Death to middle-class society, and long live anarchism

[meme1908]

How so?

 

[butchersapron]

I don't care if it is or if it isn't max . I'm asking you what you think it means and how it differs from 'anarchy'. Will you do that?

 

[max_freakout]

I don't care if it is or if it isn't max . I'm asking you what you think it means and how it differs from 'anarchy'. Will you do that?

anarchy - nobody in control



anarchism means different things to different people

 

[butchersapron]

Thanks Max.

 

[max_freakout]

Thanks Max.

 

[soulman]

Anarchism is the belief and the associated body of thought that society can be organised along non-hierachical lines under certain conditions and that this necessarily entails an anti-state and pro-equality communist approach.

What conditions would meet your approval?

 

[fela fan]

Anarchism is the belief and the associated body of thought that society can be organised along non-hierachical lines under certain conditions and that this necessarily entails an anti-state and pro-equality communist approach.

Is it a belief you think possible to be converted into practice?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Is it a belief you think possible to be converted into practice?

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Hence politics and politicians. It will only happen when the majority of people change themselves for the better.

 

[Disjecta Membra]

i know it's a stupid thread to be at all in serious in, so I won't indulge too much. But max anarchy not about nobody being in control,more about people actually being involved in anything thats they wish to be/or that effects them. it's simply an imaginary society we should all be striving toward, one that has true equality in all areas and universal justice.not this backward world we find ourselves in.

 

[bluestreak]

ITT: Max freakout tells anarchists what they believe in.

 

[fela fan]

Hence politics and politicians. It will only happen when the majority of people change themselves for the better.

It's why i asked BA the question. I was interested in what he thought about this. For me it's a non-starter. And not very attractive either.

But while i fully agree with your comment mate, this change can only really come about with individuals who have managed to shake politics and the effect of politics on them out of their lives.

I recall people shouting me down that one could live life outside of politics. It was some kind of longer running thread where my thinking that you needed to escape the clutches of politics was a necessary requisite for effecting the required change within oneself.

Politics is the shackles, is the prison, is the brake. Going beyond it is the key. But as of human life thus far, politics is the default of organisation in society.

And while that remains the case, we ain't going very far in the improvement stakes.

 

[Santino]

whatever i say, you will return with some silly, self-masturbating comment

The ironing is delicious.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is it a belief you think possible to be converted into practice?

It's a methodology that has, in different forms, been "converted into practice" several times already. Obviously, it's been in the interests of the power-elites to destroy it when this has happened, but Switzerland, the Ukraine and Spain all had manifestations of it take place.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Hence politics and politicians. It will only happen when the majority of people change themselves for the better.

IMO that's what makes "anarchism" so difficult to realise: The sheer difficulty involved for people who've been indoctrinated to believe otherwise in convincing themselves that they can change themselves, and therefore their social environment.

 

[fogbat]

I had plans involving having my robot hordes dress everyone in monkey suits and shoot six-shooters at their feet, crying "Dance, monkey, dance". Would that meet your revolutionary requirements?

I'm willing to follow you right now!

All Hail Rich! Arch-Generalissimo and Father of the Country! *salutes*

 

[max_freakout]

ITT: Max freakout tells anarchists what they believe in.

anarchists can believe whatever they want to believe

they havent succeeded in bringing about a state of anarchy though......

 

[butchersapron]

anarchists can believe whatever they want to believe

Are you sure?

 

[max_freakout]

Are you sure?

anarchists are just as free as everyone else, to believe whatever they want to believe

 

[butchersapron]

Even stuff that contradicts anarchism?

It's odd that earlier you were saying thats anarchists couldn't be communists - now they're free to be anything they like.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Even stuff that contradicts anarchism?

It's odd that earlier you were saying thats anarchists couldn't be communists - now they're free to be anything they like.

Perhaps he means "anything they like except communists"?

 

[max_freakout]

Even stuff that contradicts anarchism?

It's odd that earlier you were saying thats anarchists couldn't be communists - now they're free to be anything they like.

anarchism isnt one fixed thing, far from it, it means vastly different things to different people

and anarchist is a self-imposed label anyway, in the film '120 days of sodom', there is a scene where a bunch of fascists are sitting around talking about how 'fascism is the true anarchism', it's all relative

'anarchy', OTOH, is actually an interesting thing to talk about....... but most self-labelled 'anarchists' wouldnt have a clue how to (i suspect)

 

[Barking_Mad]

IMO that's what makes "anarchism" so difficult to realise: The sheer difficulty involved for people who've been indoctrinated to believe otherwise in convincing themselves that they can change themselves, and therefore their social environment.

Entirely agree.

 

[butchersapron]

Genius stuff max

 

[max_freakout]

what is anarchy?

 

[Barking_Mad]

It's why i asked BA the question. I was interested in what he thought about this. For me it's a non-starter. And not very attractive either.

But while i fully agree with your comment mate, this change can only really come about with individuals who have managed to shake politics and the effect of politics on them out of their lives.

I recall people shouting me down that one could live life outside of politics. It was some kind of longer running thread where my thinking that you needed to escape the clutches of politics was a necessary requisite for effecting the required change within oneself.

Politics is the shackles, is the prison, is the brake. Going beyond it is the key. But as of human life thus far, politics is the default of organisation in society.

And while that remains the case, we ain't going very far in the improvement stakes.

.....

We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that it divided; but the men: — Divided into mere segments of men — broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished, — sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is — we should think that there might be some loss in it also.

And the great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach at them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can only be met by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labour.

 

[In Bloom]

IMO that's what makes "anarchism" so difficult to realise: The sheer difficulty involved for people who've been indoctrinated to believe otherwise in convincing themselves that they can change themselves, and therefore their social environment.

We have to act collectively to change our environment, focussing on some crypto-mystical individual enlightenment as a means of changing society is a hopeless fantasy.

 

[In Bloom]

what is anarchy?

"When we start to fight against the conditions of our lives, a completely different kind of activity appears. We do not look for a politician to come change things for us. We do it ourselves, with other working class people.

Whenever this kind of working class resistance breaks out, politicians try to extinguish it in a flood of petitions, lobbying and election campaigns. But when we are fighting for ourselves, our activity looks completely different from theirs. We take property away from landlords and use it for ourselves. We use militant tactics against our bosses and end up fighting with the police. We form groups where everyone takes part in the activity, and there is no division between leaders and followers. We do not fight for our leaders, for our bosses or for our country. We fight for ourselves. This is not the ultimate form of democracy. We are imposing our needs on society without debate—needs that are directly contrary to the interests and wishes of rich people everywhere. There is no way for us to speak on equal terms with this society.

This tendency of working class struggles to go outside and against the government and politics, and to create new forms of organization that do not put our faith in anything other than our own ability, has at times been called “anarchism”."

HTH, HAND

 

[electric.avenue]

You make it sound like anarchy depends on the middle class.

I don't think so.

Anarchy is a reaction to the ruling class, not the middle class. For me there are only two classes: the rulers and everybody else. The everybody else may have different degrees within it, but the real fight is against those who gain the power to run the rungs of society, and that's the leaders.

While the middle class and working class get mixed up with each other, the path always remains clear for the rulers to fuck everyone over.

This is the lesson to be learned i believe.

That's pretty much hitting the nail on the head, fela fan, as far as I'm concerned. I've never understood this whole working class vs middle class thing, which seems to boil down to blue collar workers hating white collar workers, or vice versa, regardless of who is paid what. I've seen people spitting about other people being middle class, when the very people they are on about live in the same housing, have kids at the same schools, etc.

 

[Blagsta]

anarchist-communism is a silly meaningless contradiction, a total misunderstanding of 'anarchy'

You could argue that anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction. To argue that anarcho-communism is though is to completely misunderstand anarchism, communism and the history thereof.

 

[fela fan]

It's a methodology that has, in different forms, been "converted into practice" several times already. Obviously, it's been in the interests of the power-elites to destroy it when this has happened, but Switzerland, the Ukraine and Spain all had manifestations of it take place.

That's interesting. Were they large scale? When were they? What happened to them? Not being facetious, just interested, because it's my understanding and experience in life that the majority of people actually want leadership.

I'll make it clear that the kind of leadership we get from most countries is criminal, and while i have sympathies for the ideas of anarchism, i don't think it is possible within current human consciousness. Leaders always emerge, and leaders are always sought.