Most self-proclaimed anarchists

[Guest]

totalitarianism = 9 months pregnant

minarchism = 1 month pregnant

anarchism = not pregnant


i.e. pregnant vs not pregnant. 1 & 2 are quantitatively different, but qualitatively the same. 3 is in a qualitatively different category. it's not even the last notch on the scale; it's nowhere to be found on the scale. it constitutes its own scale.

[Yarrow]

To err is to human.

amazing. don't know if that was deliberate, i only just noticed.

don't you love that 'ahhh' noise you make after a long laugh? like an airplane landing.

[MStirner]

Anarchism is inherently self-contradictory and inconsistent. If we propose a system with no rules whatsoever, then we have to accept every potential human behaviour, no matter how personally repugnant we find it.

I know of no one who would be comfortable with this.

However, if we suggest that certain basic standards must be upheld then we get into the question of who upholds them and who polices these. The answers may include:

The majority - ie democracy
A select few morally upstanding individuals - ie oligarchy
God(s) - ie Theocracy

All of these are inherently situations which remain contradictory to expressions of absolute anti-authoritarianism.


On the question of equality, and, even worse moral equality, this is a fundamentally meaningless term. Human beings are comprised of a myriad of attributes, which, unless we posit the existence of a deity, or deities, with a weighted scorecard, cannot possibly be equated to each other.

Measurements of comparative morality are of even less value. If a stranger is about to attack my child, are they

equal in terms of moral value and worth and deserving of equal respect and consideration

and another thing!

All this discussion of what is and isn't oppressive to women is astounding in terms of its dismissal of individual identity based upon a person's gender. Some porn will be oppressive to some women; some will be offensive to others; but to suggest that allporn (or indeed any other controversial subject) impacts on all women (or indeed any other social group) equally is quite patently nonsense and, frankly, offensive to at least me, and probably several others

[Guest]

enough with the deification of individual talking apes. one can take this silly logic to it's conclusion and deny the individual as well: there are no individual persons, only 'simples arranged personwise'. positing the individual on autonomous grounds won't save you, because he isn't. he doesn't, he cannot, exist outside the social context (i'm talking of nothing so trivial that a retreat to a hermitage would 'cure'). if society doesn't exist, neither do herds of wildebeest. the collective is as real and 'autonomous' as the individual. your individual parts don't all obey your 'will'; are they in rebellion? how dare you coerce them?! no, they're not coerced, they're going along for the ride, because that's what simples do, and that's what larger parts of wholes do -- because wholes call the shots, as evidenced by the fact that there is ultimately one all-encompassing whole with which we're all going along for the ride, like it or lump it.

'Anarchism is inherently self-contradictory and inconsistent. If we propose a system with no rules whatsoever....'

we don't.

'However, if we suggest that certain basic standards must be upheld then we get into the question of who upholds them and who polices these.'

ridiculous!

'On the question of equality...this is a fundamentally meaningless term.'

so is 'inequality'...

'Human beings are comprised of a myriad of attributes, which, unless we posit the existence of a deity, or deities, with a weighted scorecard, cannot possibly be equated to each other.'

...indeed, and that's as fatal to inequality as to equality. because we are not clones, we are not 'equal'. but because we can't objectively weigh the value of our attributes, we're not 'unequal', because that would require something like a deity to tell us which attributes are 'superior'.

lol @ stirnerites. they're really not much different from randroids. sad too, because i like max. he's much less annoying than his idolators (he would despise them of course).

[R.W.E.]

...consistent...

...consistent...consistent...consistent...

...consistent...

...consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

[Tom Palven]

M. Stirner, you said"
"Anarchism is inherently self-contradictory and inconsistent. If we propose a system with no rules whatsoever, then we have to accept every potential human behaviour, no matter how personally repugnant we find it. I know of no one who would be comfortable with this."

But, no matter what the rules are, you do have to accept every human behavior as fact. We see healines like "Mother drowns infants, liis self", Man eats girl's body kept in freezer." You and I don't like this, and wwe probably would like to kill the man for revenge, but these things are illegal, and they still happen, if you see what I'm getting at. They happen whether there are rules or not. if we lived in an an'archist cummunity, without rules or rulers these things still might happen, but it would not be the fault of anarchism or individualism.

Guest,
You said "If society doesn't exist, neither do herds of wildebeast."

The trouble is, "society" is so vague as to be meaningless. When you say "society", do you mean the area that includes central North America, the area called Alsaka, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, etc? Or do you mean all of North America? All the world? It's not specific. If you think of groups only in terms of countries-- nation-states-- you play into the hands of statists.