Anarchy is

[NorFormaTality]

let me clarify a few things...

i should have said that anti-statism is PART of what is embraced by a variety of causes both right and left. anarchy traces its etymology to the greek an + archos, that is, "without rule" - without coercive, hierarchal relationships of domination and submission, might be one way to put it. without authority, which doesn't mean only gov'ts - not only do governments exert rule over people, but so can other hierarchal structures that aren't officially considered governments; for instance, the christian church has played a huge political role in the history of civilization without being a 'government'; there is parental authority, the authority of an employer and so on. these authority-forms don't simply trickle down from the gov't, although they have connections. and there are also more lateral ways in which people enforce oppressive social systems on each other like through race, gender etc. of course as you look back through history, governments and these other related structures and hierarchies haven't always existed nor existed in the same state as they do now. what we think of as states and governments today, for instance, appeared with the bourgeois revolutions 200-300 years ago; feudal societies didn't really 'have' governments as we think of them now but they were governed by interlocking hierarchies. eventually the bourgeois seized control of the economy and then the state and the era of industrialized mass society they created demanded a different political order.

basically i think the governments and other power structures are there as enforcement mechanisms for the division of class society into an elite which controls the means of survival and the rest who have to sell their labor to survive - this is the only thing that has remained more or less constant in terms of how people are controlled by authority. if you want to overcome coercion and subjugation you need to look at the fact of that disposession as primary. sure, the police are in our way but this doesn't disregard the fact that domination and social hierarchy are present in many aspects of life, in 'beneficial' social programs as well as in the batons and bars, the carrot as well as the stick.

i don't know i'm kind of just rambling now. i don't consider myself an anarchist; i used to, and it's still an influence on my ways of thinking and living and i think it's worth talking about.

The only reason I call myself a anarchist is simply because of what you put there. I am pretty much just anti heirarchy. To me that doesnt necessarily mean that there cant be rules or laws agains lets say raping and pillaging. But if i want to hurt myself who the fuck are you to stop me. Or if i want to do something thats not hurting anyone but you just dont like it what makes you think you version of correct behavior is any better then mine. I kinda like michael bakunins (probably spelled wrong) version. As in there is not government. Its almost the purest example of direct democracy. Granted it can be combined with other ideas. That one of the bueaties of a anarchistic society. I dont know how many of you have read any anarchistic philosophy books but i did shortly after discovering they even existed. (before i had started making my own which i was going to call constitutional anarchy but that was before when i thought anarchy really only met no government or laws or anything, you know the general misconception of anarchism. I was trying to combine it with the ideas that people should be raped and pillaged. Because they teach us in school thats what government is there for. But then i found people that were already way ahead of me on the subject. Not that i might not make my own or expand on there theories some day or something.) But i guess the main thing i want to see is a non heirarchical society that has just enough order to keep things from turning into complete choas. the world needs balance. Right now supposed "order" is out of control. And its shown by the destruction of the world. The same thing would happen if choas got out of control. Thats why the anarchy symbol i normaly use for stuff is a combination of it and the yin yang symbol. So i guess to some of you i am not a "pure" anarchist. But in all honestly i dont care. I would say that litteraly so system is not neccesarily anarchistic but more choasistic (yeah i know doesnt exist) because in that system someone is going is going to end up having the biggest stick so to speak. And we are right back to opressive hierarchies. I dont know if what i said made any sense. Normaly i would go back over it and refine it some instead of leaving it the way it came out the first time but seeing as i am at a library and dont really have time for such shenanigans peace.

 

[shiftingGEARS]

Anarchy is a warm fireplace we created from the rubble of the institutions that control us.

 

[Earth]

crass said it best thirty years ago, and then some....
anarchy is being who you want to be, doing what you want to do... so long nobody or thing gets harmed in the process.
works for me......

 

[ped]

crass said it best thirty years ago, and then some....
anarchy is being who you want to be, doing what you want to do... so long nobody or thing gets harmed in the process.
works for me......

What if it's your dog shitting at the far corners of someones chemically fertilized yard?

 

[Noble Savage]

Anarcho-primitivism

 

[billyriot]

As with any ideal, Anarchism can be interpreted in various ways, all falling back to the basic tenet of there being no greater authority than yourself, in the appropriate context.

In my own life, as well as others, I feel that most forms of coercion (government, religion, and class division) are inherently damaging in the light of coexistence. I do have views that 'stray' out of what would be considered the "traditional" Anarchist standpoint, but if it has to stay confined to one definition, then wouldn't that cancel itself out?

I feel no one should be in control of how I live my life, if I choose to live interdependently amongst other like-minded, and even differing demographics; so long as we all understand and respect that we are here together and what we do, or choose not to do, can affect everyone as a whole.

I may sound idealistic in my views, but if I can't hope and apply these ideas in my own life, then what chance do I stand to see change?

 

[ericwild]

anarchism is ...do to others as you have them do to you .........think about it before you call me a holy roller

 

[Margin Walker]

anarchism is a form of govt (that word leaves a bad taste in my mouth i cant spell it out) what that govt is is debatable. theres anarcho syndicalism (spain), anarcho capitalism (the wild west), anarcho communism, anarcho federalism, even anarcho nationalism (nazis) minarchism is interesting and could be the first baby steps towards a form of anarchist govt.

Anarchism is a body of anti-authoritarian political philosophy. It isn't a government, unless you're alluding to ideology. Granted, most classical anarchist critique fell/falls short of anarchist. Much of it is leftist in it's thought and praxis. In practice, syndicalism, capitalism, communism, federalism, nationalism, and minarchism, even with the disingenuous prefix, all require the existence of a state to function, whether or not it exists in name. Advanced division of labor, commerce, mass society, industrialism, technology, and other hallmarks of modernity imply authoritarianism and the state.

The anarcho prefix, applied to non-anarchic tendencies or philosophies, is reformist. It's equivalent to greenwashing.

 

[Margin Walker]

anarchism is ...do to others as you have them do to you .........think about it before you call me a holy roller

I'd sooner call you a fan of Confucius.

 

[Margin Walker]

Anyone want to discuss green anarchist-egoist-nihilist tensions?

 

[Primitive]

goddamn there's alot of uneducated bullshit posts on this thread! but there are a few good ones to.

anarchy is: abscense of hierarchy and equal distribution of power. anyone who thinks it's only anti-statism is a fuckin idiot, but at the same time anyone who thinks (saw it mentioned... wow) it's compatible with statism is even more of an idiot. and most of all anarchy implies no rulers, NOT NO RULES! for fucks sakes before you make a thread called "anarchism is..." and start talking about what you think it is, read a goddamn book first, if not that at least an article... a paragraph even, about anarchism. or you could always just... ask an anarchist!

 

[Matt Derrick]

goddamn there's alot of uneducated bullshit posts on this thread! but there are a few good ones to.

anarchy is: abscense of hierarchy and equal distribution of power. anyone who thinks it's only anti-statism is a fuckin idiot, but at the same time anyone who thinks (saw it mentioned... wow) it's compatible with statism is even more of an idiot. and most of all anarchy implies no rulers, NOT NO RULES! for fucks sakes before you make a thread called "anarchism is..." and start talking about what you think it is, read a goddamn book first, if not that at least an article... a paragraph even, about anarchism. or you could always just... ask an anarchist!

haha i'm totally on board with your frustrations man! but please remember to keep the discussion civil

 

[Primitive]

also i might add that anarchism is not a "mindset", or a term that can be simplified in a dictionary. it's a movement that's been in existence well over 100 years filled with countless historical revolutionarys, activists, authors, artists, musicians, philopsphers, and social structure changing moments in history. therfor making this whole collaberation of "anarcho"-capitalists, "minimalists", "voluntaryists", etc etc absolete. these things have never, and will never have anything to do with anarchism. they're as much anarchists as nazi's are skinheads, by that i mean they stole the name, and without respect to it's long existence which always stood violently opposed to all the base philosophys of anarcho-capitalism.

 

[creature]

uhmm.. the thing that can be said is not the thing that is...?