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Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:14 pm
by OGLemon
Okay I've been studying anarchist philosophies lately and I've been wondering how the people deal with things such as murder and rape. From my understanding it's something like Frankenstein with the town people chasing after the monster, but that seems a little primitive lol. Thoughts?

EDIT:
Forgot to tag
@DiegoSapiens
@Genevieve

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:18 pm
by ezza
Do many of those people exist? like it's a fun thought, but in reality it would be utter chaos.

We need systems n shit to keep functioning; even if there are stnuc at the top of them :/ NECESSARY EVIL IMO TBF


but yeah, the idea of hunting down murderers and rapists is fucking brutal. just check live leak lol

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:31 pm
by Harkat
I wrote a huge project on the anarchist society of revolutionary catalonia during the Spanish Civil war a few months ago. Interesting shit to research.

Things eventually went tits up with that society, but it didn't really seem like it was because of the holes in anarchist philosophy.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:34 pm
by OGLemon
Harkat wrote:I wrote a huge project on the anarchist society of revolutionary catalonia during the Spanish Civil war a few months ago. Interesting shit to research.

Things eventually went tits up with that society, but it didn't really seem like it was because of the holes in anarchist philosophy.
Wasn't it because of the fascist going to war or something like that? Spanish Civil War iirc.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:36 pm
by garethom
OGLemon wrote:
Harkat wrote:I wrote a huge project on the anarchist society of revolutionary catalonia during the Spanish Civil war a few months ago. Interesting shit to research.

Things eventually went tits up with that society, but it didn't really seem like it was because of the holes in anarchist philosophy.
Wasn't it because of the fascist going to war or something like that? Spanish Civil War iirc.
All the raping.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:54 pm
by kay
Ursula le Guin explored some of the possibilities in her classic novel The Dispossessed, which contrasts an anarchic society with a capitalist one. Might be worth a read.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:02 pm
by Harkat
OGLemon wrote:
Harkat wrote:I wrote a huge project on the anarchist society of revolutionary catalonia during the Spanish Civil war a few months ago. Interesting shit to research.

Things eventually went tits up with that society, but it didn't really seem like it was because of the holes in anarchist philosophy.
Wasn't it because of the fascist going to war or something like that? Spanish Civil War iirc.
IIRC it was shortly speaking cus

* Vigilante violence was getting bad

* The popular front sent no guns and stuff to the fronts where the anarchists were fighting, partially because of shady deals with international, powerful anti-anarchist governments with dogs in the fight, who didn't want the popular front dominated by anarchist thoughts.

* When the CNT/FAI, the big anarchist organization in the region, decided to participate in the wider popular front government, it split the anarchists too much. Lots of people were understandably very against it.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:06 pm
by Genevieve
At this point I consider myself more an anti-statist than an anarchist. I think voluntaryism is the better path to a stateless society than anarchism (both ethically and rationally). Many anarchist philosophies are contradictory in their adherence to collective rule. Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, but most streams of anarchist thought believe in the authority of the collective over the individual. In the strictest sense, anarchism means 'without rulers', but I believe that I rule my body and my property and many anarchists believe that the collective rules the individual.

I'm nothing like a communist but I am anti-state, so I believe the better question would be 'how would law work in a stateless society?) And I myself, I prefer privatized law the way it was in Ireland and Iceland in the past.

Many question where a private or communal court would get the authority from to punish people (since morality is subjective), which is understandable. But at the same time they presuppose the state's authority as a given, unaware that it is just as fabricated.
Agent 47 wrote:Do many of those people exist? like it's a fun thought, but in reality it would be utter chaos.

We need systems n shit to keep functioning; even if there are stnuc at the top of them :/ NECESSARY EVIL IMO TBF


but yeah, the idea of hunting down murderers and rapists is fucking brutal. just check live leak lol
Anti-statists aren't anti-systems. They just disagree with the system of the state. People point to Somalia as an example of the failure of anti-statism, and while it is a hellhole, it's doing better than it did when it had a state.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:06 pm
by OGLemon
kay wrote:Ursula le Guin explored some of the possibilities in her classic novel The Dispossessed, which contrasts an anarchic society with a capitalist one. Might be worth a read.
Nice, will check out this weekend.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:20 pm
by Harkat
Genevieve wrote:(since morality is subjective
Nah man. Morality isn't subjective, at least not besides in the absolute sense that all reality is subjective.

I think of it like this:

There are no inherent rules in the universe about what's "good" and "bad", but once you set a goal there are objectively good and bad ways of reaching that goal. Like, if you're playing chess according to the rules, there are objectively effective and ineffective tactics, although there's nothing fundamentally that says "doing this is good, doing this is bad".

So although there's no "objective morality" in the meaningless absolute sense, people share almost exactly the fundamentals of what it is to "prosper" and be happy and so on. Rules of society aka "morals" that are conductive to that are objectively good morals IMO.

Of course figuring out what rules in the end make society good like that is incredibly complicated, and no culture, probably no person, on earth has it even close to completely figured out. But it's a matter of it being really complex, not subjective.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:25 pm
by Genevieve
Harkat wrote:
Genevieve wrote:(since morality is subjective
Nah man. Morality isn't subjective, at least not besides in the absolute sense that all reality is subjective.

I think of it like this:

There are no inherent rules in the universe about what's "good" and "bad", but once you set a goal there are objectively good and bad ways of reaching that goal. Like, if you're playing chess according to the rules, there are objectively effective and ineffective tactics, although there's nothing fundamentally that says "doing this is good, doing this is bad".
Morality doesn't exist on an X/Y axis the way a game of chess does.
Harkat wrote:So although there's no "objective morality" in the meaningless absolute sense, people share almost exactly the fundamentals of what it is to "prosper" and be happy and so on. Rules of society aka "morals" that are conductive to that are objectively good morals IMO.

Of course figuring out what rules in the end make society good like that is incredibly complicated, and no culture, probably no person, on earth has it even close to completely figured out. But it's a matter of it being really complex, not subjective.
Consensus fallacy?

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:30 pm
by m8son666
Harkat wrote:Nah man. Morality isn't subjective
Yes it is.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:35 pm
by Harkat
I don't see how that's applicable to what I said

Is your standard for what's "right" some kind of cosmic, magical concept written into the universe? Cus that probably doesn't exist.

People experience some things as "good" and some thing as bad. "Good morals" are rules that push society towards a situation where there's sustainable maximum satisfaction and minimum suffering. People used to think strict religious rules were what made it that way, but those morals are outdated today. Although they served a purpose to some extent we've adopted slightly better approaches, or at least, so we think.

As long as people experience some things as "good" and some as "bad", it necessitates the existence of true morals imo.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:35 pm
by Pedro Sánchez
That's why we establish justice systems as a framework in which morality can be decided by the whole of society (supposedly).
edit: should of read by society as a whole

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:36 pm
by Harkat
Like I said, it's not that it's subjective (besides in the absolute sense that all of your perception is subjective), it's just extremely complicated.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:37 pm
by m8son666
How do you define 'good'? Only through comparison with 'bad'. How do you define 'bad'? Only by comparison with 'good'.

Therefore neither are real or objective.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:52 pm
by Harkat
It's subjective and not real in the absolute sense, but so is the entire world, and still you don't live your life like it's all "fake".

People experience satisfaction and pleasure, and they experience dissatisfaction and displeasure. "Morals" are society's guidelines that try to keep everyone satisfied in the long run. So people think it's bad to rob/kill someone, cus they think the benefit the killer/robber might get isn't worth the displeasure others have to suffer for it.

More people used to think doing drugs and not being in committed, child-rearing relationships was immoral/bad, cus it stopped you from working in the fields and raising kids to work in the fields (all in service of a long-run plan of people being happier).

Now (we think at least) we've moved on to "better" morals, cus being strict with what people did with their day and warning them all the time about hell didn't make anyone happy. Now we value individual happiness and freedom more, although of course not usually at the expense of others. Also, people's opinions on whats moral differs. And people don't exclusively act with morality in mind, a lot of the time people don't give a fuck. Like maybe people A think it's OK to buy nike shoes, and people B think it's immoral because you're supporting a state of things where little kids have to work in shit conditions. Then maybe people A think people B are being pricks who are ruining other people's happiness by nagging about it, and maybe they think boycotting nike won't help the sweatshop kids anyway.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:00 pm
by m8son666
Harkat wrote: Now (we think at least) we've moved on to "better" morals
Camus wrote:For twenty centuries the sum total of evil has not diminished in the world.

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:05 pm
by Harkat
thats deep m7

Re: Transgressions In An Anarchist Community/Society

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:08 pm
by kay
Harkat wrote:It's subjective and not real in the absolute sense, but so is the entire world, and still you don't live your life like it's all "fake".

People experience satisfaction and pleasure, and they experience dissatisfaction and displeasure. "Morals" are society's guidelines that try to keep everyone satisfied in the long run. So people think it's bad to rob/kill someone, cus they think the benefit the killer/robber might get isn't worth the displeasure others have to suffer for it.

More people used to think doing drugs and not being in committed, child-rearing relationships was immoral/bad, cus it stopped you from working in the fields and raising kids to work in the fields (all in service of a long-run plan of people being happier).

Now (we think at least) we've moved on to "better" morals, cus being strict with what people did with their day and warning them all the time about hell didn't make anyone happy. Now we value individual happiness and freedom more, although of course not usually at the expense of others. Also, people's opinions on whats moral differs. And people don't exclusively act with morality in mind, a lot of the time people don't give a fuck. Like maybe people A think it's OK to buy nike shoes, and people B think it's immoral because you're supporting a state of things where little kids have to work in shit conditions. Then maybe people A think people B are being pricks who are ruining other people's happiness by nagging about it, and maybe they think boycotting nike won't help the sweatshop kids anyway.
I think the fact that concepts of morality change with society (as you've mentioned a number of times) suggest that morality is definitely a subjective concept. Morality is simply a subjective construct that, ultimately, allows humans to live with one another.