We anarchists are generally averse to cooperating with the police, for very good reasons. However, as I understand it, at times the only real way to protect the community in the society we currently live in seems to be talking with the pigs.
Suppose you believe yourself to have evidence incriminating a serial killer. In an anarchistic society the serial killer could be sent to the psych ward and dealt with humanely. But what about the modern day? Do you turn over the evidence to the police?
This question has been bothering me for about 3 days now. It was provoked by learning about Aufhebengate. It made me wonder under what circumstances snitching is justifiable.
Irrelevant for the question, honestly
it is relevant, as every society has its own solutions to “safety”
if you’ve visited anarchist communities, you’ve probably seen that they invented their ways of dealing with “problematic” individuals
I’m not talking about an anarchist society. I’m asking what we should do now, as anarchists in a statist society.
calling for help of people who are experienced in dealing with these kind of situations, without using pejorative names for their profession, would be reasonable
as an anarchist living on a state controlled territory, you need not feel guilty about communicating with the police
Unless you’re calling them about something stupid or petty or irrelevant or outside their skill set or a situation which would not be improved by angry men with guns - and that covers like 95% of typical civilian interactions with police.
Reporting information about a serial killer probably falls in the 5%.
where did you get these numbers? Are they national or global?
I made them up. To express my belief that the vast majority of stuff people call the police for is not stuff the police should be involved in. Would you argue otherwise?
(I mean, I could dig into statistics about the reasons people call the police and formally analyze how many of those reasons, from an anarchist standpoint, are not valid reasons to call the police, but I think bullshitting a 95% number is fine. I’m not being peer-reviewed here.)
Fair
see, i’m not a rambling lunatic 😁 i had to ask myself so many times these same questions and i’m sure i will be asking them again 🤷