@obi, you seem to be overworked. Again, I do not agree with Hobbes or his State of Nature myth. And when I refer to anarchy, I'm not talking about a state of nature, I'm talking about a new means to structure society but without a State. And I think you're wrong about which is the "true" meaning. Anarchy is simply the absence of a state, with no defined prejudice about the outcome. What you refer to, I would call chaos. But human relationships in a group are never chaotic.

@mcbry:

"And when I refer to anarchy, I'm not talking about a state of nature, I'm talking about a new means to structure society but without a State."

I don't know if that can really BE...structured society in some manenr without a State/government? I'd see that as a contradiction; "structure," to me, in the context of discussing society, seems to imply government and, thus a State of some kind, otherwise, how can you structure? Wouldn't any structure impose limits and thus not be total freedom which, as we've already established, is synonymous with anarchy?

You haven't established anything. And anarchy is not synonymous with total freedom, which as you seem to want to conceive it does not, cannot and will not ever exist. We can imagine a particle floating in a limitless vacuum, but it doesn't exist. Strictly and scientifically speaking, even chaos tends to organize itself, sometimes to an extreme, think of a hurricane and the flapping of a butterfly's wings. Reality will always impose itself upon us, or if you prefer a happier metaphor, reality will always already have given itself to us. When I used the word "structure" I meant it in it's least structured sense (perhaps I should have used the verb "organize"), that of more-or-less naturally occurring relationships that social animals generate from below, that is from the very nature of their existence. I do NOT mean an overarching and rigid system which separates itself from the people, uses the people, keeps secrets from the people, orders and rules the people, imposing itself upon them from above.

@obi:

The posts where I summerized your view on dogma and you said I got it right, although you were addressing orathaic because you thought he was the one posting them.

'no matter which idea you believe is "best,"' - exactly in your point, you have admitted this idea of some 'best' is a belief.

Ok, if there is no way to work out what is best yet you have the ability to compromise between to competing 'ideas' - neither of which is best, the pure ideology of capitalism develops a 'me, me, me' culture while the pure socialist state lacks all the benefits of self-interest which capitalism takes advantage of.

To find a system which practically is 'best' you have to ditch these limited beliefs and take advantage of the 'good' in each idea, which was my suggestion of a 'fusion'. Now my solution did assume that the cost of metering your water was negligible... but other than that offers a measurably better solution than either of the 'ideological' solutions.

My point is that by getting stuck into an ideology which you deem to be 'best' your dogma limits your ability to understand alternative points of view and see the useful parts of their ideas, and without compromising your ideals you can't work towards a better solution. (if the solution you offered was obviously better then you'd simply convince everyone else of this fact, and there would be no need to compromise..)

also you mixed up me and baumhaeuer... but i ignored your responce because you were responding to points he made.

@Mcbry - i think we've on the same page when it comes to 'the state of nature' myth. (though i called it bullshit not a myth...)

@mcbry:

I don't mean that that total freedom is inattainable or does not exist, in fact, I just said how it can, does, and will exist--anarchy IS total freedom. By definition, an absence of rules--which IMPEDE and LIMIT your freedoms--would seem to allow you to be totally free if, as we generally hold in the West, all human beings, perhaps all living beings are naturally born free. The only natural limit to freedom that I can see is causalality and the question of whether freedom/free will actually exists; that, however, considers the issue in a rather different philosophical light, and so I set that aside...so yes, total freedom does exist, it's anarchy and anarchy by definition, as if rules, governments, or any kind of organization impedes one's freedom to act in any way, they therefore impede freedom; anarchy is the state of being in which there is NOTHING to limit or control or impede or ogranize, and so all are absolutely free.

In addition, I'd suggest that your statement that we may have organization and still retain total freedom and/or anarchy is incorrect for the reasons I've just given: if you organize, then by definition you categorize and, generally, institute some sort of rules which make those categorizations and the organization as a whole stick, so even if the only organization you have is the DKPF (Don't Kill People Foundation) and the only rules is...well, you can probably guess, you have limited a natural freedom of man, ie, to kill, and therefore you have taken away TOTAL freedom...we'd still be very much free, but not in total freedom.

@baumhauer:

All I see is orathic's response on THAT subject...repost/restate quickly what it is you want me to respond to, and of course I will...but I just don't see where you're saying that, all I see is orathic and possibly mcbry speaking about that...

@orathic:

SOME "bests" are belief, yes.

I don't believe that this is one of them, however, for as I already said, philosophy's nature strikes a balance between art and science, and more artistic, abstract ideas (ie, "What is the meaning of being?") may be subjective, whereas something that is more concrete and has more concrete applications (ie, "What is the best form of government, or is anarchy preferable to government?") is, in my view, a topic that DOES have a "best" answer, just not one we have found yet, and that we won't find it via compromise alone...experimentation, maybe, but ONLY as a means to a further, absolute end.

The only abstract, artistic notion I see here is the idea of "freedom," which CAN be said to be an abastract idea, but as we've pretty well defined what we mean by freedom already, I don't see where subjectiveity is neeeded if we already agree on the basic idea of what we mean by "freedom" as it is...

@obi: So what, you think in Anarchy you can fly like a bird? You think an anarchist is somehow freed of the laws of physics? He can grow vegetables in the winter as in the summer? He can live in difficult climates without any concern for clothing or shelter? Socially, you think in anarchy there aren't consequences if you walk up to someone and slap them in the face or snatch the hotdog they're eating out of their hand? You think in anarchy people won't live in groups with naturally occurring hierarchies of influence which make decisions and provisions that are relevant to the group?

You're not following me at all, I'm afraid. There is no such thing as total freedom. You are wrong about the existence of absolute freedom, and you are therefore also wrong that Anarchy is a condition of living in absolute freedom. Contrary to what you are expressing here, Anarchy is simply the absence of government, but that does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that you are completely free to do what you want without regard to the consequences of your action. If anything, there is an increase of responsibilities and pressures, because you are directly accountable to the others in your group, not by some distant and non-interfering government that only gets involved when you do something wrong. In Anarchy, you are still bound by your personal physical, intellectual, and social limitations. You are bound by the laws of physics and the conditions of the natural environment: You have to make provisions to meet your basic needs. In Anarchy you also presumably would have contact with other people, unless you expressly decided to avoid it. When you have contact with other people and particularly if you are a member of a group, there are certain mores which you must respect. Simply in order to live in a group and receive the benefits of the group, you must meet the group's expectations for appropriate social behavior, and undoubtedly you will be expected to contribute to the group's prosperity. If you do not, the group might try to help you change, but if this is deemed impossible, they might ostracize you or otherwise punish you, or even kill you if you are deemed to be a threat to the group. You might imagine that in anarchy you are free to take something from someone else, but that is not the case. You will have to trick or overcome the individual and the group to which the individual belongs. If you murder someone, there will obviously be consequences, just like there are consequences for your actions under a government. The difference is that in a government, the consequences are administered from above, violence is the reserved sphere of the government, as is determination of guilt and punishment. In anarchy, the consequences come directly from the people themselves, and in all things, the individual is still answerable to the group.

AH!

OK, I'm sorry, mcbry, I thought we meant something by "total freedom."

I spoke of "total freedom" and "anarchy" as being totally and utterly free ONLY within the confines of conventional physics and the like, I',m not suggesting that a state of anarchy and, shall we say, total hUMAN freedom will allow said human to fly like a bird or spontaneously turn into a paperclip, only that he'll be totally free to dpo all that man can naturally do by the natural laws of humanity and physics and the like.

And on the subject of consequences--yes, those are an inevitable part of even the most basic aspects of causality.

But, again, I only mean to speak of "freedom" and "anarchy" in the conventional human sense, ie, not violating any laws of physics, and so my point is that while there will ALWAYS be a consequence, and only that "consequence" in the punitive, government-based sense of the word may be avoided in human anarchy as, without government, there are no such punitive, governmental consequences...there are still consequences, but not THOSE consequences, so to speak.

no, obi, there are punitive consequences too, Obi because there is still interaction with other humans and group dynamics. The only thing that changes is the source of the consequences.

But "pnitive" is derived from "punishment," and THAT can only ably be carried out by a body, ie, a government.

In a state of anarchy there's no punitive consequences, simply one person against another...I might try and attack you if you stab me in the leg, but that's not a "punishment" for that action, but rather merely a reaction elicited by my will to survive.

Punitive action, ie, a punishment, also seemingly suggests a standardized consequence--ie, 25-life for all murderers of a certain degree--and that simply cannot be in a state of anarchy, there is no "standardization" as there is no standardizing, organizing norm to do so, and if there IS then it ceases to be anarchy and becomes at the very least a rudimentary government,a s that's one of the first functions of any government, to protect its populace, often by standardizing and carrying out punishments for transgressions.

In a state of anarchy we still DO interact with other human beings.

But as our actions are not in any way standardized and the same with our consequences, we cannot say that the consequences of said actions are punitive; at MOST they are revengist consequences, but these are natural and born out of a will to survive, and so are not really punitive, I'm not punishing you so much as I am trying to ensure my survival.

Punitive consequences do NOT follow necessarily from human interaction--consequences of SOME KIND do, but not punitive consequences.

OK, obi. This state of nature that you're describing, can it exist? Consider a family. It has or can have clear rules, a system for administering justice and punishing infractions. Is it a government? Are there no families in a state of nature? Get the whole clan together and what happens? They divide tasks and become more efficient. When one member misbehaves or doesn't do his part what happens? He or she gets PUNISHED. It's not a matter of survival, it's not a matter of revenge, it's a matter of CORRECTING an anti-social behaviour. Is it government? Maybe. When does it become a government? When the power to make decisions for the group is located in one or a few. Then you have a clearly identifiable separation of government and subjects. Is it possible to prevent this level of organization in a group? Yes. The group decides to guarantee that each eligible member of the group (maybe children will be excluded for obvious reasons) has an equal voice in the decision making. Thus a locus of power is avoided. There will still be more intelligent or more charismatic members who exert a natural influence, but when it's time to make a decision, everyone has an equal voice. This is anarchy.

> i think you'll find this is direct democracy (as opposed to the representative kind we practice today)

That's right, ora. now google "direct democracy anarchy" and see what you find.

Nietzsche loathed anarchism and anarchists, he considered it the ultimate political philosophy of the herd. From Beyond Good and Evil. So please read Nietzsche in his before selectively quoting him.

"I am morality itself and nothing else is morality!" Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured and flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things have reached such a point that we always find a more visible expression of this morality even in political and social arrangements: the DEMOCRATIC movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. That its TEMPO, however, is much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones, for those who are sick and distracted by the herding-instinct, is indicated by the increasingly furious howling, and always less disguised teeth-gnashing of the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the highways of European culture. Apparently in opposition to the peacefully industrious democrats and Revolution-ideologues, and still more so to the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-visionaries who call themselves Socialists and want a "free society," those are really at one with them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every form of society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of repudiating the notions "master" and "servant"—ni dieu ni maitre, says a socialist formula); at one in their tenacious opposition to every special claim, every special right and privilege (this means ultimately opposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no one needs "rights" any longer); at one in their distrust of punitive justice (as though it were a violation of the weak, unfair to the NECESSARY consequences of all former society); but equally at one in their religion of sympathy, in their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the very animals, up even to "God"—the extravagance of "sympathy for God" belongs to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and impatience of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or ALLOWING it; at one in their involuntary beglooming and heart-softening, under the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new Buddhism; at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL sympathy, as though it were morality in itself, the climax, the ATTAINED climax of mankind, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of the present, the great discharge from all the obligations of the past; altogether at one in their belief in the community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and therefore in "themselves."

"but when it's time to make a decision, everyone has an equal voice. This is anarchy."

But everyone does not have an equal voice. Has anyone spent time working in an anarchist organization? They operate on the principle of consensus, believing majority rule to be "authoritarian". So an individual can block any decision made by the group. It is completely dysfunctional. Authority is always needed in order to coordinate anything. The only "freedom" we have ever enjoyed has come as a result of authority, not voluntarism.

And the Spanish anarchists were a joke. They attempted to overthrow the Republican government in the middle of a civil war. The hilarious part is they assassinated their hero Durutti for wanting to collaborate with the Communists against the Fascists.

@Putin: in that kind of democractic system, one person holds the pwoer to stop the group from any action.

I beleive an anarchy is one where every person has the right to go and do what the want (or any majority to go and act collectively if they want) and the minority or individual can oppose them if he/she wishes.

This is the freedom of an anarchy- in our world people are free to abide by majority rules, or free to improson each other for breaking those agreements... it's much the same if you ask me.

Yes but what anarchists never learn is that in life you cannot always do and get what you want. You need to abide by the will of the community and the law, even when you don't agree with it. If every person has to get their own way 100% of the time society cannot function.

mcbry gives a good account of anarchy. It's great to have a more lucid proponent here. =)

"But what if the community as a whole is an ass? What if people don't feel like
doing something, even though it would behoove them to do so? What if the
community consists of a bunch of people who would prefer bags of money to
a functioning society?"

It wouldn't be a community then. Society does not exist if its agents are all assholes, there's no cooperation, and therefore no incentive to concentrate population if you can't reap the rewards of mutual cooperation. Assholes can only exist as a minority in any productive society, as leeches that slip through the cracks of social enforcement.

"When does it become a government? When the power to make decisions for the group is located in one or a few. Then you have a clearly identifiable separation of government and subjects. Is it possible to prevent this level of organization in a group? Yes. The group decides to guarantee that each eligible member of the group (maybe children will be excluded for obvious reasons) has an equal voice in the decision making. Thus a locus of power is avoided. There will still be more intelligent or more charismatic members who exert a natural influence, but when it's time to make a decision, everyone has an equal voice. This is anarchy."

How large of a group can this feasibly extend to? The logistics of direct democracy become more and more problematic as you increase the size of the group. Concentrating the decision making process to a few makes sense within the context of specialization, as it does with other functions. It is logistically much easier to run a representative democracy than a direct democracy as populations rise.

"It's not a matter of survival, it's not a matter of revenge, it's a matter of CORRECTING an anti-social behaviour."

This may be true of intragroup behaviours, but when it comes to intergroup interactions revenge is a very significant motivator of violence and exploitation. Amongst modern hunter gatherers, male mortality is for the large part due to intermale violence, which is itself in large part due to cycles of vendetta (I kill you because you killed my brother who killed your cousin who killed my uncle, etc.).

I suppose one of the main practical obstacles to anarchy is indeed the nature of intergroup relations. It is my personal intuition that even if anarchy were the morally superior form of politics (and the argument can definitely be made), it would not be sustainable because neighbouring communities who do adopt government and reap the organizational benefits are liable to kill off or displace their anarchic counterparts. Perhaps this is the source of your contempt for realist IR theory? Incidentally, this is also why I believe that true communist and true laissez faire economies are so rare and fleeting.

"Yes but what anarchists never learn is that in life you cannot always do and get what you want. You need to abide by the will of the community and the law, even when you don't agree with it. If every person has to get their own way 100% of the time society cannot function."

I don't think that's a fair assessment of anarchy. You seem to be tackling the anarchy espoused by bored teenagers from the banlieues around Paris who vandalize and graffiti because they're tired of their parents telling them what to do. There is a legitimate political ideology behind anarchy, and while I personally do not agree with it, nor do I view it as practical, I can at least recognize it as a legitimate vision. You have a talent for rhetoric though. =)

"It is logistically much easier to run a representative democracy than a direct democracy as populations rise." - and while in greek city-states this may have limited direct democracy to ~3,000 individuals actually able to fit into the one room to argue (order of magnitude estimate) in this modern age of information technology it is easier to virtually gather 100,000 people...

Well, now I suppose we may consider the can of worms that is anarchy to be properly opened. And to be honest, there are many veins of anarchy that I cannot abide. So all of the criticisms that Putin makes I accept as true, with the caveat that as one might expect from a class of political thought that calls itself anarchy, there is little to be found in the way of agreement beyond the absence of the state, the upshot of which is that there are some schools with which I do find myself in agreement.

So do not think you can just grab the word anarchy and pop off it's headless head at one fell swoop like the communists quite literally did in the Spanish Civil War. I think it is beyond any shadow of a doubt that the infighting on the left doomed the Republic far more surely than any fascist general or the intervention of Italians and Germans. That doesn't mean there weren't traces of great ideas to be found if you try to sift through the rubble. I've only scratched the surface myself but found sentiments worthy of celebrating and even trying to elaborate into fuller systems.

There are even strains of anarchist thought that I dare say Nietzsche could probably stomach. But Putin is quite right to warn against extracting loose quotes from Nietzsche and using them piecemeal. Then, of course, he goes and does that very thing and not for the first time.
What I announced with the phrase "this is Anarchy" should probably be amended to "This too is Anarchy." What I think Nietzsche might like about it is that it requires an awakened herd in order to function, as does any democratic system, increasingly so the more democratic it becomes. Indeed, it practically requires a leap in human evolution, a cornerstone of Nietzschean thought. What would a society of ubermensch look like? That's not to say that anarchy as I described it is impracticable today on a small scale, as per Elinor Ostrom who I mentioned earlier I think in this thread. But it requires a heightened sense of commitment from it's participants and a long slow process. In another thread, I suggested moving the focus of the nation from the national level to the local level, where these ideas can be put into practice immediately. From there, I say optimistically, it seems possible that it can extend upward through the society in increasing scale. It cannot, of course, be applied from the top down. I don't believe in that kind of revolution, the kind Nietzsche so vehemently and rightly criticized. And that's the beauty of it: I believe in it, and the way to put it into effect is to go into the community and participate and try to convince others to do the same. So even if the grand scheme never comes to fruition, I have the satisfaction of involving myself in the improvement of those things which are nearest and dearest to me. And at this point in the digging through the can of worms, I find it prudent to say it is far more productive to go out and get involved in the community than to hash out details on the grand scheme of things.

Thanks for the moral support, Chrisp.

yes, that's a good point regarding the information age, Ora. One that gives me hope. That's part of how I justify spending time in forums like this one. ;-)

"there is little to be found in the way of agreement beyond the absence of the state" - but what is the state?

if it is seen as it's actions then i'm sure those actions will exist in an anarchy (in different forms, and on different scales).
if it is an organisaitonal structure then anarchy begins without those, but they soon begin to develop as people begin to interact (and develop habits which eventually become traditions)

I don't see the point of anarchy except in that it replaces the current sstem with a new one.

The strenght of democracy, in my mind, is that it can replace it's leaders without requiring a revolution. However this provides stability and does not require the population to think when taking part in elections.

I'm coming to the opinion that a revolution is probably a good thing, for a state to 'knock the cobwebs off' - in the same way that a very destructive war tends to encourage growth and rebuilding, with the freedom to apply new knowledge/technology.

So not only do i not believe in Anarchy, as any system of social organisation is not Anarchy (at least in my head, you need to take a new term, like direct democracy) i equally don't beleive our current system is ideal...

There's a qualitative difference between anarchism and a more grassroots democracy.

One advocates for the elimination of all authority - local, regional, national, etc. It believes representative democracy is authoritarian, because it creates a hierarchy of representatives vs citizens and imposes law and authority on the population under its trust. Anarchism operates according to the principle of consensus, because no individual should be forced to abide by any kind of authority against his will.

The other belief, common among Green parties, NGOs, and citizens' groups, advocates for a more participatory polity and more politically active citizenry. They do not oppose authority, but believe it should be as localized and involve as much participation from those affected as possible. Law and government is highly valued. The enemy is not the state per se, but rather a state which lacks legitimacy due to a politically indifferent population.

The latter groups I have some respect for, although I believe the idea of bottom-up government to be not as morally pure and effective as they make it out to be (the case of Kerala, India is an interesting exception, and should be the shining star of the grassroots/participatory democracy movement). The former I consider to be self-absorbed individualists of the worst kind whom I have little to no use for. I have worked with both types in various capacities, as a politically active person of the left. I find the latter much easier to work with, although it's shocking the extent to which those groups are willing to exploit their own people for their 'cause'. [Ralph Nader, for example, is a notorious union buster. Many NGO groups force their workers to work long hours and fire them under the flimsiest of pretenses].

The main problem with community-level democracy is this. Local communities have vast disparities in resources - some having few to none. The more local communities are empowered or carry out greater responsibilities, the greater this disparity will be. You need a strong central government to redistribute and coordinate resources.

Furthermore I think you find that the more local the government, the higher likelihood it is to implement reactionary laws, not progressive ones. Who were the great advocates of regional government and "states' rights"? Typically the most retrograde and reactionary of political forces. Where are we seeing the most ridiculous and absurd laws passed? At the local and state levels, usually. I do not share this faith that the more local the government, the better the results.

Anarchy: here's how I understand the term:

As a pure political system, I understand it to mean that there is no state whatsoever. No police, no army, no taxes, no courts, no civil government of any kind, nothing.

As a philosophy, I understand it to mean that people are inherently good, and if only they could have no external constraints, they would act good and not commit crime and whatnot. Civil government, in trying to control people in order to limit crime, causes it by supressing who we really are. That messes with people and causes crime.

If there were no external constraints, none would be needed.

The above^^ is what I understand of anarchy.


Here's my opinion:

Humans are crappy by nature.
As such, they need to be restrained.
Therefore, a complete lack of restraint, anarchy, is a bad idea.
However, since people are the only options when it comes to who should do the
restraining, authoritarianism, complete control, is also a bad idea. There would
nothing to restrain the restrainers, who are crappy people by nature.
The best mean, then, between the two extreams, would be one in which there were
restrainers who had enough influence to control everyone else, but not too much,
so that they themselves cannot go hog-wild.


In regards to human nature:

One does not need to be unselfish to be self-controled. People will do what they need in order to get what they want. If they have to control themselves, they will do so. Even though self-control is unpleasant, they endure in order to get something that is more pleasant (or, at least, they anticipate to be more pleasant) in the end.
The converse is also true: people will restrain themselves if they are afraid of something negative. People restrain themselves so that they don't go to jail/get executed/whatever. They do this because not getting punished is more pleasant than getting punished.
Finally, they will restrain themselves if they find a functioning society more pleasurable to a non-functional society.
But if this is true, why would civil government be needed? Why wouldn't people restrain themselves for the pleasure of a functioning society? Because they deem having that bag of money right now to be more pleasurable than a functional society.

And that's where governments come from in the first place: if there's ever anarchy, a dis-functional society, people often decide that they prefer a functional society to instant gratification. They set up an enforcement agency, civil government, to act as a curb to criminal behavior.

Of course, people often decide revenge or family ties are more pleasurable than a functional society, hence disfunctional things and places like stone-age cultures or Afghanistan where tribalism rules and getting people together for the sake of the common good is usually quite impossible.

I know that description of human nature leaves a lot of details and nuances out, but I'm writing with just anarchy, authoritarianism, civil government, and the implications that human nature has for them, in mind.


About Buddhism: I don't know enough about it to give a very intelligent answer about the religion/philosophy itself.


About dogma: to paraphrase you, obi:
"Dogma is going to far. You have a right to believe what you want, but don't tell other people what to think."

As a result of the above paraphrase and what you have written, I would say that the essential element of your definition of organized religion is one person/party telling another person/party that the first person/party's religious beliefs are the only true, factually accurate ones.

Did I get you right, obi?

Oh yeah, about freedom vs anarchy:

I would define Freedom as permission/allowance for one to do what one wants.

The good side of Freedom would be Liberty, permission/allowance for one to do to what is good and beautiful and to believe and say what is true. Or, if not good, beautiful, and true, at least neutral.

The Dark Side of Freedom, however, would be Liscense: the permission/allowance for one to do what is wrong.

Anarchy is both sides of Freedom existing at once: no one's stopping you from being good, but no one's stopping you from being what is bad either.

Alright, that was a lot to go through, but doing my best to read them...

@Putin33:

First--for once I haven't pulled the ol' Nietzsche-card yet...I've referenced Hobbes, but that was to mention his classic "state of nature" idea (which I agree with in part) and so mention the reason, form one view, for an authoritarian state.

But to officially whip out the Nietzsche card--from "Thus Spoke Zarathustra":

"State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."
It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
Destroyers are they who lay snares for the many, and call it state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them."

Everyone here knows I love the man's work immensely...

But can anyone here also honestly look at that and, regardless of what he might have SAID, think "Nietzsche didn't despise government?"

And before there's a rush to say "He was only criticizing government of his time". consider that he's--for once--NOT mentioning the "democratic herds" and thus the current government that he loathed so much AND he never mentions Germany or any other state by name here, just making the blanket statement that the state PERIOD was a poison and a trap AND the fact "Zarathustra" takes place in a mythical setting, so there's no hand-waing it away and saying he implied it to be about Germany because Zarathustra must have been in Germany...if anything it seems Zarathustra is speaking out against the little town of "Motley Cow," and if you can find the place on a map to prove Nietzsche was criticizing that oh-so-real government of the Motcowese people specifically and NOT making a blanket comment against the concept of the state as a whole, then please, be my guest, I'd love to see what Motley Cow looks like nowadays...

;)

I personally think Nietzsche hated democracy and dictatorships, but if from THAT you say "he wasn't against all government," I'd ask you if that's really ture...after all, between the end of a dictatorship/monarchy and the other end of a democratic/republican state, what's left for him to like? Also, I'd point out that the man wrote some of the most inflamatory works in the 19th century and in a growingly-unsettling place, Germany--if he'd come out and written completely straight that he was an anarchist or at least had SOME anarchist sympathies, the government very likely would have taken an issue with that...I'm not saying that Nietzsche was an anarchist or that he was officially of that position full-stop, but it seems naive to suggest he didn't agree with SOME of the ideas of anarchism or, perhaps more correctly, that his works didn't give rise to some of the later anarchist ideals.



@baumhauer:

As far as dogma is concerned, yes, that's my feeling on the matter.

As far as a Good Side/ or Dark Side of Freedom goes, however, I must disagree on the grounds...well, I don't think there IS "good" or "darkness" inherent within actions.

ANY actions.

Even murder is not inherently bad--a soldier, after all, kills another soldier in war, and we don't hold it against him. If we claim that it's only murder if he attacked someone who was a civilan, say, and unarmed and didn't attack him, I would then posit the following:

I go back in time to April of 1889 because...well, I like Nietzsche and that was around his last few moments of lucidity, that's reason enough. ;)

But on that trip I get lost and wind up in a small village, and I happen to, on April 20th, come across a home in that village and, realizing where and when I am, and knowing how history will unfold otherwise, at 6:31pm I burst into said home with an axe and chop a little newborn baby's head clear off.

Now...can anyone say that I have committed a "bad" or "evil" action by thusly murdering one-minute-old Adolf Hitler from the village of Braunau am Inn?

To those who say they CAN, that Hitler was just a baby at that time and didn't harm anyone, I might remind you of what was said earlier--that I know, traveling backward through time, what will happen in history otherwise. If I don't kill the blighter, he'll go on to murder 6 million of my people in concentration camps...so he's committing a pretty damn heinious crime agaisnt me if I let him live.

"Why not just tell him what will happen?" And if someone told YOU that you'd grow up to be the dictator of the most heinous society in history and be responsible not only for the moist destructive war in human history and not only for millions dead in such a war but for the near-extermination of an entire people (Yiddish, the language of Eastern-European Jews, was widely spoken in the 19thth century and into the 20th, and in fact it was almost something of a second language of sorts in Germany/Austria as the language is very much a Germanic one with holdovers from the Jews' Hebrew past, and besides that there was a lot of Yiddish-based literature and theatre of that time) would you honestly believe them?

What's MORE, if you lived in a society that would have PRAISED such an action, as Lil' Hitler did, would have been fine with the deaths of millions of Jews and equally fine with a war with France and Poland and possibly England as well, would you be inclinded to CARE or alter your plans even if I told you? Hitler's parents were Anti-Semites, I get the feeling they wouldn't have cared at all, and neither would he! And the Germans and French certainly hadn't gotten on very well, and the same can be said about the Slavs and the Germans--again, I don't see Lil' Hitler crying out "Oh no! I mustn't do THAT!" Even if I told him his regime would fall he'd likely laugh in my face, and with good reason--who in Hitler's you would have believed that in 1945 we'd have gargantuan bombing planes dropping massive bombs, that we'd have bombs that were capable of destroying entire CITIES, and that a sleepy little nation from across the Pond called "America" or something would seriously be a threat and would, with England, crush that regime Hitler wanted?

"OK, then," you say, "but if you go back in time, why kill him? Why must you do that, instead of, say, get him into that art school?"

OK, I have--but I ahd to kick someone out to do so, you see, for as we've all stated over and over again, all actions have consequences.

So I kick out a man named Heinrich Killallthejews. Now, Adolf's happy as can be, making his rather-horrible paintings all day long (actually, I don't know if Hitler was a bad artist or not...was he really that bad, or what?) but HEINRICH is hopping mad, he's going to now go march out and give long-winded rants in the streets and beer halls about how unfair this all is, how if the Jews were gone things would be a lot better, and, upon reading Nietzsche, how OF COURSE Germans are a master race biologically and how the state is wonderful (even though as I just cited ol' Friedrich didn't say that about Germans and called the state a "poison' and a "trap.") And so he joins the fledgling Nazi movement...and years later Mel Brooks writes a musical where one of the musical numbers is "Springtime for Killallthejews." ;)

ANY action I take will ahve consequences.

"AHA!" you shout, "so you admit it! Any action you take will have consequences! And this one is clearly a punitive measure, killing someone for the reasons you are...so how can you say this won't be evil?"

Because it's merely a consequence and it's going to happen. For my action to be "evil" there must be a STANDARD of evil which exists, and there is none unless you want to point to religion, and as I've already mentioned I view that as dogma and thus a fair moral code for you to apply to YOURSELF but not to others...

There is no standard of evil, hence my action was not evil. Notice, however, as a side note, that even when I was "nice" to Hitler and got him into the art school instead of killing him as a baby, there was, again another Hitler-like person, leading me to another point--there are always consequences...but I'm not so sure how much they MATTER. I took away one Hitler from history, and another took his place.

"So why kill Baby Hitler, then?" you ask. "You just admitted that if you do so another figure will, in some form or another, take his place...even it it's not WWII we fight, someone will eventually rise up and take facism to where it went, and kill millions and even practice genocide--if all that will happen at some future date anyway, why kill Hitler?"

I agree--I'm just demonstrating that consequences really don't always matter...but if THAT'S the case, and consequences don't matter, you can hardly call my killing the baby Hitler an evil action as it is merely a consequence of my knowing what he did to six million of my people...if the consequence that led to my killing him doesn't matter, and hence my motivation cannot be called evil (for that reason and for the reason of their not being an objective standard of inherent good or inherent evil, as I've stated) and so my action cannot be called evil, merely an action which may be seen morally one way or the other, but in no way is it evil by definition.

LIKEWISE there is no "Good Side" or "Dark Side" of Freedom--wow, that was a long way back--as, again, 1. the consequences of the actions cannot be verified to be either and 2. there is no objective standard of either.

As a result, there is only FREEDOM, and as we can equate freedom and anarchy on at least some level, it seems senseless to seperate them according to morality.

And as far as anarchy being a "can of worms," it is only so insofar as it produces consequences in its wake...which ANYTHING does...

Also, I WOULD say the "state of nature" can exist, mcbry--after all, unless you are suggesting that we had a government since Day 1 of the human race, we must have gone a certain period living in total freedom and total anarchy without any government...as human beings we still must have communicated, to have sex and to mate and to say "Back the hell off or I'll stab you with this pointy stick," but we didn't have government then, therefore Hobbes' state of nature as a literal reality seems a logical conclusion, we must have had it at some point.

Even besides that, however, Hobbes doesn't mean for it to be a literal idea, he's not saying this really ever occurred (he really couldn't, he already had his life threatened and "Leviathan" burned by the Church for his atheism, if he dared say that we didn't come from Adam and Eve and instead had a state of anarchy at the beginning instead of The Garden of Eden he'd likely have been executed) but rather uses this example as a reason why he believes we should form governments.

Hobes believes people are inately self-interested to the point of being assholes.

I half-agree: we ARE inately self-interested creatures, and everything we do is out of self-interest...even what you might call LOVE, it's all just fulfilling a need (and I'll leave it there unless folks want me to go off on THAT trite idea in full force.)

But we're not dicks because of our self-interest, quite the contrary--the fact that I'm self-interested means every time I donate to charity I'm doing so, in a sense, because I want to feel good and don't want homeless children to go without food to eat on Christmas (or any other day, for that matter.)

The fact that I don't want them to feel pain, that I would care about them as an extension of myself, as I am self-intetested and so, by this extension, interested in the well-being of MY race, the human race, speaks to the empathy of man.

Empathy is my wanting you not to feel pain because it grieves me to see you in pain...how does that seem dickish?