academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Antony Sammeroff
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressA reader on Facebook offers the following comments, and asks the following questions.
I’m not so sure how realistic sustained statelessness is without severe technological regression and economic collapse, but the obvious answer is that the vast majority of people would rather bask in the lazy comforts of delegated responsibility than take on the burdens and risks of freedom. The mantle of anarchism is often taken up as an immature pose that is rationalized after the fact, usually quite badly, before being discarded with age for whatever underlying tribal affiliation existed in the first place. It’s a knee-jerk rebellion against constraints on the self, for good or ill, and a justification for engaging in unreasonable or criminal behaviors whose motives are ultimately more personal than political.
That being said, ATS/pan-secession, and perhaps some of the National Anarchists, seem to be the only contemporary anarchists worth their salt, with their heads in the game, the right set of priorities, and a strategic vision that is at least conceptually viable. All universalisms are tyrannical and one man’s utopia is another man’s hell. The best shot anyone has of carving out autonomous zones with whatever fringe, experimental economic paradigm or radically altered social order is through either some kind of hard federalism, or the dissolution of these giant continental empires to blocs of more reasonable size. I’m not really convinced that a real pan-secession movement would achieve anything resembling anarchy, though some areas may certainly be less restrictive. It would almost be worth it though anyway for the sheer thrill of the glorious, monumental clusterfuck such a movement could cause.
The question is, with so many unsatisfied with the current order, including many self described anarchists, why does no one seem to give a shit about your quite reasonable prescription? An idea ahead of its time? Lefty lobotomization by slave morality infused SJWism? Right wing denial that they will never wrest the state leviathan from technocratic neoliberalism or resurrect their dying traditions in this milieu? The state is the primary antagonist against both of these groups in many ways. Who is stopping lower income p.o.c. from resisting gentrification or alt-righters from walling off their cascadian whitopia? The state. Who sticks the guns in your face if you can’t pay your rent or propagandizes young children in legally mandated schools or makes unmolested living impossible with inescapable property taxes even if you own land outright? The state. You’d think anti-authoritarians and freedom lovers of all stripes would have enough common ground for a truce in favor of going after a common enemy. But you’d apparently be wrong.
One potential shortcoming of your approach from a sales perspective, is that you spend a lot of time talking about how under pan-secession, every extremist, kook, and cultist under the sun gets their own little slice of the pie, which sounds fair enough to me, but not alot of time elaborating on the specific attractive alternative possibilities this would open up (I mean maybe you have somewhere, I’m just not familiar).
What would life look like in Keith Preston’s little fiefdom after ATS wins, with D.C. in flames and the ATF and National Guard units waving white flags of surrender? Why would I want to live there? And why is that worth whatever insane levels of struggle and sacrifice against impossible odds it takes to get from a to b? That’s what’s gonna grab the people by the cahones, not necessarily the centrist “let’s just let everyone do their own thing, man.”
Legit curious on that one. I feel right wing libertarians put too much emphasis on negative freedom alone, with lefties over-preoccupied with positive freedom and equality. Some form of mutualism might be the sweet spot.
Here is my response.
I know some anarchists who believe such a “severe technological regression and economic collapse” will happen at some point in the future, and who embrace ideas such as anarcho-primitivism as a response. But it is obvious that such a perspective does not have mass appeal, and it therefore pointless to hold up this idea as a primary propaganda point. It is also clear that for many anarchism is indeed a kind of “pose” that ultimately gives way to a particular tribal affiliation, and which is often an inclination of the individual’s psychological predisposition as much as anything else. That’s also obvious enough.
The reader asks:
The question is, with so many unsatisfied with the current order, including many self described anarchists, why does no one seem to give a shit about your quite reasonable prescription? An idea ahead of its time? Lefty lobotomization by slave morality infused SJWism? Right wing denial that they will never wrest the state leviathan from technocratic neoliberalism or resurrect their dying traditions in this milieu?
Every one of these is a reason why there has yet to emerge any significant degree of interest in practical alternatives to “the system.”
You’d think anti-authoritarians and freedom lovers of all stripes would have enough common ground for a truce in favor of going after a common enemy. But you’d apparently be wrong.
Another problem is that most radicals are more like cultists that are just about keeping out those who are impure in doctrine than actually achieving anything in the real world. At present, the rivalries between different political camps are more like rivalries between fan of different football teams or science fiction franchises (Star Trek vs Star Wars) than rivalries between different camps of actual revolutionaries.
One potential shortcoming of your approach from a sales perspective, is that you spend a lot of time talking about how under pan-secession, every extremist, kook, and cultist under the sun gets their own little slice of the pie, which sounds fair enough to me, but not alot of time elaborating on the specific attractive alternative possibilities this would open up (I mean maybe you have somewhere, I’m just not familiar).
What would life look like in Keith Preston’s little fiefdom after ATS wins, with D.C. in flames and the ATF and National Guard units waving white flags of surrender? Why would I want to live there? And why is that worth whatever insane levels of struggle and sacrifice against impossible odds it takes to get from a to b? That’s what’s gonna grab the people by the cahones, not necessarily the centrist “let’s just let everyone do their own thing, man.”
I am hesitant to offer prescriptions for future political arrangements because I am more about ending the state’s monopoly for the purpose of opening up competition where rival teams can form whatever experimental systems they wish. As for the more practical aspect of my approach, lately I have become interested in the startup societies idea, which is the closest thing I have seen yet to a movement to actually implement the kinds of stuff I talk about, in a way that is not merely about advancing an ideological perspective but actually engaging in practice efforts to implement a range of competing futuristic perspectives. The comments from an anarchist blogger than are cited in the “Vision and Wisdom” section of the ATS statement of purpose are also interesting as well.
Legit curious on that one. I feel right wing libertarians put too much emphasis on negative freedom alone, with lefties over-preoccupied with positive freedom and equality. Some form of mutualism might be the sweet spot.
I share these criticisms of both the libertarian-right and libertarian left. Too many on the libertarian right are “anarcho-Republicans” and too many on the libertarian left are “anarcho-Democrats.” I also have strong mutualist sympathies in the economics realm, though I don’t consider this to be compulsory or mandatory. Instead, I prefer to see competition between Ancapistans, communes, eco-villages, or mutualist federations in order to determine which team turns out to be the best in the long run.
Attack the System
Categories: Activism, Anarchism/Anti-State, Left and Right, Strategy
Wherever has the recreational nukes.
Perhaps all you anarchists can explain how any society can exist without government? Who paves the roads? Who maintains the grid? How do you plan on making electricity by yourself? Do you want to live in the woods, hunting and fishing? Growing all your own food? Do you believe you’ll have the internet and the highway system without a government?
The Libertarians say they want to privatize these things. No. I don’t want the infrastructure in the hands of Rich Robber Barons. Do you want some rich goofball telling you that you have to pay a toll to drive on his road and that people he doesn’t like cannot use it?
WHAT KIND OF SOCIETY IS THAT?
That is how our own ancestors lived. That is how hundreds of other societies around the world live currently: the Eskimos, the Kalahari Bushmen, the Khoisan tribe, you name it.
These societies do have a sustainable “Government”. Chimps have a leadership without the use of electricity.
As for growing your own food, have you heard of permaculture? You can grow your own shop in your backyard, and it’s free.
You are talking about primitivism. Your ancestors had no electricity, they had no modern medicine, or reliable transportation. They had starvation and disease. They had to fight off attackers by themselves. Often they were raped and killed and no one would bother to look into it, due to no laws or policing. Do you really believe most people want to live in such a primitive and dangerous manner? All of you have had it fairly easy under the Aegis of Western Civilization. Go and travel to the Third World to places like Somalia and see what anarchy and no rule of law ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE. You won’t like it, I expect.
Have you read “Germania” by Tacitus? Or “Industrial Society and Its Future” by Ted Kaczynski? or “Sparta and Its Law” by Europa Soberana?
Somalia is a very poor example as they are not actually living in primitive communities. They live the way they do because it is an African country and despite the aid that the 1st world is trying to give them, they are too stupid to do anything with it.
Compare this to the way that the Eskimos live currently, or the Native Americans, or the Scandinavians in the Viking Age, or the Spartans, the Republican Romans.
Yes, life was harder, but as you’ll find, the Human spirit was still in open flame. The product of High Technology has been sick and degenerated people. We now have pornography, drug-use, gambling, transsexualism, the promiscuity of both genders, serial killers, and school shooters.
At least in my opinion, those have all been created in some way by High Technology.
The idea of living without High Technology is frightening to most people, because they understand that they rely on it to such an extent that in its absence, they will not be able to cope, and thus, many people will die.
But that is Nature: A struggle for existence and domination. High Technology works against Nature, and as a result, Human Beings will pay for it.
To better understand the position, you can listen to an audio reading of “Industrial Society and Its Future”, and everyone reading this should definitely look into the Spanish blogsite Europa Soberana.
Isn’t Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber? You’re saying you hate technology on the internet? How are you even able to post if this is true? You cannot blame technology for decadence. Decadence preceded technology by millenia you will find. Decadence is more influenced by lack of morals and large fortunes really. People who have no core values and traditions and have a lot of time on their hands inevitably slide towards perdition. Its not inevitable, but predictable.
“Isn’t Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber?”
Yes.
“You’re saying you hate technology on the internet?”
I never even implied it.
“Decadence preceded technology by millenia you will find.”
I am not saying you are false, but I would like some examples please. Plus, you cannot deny the fact that such decadence was in extremely low levels and almost unheard of. Only after High Technology (post industrial) do these things become more and more into the open. In my opinion, this is due to the repressive measures created by our Civilisation upon the Human spirit which not only sends people mad, but keeps them this way. We now have strong levels of mental illnesses in our society that was in the vast minority before, and if it was found, quick work was made of it (mostly by Nature).
Did you know that in pre Industrial societies so many things that we see as normal were not even heard of: Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Asthma, depression, anxiety, and many other things. These things were unheard of because people were not living against Nature, but rather, living alongside it. Our tribal ancestors were humble in this regard, and understood that they were not above even the rabbits that they shot arrows at.
The world was not perfect, it was a hard and cruel place, but now we are in an even worse position. Technology has created things like birth control, which is seen as “progress” by most, but it hasn’t done too good for the birth rate of Europeans, so the System has imported millions of third worlders, whom are indeed having many children, leading to the displacement of European natives.
Savages and primitives have no concept of morality to begin with. The Law of the Jungle is violence and force. When you go into the wilderness the only friends you have “are the ones you brung with you”. It may not be grammatically correct, but its true. There is NO COOPERATION amongst hunter gatherers you will find. The Chief is the toughest, not necessarily the smartest. There is no art, no literature, and no plans for the future. You have never lived that way. Under the Aegis of Western Civilization you can afford to fantasize of it. In real life, its ugly and animalistic. No love but rape. Hate is a meaningless distinction for a life that slaughters any not of your tribe. No primitives will get to space. They will not learn much. They will kill and burn and tear it down. Build is something that does not ever get far. Instant gratification is all you’ll get, when no one plans and no one cares. You get what you can take by force, and keep only that what you can defend. This is the Real Anarchy. The Jungle. No peace, but for the strong. Yu will not age for long. At less than 30 you might be dead. When you are sick or weak, no nurse will be there. Someone might simply slit your throat while you sleep…
You are completely ignoring me at every turn and inventing some demon which doesn’t exist.
Perhaps what you say applies to places like Somalia, which are not “primitive societies”, but not to actual “hunter-gatherer societies”.
What I’m saying is I love Western Civilization. Its hardly reasonable for idiots like you to HATE the West, and still live here. Go live like that elsewhere. Do not try to destroy the lives we have made for ourselves because you want to smoke pot and don’t like the Rule of Law.
And no. Western Civilization is not a Big Polluter. That’s crap. That plastic in the ocean probably comes from China and India. We have landfills and waste management here. Look at the filthy water and polluted rivers in the Third World. Do you see that here? You are an idiot boy. We have clean water. We have waste management. You CANNOT GET THAT with primitivism.
Listen closely, kid. I am just trying to explain my point of view to you. You have absolutely no reason to call me an “idiot”. If you don’t want to talk with someone who (god forbid) disagrees with you about something, then why are you here? There is no need to cast aspersions.
Everything you say in this comment is a strawman attack. I never argued for smoking pot, I thought I made that pretty clear when I spoke out against decadence that comes with your much-loved civilisation. I do not agree with taking any sort of drug, whether it be cigarettes or alcohol. It is precisely these things which are killing White youths.
Second of all, I never said I hated the West. I am going to take a wild guess and assume that your idea of Western Civilisation is Racial and Sexual equality (you believe that the Liberals are the real Racists, right?), sucking the cock of Israel, hating Muslims because Saudi women are not allowed to get their tits out, worshipping Jesus, the king of the Jews, worshipping the flawed and anti-White Democratic system of Government, worshipping the LGBT community and whatever else.
My idea of Western civilisation can be found in William Pierce’s “Who We Are” or Arthur Kemp’s “March of the Titans”.
What you ignore is the fact that my idea for an ideal West is not primitivism in the sense you mean. When we say primitivism, your narrow mind immediately thinks of the worst possible thing in the Universe, because you were raised and live in a greenhouse. God forbid it should shatter and you be exposed to the wild vegetation outside. Then you can find out how the world really is. But my ideal future for the West is something akin to Austen’s novels like Pride and Prejudice. Where original, healthy sexual mores are the standard, and White men can be both gentlemen and soldiers, and White women can become Little Red Riding Hoods like they used to be.
While Nordic women (specifically English Roses) are the crown of evolution physically, empower them and our genes will die. That is what your civilisation is doing with its Feminism. It is killing the very foundations of the Aryan Race.
But anyway, what you say next makes me laugh: “Do not try to destroy the lives we have made for ourselves”. GTFO. You haven’t made a single thing you have. You just reap the benefits of Capitalism and talk like it was something that you had control over. The Chinese Communist partisans also talk in this exact same way. Don’t act like you are something special, kid.
Next up, you mention pollution – Why? It might have something to do with your desperate attempt to sound like you know what you are talking about. Yes: The West is a massive polluter – Plastics in the Pacific Ocean which is lethal to the Ecosystem and eventually to ourselves. We pollute the atmosphere which causes asthma, cancer, and many other things including the melting of the polar ice caps. We chop down trees for big business and leave everything in the forests to rot and suffer while we make big bucks. Yes: We have landfills which actually do the same level of damage than chucking it all in the ocean. Landfills are also known to “leak” which poisons the sewage system (and thus the water supply, smart guy). The pollution of the Third World is actually the fault of the West. We introduce these things to people who are known for not being very smart (Blacks have lower IQs than Whites and Asians), so of course there is going to be pollution.
Fact: Before the White Man went into these countries and He gave them His shit, the natives never had these problems. It is only because of the arrogance and anthrocentrism of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath does the Earth have all these issues.
“We have clean water”. You omit to mention the oestrogen mimickers in the water supply that is causing feminisation of White males (Or as Alex Jones would say “I don’t like ’em stickin’ chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay!”. You also ignore that Human Beings are the only animals stupid enough to piss and shit in their own drinking water. Seriously, when was the last time you were able to drink from a pond without getting sick? Such things can only be found away from the cities. People who live more simple lives, like Varg Vikernes or Ted Kaczynski are more healthy people on average, both physically and mentally.
Anyway, I am not arguing for primitivism, and I don’t know how I can make this any clearer. I am calling for an Austen-esque Ethnostate which puts a big emphasis on Agrarianism and being closer to Nature, rather than more creations of places like Las Vegas and New York.
Mr. Preston, re: primitivism, you say:
“…it is obvious that such a perspective does not have mass appeal, and it therefore pointless to hold up this idea as a primary propaganda point.”
This makes sense only if you think of social change as being brought about through democracy (i.e. Primitivism can’t work because a majority of people will always be saturated with the values of modernity, or would obviously never vote for an outcome that would lead to their own suffering and starvation.)
But revolutionary primitivism is indeed possible.
1) You don’t need a revolutionary ideology to have “mass appeal”, you only need to appeal to a highly committed and highly active minority. Such a minority would have the potential to drive history.
2) The reason such a perspective does not yet have a highly committed and highly active minority is not because it can’t even appeal to a minority, but because the perspective hasn’t been effectively promoted. If enough people properly promoted the ideals of wild nature and low-tech hunter-gatherer lifestyles on a large scale, then there would be the prospect for such a minority to form. As the horrors of technological society continue to mount, more and more people will be open to alternative world-views and the primitivist ideal can provide this, provided that it is properly promoted.
Now, for obvious reasons you can’t make the whole world practice primitivism, but you could, through revolutionary action, bring about the collapse of technological society. And in the resulting environment primitive life ways would be possible in many parts of the world. Technically speaking this may not be “primitivism” as the primitivists like to conceive of it. The world would after all still have civilization. But there’s no conceivable way of eliminating civilization since it relies on primitive, individual-dependant technology. And there is a very good case to be had for why civilization, after reverting to a pre-industrial state, would never be able to re-industrialize. The cancer will always be with us, but in scattered pockets around the globe.