Individualism, or "my needs" is typically regarded as this notion of freedom. Mainly because it appropriates individuality, which is very important.
You want to know what the freest society was by individualist standards?
Mussolini's Italy. It had the most liberated individual in the world. Namely, Benito Mussolini.
Along with several others. Saudi Arabia is a great individualist country too. Those Saudi Princes couldn't have more individual rights if they tried. The US, Great Britain, Germany, France, all incredibly individualist. They have individuals in those societies that are so free they're above the law itself.
If you measure freedom by the freedom held by an individual, then every dictatorial nation provides every single liberty possible. It's only worth a damn when everyone has those opportunities and rights.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Thursday, April 6, 2017
balaclavas
So I had an argument with a Unionist about the IRA. This was in the context of the British use of police brutality at IRA funerals. He argued that the IRA were terrorists, and as such it was vital to disrupt all their activities, no matter how benign.
I challenged this, and he made an interesting reply. He argued that if they weren't terrorists, then they wouldn't be attending the funeral wearing balaclavas.
That's the distinction. What made it interesting.
It's not the bombs.
It's not the rifles.
It's not the civilians in the crossfire.
It wasn't the snipers in South Armagh.
It wasn't the Provos in Belfast.
Or even the molotovs in Derry.
No, it was the balaclavas.
Reason for this is because he wasn't talking like a person at this point. He was talking like a state. I wasn't addressing him, he left the picture the second we started discussing. It was his doctrine I addressed. The state speaking through him with ideas drilled into his mind since childhood.
And the state is fine with gunfire, burning, explosions, internment, torture and all kinds of brutality. The state looks the other way when Unionists would detonate pipe bombs targeting Catholic children. They don't care.
So we have the state. Internment camps, firing squads, press censorship, torture, sectarian violence, child abuse, you name it.
Then you have the IRA. They armed themselves and they fought back like a military. I won't pretend as though there is a good side in a war, but they had no internment camps, or press censorship for instance.
But they did wear balaclavas. So that's the terrorism. That's the dividing line that could be fabricated.
But I'd like to assert the following. If someone can't even attend a funeral without feeling compelled to hide their identity in an effort to avoid persecution, then whom, pray tell, is the real terrorist?
I'm writing about this now because the same pattern is being repeated all over the world, with several insurgent groups and resistance forces who are defending their homes from western occupation. From Palestine to Syria. I'm even talking about the Cubans, who drove out the Batista regime. About the Sandinistas and Zapatistas too. They're all in the habit of wearing balaclavas.
And in the words of Fidel Castro: History will absolve them.
I challenged this, and he made an interesting reply. He argued that if they weren't terrorists, then they wouldn't be attending the funeral wearing balaclavas.
That's the distinction. What made it interesting.
It's not the bombs.
It's not the rifles.
It's not the civilians in the crossfire.
It wasn't the snipers in South Armagh.
It wasn't the Provos in Belfast.
Or even the molotovs in Derry.
No, it was the balaclavas.
Reason for this is because he wasn't talking like a person at this point. He was talking like a state. I wasn't addressing him, he left the picture the second we started discussing. It was his doctrine I addressed. The state speaking through him with ideas drilled into his mind since childhood.
And the state is fine with gunfire, burning, explosions, internment, torture and all kinds of brutality. The state looks the other way when Unionists would detonate pipe bombs targeting Catholic children. They don't care.
So we have the state. Internment camps, firing squads, press censorship, torture, sectarian violence, child abuse, you name it.
Then you have the IRA. They armed themselves and they fought back like a military. I won't pretend as though there is a good side in a war, but they had no internment camps, or press censorship for instance.
But they did wear balaclavas. So that's the terrorism. That's the dividing line that could be fabricated.
But I'd like to assert the following. If someone can't even attend a funeral without feeling compelled to hide their identity in an effort to avoid persecution, then whom, pray tell, is the real terrorist?
I'm writing about this now because the same pattern is being repeated all over the world, with several insurgent groups and resistance forces who are defending their homes from western occupation. From Palestine to Syria. I'm even talking about the Cubans, who drove out the Batista regime. About the Sandinistas and Zapatistas too. They're all in the habit of wearing balaclavas.
And in the words of Fidel Castro: History will absolve them.
Monday, April 3, 2017
the science of anarchism
Is anarchism a science? I would like to say it is. People describe it as a praxis, but the scientific process is also a praxis. To understand how anarchism, much like science, is about providing observable results which may be replicated, we most examine the scientific principles that premises social analysis.
First of all, psychology, and the relationship psychology has to evolution. The following is an hypothesis, but it is an hypothesis which could be very important.
Psychology is a relative phenomenon. If we were to imagine a quantification of psychology, then on one side we're looking at stimuli response, and on the other side we're looking at free will.
An insect lacks psychology, and is simply programmed to respond to stimuli in the most basic of ways. It has no memory or self awareness, it simply is.
Whereas a being with memory and self awareness, when faced with stimuli, has the capacity to assess their own situation, and run through information that might be relevant, and then develop a response. We assume this capacity to be free will. However, this also means that our will is only as free as our biological, or possibly psychological limitations.
I believe psychology is an evolutionary measure that arrives to a being capable of travel. That isn't just a static being with perhaps divergent genomes all over the planet, but rather a being who will constantly change environments throughout its life. This is why I believe the habits of our nomadic ancestors is what bestowed us with the most complex psychology on this planet.
So on this quantifying scale, where do we fit? It's impossible to know, because we have no idea to what extents memory and self awareness will actually take us. But I would imagine we're closer to free will than to stimuli response. But what is important is how we're not at full free will.
Things like addiction, fear, hunger, thirst, pain, sorrow and other stimulus would not affect us if we had complete free will. Hunger is not actually dangerous, it is simply a warning of malnourishment that most of us require massive amounts of willpower to freely resist.
So these factors do for a fact govern our lives to one certain margin or other, and will influence our choices. This margin is what we have in common with the insects of the planet.
And I believe this margin is what makes anarchism a science. Because I believe there is a universality in this margin. That, if we establish two societies on opposite ends of the Earth, with the same politics, same culture, and same language, the beings, no matter what ethnicity, will behave identically as a people, and would be able to seamlessly migrate between these two places without naturalisation. The only divergence which would build overtime would be caused by more random factors like natural disasters, conditions of birth, and possible power structures.
But all in all, you would be able to replicate the results of a society. Which is visible. As for instance Canadians and Australians have more in common than perhaps Canadians and Hungarians.
And when anarchism is used as a praxis, we begin to understand these patterns. How language, culture and politics define a people far more than any other factors. Because these three regulate the stimulus we face regularly. Anarchism is therefore the praxis of removing as much of the limitations imposed by stimulus as possible, in order to allow human beings to have a higher free will and have all of their needs met.
And in doing this, one must conclude, that sooner or later there will develop a homeostasis in an anarchist society, which will provide an objective formula for how to make societies in the future.
In this aspect, I would conclude that anarchism is a science.
First of all, psychology, and the relationship psychology has to evolution. The following is an hypothesis, but it is an hypothesis which could be very important.
Psychology is a relative phenomenon. If we were to imagine a quantification of psychology, then on one side we're looking at stimuli response, and on the other side we're looking at free will.
An insect lacks psychology, and is simply programmed to respond to stimuli in the most basic of ways. It has no memory or self awareness, it simply is.
Whereas a being with memory and self awareness, when faced with stimuli, has the capacity to assess their own situation, and run through information that might be relevant, and then develop a response. We assume this capacity to be free will. However, this also means that our will is only as free as our biological, or possibly psychological limitations.
I believe psychology is an evolutionary measure that arrives to a being capable of travel. That isn't just a static being with perhaps divergent genomes all over the planet, but rather a being who will constantly change environments throughout its life. This is why I believe the habits of our nomadic ancestors is what bestowed us with the most complex psychology on this planet.
So on this quantifying scale, where do we fit? It's impossible to know, because we have no idea to what extents memory and self awareness will actually take us. But I would imagine we're closer to free will than to stimuli response. But what is important is how we're not at full free will.
Things like addiction, fear, hunger, thirst, pain, sorrow and other stimulus would not affect us if we had complete free will. Hunger is not actually dangerous, it is simply a warning of malnourishment that most of us require massive amounts of willpower to freely resist.
So these factors do for a fact govern our lives to one certain margin or other, and will influence our choices. This margin is what we have in common with the insects of the planet.
And I believe this margin is what makes anarchism a science. Because I believe there is a universality in this margin. That, if we establish two societies on opposite ends of the Earth, with the same politics, same culture, and same language, the beings, no matter what ethnicity, will behave identically as a people, and would be able to seamlessly migrate between these two places without naturalisation. The only divergence which would build overtime would be caused by more random factors like natural disasters, conditions of birth, and possible power structures.
But all in all, you would be able to replicate the results of a society. Which is visible. As for instance Canadians and Australians have more in common than perhaps Canadians and Hungarians.
And when anarchism is used as a praxis, we begin to understand these patterns. How language, culture and politics define a people far more than any other factors. Because these three regulate the stimulus we face regularly. Anarchism is therefore the praxis of removing as much of the limitations imposed by stimulus as possible, in order to allow human beings to have a higher free will and have all of their needs met.
And in doing this, one must conclude, that sooner or later there will develop a homeostasis in an anarchist society, which will provide an objective formula for how to make societies in the future.
In this aspect, I would conclude that anarchism is a science.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
empathy for the bourgeoisie
If you propose a revolution to a liberal, then first thing they will retort with is "But what of the bourgeoisie? Are they not people too? Have some empathy! Be kind to them for they're just people like us!"
A laughable remark. Because it is the bourgeoisie we empathise the most with. The bourgeoisie hate us, and they will, with every facet of information, with every medium, teach us to hate ourselves. When we try to feel what the oppressor feels, then we feel that hatred. The same hatred they feel for us. We feel doubt in our actions. We feel deserving to be under the boot. We feel ashamed of our humanity. We can thank the bourgeoisie for that.
They rule the world around us, and it is their sentiment of us that is projected through the world. The alienation, the smallness, the constant idealisation of themselves to make us feel inferior by contrast. That is empathy for the bourgeoisie. That is feeling the exact same thing they feel.
They might be human, but all they foster is an inhumanity towards others. To feel what they feel is to feel the inhumanity we always feel. I can't think of a better way to win through to oneself, to understand the value of class warfare, to see the immediate and acute urge to fight and overthrow the bourgeoisie than to empathise with them.
If the bourgeoisie would ever surrender to us and demand mercy, then stay as far away from the sobering reality of empathy as you possibly can. Try to pity them, maybe they're pathetic enough for that to work.
Or don't, they'd certainly have you dead the moment you become an inconvenience, and the liberals demanding nonviolent action would be nowhere to be seen when it's about to happen. Although they might just appear on television afterwards, belting out a vague sentiment of police reforms that they then never pursue. Because liberals have a stake in this matter too. Marginalised and oppressed people killed by the bourgeoisie are a fine pity project for those sanctimonious vultures.
That's why they'd never have you defend yourself, and instead ask that you slavishly surrender to their soothing notions about reformations and referendums that will never see the light of day.
A laughable remark. Because it is the bourgeoisie we empathise the most with. The bourgeoisie hate us, and they will, with every facet of information, with every medium, teach us to hate ourselves. When we try to feel what the oppressor feels, then we feel that hatred. The same hatred they feel for us. We feel doubt in our actions. We feel deserving to be under the boot. We feel ashamed of our humanity. We can thank the bourgeoisie for that.
They rule the world around us, and it is their sentiment of us that is projected through the world. The alienation, the smallness, the constant idealisation of themselves to make us feel inferior by contrast. That is empathy for the bourgeoisie. That is feeling the exact same thing they feel.
They might be human, but all they foster is an inhumanity towards others. To feel what they feel is to feel the inhumanity we always feel. I can't think of a better way to win through to oneself, to understand the value of class warfare, to see the immediate and acute urge to fight and overthrow the bourgeoisie than to empathise with them.
If the bourgeoisie would ever surrender to us and demand mercy, then stay as far away from the sobering reality of empathy as you possibly can. Try to pity them, maybe they're pathetic enough for that to work.
Or don't, they'd certainly have you dead the moment you become an inconvenience, and the liberals demanding nonviolent action would be nowhere to be seen when it's about to happen. Although they might just appear on television afterwards, belting out a vague sentiment of police reforms that they then never pursue. Because liberals have a stake in this matter too. Marginalised and oppressed people killed by the bourgeoisie are a fine pity project for those sanctimonious vultures.
That's why they'd never have you defend yourself, and instead ask that you slavishly surrender to their soothing notions about reformations and referendums that will never see the light of day.
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