Doesn’t it mean a society without a hierarchical government?
That could result in chaos, like Syria in 2014. It could also result in a cooperative community, as demonstrated in many tribes. Wouldn’t it depend on how well we could all get along?
Anarchy is not just the lack of hierarchical government. It’s one of its prerequisites, sure, but not the only one.
What are the other defining characteristics? I’ve always been under the impression that it’s defined by lawlessness.
Edit: Why downvote without responding? I’m not being critical. I’m genuinely asking a question.
You’re thinking of anomie. https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html
Thank you. I’ll dig in when I have the time, unless you can summarize. There’s a lot of information in that description.
Wow, his body language is so aggressive for dating!
Plot twist: she’s an anarchist, but gave the worst answer to get him to leave her alone.
It means nothing.
It means “I’ll change my definition to exclude you from my ‘in’ group if I feel like it.”
It means might makes right.
It means whatever you want it to mean in the moment, and probably nothing consistent from moment to moment.
Mostly, it means fickle.
You realize you’re in an anarchist comm, yes? Warning for rule 6
“Hey buddy we don’t take kindly to criticism around here!”
Just out here kicking your own ass, eh?
Not every space is meant to give you a platform by correcting your disinfo.
Criticism would be discussing the actual words and meaning of anarchists and their platforms. Not blinding saying whatever the rich told you anarchy means, and then getting told “That’s not what we’ve been saying for 200 years.”
There is a difference between good faith criticism and just trying to start an argument.
Well, ok, I get your point, and I’ll admit I didn’t read the rules before I commented - so let’s have a discussion here in this public forum…
- In the context of rule 6: “You don’t have to be an anarchist to post, but you should at least understand what anarchism actually is” the term “post” usually refers to top-level content added to the community, and not to comments made in reply to the content. So are you considering comments to be included within the term “post”? That’s not necessarily wrong per se, but I think it is different from the generally understood meaning.
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I thought it was pretty clear from the way I wrote my comment that I wasn’t making an argument about the academic definition of anarchism. I don’t need you to “educate” me. My comment is a somewhat flippant (if you will) description of what anarchy means in a practical sense.
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(more flippancy) Should I comment on the irony of an anarchist community having rules which they expect users to follow, written by an exclusive group of community leaders, enforced by moderators who have power over other users? or would that comment get me banned? Does this joke write itself?
I get that you want to have a community that is somewhat focused in topic and style, and in that context it makes sense to enforce some restrictions on the top-level content that is added to the community. But if you enforce strict guidelines on the conversation that happens in the comments especially to the point of excluding disagreement or criticism, then you are guilty of creating the “echo chamber” that @[email protected] mentioned.
Not every comm needs to be a debate comm. We don’t have the energy to debate and educate clueless libs who come here and go all like “rules in anarchism? ololo” every other comment.
There’s no “academic definition of anarchism”. There’s anarchism as a political movement, and there’s anarchy which some dictionaries define as chaos. Guess which one we support here.
And yes, “posts” means also comments.
oh, this must be why i have you tagged as ‘rule lawyer debate pervert’
randian techbros, i swear.
“Debate me bro! I just refuse to accept the terms of the debate! You must comply to my terms, or you lose!”
And, er, what are “the terms of the debate”?
Are they are Randroid too? uuugh
always with the ad hominem
Holy echo chamber, Batman!
Is banning Tankies and fascists on a liberal instance an echo chamber?
Banning people who refuse to have a meaningful and good faith conversion =/= echo chamber.
Next!
Read a book
anarchy means might makes right?
Yep! And ex cons not being allowed firearms is communism! At least, according my highly intelligent family.
So… yes, in practice, because you can’t create equality of means, resources, or power.
Even if you could (for the sake of argument) make all other things equal, you can’t redistribute human bodies to be equal (in age/mass/height/arm reach/strength/etc), and you can’t redistribute willingness to kill for personal gain to be equal.
There will always be individuals who have both the means and the will to do violence in order to enrich themselves. Without some system of enforcement to prevent this (e.g. the state) the outcome is always might makes right.
Anarchy in the context of anarchism doesn’t refer to a complete absence of rules or their enforcement. On the contrary, anarchism rejects any form of higher power (aka might), and focuses on building communities in a way that makes them resilient to it.
I’m not sure I really understand your argument though. Societies and communities were able to have rules preventing violence long before the existence of nation states. Not to mention that your definition of the state is ironic in and of itself: We need violence (the state) to prevent violence (by non-state actors). The state itself in this definition (which I agree with) is itself following the method might makes right.
0/10 would not bang
