Help me respond to "ANARCHY IS CHOAS"

Simple, we don't and can't have "pure" Anarchy such as the individualist you-respect-me-I-respect-you, you-kill-my-friend-I'll-kill-your-friend poppycock. The answers to that are: Anarcho-Syndicalism, Anarcho-Communism, Anarcho-Collectivism, Anarcho-Mutualism, and others.

I'm here trying to justify killing someone over being an idiot. He didn't even spell chaos right. I hope the thread's title is intentional too.

 

Anarchists organize without hierarchy. Point them to historical examples of anarchism in practice, I'm thinking mainly about anarchism in Spain. http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spaindx.html

The idea of anarchy=chaos simply shows a laughable ignorance of political philosophy. (Well, laughable if they are being an asshole about it)

 

Depends what you define as chaos. "One must live chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star."

Chaos as spontaneity is what anarchism should be about, not a well structured party political manifesto.

 

I actually believe Bookchin said something similar to that, cant for the life of me remember the quote

 

to try and define something as complicated as order or chaos i think is beyond human comprehension. respect for one's beliefs is possible to humanly understand, however; as well as having forsight before acting on an emotion or idea. thats just my shitty opinion

 

Well, if you define words however you want...

I try to use the most commonly accepted definition of the word chaos, which most people, myself included, find undesirable.

Post the Bookchin quote if you can find it though, love to hear it.

 

Just tell the dude that anarchy (or many kinds of anarchy) just mean kind of communal living where no one is ranked "above" one another, where no one is in charge.

 

First respond by correcting his grammar. Next use the line "Anarchy means no rulers." Actually those are really only the two things. Just keep in mind Anarchist philosophers rarely leave this question unanswered. Usually Anarchistic writers take a Communist stance in this regard, where society would be governed by an absolute democracy rather than a representative democracy.
In my opinion I think we need to change our mindset to a much more peaceful idea before we should consider the problems of how to handle the violent few (or as William Ayers puts it, "We must form our relationships with each other by trusting and loving one another. That is what brings you security; not locks or guns.").
Hope this helps in some form. If it doesn't feel free to contact me, I can give you a partial reading list with some pacifistic writers --I think that is what you are looking for.--
Peace be with you.

 

My first question would be: on what basis does he make the assertion that "Eventually someone would need to take charge to bring things back to ORDER."?
Ask him to be specific, to use examples. Such sweeping statements, that we need leaders to ensure peace, are purely speculative; just because its his/her opinion does not make it correct.

Moreover, maybe point them to some, say, Machiavelli or Realist theorists, show that it is indeed these political leaders who bring war, chaos, etc.

 

This is the basic argument against anarchism - "human nature" - everyone's telling us that humans are born to rule, they will kill and they will be greedy. Of course they will, but this human nature stuff is bullshit. how can we know it's true if it never happened ? they are talking about past ? what past ? if you're reffering to past, look at the Spanish Revolution, it kinda successeded. What matters is that we see what's wrong with power, government, fascism etc. We all know that it's controling many lifes, also destroying some. This, government, is what I call chaos. Everyone's dying to say his opinisons, but can't. Everyone's trying to do something but fails. It's like, chaos inside of us, inside of every one of us, trying to escepe, to break free but can't, we're holding it. And when the time comes, we will unleash it, and then, after "revolution" something will come.

 

so they're saying that anarchism can work in small groups, but not big ones? What a fucking daft argument.

 

See, it's hard to argue with the scale of several million people (spain)

 

Of course it is. Anarchism is not for everyone (don't get me wrong, it is ! but some are just to brainwashed and can't see the point, or worse don't even try to see it).

 

Just tell him his mom is "choas" and you win. Then Rick Roll him. That's the way of the times. Lulz

 

you could insist he go to lemonparty.org to find out more about anarchy.

 

The same people who revolted against the tyranny of the rich and the government will revolt against any Napolean wanna-be as easily. I'm not saying it's impossible for someone to try and take power, but that's very relative and cannot be predicted, it depends on the society's values and beliefs -if they are strong believers in Anarchism or not-. If they lack any "revolutionary spirit", they'd easily give in, if not then who will said leader lead? A bunch of cows?

As for any counter-revolutionary retaliations, which is very likely, a simple militia on guard duty based on a rota system can be formed, or even the same veterans who fought during the revolution would still fight against any who try to take back the power from the people.

Who said there is no "small council", most Anarchists believe in federalist communes, meaning there would be many communes each with it's own "representative", "messenger", and the likes who would meet with others at a certain "council", that's without stating the major roles of direct democracy and consensus decision making. The representative would be fully recallabe at any given time whenever a community decides to recall him for whatever reason, this severely affects any representative from taking power.

People currently are greedy selfish bastards because that's what they're bred up to be. Since your first days at school they teach you to strive to be better than the rest, to seek your own fortune at the expense of others, and later on in life you experience work which is obviously competition at best. It's you versus the rest, not everyone cooperating for the same common goal to help others, instead they strive to ruin each other for their profit.

As if there aren't massive losses of innocent lives each day, be it due to hunger, poverty, wars, you name it. A little more dead for a certain period won't be as worse as a constantly dying population.

Here are some fun quotes: