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The morality and ethics of Anarchism

Apr 16, 2016
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Let's begin with an interpretation of the golden rule:

"This principle of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same principle as equality, the fundamental principle of anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe himself an anarchist unless he practices it? We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not de- clare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor? By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of equality revolts at such an idea." Peter Kropotkin
 
Starstruck said:
Let's begin with an interpretation of the golden rule:

"This principle of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same principle as equality, the fundamental principle of anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe himself an anarchist unless he practices it? We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not de- clare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor? By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of equality revolts at such an idea." Peter Kropotkin

In other words, people hate one another.
I don't mean to sound glib; I once took one of those on-line tests to determine my political point of view. Results showed I was both a socialist and an anarchist.
We've advanced a long way in terms of defining "equality," but we have a long way to go before it's achieved.
 
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the delgados said:
Starstruck said:
Let's begin with an interpretation of the golden rule:

"This principle of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same principle as equality, the fundamental principle of anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe himself an anarchist unless he practices it? We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not de- clare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor? By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of equality revolts at such an idea." Peter Kropotkin

In other words, people hate one another.
I don't mean to sound glib; I once took one of those on-line tests to determine my political point of view. Results showed I was both a socialist and an anarchist.
We've advanced a long way in terms of defining "equality," but we have a long way to go before it's achieved.

it's a way of being in the world not an intellectual exercise.
 
Fundamental freedoms were more perceptible in the old feudal monarchies (especially before the Enlightened Despotism) than under the subsequent regimes. The state was also less powerful, with a lot more counter-powers.

The anarchists should join the monarchists. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said that "Monarchy was an anarchy +1"
 
Starstruck said:
the delgados said:
Starstruck said:
Let's begin with an interpretation of the golden rule:

"This principle of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same principle as equality, the fundamental principle of anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe himself an anarchist unless he practices it? We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not de- clare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor? By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of equality revolts at such an idea." Peter Kropotkin

In other words, people hate one another.
I don't mean to sound glib; I once took one of those on-line tests to determine my political point of view. Results showed I was both a socialist and an anarchist.
We've advanced a long way in terms of defining "equality," but we have a long way to go before it's achieved.

it's a way of being in the world not an intellectual exercise.

"Being" in the world requires some amount of intellectual exercise, no?
 
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aphronesis said:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zh1ckXXJr-Y

hahaha, so much for equality. psst your lability is showing.
Some people don't need all the neurotic intellectualizing to get on with it.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/03/france-terrorism-tarnac-anarchists
http://www.academia.edu/23773911/The_Experiment_of_Friendship_Anarchist_affinity_in_the_wake_of_Michel_Foucault

We're talking about some basic stuff here, not to say simplicity is simple but it doesn't consist of a million words either.
http://naturebatslast.podbean.com/e/nature-bats-last-%e2%80%93-032216/
 
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aphronesis said:
So writing for the guardian or a Concordia degree aren't intellectual exercises? Your romanticised phenomenological sublime is a little more complicated and contradictory than you make it out to be.

Those French intellectuals didn't last long before trouble found them. The long rambling about friendship is a lot of words. Then I provided an example of people that just did it, for decades.
 
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aphronesis said:
Situationists?

Music only through the speakers. No heads.

https://libcom.org/thought/situationists-an-introduction
Resisting any attempts to file their ideas into a static ideology, situationism, the SI called attention to the priority of real life, real live activity, which continually experiments and corrects itself, instead of just constantly reiterating a few supposedly eternal truths like the ideologies of Trotskyism, Leninism, Maoism or even anarchism. Static ideologies, however true they may be, tend, like everything else in capitalist society, to rigidify and become fetishised, just one more thing to passively consume.

"Music only through the speakers. No heads." That depends on the music, if it's that noise you often like to play you're on your own. :p

While the plebs. are arguing theory...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined
 
Starstruck said:
"Being" in the world requires some amount of intellectual exercise, no?

Of course but the most moral/ethical people I've ever known aren't trying to be Aristotle either. Usually they're very simple humans.

I can assure you I'm a very simple human being. According to some, I'm "simple' in more than one sense of the word.
I'm too simple to argue against.
I've spent many years earning a living trying to help others achieve some semblance of equality, but I've learned that some are either a) too busy trying to earn enough money to put a roof over their head rather than keep up with politics; or b) too stupid to listen.
I love the idea of anarchy in the true sense of the definition.
But yeah...
 
"I'm an anarchist and a conservative in measures that are yet to define"

Words by Michel Audiard in Henri Verneuil's masterpiece "Le président", based on the novel by Georges Simenon and pronounced by the great Jean Gabin.

Sort of relate to the George Orwell sally: "I'm an anarchist Tory".

Basically it means an anarchist that does not need the state to respect traditional family value, good neighbourliness, craftsmanship, etc.

I'm kinda close to that. The other Simenon novel "La veuve Couderc" turned into a great film by Pierre Granier-Deferre conveys that spirit very well.
 
Echoes said:
"I'm an anarchist and a conservative in measures that are yet to define"

Words by Michel Audiard in Henri Verneuil's masterpiece "Le président", based on the novel by Georges Simenon and pronounced by the great Jean Gabin.

Sort of relate to the George Orwell sally: "I'm an anarchist Tory".

Basically it means an anarchist that does not need the state to respect traditional family value, good neighbourliness, craftsmanship, etc.

I'm kinda close to that. The other Simenon novel "La veuve Couderc" turned into a great film by Pierre Granier-Deferre conveys that spirit very well.
Kind of like how an atheist doesn't need religion to respect traditional family value, good neighbourliness, craftsmanship, etc.
 
"On the night of Jan. 15, 1919, a group of the Freikorps—hastily formed militias made up mostly of right-wing veterans of World War I—escorted Rosa Luxemburg, a petite, 50-year-old with a slight limp, to the Eden Hotel in Berlin, the headquarters of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division.

“Are you Frau Rosa Luxemburg?” Capt. Waldemar Pabst asked when she arrived at his office upstairs.

“You decide for yourself,” she answered.

“According to the photograph, you must be,” he said.

“If you say so,” she said softly.

Pabst told her she would be taken to Moabit Prison. On the way out of the hotel, a waiting crowd, which had shouted insults like “whore” as she was brought in under arrest, whistled and spat. A soldier, Otto Runge, was allegedly paid 50 marks to be the first to hit her. Shouting, “She’s not getting out alive,” he slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of her head. Luxemburg collapsed. Blood poured from her nose and mouth. Runge struck a second time. Someone said, “That’s enough.” Soldiers dragged Luxemburg to a waiting car. One of her shoes was left behind. A soldier hit her again. As the car sped away, Lt. Kurt Vogel fired his pistol into her head. The soldiers tossed Luxemburg’s corpse into the Landwehr Canal."

The political, cultural and judicial system in a capitalist state is centered around the protection of property rights. And, as Adam Smith pointed out, when civil government “is instituted for the security of property, [it] is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” The capitalist system is gamed from the start. And this makes Luxemburg extremely relevant as corporate capital, now freed from all constraints, reconfigures our global economy, including the United States’, into a ruthless form of neofeudalism.

Democracy, in this late stage of capitalism, has been replaced with a system of legalized bribery. All branches of government, including the courts, along with the systems of entertainment and news, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state. Electoral politics are elaborate puppet shows. Wall Street and the militarists, whether Trump or Clinton, win.

“Capitalist accumulation requires for its movement to be surrounded by non-capitalist areas,” Luxemburg wrote. And capitalism “can continue only so long as it is provided with such a milieu.”

Luxemburg, in another understanding important to those caught up in the pressures of a single election cycle, viewed electoral campaigns, like union organizing, as a process of educating the public about the nature of capitalism. These activities, divorced from “revolutionary consciousness”—from the ultimate goal of overthrowing capitalism—were, she said, “a labor of Sisyphus.”

We who seek to build radical third-party movements must recognize that it is not about taking power now. It is about taking power, at best, a decade from now. Revolutions, Luxemburg reminded us, take time.



In an understanding that eludes many Bernie Sanders supporters, Luxemburg also grasped that socialism and imperialism were incompatible. She would have excoriated Sanders’ ostrichlike refusal to confront American imperialism. Imperialism, she understood, not only empowers a war machine and enriches arms merchants and global capitalists. It is accompanied by a poisonous ideology—what social critic Dwight Macdonald called the “psychosis of permanent war”—that makes socialism impossible.

A population finally rises up against a decayed system not because of revolutionary consciousness, but because, as Luxemburg pointed out, it has no other choice. It is the obtuseness of the old regime, not the work of revolutionaries, that triggers revolt. And, as she pointed out, all revolutions are in some sense failures, events that begin, rather than culminate, a process of social transformation.



“Revolutions,” she continued, “cannot be made at command. Nor is this at all the task of the party. Our duty is only at all times to speak out plainly without fear or trembling; that is, to hold clearly before the masses their tasks in the given historical moment, and to proclaim the political program of action and the slogans which result from the situation. The concern with whether and when the revolutionary mass movement takes up with them must be left confidently to history itself. Even though socialism may at first appear as a voice crying in the wilderness, it yet provides for itself a moral and political position the fruits of which it later, when the hour of historical fulfillment strikes, garners with compound interest.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page3/reform_or_revolution_20160522.

Hannah Arendt also covers some of this ground and the last themes--although from a greater historical distance than Luxemburg and less overtly engaged stance than Hedges. Still her contrast of reform (bureaucratic)/revolution sticks to many US voters today.
 
"On Facebook, a group called Taylor Swift for Fascist Europe has over 18,000 likes. The group's community manager—who remains anonymous— tells Broadly in an email that he wishes "to preserve Europe" through fascism. "Not only has fascism traditionally opposed Marxism, rather than simple opposition to Communism in the spirit of many traditional conservative ideologies, but anti-Marxist principles are at the core of its ideology," he writes. "Only through the destruction of Marxism can Europe be restored to its former glory, and only fascism can ensure this destruction." Although he doesn't believe Swift is "red pilling" the masses, he says he believes that she embodies the Aryan "spirit." "

"Being Aryan is not simply a matter of blood, but it is also a matter of spirit," the community manager writes in an email to Broadly. "Take Kim Kardashian or Miley Cyrus as examples of this: both began their lives with the same Nordic blood that Swift did, but what makes these two degenerates unfit for consideration as fascist icons? It is because, although Aryan in blood, the two are not Aryan in spirit. To be Aryan in spirit is what completes the fascist."

Now, actual fascists adore Swift. The Daily Stormer has published 24 posts about Swift, including "Aryan Goddess Taylor Swift Accused of Racism for Behaving Like an Ape in a Music Video" and "Memification: Top Feminist Calls Taylor Swift a Nazi." As Yiannopoulos points out, blogger Michael Collins worries that Swift has "succumbed" to the "Merchant," which is Nazi code for "Jewish."

"It's incredible really that she's surrounded by these filthy, perverted Jews, and yet she remains capable of exuding 1950s purity, femininity and innocence," Anglin says. "She is the anti-Miley. While Miley is out having gang-bangs with colored gentlemen, she is at home with her cat reading Jane Austen.""

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/cant-shake-it-off-how-taylor-swift-became-a-nazi-idol?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%205/23/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All
 
Re:

aphronesis said:
"On Facebook, a group called Taylor Swift for Fascist Europe has over 18,000 likes. The group's community manager—who remains anonymous— tells Broadly in an email that he wishes "to preserve Europe" through fascism. "Not only has fascism traditionally opposed Marxism, rather than simple opposition to Communism in the spirit of many traditional conservative ideologies, but anti-Marxist principles are at the core of its ideology," he writes. "Only through the destruction of Marxism can Europe be restored to its former glory, and only fascism can ensure this destruction." Although he doesn't believe Swift is "red pilling" the masses, he says he believes that she embodies the Aryan "spirit." "

"Being Aryan is not simply a matter of blood, but it is also a matter of spirit," the community manager writes in an email to Broadly. "Take Kim Kardashian or Miley Cyrus as examples of this: both began their lives with the same Nordic blood that Swift did, but what makes these two degenerates unfit for consideration as fascist icons? It is because, although Aryan in blood, the two are not Aryan in spirit. To be Aryan in spirit is what completes the fascist."

Now, actual fascists adore Swift. The Daily Stormer has published 24 posts about Swift, including "Aryan Goddess Taylor Swift Accused of Racism for Behaving Like an Ape in a Music Video" and "Memification: Top Feminist Calls Taylor Swift a Nazi." As Yiannopoulos points out, blogger Michael Collins worries that Swift has "succumbed" to the "Merchant," which is Nazi code for "Jewish."

"It's incredible really that she's surrounded by these filthy, perverted Jews, and yet she remains capable of exuding 1950s purity, femininity and innocence," Anglin says. "She is the anti-Miley. While Miley is out having gang-bangs with colored gentlemen, she is at home with her cat reading Jane Austen.""

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/cant-shake-it-off-how-taylor-swift-became-a-nazi-idol?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%205/23/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

Anders Breivic? You there?
Serious question for anyone familiar with Norwegian law:
Is Breivic allowed to post messages and create facebook groups while in jail?
 
The French Wikipedia page of Right-Wing Anarchism defines the stream as some violent criticism against a minority of intellectuals, its inefficiency and its dangers. The intellectuals are submissive to the dominant democratic ideology and are meant to consolidate intellectual conformism that is implied by such type of government.

Another source of democratic power that it attacks is the “conformism of crowds”. This “power of the people”, this “fervor of the crowd”, Right-Wing Anarchism rejects as manipulation. It only accepts the “individual revolt”, which opposes any kind of institutional authority or self-proclaimed intellectual authority. That is how Louis-Ferdinand Céline in his “Journey to the End of the Night” shows how he is scorned and thrown sarcasms at by his contemporaries for his supposed “lack of patriotism” when he refused to go to the front during WWI.

What feeds the anarcho-rightist thinking is the revolted individual against an oppressive and alienating society. But the right-wing anarchist also campaigns for a renewal of aristocratic principles. Unlike the individualistic anarchist (Max Stirner, etc.), he does not fight against the “oppression” supposedly implied by the traditionalist morality or by religion. On the contrary, he defends and implements strict moral values in which he firmly believes in (justice, honour, duty, etc.) against a society which denies or perverts them. To human vanity, “imbecility”, ugliness, (I would add: mediocrity), he opposes some kind of loftiness and a deep respect for moral values – often considered right-wing values – which he adheres to.

Right-Wing anarchism was often conveyed in cinema by famous actors, says the Wiki page:

The Swiss actor Michel Simon in “The Two of Us” and “Le bateau d’Émile.
Jean Gabin in “A Monkey in Winter” (based on the novel by Antoine Blondin; Blondin, Audiard & Gabin are three cycling-friendly figures), “God’s Thunder” and most of all “La traversée de Paris”. I might add almost each of Gabin’s post WWII films.
Kurt Russell in Escape From New York and Escape from L.A.

The right-wing anarchist films starring Jean Gabin with dialogues written by Michel Audiard or Pascal Jardin taught me more about society than any sociological works from any university professors whatsoever.

Film critic Jean-François Giré also argued that the Western Spaghetti genre (in particular the Zapata genre) could be considered “right-wing anarchists”. It often features a “redemptor”, a righter of wrongs (like in Giovanni Fago’s “O Cangaceiro”), a disillusioned revolutionary who keep on rebelling against a corrupted bourgeoisie when all former mates had become bandits (like in Sergio Corbucci’s “Gli specialisti”), most of these films have respect for religion and a lot of religious symbolism (like in Carlo Lizzani’s Requiescant, Sergio Sollima’s La Resa dei Conti and Corri Uomo Corri or Giulio Questi’s Se sei vivo spara) and also some acid criticism of the good-thinking “politically correct” intellectual class (Sollima’s Faccia a Faccia).

By the turn of the seventies, the Western Spaghetti genre faded and left the room for the poliziottesco genre (with usually the same actors, as in the Western spaghs such as Tomas Milian and Ray Lovelock and the same scriptwriters too). It would often feature an uncompromising commissar on a personal vendetta against a bandit, defying his own usually corrupt or lax hierarchy. Those films were extremely violent (sometimes gore but not the majority of them), to the point of nihilism sometimes. It all started with Carlo Lizzani’s Bandits in Milan. It influenced the whole Dirty Harry saga and the Death Wish’s in the USA. You can talk of a cross-influence. The later Jean-Paul Belmondo films could also be ascribed to that genre (“Le professionnel”, “Le marginal”, etc.). The Left-wing critic constantly red-baited those films. In particular Enzo Castellari’s High Crime (La polizia incrimina la legge assolve) was accused of “fascism”, “justicialism” or “Idontcarism”.

Personally, I’d love to see some kind of “right-wing anarchist” films in current cinema. I cannot see any. It’s all too dull now. Those were men’s films, with humour, with dignity, with revolts, with frankness, deprived of cheap sentimentality and of beating around the bush. Films for hard persons, men or women. It could include tenderness but it never was dull.
 
the delgados said:
Starstruck said:
"Being" in the world requires some amount of intellectual exercise, no?

Of course but the most moral/ethical people I've ever known aren't trying to be Aristotle either. Usually they're very simple humans.

I can assure you I'm a very simple human being. According to some, I'm "simple' in more than one sense of the word.
I'm too simple to argue against.
I've spent many years earning a living trying to help others achieve some semblance of equality, but I've learned that some are either a) too busy trying to earn enough money to put a roof over their head rather than keep up with politics; or b) too stupid to listen.
I love the idea of anarchy in the true sense of the definition.
But yeah...

I've always understood anarchy as the rule of everyone, which would suit me, but there is the problem of prepotency. Sooner or later this status becomes Orwelian. Aphro's Stones' psychadelia was merely a commercial driven utopia.
 
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rhubroma said:
the delgados said:
Starstruck said:
"Being" in the world requires some amount of intellectual exercise, no?

Of course but the most moral/ethical people I've ever known aren't trying to be Aristotle either. Usually they're very simple humans.

I can assure you I'm a very simple human being. According to some, I'm "simple' in more than one sense of the word.
I'm too simple to argue against.
I've spent many years earning a living trying to help others achieve some semblance of equality, but I've learned that some are either a) too busy trying to earn enough money to put a roof over their head rather than keep up with politics; or b) too stupid to listen.
I love the idea of anarchy in the true sense of the definition.
But yeah...

I've always understood anarchy as the rule of everyone, which would suit me, but there is the problem of prepotency. Sooner or later this status becomes Orwelian. Aphro's Stones' psychadelia was merely a commercial driven utopia.

i view it as the same old dream of a tribal/clan (150 people or less day to day) existence whereby personal responsibility makes everyone stronger to survive. Skills are past on as a matter of course (your old age depends on it as much as the younger generation). Autonomy and collective responsibility are a confluence. very few of us live in that sort of community these days obviously. Those that do are remote and overwhelmed by the natural world still; hardship and freedom are still the binary rather than comfort and security.

Still, it's a worthwhile thorn in the side to the hierarchical, patriarchal zoo we're accustomed to.
 

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