Hobbes, though a good thinker at the time, was also relentlessly pessimistic even by the standards of other popular philosophers. You'd do better to use the works of Thomas Paine.
Chaos and anarchy are not the same thing. Chaos is mindless mess. Anarchy is simply to be without government. To be without a fixed government is not to run violently rampant, it is to be without interference from bodies which may not be truthful, trustworthy, safe, or reasonably electer.

In which I would have to say:

Police yourself. You don't need anyone to tell you what to do or decide your fate.

It has to start with the individual. All you really have to do is behave ethically. Even if everyone did that, yes... there would STILL be crimes, but what difference does that make than that which goes on now?

*laughs at the title*

You guys are just too much.


Hehehehehehehe.


Viva la revolutione.

That sounds familiar.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

George Orwell, 1984

But he didn't actually show anything, did he? He just rattled off a series of unsubstantiated claims.

Today we know that Hobbes's view of the "state of nature" was jaundiced. We have a gradually developing picture of prehistoric human society and a lot more data about extant primitive cultures. All of it points to two conclusions:

1) People are not the total homicidal mess that Hobbes believed them to be, nor are they solitary. They are social creatures.

2) There does exist in human nature a natural capacity for violence toward other humans.

So there is an inherent tension in the picture. To the above, I add this observation:

3) People are thinking animals.

History and modern life are already quite filled with examples of how people, using their faculty for rational thought, overcome some of the less agreeable aspects of their mutual character. I can't see any reason that principle could not be extended still further.

Not all anarchists are of the school that says abolish government today, and tomorrow we will have utopia.

Drake

Oh.

My.

Effin'.

Goth. :|

Someone just seriously paraphrased one of the slogans from the Ministry of Truth of Oceania, and used it to support their position in an argument. This will be a first for me. I've seen in infered, but never stated.


^^ The above is not my argument, for if it was, it would be a logically fallacious statement. I just had to point that out...

I see several problems here, one that the State is civil and people are not. Problem is, the state is just people, who consider themselves higher than the individual. And thus create wars against all, and that they alone have the right to all things...


(And as I'm writting, I see Drake just came in and said what I was about to say, though with much elegance. Kudos to him!)

I would like to expand on this, because this is a very important point. Anarchy is not, and never will be Utopia. In fact, I'd rather not have utopia, for it would be a world without challanges, and without adventure.

A state of Anarchy would require more from people, than our current systems would. They would have to provide for themselves, they would have to protect themselves, they would have to make their own decissions. Though systems would develop, or should be in place (a counter-state of sorts), the ultimate choice and responsibility would be left up to the individual.

Believe it or not, I think that a lot of the discussion of the transition to a stateless society and to individual responsibility was fairly well laid out in the graphic novel of V for Vendetta. I wouldn't say it was a compleate anthology of Anarchist thought, but in a fictional setting, it played out the transition period of the collapse of the State and the advent of anarchism. Rather interesting read if you ever get a chance.

Wasn't Hobbes the one that believed that whatever the government deems virtuous becomes virtuous?
Where's the opportunity to change in that?
Whatever the status quo believes only changes because of the people that disagree with it and get away with it.
If everyone accepted the government as not simply the ultimate source of authority but the outright definer of reality, everything would reach a sickening point of staleness, don't you think?
That ideology hardly even seems possible. Hobbes is putting all the power into an abstract. Even the people in power wouldn't have a chance to change things because they would be going against the government for that period of time in which they're disagreeing with it before they get the chance to correct it. But let's assume that those people in power do have the rights to change the government and we don't place authority on the abstract itself but the people that make it up. We can all see the potential for injustice, inequality, and cruelty in that. Did that make as much sense as in my head?

That reminds me of a conversation I was having with a group of friends in a club in my college.
A friend was talking about the beauty of primitivism and how everything would work in a perfect circle, thing which is bound to happen in any form of government with enough compliance.
Seriously, when all is said and done: Government -> Forced order -> Stagnation
I told her that a circular society is not good, and said "I like a little chaos with my waffles"

We're gonna make that phrase a shirt (with proper authorship:))

I'm aware.
Whilst the other two are, admittedly, completely nonsensical, that middle point, that sums up why Anarchy is failure.

Dictatorship is also failure. It's true, dictatorship sucks. But if everyone has the right to do whatever they like, it's dictatorship of the strongest characters over the weakest. And if they don't have the right to do whatever they like, well then, they're not "free" at all, are they? It's still a government if rules are forced upon them, it just has a different name. Anarchism is useless out of idle dreaming.

I'm not an anarchist, but I do think that online messageboards may work better as an anarchy.

Case in point: Newsgroups. We just have to make messageboards more hard to access and nerdy again, and leave the AOLers to their filth.

I think my problem with anarchy and libertarianism is the misconception that mostly only governments can oppress. To me, people seem pretty good at oppressing each other no matter what.

That's why I'm more for a Technocracy than anything else.

There is conciousness of the potential for oppression by non-governmental forces. Classical anarchists, for example, spend a lot of time trying to curb oppression arising from capitalism, while market anarchists are perfectly well aware that their "security firms" are a potential source of danger and that mechanisms to avert that danger are in order.

Drake

Corporations will always be more oppressive than governments. Always. Governments at least have to answer to the people to some extent, and contain at least some people who vaguely care about doing so. With corporations, all they care about is profit.

The whole reason many governments are corrupt is down to corporate influence.

But... respect. Yes? Sorry to get all nitty gritty about it, but I'm seeing something here that's itching my brain.

Everyone is implying that governments and corporations oppress. The only reason why anything tries to oppress anything is BECAUSE we have people believing that what they think is the ultimate definable truth in everything.

When something as simple as having long hair for a guy can cause him to lose his job, that tells me right there that we as humans are still obsessed with satisfying our own vanities or "what we think is right".

When basically everyone can make the shit that really doesn't matter, truly not matter, then maybe we can self govern as a single individual. Think about it, we still have people convinced other races are better than others.

It has to start with the individual for anarchy to succeed. Sadly, we still have far too many racists, far too many sexists, far too many fundamentalist, far too many pissed off agnostics/athiests, way too many people convinced that if they don't have the latest Nike shoes, that they're worth nothing at all. There are still too many people wrapped up in trying to make themselves appear powerful or let others define what is good and what is not good for them.

this thread is in the wrong place anarchy is a lack of politics

No it's not. It's politics without government. Anarchism means without a crown. It rejects government.

I liked reading this thread, it's amazing how much JCC and especially my own thoughts have changed on this subject in two years.

This thread is hilarious, wow, I cannot believe how much I've changed in 2 years. Holy shit!

Yo, this thread is weird.

Holy shit, 'anarcho-capitalist'? I'm not surprised by how much I've changed, I'm curious as to what the fuck I was on. I don't remember ever conceiving of my political beliefs that way-- my best guess is that I was coming at the question from a position of completely untempered idealism, but even still, what the fuck?

Come on wasn't one thread about anarchy enough...

What I think is hilarious is seeing Kontan on his paranoid Aleister Crowley kick (which was due in part to him living with my my former friend, who was a super-paranoid, hypochondriac, pothead working on a crowly play.)

Anarchy cannot exist IRL. In every environment where true anarchy prevails, sooner or later someone will organise a large number of people and take over.

Thats the reality of true anarchy - nature hates a vacuum.

shun the nonbeliever
 

come on you know its just a way of living and may not happen all over but I have seen it work in small settings

You mean "small settings" as in say, collectives?

I use this stupid example a lot when conversations like this come up. When I get together with my friends, we don't appoint a leader or vote on what to do. No one establishes dominance to decide whose car we take or what drinks to buy. Things just kind of happen organically, and there is no pressure to conform. Don't feel like going to the bar? Alright cool man, we'll give you a call later or if you change your mind we'll be at blah blah blah.

I'd say it was anarchic - no ruler I could identify that situation. All it requires is people to not act like assholes.

If you want to call something like that a collective, I guess you could. I would hardly say it is impossible in real life.

well I was actually baiting him.

I was going to point out how collectives ironically result in less freedom for their members, as even though they claim otherwise, they're still beholden to the nation they exist in, and thus the "collectives" one sees are not so much anarchy as they are a bunch of twats sharing their shirts and/or girlfriends.

but that works too.