# Attempting to learn more: Anarchism & Censorship



## Missy (Apr 16, 2011)

A little bit of background on me, I pretty much have had very little experience with anarchism, ive heard some people talk, I have read a few articles but that's about it, however I am willing to learn.

Mostly due to this thread, I was wondering if people could share their views on censorship within the traveling/punk/anarchist community.

Do you think as an anarchist its good to self-censor yourself, I guess we all somewhat do this right? How about other people doing it it to you? I am not really speaking of hateful or racist things being censored. More like "oh you can't say this because I just don't like it", does this even have a place in Anarchism? My layman's understanding of it would be that it doesn't, but I might also be wrong.


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## CXR1037 (Apr 16, 2011)

Anarchism is as vague as it gets. It can be fit to almost any person's philosophy and to every situation. If you're on this site, if you're using a computer, if you're still living off of this society...you aren't an anarchist. 

This takes me back to last year's anarchist bookfair up in SF. Lierre Kieth got pied in the face for challenging veganism/vegetarianism by some radical pieces of shit. It's all about peace love and understanding until someone says something offensive, then it's "censor!".


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## Heron (Apr 16, 2011)

CXR1037 said:


> Anarchism is as vague as it gets. It can be fit to almost any person's philosophy and to every situation. If you're on this site, if you're using a computer, if you're still living off of this society...you aren't an anarchist.


 
no


5 char min


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## Heron (Apr 16, 2011)

anyway... anarchism... obviously real anarchist and censorship don't go together. on the other hand, this forum is, like us, contained in a country and society that isn't anarchist. i think the site owner, if he's really anarchist, has a responsibility to censor pretty much just anything overtly illegal, like child porno and torrents (shit that would get him party vanned and this site taken down) and remove (not really censor) stuff that makes this site unreadable: i wouldn't call anarcho-bs on someone who removed images of scat porn spammed on a thread(s), and no one reasonable would really, tho the line is hard to draw there.

but really, censoring names and sites and such bs? it's not anarchist, it's just petty bullshit, any way you look at it.


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## Gudj (Apr 16, 2011)

The blocking of those peoples names has nothing to do with the question of Matts veiw on anarchism.

Also, asking anyone if something is anarchist or not is pretty much missing the point of anarchism and is asking an irish person how all irish people feel on a subect. 
Anarchism within a website like this doesn't exist because there is an administrator who controls it all.
However if he wants to run it according to modern anarchist principals, then he can.

The idea of censorship seems authoritarian and shitty, for sure.


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## Missy (Apr 16, 2011)

Gudj said:


> The blocking of those peoples names has nothing to do with the question of Matts veiw on anarchism.
> 
> Also, asking anyone if something is anarchist or not is pretty much missing the point of anarchism and is asking an irish person how all irish people feel on a subect.
> Anarchism within a website like this doesn't exist because there is an administrator who controls it all.
> ...



I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you on a few points, I think the block of peoples names has everything to do with Matt's views. I mean he did write the forum rules right? He is the one saying what words we can and can not say right? Yet he talks of anarchism.

As for your comment "Also, asking anyone if something is anarchist or not is pretty much missing the point of anarchism and is asking an irish person how all irish people feel on a subect."

Can you explain the point some? I know that you comparing what people think about anarchism on a forum that talks about it often to what all Irish people think on a subject is a somewhat flawed comparison at best.


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## Gudj (Apr 16, 2011)

Missy said:


> I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you on a few points, I think the block of peoples names has everything to do with Matt's views. I mean he did write the forum rules right? He is the one saying what words we can and can not say right? Yet he talks of anarchism.
> 
> As for your comment "Also, asking anyone if something is anarchist or not is pretty much missing the point of anarchism and is asking an irish person how all irish people feel on a subect."
> 
> Can you explain the point some? I know that you comparing what people think about anarchism on a forum that talks about it often to what all Irish people think on a subject is a somewhat flawed comparison at best.


 
Firstly, I'm fine with anything I do being 'somewhat flawed at best', because I don't know of anything in the real world that's flawless.

Yes, it has to do with Matts veiws. His veiws on this website and wi derstand mostly. If you are assuming Matt is an anarchist based on how he wants this forum to be run, then you can put two and two together and see that for him, there is no fundamental conflict between how you identify politically and blocking peoples names from your website. But that's based on assumptions aside from assuming Matts identity as well.

If you ask other people who are both anarchists and stp users (there are less than you'd think), you will definitely see diversity in where people stand on the issue. Which is what I was trying to explain more colorfully with my Irish analogy. 
I'll try again: Asking an individual of a huge, wildly various, loosely connected group of groups (such as people who identify as anarchists) their thoughts on any topic (except the topic of if they identify as anarchists or not), you will get responses as different as the individuals who give them. This is even more true about anarchism specifically than it would be about republicans, because we have no consensus on definition or pretty much anything else.
Asking a syndicalist and an anarcha-primitivist the same question will likely give you different answers, even though they are both anarchists.


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## venusinpisces (Apr 16, 2011)

I don't think it's passive aggressive to post about a public issue in a public setting. Because if Matt continues to make his grievances public with name-calling and name blocking then every member here has to deal with it. I've said this elsewhere, but
there may be better ways to go about conflict resolution than dragging the entire forum into the middle of it.


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## venusinpisces (Apr 18, 2011)

oops! My comment about what is passive aggressive was intended for the *other* thread about names being blocked--too much to keep up with! As for censorship, I think it's generally understood to be suppression of dissent by a government, which would be quite different than something which occurs on a privately owned forum. However, an anarchist community can have many definitions, as other have expressed (somewhat cynically). Is it censorship to shut down personal attacks? Not really, especially if one person's abuse of the concept of free speech infringes upon another's. But what I take issue with is the childish way in which it's been handled. If I express something a moderator doesn't like, am I going to have "I'm a douche bag"
on the top of my profile like everybody else who's been banned? Don't get me wrong--I am not in favor of any particular "word bans" and tend to agree with Missy that banning particular names is also unnecessary. What bothers me is that there are permanent insults being directed at people who have no way of clearing their name or even deleting their profile. I think this makes the whole forum look shady, which is a shame because this site is a great resource and I'm sure the owner has put a lot of work into it.


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## Matt Derrick (Apr 18, 2011)

Overall, I think everyone takes what's happening on this website entirely too seriously. The "I'm a douchebag" user title has been there for YEARS and no one had a problem with it.

Basically there are a LOT of people here that are taking everything we say and do waaay too seriously. I mean, come on people, it's the INTERNET.


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## venusinpisces (Apr 18, 2011)

Well if it's just the internet then why ban people's names in the first place? You can't accuse people of taking things too seriously when you are doing the same yourself. As for the douche bag label, you may not know how many people have had a problem with it or just thought it was stupid. Speaking for myself, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape if that ends up on my profile for challenging moderators. However, there are many others out there who *will* get pissed off and come back under other names and make problems for everyone. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. Also, I can imagine there are plenty of others out there who will visit once, see what looks like moderators with the maturity level of a ten year old, and not come back again. You were recently on here complaining about how there aren't enough politically active squatters, but if you're catering to the lowest common denominator then doesn't it seem reasonable that this might be a contributing factor to the absence of meaningful conversation?


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## venusinpisces (Apr 18, 2011)

By the way, I wasn't directing those comments at any moderator in particular because they obviously didn't design the system
so are not responsible for the way things are run. My comment was addressed specifically to Matt.


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## venusinpisces (Apr 18, 2011)

sight correction: instead of absence, a more accurate statement would be that this forum has a low ratio of meaningful conversation to noise. in my opinion anyways. But I suppose there's little purpose in making constructive criticism if people aren't open to it.


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## CXR1037 (Apr 23, 2011)

ElectroGypsy said:


> Basically there are a LOT of people here that are taking everything we say and do waaay too seriously. I mean, come on people, it's the INTERNET.


 


ElectroGypsy said:


> Well congratulations all you little whiny baby fucks. I've finally gotten so sick of listening to all this bullshit that I'm taking the train hopping forum section down for good. Permanently.
> 
> None of that shit should even *be* on the internet anyways. Go post it somewhere else and continue ruining it for all those that actually need train hopping to survive. As far as I'm concerned, that section has been a fucking cancer killing this whole site for the past two years. It's made me stop visiting the site entirely since every time I come back here it's just a bunch of people bitching about what assholes we are no matter WHAT we do to try and make things better. It gets really depressing, and I'm not going to be a host to (and pay out of pocket for) something that continually ruins my day every time I read it.



lolwut


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## mikefwt (Apr 23, 2011)

gay..


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