Comment

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 27, 2010 at 6:03pm

"@BFT I don't agree with your assertion that one group or another will always have status over another."

I think you misinterpreted what I said. I said some individuals or group of individuals will always have status over others not a group. Elders, leaders, etc...

Re-written: "There will always be a de facto hierarchy in every community, organization, and social movement because some individuals or group of individuals will always have status over others."

The example I gave has nothing to do with government or political theory. It has more to do with psychology than politics. Humans are social beings.

There was not a democratic nation in 1776. That is delusional white eurocentric HIStory bullshit. African slaves, indigenous people, women, and non-landowning white males were not involved in the decision-making process in the founding of YOUR nation.

Comment by Habman on January 27, 2010 at 4:54pm

@BFT I don't agree with your assertion that one group or another will always have status over another.

Up until 1776 there had never been a democratic nation, and then there was. Major political and cultural shifts usually happen quickly, so who is to say what will happen or when it will happen. The idea of a citizen governed nation sounded naive and gullible until it all of a sudden happened.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a proponent of even a remote chance of a Utopian society. I agree that there never has been and never will be a perfect world, however what we have now can be greatly improved upon. I am sure it will not be made so by ceding more power and control to government or religion.

As for receiving a free pass because of one's status, race, culture, or any other thing is just hippocracy and usually propped up by government. It is like the idea of a hate crime. All violent crime is a hate crime so punishing one person more or less harshly for the reason makes no sense at all.

Justice only exists when it is blind.

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 27, 2010 at 2:15pm

There will always be a de facto hierarchy in every society, community, organization, and social movement. Some individuals or group of individuals will always have status over others. We don't live in a perfect word. I know of an anarchist historian who sexually assaulted a woman. He got a free pass from female and male anarchists, feminists, activists in his community because of his status and his personal relationships with them. (friends, acquaintances) They used his alcoholism as an accuse for his behavior. If someone without status in that community sexually assaulted a woman they would have been ostracized or run out of town. I've seen these same feminists speech police crucify and ostracize male activists for using sexists slurs. It happens everywhere regardless of political ideology and geographic location.

True anarchism sounds naive and gullible. To think that after centuries of continued persecution, genocide, and oppression, that most members of an oppressed group will trust the majority of individuals of the oppressor group is wishful thinking.

Comment by Habman on January 27, 2010 at 8:12am

There is one major issue with any political shift, tribalism.
Everyone wants to garner favor for their tribal, whether based on skin color, religion, lifestyle, eating habits, sports team..., ya all get the picture.

As for anarchist/communist thought being somehow immune from racism and hierarchical structures , what the hell are you smoking?

Please name one socialism or communism society that was without both of those.

Most so called revolutionaries are among the quickest to prejudge of any I have ever seen, based on something as simple as the shoe one may be wearing.

I totally agree with what Kyle says and true anarchism does only deal with the individual, irregardless of race, nation, class or culture. To deal with a group is to reform a government of sorts. This is not to say that individuals cannot work together toward common goals, but in the end the individual must still be free to do as they choose.

Communism does none of these things. Nor does what is commonly hoisted as Anarcho Communism as every single proponent of this philosophy I have ever run into is all too willing to use force of a group against individuals who don't follow that same beliefs and to further their personal agendas.

As for BFT's assertion that "you can't handle criticism about your utopian ideology that you cling to like religion," it is about the only thing I can fully agree with him on. Too many in the non theist community have replaced unwavering faith in a deity, with unwavering faith in a political structure/government.

No Gods/No Rulers/No Masters!



Co

Comment by Anwar Diamante on January 26, 2010 at 8:53pm

Exactly Kyle,
The prejudgement of being prejudiced or racist is why revolutionaries/militants flock to anarchist or communist thought because it removes the hierarchal structures that do not liberate all people...

Comment by Kyle Griffith on January 26, 2010 at 4:04pm

Hmmmm. BFT just posted, "I should not expect more from MOST people of European ancestry regardless of where they live or were born." and DbO replied, "Racism? Really?"

Personally, I've always believed that the only way to think as a true anarchist is to deal with people only as individuals, regardless of what "race", "nation", "class", or "culture" they may belong to. I see nothing wrong with profiling people according to their actual words and deeds as individuals, creating categories like "trustworthy", "untrustworthy", and "unknown". But making any kind of value judgment on everyone in a large group is invariably sloppy thinking. The actual character and behavior of people in any such group is usually some sort of bell curve, and IMO, it's not especially wise to take some very specialized group like "convicted child molesters" or "Nobel Pize winners" which have distribution curves heavily weighted on one end and use it as a general example...

Comment by Jess on January 26, 2010 at 2:22pm

Anarcha-feminist here!

Comment by Kyle Griffith on January 25, 2010 at 3:26pm

Well, over the last twenty years, I've talked in person to or exchanged Internet postings with maybe two or three hundred of the people BFT is calling "lifestyle anarchists". IMO, damn few of them seemed to live the way I and several million other so-called "Hippies" lived back in the Sixties and Seventies, and most of them have preached something they call "Anarchy" but as far as I can tell, don't practice any coherent, consistent political or economic ideology at all. So I tend to agree with what BFT has to say about 'em, but I don't think they're numerous enough to be worth discussing very much.

And it looks me like terms such as "Black Activist" or "African American Community" are virtually meaningless. Even if you profile everyone you see whose skin is darker than some arbitrarily-chosen shade of brown as a "Black Person" and call all of them collectively a "community", this doesn't mean that they all have anything ELSE in common. For example, I know quite a few people who call themselves "Blacks" or are referred to by others as "Blacks" who work with collectives that are deliberately trying to operate by "co-operation rather than coercion", but most of them go out of their way to avoid associating "color" with "politics".

So anyway, I don't know exactly what you folx are arguing about, and I'd much rather discuss issues like those I mentioned in my last posting here...

Comment by Db0 on January 25, 2010 at 2:59pm

Racism? Really?

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 25, 2010 at 2:35pm

I should not expect more from MOST people of European ancestry regardless of where they live or were born.

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