course, I'm not silly enough to claim that all crime is caused by people who don't fit into society. To the contrary, the group of people I am talking about will be very small because there are not many that are in the category. Breivik didn't say "I reject this culture and I want out", he said "I reject this culture and want to change it". His philosophy involves the state in a positive sense, whereas the other involves it only negatively. Maybe this wasn't clear in the OP.

That's not true. Mental trauma or hormonal imbalance is a medical diagnosis - that is, it is a comparison with what is considered "normal". Only in a group of other normals will they be considered imbalanced, and this is what is driving them to suicide.

What sort of statistics do you have for this? Do you know the ratio of how many people who commit suicide because of an imbalance compared to how many commit suicide who aren't unbalanced? It would seem to me that is very important in making your case, and if you tried to actualize your little plan knowing who is just "maladjusted" and who is actually "imbalanced" would be very relevant. Drug use and socio-economic standing are also important to suicide rates, as well.

You see, you cannot discuss this issue in the way you are trying to. It should be self-evident that you would have to use a reference point which is 'prior' to medical standards. Medicine is always 'within' culture, which is simply to say it has its own value system which is directed towards the health of individuals of the particular culture it is within. So if you are talking about people "doing well" with regard to their psychological health, it's always going to be in the context of the society within which the diagnosis is made. A psychiatric diagnosis of the individual AS individual doesn't exist, not only because it's essentially a comparison but because the idea of health is influenced by the structure of society itself.

 

[Gennadios]

I agree with the thesis. There is nowhere left on the planet that can be considered a "frontier." In days of old the undesirables and people that didn't have the capacity to survive in their society would colonize, or otherwise look for untamed areas to stake a claim.

Now that that's been established, you pointed out a problem, but the solution didn't really get much thought.

For one, suicides are a result of not having the skills society deems "desirable" OR having the skills but lacking the social aptitude to actually prove it to an employer. Spend enough time working below your capacity and dwelling on the fact you'll likely never advance past ones current position, and the realization that one is better off dead is kind of hard to shake. Particularly when that lack of social skills also translate into few friends, and no spouce/children that really depend on that person's survival.

Now, how would an anarchic zone really help in that situation? Yes, fighting rapists and murderers for whatever food items can be salvaged from the daily trash dumps of the "proper" society can act as an "affirming" element, keeping one too focused on daily survival to really worry about the future or what the point is...

Now, and what exactly do we do with the children that are born in those zones? When you have an undeveloped colony, eventually more settlers move in and children born to the initial colonists get to integrate into an upcoming city. I don't see that happening in a social trash heap.

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh look, it climbed steadily after the low in 2000. That lines up perfectly with what I was thinking.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?page_id=04ea1254-bd31-1fa3-c549d77e6ca6aa37

That's the US. I'm not going to get the stats of each country if that's what you want me to do.

This is supposed to be a rise in suicide rates since 1993? Its ended up barely higher in 2010 than it was in 1993 and yes it can be said that "suicide rates are on the rise" but is it really as much of a problem as you are making it out to be?

I believe that without laws or governments to bind them people are going to go lord of the flies on each other. Sure less people might be committing suicide but I don't think the amount of murder or stealing that occurs is going to go down, in fact I believe it will only go up. People don't murder or steal just because 'society drove them insane' there are other reasons too.

I don't think an 'anarchic zone' is going to lead to anything but trouble. People aren't going to just instantly make some happy paradise for themselves. People are assholes.

yeah of course. they already have a place for people like that already. it's called jail.

If you think jail is a lawless place then methinks you've never been.

Even prisoners and animals create makeshift rules and pecking orders in strenuous situations.

I'd say your average concert or highschool campus is more lawless a place than a prison/jail.

I'm sure in an anarchic society people would create makeshift rules and pecking orders too, but you still call it 'lawless'. 'Laws' do not equal 'rules' or customs. His point was look at the hell that is jail, why would we want a bigger version of that except not locked up?

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

There is already a place for all the people that don't fit into the place their country would have for them, a place where all the weirdos and free thinkers etc. can do their own thing with or without others like them.

Its called the fucking internet, and you are all already using it. I know if I didn't have the internet I'd be far far worse off than I already am.

 

[Olas]

An anarchy zone? The US already has one of those, it's called Detroit

[sub]I kid, I kid, Detroit's really not that bad. It's too empty to be THAT dangerous anymore[/sub][footnote]Also, my captcha is, "Which one is the smallest", and 4 of the answers are about cabbages[/footnote]

Now, now. Lay off detroit. Thems people is living in mad max times.

 

[Tiddles]

This could be feasible but you'd have to modify anarchy in the pure sense. It might be reasonable for anarcho-syndicalism to function as it might return something of a profit to the nations that gave up territory. It would require rules of course some basic ideal philosophy that all the people share or agree to uphold if they void they're returned to the outside world.

There have been some experiments with this idea but usually they devolve into chaos after stress affect the community.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

How the hell is medicine "within culture"? There is a science to medicine now, we've stopped relying on blessings from the animal spirits or the touch of a saint to cure illness. We're capable of measuring hormones and the like now and evaluating how to bring people to a state that is normal for humans and provably good for humans. Psychiatrists might not be able to solve everything, but it's better than throwing every depressed, suicidal person into the place where murderers aren't murderers because they murdered outside of our culture.

As long as you are defining what is 'normal' and 'good', you are acting within a value system, which is provided by the culture. Health is aspired to not for its own sake but for a purpose, whether the goal is to live longer or be happier, because these are thought to be beneficial for society as a whole. If healthcare served no purpose other than the benefit of the individual, medicine wouldn't have come about.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I agree with the thesis. There is nowhere left on the planet that can be considered a "frontier." In days of old the undesirables and people that didn't have the capacity to survive in their society would colonize, or otherwise look for untamed areas to stake a claim.

Now that that's been established, you pointed out a problem, but the solution didn't really get much thought.

For one, suicides are a result of not having the skills society deems "desirable" OR having the skills but lacking the social aptitude to actually prove it to an employer. Spend enough time working below your capacity and dwelling on the fact you'll likely never advance past ones current position, and the realization that one is better off dead is kind of hard to shake. Particularly when that lack of social skills also translate into few friends, and no spouce/children that really depend on that person's survival.

Now, how would an anarchic zone really help in that situation? Yes, fighting rapists and murderers for whatever food items can be salvaged from the daily trash dumps of the "proper" society can act as an "affirming" element, keeping one too focused on daily survival to really worry about the future or what the point is...

Now, and what exactly do we do with the children that are born in those zones? When you have an undeveloped colony, eventually more settlers move in and children born to the initial colonists get to integrate into an upcoming city. I don't see that happening in a social trash heap.

A good starting point would be to consider how humans live in their primordial state. They did not have to consider 'what to do' with children because this was built into their biology, and still is, in the same way as it is with all the animals. In our natural state, humans are provided with all they need to survive - food grows in abundance on plants and hunted animals, shelter is provided by nature in caves and under trees. It is only when population pressures become too great when there becomes a fight for resources and people and tribes fight for dominance.

So, as for a solution, first it must be ensured the space is big enough to prevent such pressures, and secondly the population must be kept small enough. The first is easy enough, and the second should be assisted by the choosing a less fertile place where the absence of agriculture would ensure the impossibility of a high growth rate.

 

[Therumancer]

At the moment here's the arrangement no matter where you are in the world - each of us is born in a particular country, which has its own laws and culture. We are educated to have the knowledge and skills under which we can succeed and make money which is needed to live. Now, if we consider that society cannot possibly cater for everyone and there will always be biologies on the fringes of what is average, it should be obvious that such societies will always have some degree of instability. An individual with unsuitable biology who is unemployable, cannot get along with anyone and is not able to adapt to a culture must be able to see an alternative, otherwise he/she will resort to crime, murder and suicide.

It's common sense that living under a culture which does not have room for a particular individual is what leads to not only suicide and insanity but the harm of other individuals. How many gun rampages have there been in the past couple of years? Suicides are going up. If each nation or perhaps the UN arranged to have a region free of governance, essentially this would act as a natural buffer for unadapted biologies to go instead of becoming psychologically pressured into crime or suicide through no fault of their own other than being born.

With regard to being unhappy in your country the traditional view is either "vote to change it", which is nonsense because one vote counts for nothing, or "love it or leave it" - but is that really a choice? Besides needing money to travel, you have to actually like the place you're going to an fit in there too. There's just as much chance that you won't fit in there either. And if you dislike modern culture full stop, you're out of luck.

Nations like to talk about freedom, but without freedom from culture there is no choice, and a society within which citizens live by choice rather than fate would be far more peaceful and happy with a low suicide and crime rate. We should acknowledge the 'natural' state of man. In the distant past the population was low enough that you could wander and find somewhere you could live. Considering the modern man/woman MUST be involved with the society she is born into, which is unnatural since in the past food and a place to sleep was available in nature and not only by purchase, this arrangement amounts to a dictatorship not fundamentally different from Stalin's, Mussolini's or Hitler's.

Thoughts?

Captcha: it happens
Yes it does.

http://news.yahoo.com/constitution-extra-page-shown-public-first-time-143606312.html

The key element here is this important bit that needs to be understood about the US constitution, and the most free civilization the world has ever known:

?Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,? the letter said. ?We hope and believe; that [the Constitution] may promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and secure her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish.?

In short, in a society people cannot have complete freedom or expect total acceptance, not can society be expected to cater to every specific kind of individual. Something understood even within the US, and a point that a lot of people tend to miss in various civil liberties outcries and arguements.

The basic reality is that the sacrifice of personal liberty, and forced conformity, actually benefits everyone within the society as a whole. Yes certain people might not fit in, and end badly due to a society, but if the overwhelming majority can fit in and benefit, it's the lesser of evils. A lot has been written about this if you bother to look.

Creating a utopia is not possible, nor is creating a place where everyone is literally going to be accepted. Trying to do so actually causes more problems, and undermines societal stability. The trick is to create a functioning society that allows the greatest range of people to function within it as possible, but in any society there are going to be those crushed in the gearwork so to speak, and as populations increase, even a small percentage of people is going to amount to a lot of individuals in the big picture.

One thing people find offensive about my politics is that I long ago came to the conclusion that you simply can't save, or serve, everyone. Being able to do so makes for nice fantasy, but in reality it's about tough choices, and whatever is going to wind up benefitting the most people in absolute terms. Sometimes that means 49% suffering for the other 51% or the realization that within a huge country that .5% might be hundreds of thousands of individuals. The right desicians in the big picture oftentimes require having to detach yourself from the human cost... doing so entirely is never wise, but it does have to be done.

I find it ironic that when people look at desicians by a goverment that they don't like, or limitations on personal freedom, that they immediatly like to use examples of the most extreme dictators in history, totally missing how far gone those people actually were or how much space there is between say modern liberalism and occult inspired facism. If I was to dial back the US to the first half of the 20th century, and re-instate those policies people would scream about Hitler, Stalin, and all kinds of historican maniacs, largely because it would be incredibly intolerant compared to what a lot of people have grown to expect from the civil liberties movement and rise of modern liberalism as a political and societal force. Totally missing that the society I'd be putting theoretically into place would be the one that actually opposed and defeated those tyrants.

In the end I don't actually advocate fully resetting the country to say the 1940s as far as morality and social policy goes, but I do think we have gotten far too tolerant, and there are some things that should be put back into the bottle, despite the costs. Social experiments do not always work out, and right now I think half of our problems derive from things we decided to try, didn't work out as intended, and have been unable to get rid of.

I don't think "anarchy zones" (old science fiction concept actually) would do anything but cause more problems.

Likewise as someone with a lot of problems (brain damage) who has managed to cope I do have some sympathy for those with problems, but I do have to say that there is a point where I think society should just let someone die out, or put them out of their misery. Suicide corrects a problem inherantly, and those who turn to murder and such are already accounted for just by having a police force. There is a point at which extending societal tolerance hurts more people than it helps by trying to adapt to people at the fringes.

On a somewhat differant note I will also say that some of my less popular ideas about Eugenics are largely because of the problems you mention. I personally believe genetic manipulation and the like are the key to getting rid of a lot of the problems that your talking about rendering a lot of these issues moot. If certain things about me had been modified while I was in the womb I wouldn't have half the problems I have now. Like everything there are pros and cons, and those who are against genetic modification DO have some valid points, I just think that there are more benefits than problems by going this route. One of the major areas I depart from my political party is on the matter of
scientific development and genetics. I personally feel that even in a worst case scenario where we suddenly have a bunch of "super people" existing at the same time as "normal" people it's easily dealt with simply through the passage of time, if the technology becomes the standard, the issue of competition and such will exist for at most one generation (a hundred years or so) before everyone will be modified and on an even footing so it's a non-issue. Sort of like the old X-men thing, with how Professor X takes the philsophy that there is no reason to wipe out normal people, evolution will take it's course, so all they have to do is hold out a few generations until all the regular humans are gone. Of course as someone who grew up as part of "Generation X" which was skipped over, I guess it influances my perspective, as a generation that never really had a chance due to the increasing life spans of Baby Boomers, and Generation Y coming up at the right time to replace them while we were "lost" or "skipped over" it doesn't really bug me. It would just be another Generation X in the final equasion.

Such are my thoughts, as much as people aren't going to like them or agree.

 

[Gennadios]

So, as for a solution, first it must be ensured the space is big enough to prevent such pressures, and secondly the population must be kept small enough. The first is easy enough, and the second should be assisted by the choosing a less fertile place where the absence of agriculture would ensure the impossibility of a high growth rate.

In this situation, a low growth rate translates into a high infant mortality rate. As should be readily apparent, people are more than willing to do the nasty whether they're in a position of being able to handle the results or not.

There are very few ways to make this work. You can airdrop condoms into the zone as well as educational pamphlets on birth control, or one can neuter all settlers... I'm not even sure if such an anarchic zone would be a voluntary thing or some kind of banishment at this point.

It would also take way more space than you expect. Yes, the population wouldn't grow much, but look a unemployment figures. In my state alone it's 10.4%, and that's just people that are looking for jobs, those that have given up aren't even counted, if we consider those people to be the ideal candidates for resettlement, it's still hundreds of millions of people worldwide that need to have space made for them.

 

[Imthatguy]

Trolllolol the OP thinks being disgruntled is biological! Other than that I agree with the philosophical points of your post (Democracy has failed to produce liberty in a meaningful way; The disappearance of the frontier leading to cultural stagnation and inescapably).

However one of the fundamental way authority self propagates is suppressing the belief that human can live without authority (Such as the common arguement about the third world being 'anarchy'[1]) so the naturally seek to destroy (usually by violence) alternative political systems.

[1]EVERY one of the places describes have authority in place it is simply not the kind of authority that seeks to have good PR and gives the illusion of justice and caring.

EDIT: That being said id be the first person on the waiting list

 

[Therumancer]

yeah of course. they already have a place for people like that already. it's called jail.

If you think jail is a lawless place then methinks you've never been.

Even prisoners and animals create makeshift rules and pecking orders in strenuous situations.

I'd say your average concert or highschool campus is more lawless a place than a prison/jail.

Well, yes and no. In general true Anarchy amounts to the law of "might makes right", as people use their freedom to force others into doing what they want. The only way to prevent that is to of course create rules and someone to enforce them, which goes right back to goverment. In nature, this is generally how things work, the toughest member of a given species or pack is in charge until a tougher one takes over (the original getting old if nothing else).

A true lack of rules or order isn't really possible when any kind of measurable intelligence is involved.

When it comes to prisons and such, your pretty much correct. They exist within society so there is always a form of order present in terms of the goverment which provides the guards and their equipment and everything. The prisoners themselves might have their own gangs and fights, but pretty much have to work within the constraints of ducking the overall authorities which present a limiting factor. Truth be told, the inmates in most prisons could probably take it over at any time if they really wanted to, but it doesn't happen every day because everyone knows they couldn't hold it against the rest of society, and at the end of the day, as bad as their plight is, they are better off with the guards and goverment in charge.

As far as Campuses and Concerts and such go, I don't think they are as rowdy as prisons in general. All told while there might be disrespect for some minor, regional, attempts at regulation, it's a very rare exception that you see the rules of society entirely disregarded, and again you have security (representing the property owner), campus cops, or whatever else, and even disobeidience takes place within the general constraint of what can be gotten away with, without getting attention.

When I worked Casino Security we had both Nightclubs and Theaters where they held concerts and acts, you might THINK that these things get pretty rowdy and out of control, but it's all within permissable boundaries, we know what's going on, and after a point security will step in, we observed without seeming like we're keeping an eye on things. The point is you want people to feel like they can relax and cut loose. There have been times when things have gotten out of control, but it's very, very rare.

The thing to understand that people simply not enforcing every little rule, every second, like Robocop with a brain malfunction does not mean there is anarchy. People tend to forget in discussions abour order and society that there are people in charge of enforcing and administrating rules, and while that DOES lead to some bad situations, it's usually something that works out for the best. People always remember when a cop or someone does something they don't like or agree with, or steps on someone hard, but not all the cases where they just let things go as no big deal. A point occasionally brought up in fiction where due to police corruption some city brings in robotic cops or something, and instead of making it better you find people getting mauled for every minor infraction.

The big differance between society and anarchy is that in society things come about due to a consensus, maybe not one your a part of all the time (especially not when the rules are being applied to you) or even directly involved in. In many cases there is someone to appeal to (though not always, the buck eventually has to stop somewhere for things to function). In Anarchy it's all up to the biggest, meanest dude around. Anarchy sounds great if your naive enough to think of it in terms of having a whole society still out there to support you, while you sit around, slack off, and smoke weed all day (or whatever), it's not so great when you consider that instead of the cop or authority figure your wishing you had anarchy because of, is replaced by "Bubba The Barbarian" who decides to make you his slave because he's strong enough to do it, and your only court of appeal is to hopefully get stronger than Bubba, or hope someone bigger comes along that will treat you better. Whether your being periodically beaten and terrorized by Bubba while forced to do slave labour, or being hassled by cops, the bottom line is nobody is going to just flat out want to support you while you sit there and goof off without having put anything into society, and have no excuse other than just wanting to do your own thing.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Trolllolol the OP thinks being disgruntled is biological! Other than that I agree with the philosophical points of your post (Democracy has failed to produce liberty in a meaningful way; The disappearance of the frontier leading to cultural stagnation and inescapably).

However one of the fundamental way authority self propagates is suppressing the belief that human can live without authority (Such as the common arguement about the third world being 'anarchy'[1]) so the naturally seek to destroy (usually by violence) alternative political systems.

[1]EVERY one of the places describes have authority in place it is simply not the kind of authority that seeks to have good PR and gives the illusion of justice and caring.

I don't know enough about either anthropology or biology to guess whether all groups of animals have systems of authority, but at some point humans became reliant on social structures rather than simply living off the land in a way that was qualitatively different from animals so that we couldn't live without them. There are different kinds of authority and the "one entity dominates all" kind that we're all thinking of when it comes to authority forming from anarchy, which is certainly a myth in animalkind, is probably a myth in humankind too.

 

[charge52]

The idea is fundamentaly flawed, why the fuck would an Anarchist follow a rule to stay in one area given to them by a government, that isn't Anarchy.