What Anarchy isn't

What Anarchy isn't goes into the details about the misconceptions anarchism suffers from and argues against statism by providing two examples of fictional islands. The island of Anarchia has no central authority with cooperation and organization reigning while Authoritania is essentially the opposite with coercion through law enforcement. This video presents a decent introduction into living without a ruling class and even mentions sociopathic people though not saying that psychopaths rule our world but fwiw it does a pretty good job with its arguments.
 
ajseph 21 said:
What Anarchy isn't goes into the details about the misconceptions anarchism suffers from and argues against statism by providing two examples of fictional islands. The island of Anarchia has no central authority with cooperation and organization reigning while Authoritania is essentially the opposite with coercion through law enforcement. This video presents a decent introduction into living without a ruling class and even mentions sociopathic people though not saying that psychopaths rule our world but fwiw it does a pretty good job with its arguments.
IMO, Anarchia reminds me of many tribes that fall victim to the predatory nations, kingdoms, empires throughout history. That type of governance can work only until a predator arrives to destroy their Adenic wonderland, and seeing as we all live in 'Purgatory', it makes sense that nature would send in some type of goon squad to remind them what Dorothy learned in "The Wizard of Oz'... 'we aren't in Kansas anymore'. Isolation breeds contentment which makes one fall asleep and forget who they are and where they are, thus becoming prey. Is this the type of 'misconceptions' the film discusses?
 
gdpetti said:
IMO, Anarchia reminds me of many tribes that fall victim to the predatory nations, kingdoms, empires throughout history. That type of governance can work only until a predator arrives to destroy their Adenic wonderland, and seeing as we all live in 'Purgatory', it makes sense that nature would send in some type of goon squad to remind them what Dorothy learned in "The Wizard of Oz'... 'we aren't in Kansas anymore'. Isolation breeds contentment which makes one fall asleep and forget who they are and where they are, thus becoming prey. Is this the type of 'misconceptions' the film discusses?

I've only at this point watched the first 8 minutes of the 19 minute video, but it seems to me it does try to address the possible misconception that a de-centralized society could not deal with a predator. In the video, a sociopathic character does arrive on the island of Anarchia, and the cartoon characters all pull out their guns and shoot him. The narrator makes the point that sociopaths don't fear the Law, they fear only the actual exercise of power against them, and this power could still exist in a de-centralized way in Anarchia. She also makes a point that predators at present seem very well able to function within our centralized societies, sometimes in collusion with our governments, and that it might be harder, not easier, for large organized criminal groups to operate in a de-centralized society.

Here’s a definition of anarchism I came across today. It is a bit convoluted, but I think that is because they were trying to include several ideas in their definition, rather than just because they were generating word salad.
With a small a, the word anarchism implies a set of assumption and principles, a recurrent tendency or orientation – with the stress on movement in a direction, nor a perfected condition – toward more dispersed and less concentrated power; less top-down hierarchy and more self-detemination through bottom-up participation; liberty and equality seen as directly rather than inversely proportional; the nurturance of individuality and diversity within a matrix of interconnectivity, mutuality, and accountability; and an expansive recognition of the various forms that power relations can take, and correspondingly, the various dimensions of emancipation. This tendency, when it becomes conscious, motivates people to oppose or subvert the structures that generate and sustain inequity, unfreedom, injustice, and to promote or prefigure the structures that generate and sustain equity, freedom, and justice.
- Maia Ramnath, Decolonizing Anarchism

Quoted in Imminent Rebellion: An Irregular Anarchist Journal from Deep in the South Pacific, Issue 12 (2013). Available online as a PDF (11.2MB file size) here:
_http://www.rebelpress.org.nz/files/imminentrebellion12.pdf
(This issue also has an interesting account of the trial in Germany of some Somali “pirates”, with wider reflections on the background of Somalia’s recent history.)
 
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