The Antisocial Socialist

I think simplistic divisions and polarities are preventing people from studying and examining issues closely and understanding nuances.

It's simply the one's who are so incredibly far apart and out there that are sometimes the problem because that few and far between lot of folks get almost all the press.

I know lots of complex people. I'm certain it's a deep seeded consensual distraction.

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sabotabby

What if one end of the political extreme is "torture is wrong under any circumstances" and the other is "torture is necessary in defense of our national interest"? I would argue that one set of extremists is correct, and the complex people in the middle monstrous.

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Yes well remember Martin Luther King himself warned that "moderates" were in fact the greatest enemy of all.

I just like conspiracy theories and blend them freely with psycho-social factors and social psychology.

I'm not at all conservative but I believe in a "conspiracy" of sorts on that level. We aren't "supposed" to look at certain areas and that we in fact put our own "blinders" and limits in place as a society. I like examining "why" we do that and what's beneath it all.

I don't believe in torture and I dont believe in 99% of what conservatives do but I also try to avoid labels like liberal and conservative on purpose because I do think them a "sham" of sorts meant to derail, simplify and distract. I want people to have to get to know me before deciding what I believe and vice versa.

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You can't handle the truth.

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You are absolutely correct!

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Oh wit I forgot to put "quotes" on that!

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zingerella.livejournal.com

See also one Mr. Michael Ignatieff.

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I've never heard of any of these people, but I probably don't want to know about them by the sound of it! Ugh! It is odd that his list against the U.S. right is blatantly obvious even to me who knows nowt of U.S. politics. Where was his head all those years of not noticing these horrors?
I get the impression that American Left is what I would think of as Right, and American Right as what we would think of as terrifying evil. There must be nice people on the Left who are outcast as Commies there but would be considered pretty conservative over here. People should be banned. I am a totalitarian green anarchist.

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sabotabby

Hah. I used to meet actual totalitarian green anarchists all the time.

But yeah, the American Left is largely what I'd consider politically right-wing.

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What do totalitarian green anarchists believe really? Do they really exist?
I think it suits me as I am anti-people, pro trees, and want everyone to do as I say and piss off. Probably not a sensible political stance, but it suits my general mood. I suppose politically really I am ideally an anarchist but don't know if it would work as it needs people to be nice, so probably just a green socialist, although dictatorship run by me if i could be bothered would be better as I could ban meat eating and cars and stuff.

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sabotabby

Among the various (often contradictory things) these guys believed:
- human welfare is subservient to the environment/animal rights (e.g., it's wrong to, say, kill a pig in order to do an organ transplant on a human)
- civilization is inherently oppressive and needs to be dismantled
- written language should be abolished; we should return to an oral culture
- agriculture will always result in the creation of a class system; we should return to a hunter-gatherer society
- lifesaving medical advances are unethical
- cities are unethical
- sewing machines are unethical
- "traditional," "primitive" societies had a place for blind people, people with mental illnesses, etc., so you don't need glasses or anti-depressants. You need to be a shaman.
- most of humanity (upwards of 90%) will either die off or need to be killed in order for us to live in harmony with the earth.

All of these people had wealthy parents but couch-surfed, dumpster-dived, and "wandered." I typically thought they were crypto-libertarian, genocidal scum. I've met some anti-civ types that I liked (okay, one) but it's not a political philosophy I can really get behind.

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Hmmmm. It sounds like people you meet obsessed with a "cause" rather than really thinking. I agree about the pigs' organs though. I would say animals should be treated as having an equal right to life, rather than that human welfare is less important. I don't see how it can be ok to kill an animal for medical research, although of course I understand the emotinal desire to save a loved one at the expense of a thousand or so rats!
I can't help feeling it would be nice to get rid of a huge proportion of the human race, although ideally by less reproduction rather than slaughter or famine and disease! Overpopulation is definitely a huge huge problem. Because small communities are generally more likely to be self-sufficient and more caring, as well as because of lack of resources and ruining ecosystems. 90% seems unreasonably high though. I'd say ideal to halve it over a few generations, but I'm not an expert!
Crap about the "primitive" societies being nicer though. They are full of bigoted superstitious shite.
Cities are unethical the way they are now, utterly environmentally unsound, but it would be possible to use technology to make lovely green cities.
I think we need nicer civilization, not less.
Sewing machines are bloody annoying and fiddly, but not unethical.
Written language and agriculture (if done sustainably) are cool.

I think the genocidal bit is a grey area for me - I feel the urge to kill, and wish all the shit people who make this world miserable would drop dead, but alas in principle I would not want mass slaughter. Definitely need to lower population growth though. I don't think there is an answer to people being evil, so don't know what to do. I despair. I am exhausted by all the evil people I have met. I don't think education works as there are just too many evil people. Smaller communities would help. Things that encourage people to be caring and supportive of one another.

Am definitely against medical research on animals though. Hopefully with stem cell stuff it can cease to be an issue one day. I suppose there is no logical back up to my stance on that, as eating animals to survive is clearly natural, so medical research in that sense no different ethically. But I think nature has lots of very bad things in it and just because things happen naturally is no excuse to allow them. Paedophilia and rape are extremely natural, as are genocide and torture, but they are not nice.
Maybe ethics are unnatural. Dunno. Studying philosophy doesn't seem to solve these things, just gives one more awareness of the intricacies and difficulties! I think being nice is the most important thing in life, and that people really should do it more.

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"Because small communities are generally more likely to be self-sufficient"

Why is self-sufficiency a good thing? Isn't a large community a combination of smaller communities that have become interdependent?

"and more caring"

Prove it. Plenty of small communities are little tyrannies. Witch trials, anyone? Feudalism was based on small agricultural communities. Peasants were even bound to a particular piece of land.

"as well as because of lack of resources and ruining ecosystems."

Not sure "small communities" mean less use of resources or less ruining of ecosystems. More people certainly means potentially more drain of resources, but how people live is probably more important than how many of them are living. Urban density living tends to have less environmental impact per capita than low density suburban living.

I agree that it is technologically possible to make lovely green cities.

Hope is more productive than despair.

Animals aren't subject to ethics because they do not have the capacity to reason and lack empathy outside of the closest members of their pack/hive/herd/whatever... Animals can't be ethical, because they are incapable of that kind of understanding.

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Small communities being more caring - I dunno. Everyone tells me they hate where I live (London) because people don't know each other and so have no community and are unpleasant, and I tell them that people are just as unpleasant in their little villages with their gossip and backbiting. But it is easier for people to be more caring to their neighbours if they know them, and easier to care for smaller numbers of people - it can get difficult when there are millions of people around you all the time. Self sufficiency is good because it helps prevent rows over resources. Not that trade isn't ok too, just that self sufficiency can provide more security. Oh, I didn't mean small communities meaning less resources so much as lower population - there must be a limited number of people the world can hold, surely? I know people argue and say tis not so, but it already feels pretty uncomfortable where I live.

Lots of things that don't have capacity to reason are subject to ethics. Environmental ethics, for one. I don't think many people have the capacity for empathy outside their pack, or for reason, for that matter. Certainly not many I've met, unfortunately. Some, but not the majority. Animals certainly have the capacity for feeling and enjoyment and happiness and lots more, which are all part of the brilliance of life.

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I've lived both rurally and in a city. People can be unpleasant regardless of their population density. I find that in the city, it's actually considerably easier to ignore the people I regard as unpleasant while still being involved in the lives of those people I want to be involved with.

No individual human being is self-sufficient. One of the reasons that smaller societies can so easily create and maintain taboos as well as social harmony is that being exiled from a group is the equivalent of death.

If no human being is self-sufficient, then our survival depends on negotiation over resources. Sometimes, people fight when things aren't negotiated in a way they like. However economic stratification and exploitation can occur as easily in a small community as they can a large one.

How many people can the world support? Noone knows the answer. How many people can the world support living in a certain way with certain technologies... well that we can make some good estimates about. We also have good estimates on how many people exist now, and how many people are likely to exist in say the next thirty years. I submit that current population and project population are numbers that we have little control over; however we have a much greater control over the way in which those billions will live--atleast in regards to our individual lives.

I'm sorry you feel uncomfortable with where you live now. What makes you feel uncomfortable? I know there are cities that are considerably less dense in population than London (and more ecologically destructive per capita) as well as cities that are more population dense.

We have an ethical responsibility to the environment and animals because we have the ability to reason. Animals have no ethical responsibility. The Environment has not ethical responsibility. Try arguing about your right to life with a shark or a tornado. Animals can experience pleasure... mammals all have oxytocin. The wolf, however, is not concerned about what pain a squirrel might feel.

I think you are too hard on people's capacity for empathy. I think people on average might be a lot more empathic and nicer than you are currently willing to accept them to be.

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You left out opposition to symbolic thought, mediation, and art.

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They all sound nice. Why would a totalitarian green anarchist object to those?

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To be specific, some primitivists object to them. Mostly Zerzan, and mostly as a thought experiment, because arguably even other primates have some symbolic thought. To not have these things, we probably really couldn't even be called humans--and how one would get rid of them is never addressed.

However, the reason they object to them is for the same reason they object to (insert a technology here)--they think it's a slippery slope. The ideology holds that technology and civilization is a totality created by mediation between humanity (the animal) and it's environment. They also hold that our social relationships (statism, patriarchy, stratification, exploitation) are inherent to our material culture and in particular the existence of a surplus. They are opposed to surplus. It is with surplus that one finds time to do things other than only surviving.

You probably should ask a primitivist if you want to know more. It's an ideology I only have score for. If I thought it had a shred of a chance of implementation in even a minor way, I'd have to be hostile to it's proponents. Fortunately for everyone involved--I simply can't take them seriously. I think noone else should either.

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I didn't realize there were "primitivists" for real before Sabotabby mentioned them. of course you get a lot of people dismissing environmentalists as being people who want to make everyone live in mud huts, but I didn't know there really were people who want to get rid of all technology etc. Well, I suppose there are people believing in lots of things, so of course there would be. Do they want to stop apes using tools too?

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Primitivism is a totalitarian ideology. They go beyond just wanting to control what you think--but want to make certain kinds of thinking impossible.

I suspect that many people who are attracted to the ideology have not complicated it's logical consequences.

Misanthropy does not require a concern for ecology. Nor vice versa. Though for some people that overlaps like a Venn diagram. You could toss anarchism into that Venn diagram as well.

People don't need to be nice to be anarchists. Being nice is generally helpful for people getting along and contributing to our collective niceness... but anarchism doesn't require any fundamental change in what makes people human. Arguably, statelesss communal societies have been the predominant social organization among human beings for the last 200,000 years or so--with considerable conflict with exploitive states for the last 10,000 to 500 years depending on geographic location--however given that more people are now alive than have ever been alive and most of them do not live in anarchies... but I'm babbling.

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I think you have to be relatively nice to live sociably in stateless communal societies. Either that or have given up a lot of the individualism we nowadays take for granted. I think people used to living in big cities and within a state would not have developed the characteristics needed for living in a cooperative, communal society. It would require much adjustment or education or something even if it is natural for humans. It is difficult to know what is ideal - when I watch lovely program Tribe (amazing cool program where man visits cool tribes) it always strikes me and horrifies me seeing how insular and restricted the people's lives are and how narrow minded they are. Not all of them, of course, but it does make me think eek do we need particular world views and mindsets to be able to live in particular conditions and types of society, wah. And if so, who does the educating and who wants what and would people really agree and cooperate with one another?
I still think Kropotkin-style communities would be lovely, though. With nice libraries.

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I guess it depends on how you define "nice".

Cities and states do not function without people, generally speaking, being cooperative (in the broad sense of the word, not the economical arrangement). I'm afraid I don't think that you've made much of an argument that people living in big cities don't know how to share. May I ask where you live?

To get back to the substance of our disagreement on small communities versus large ones, I think I'll quote Bookchin:

"integrally the confederal association of cities and towns is part of the development of a free, ecologically oriented society. Localism, in the narrow sense of a virtually autarchial locality that aspires to "self-sufficiency"--in the sense so popular in the ecology movement today--could easily produce a parochialism notable for such evils as racism, cultural insularity, and a stagnant traditionalism. Conceived localistically, municipalities would be as regressive as authoritarian nation-states."
Bookchin, Urbanization Without Cities

"It is a troubling fact that neither decentralization nor self-sufficiency in itself is necessarily democratic. Plato's ideal city in the Republic was indeed designed to be self-sufficient, but its self-sufficiency was meant to maintain a warrior as well as a philosophical elite. Indeed, its capacity to preserve its self-sufficiency depended upon its ability, like Sparta, to resist the seemingly "corruptive" influence of outside cultures (a characteristic, I may say, that still appears in many closed societies in the East). Similarly, decentralization in itself provides no assurance that we will have an ecological society. A decentralized society can easily co-exist with extremely rigid hierarchies. A striking example is European and Oriental feudalism, a social order in which princely, ducal, and baronial hierarchies were based on highly decentralized communities. With all due respect to Fritz Schumacher, small is not necessarily beautiful.

Nor does it follow that humanly scaled communities and "appropriate technologies" in themselves constitute guarantees against domineering societies. In fact, for centuries humanity lived in villages and small towns, often with tightly organized social ties and even communistic forms of property. But these provided the material basis for highly despotic imperial states. Considered on economic and property terms, they might earn a high place in the "no-growth" outlook of economists like Herman Daly, but they were the hard bricks that were used to build the most awesome Oriental despotisms in India and China. What these self-sufficient, decentralized communities feared almost as much as the armies that ravaged them were the imperial tax-gatherers that plundered them.

At the risk of seeming contrary, I feel obliged to emphasize that decentralization, localism, self-sufficiency, and even confederation each taken singly - do not constitute a guarantee that we will achieve a rational ecological society. In fact, all of them have at one time or another supported parochial communities, oligarchies, and even despotic regimes. To be sure, without the institutional structures that cluster around our use of these terms and without taking them in combination with each other, we cannot hope to achieve a free ecologically oriented society."
Bookchin, The Meaning of Confederalism

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What does he mean about the institutional structures that surround them, in the last sentence? I must read his writings! Sounds interesting.

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He's talking about democracy and communalism as institutional structures; that is established social relationships.

Let me put it another way... a cooperative farm, a single family farm, and a small farm that uses wage exploited labor, and a farm that uses slave labor might all resemble each other in their material components. What's important is not so much the size of the farm, what it plants or what equipment it has--so much the social institution of how people work together.

Yes, you should definitely look into Bookchin. I suspect that he will be far more appreciated in the 21st century than he was in the 20th.

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Education is no guarantee of cooperative, communal or liberatory lives or community. Though who is doing the educating is important, what is probably more important is determining who gets what, when, why and where. People know that society is authoritarian and exploitive. Knowing, apparently, is less than half the battle. Bakunin had quite a bit to say in regards to red intelligentsia who thought their socialism was "scientific".

Kropotkin is a sweety--for an insurrectionary anarchist who advocated using explosives to assassinate the Czar (to whom he was distantly related).

"That we are Utopians is well known. So Utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure shelter, food, and clothes to all--an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose hunger is satisfied."
Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread

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All I remember of studying him, apart from that he seemed nice, is that he escaped from prison in his dressing gown at the signal of a violin playing! I knew someone who met him, an old family friend who died a few years ago in his nineties.

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Kropotkin is getting a lot of respect these days from scientific corners as a naturalist. Steven Jay Gould and Frans De Waal to name two recent admirers. Kropotkin also did quite a study of ethics. Believe me, his daring escape from prison is the least interesting thing about him.

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I still find it hard to imagine people managing to live without laws and cooperatively without smaller social structures to give them a structure of unwritten or unspoken rules instead of laws that they would stick to, such as not stealing from one another or killing one another. I have never imagined anarchism in a huge community or nation - just not sure how it would work. I suppose that's because I've only read as far as anarchists who envisaged small communities.
My own experience of people is that they tend to lack empathy for most people even within their own families, yet alone people from other backgrounds. Not all people of course, but most.
London is a very nice place to live - only it is hard in England to find anywhere without people or buildings in sight. Perhaps it is just a matter of taste, but it would be nice to have areas of wilderness and forests and other forms of life in abundance, not just houses and people everywhere.
Also there are lots of violent and scary people about, but not just in London - villages seem to have their share of them too, and smaller towns in England seem to have more. I suppose I have often put violence and people being horrible down to urban alienation, but then you get horrible people in villages too. I find it hard to believe people could manage without laws to keep such people in some kind of check, although I would like to think that in happier societies people would be happier so less prone to violence.

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pope-guilty.livejournal.com

Those smaller social structures- structures based around cooperation and free association- are what anarchism is, not some inane Mad Max fantasy.

Definitely read some Kropotkin and Bookchin- defining anarchism by anarchists' words instead of by their enemies' is kind of important.

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That's what I was saying - I thought smaller communities were necessary, but now I've been told (see above) that Bookchin says not necessarily so. I have read Kropotkin but not Bookchin, and I don't know any enemies of anarchism who actually know what it is! What I was wondering was how an anarchist community could work on a large scale, with huge populations in huge cities. I can't imagine it, I think because I see human nature as not that naturally cooperative, or perhaps not since it has developed in huge cities under capitalism - people might need readjustment and re educating, and it might be a lengthy process and they might not want it!

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