Todd Lewis is joined by Keith Preston (anarchist), Sean Gabb (classical liberal) and James Kalb (conservative) to discuss liberalism.
Author: Keith Preston
Keith Preston: ISIL a useful tool for US to destabilize Middle East Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
America’s strategy in Syria has been to utilize terrorist groups to undermine independent governments and wreck havoc in the Middle East, an American political analyst in Virginia says.
“It seems to me that the long-term plan that the United States has is to essentially use ISIS as a means of destabilizing the region, the Middle Eastern region, said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.
“It’s not that the United States has a favorable view of the ISIS but I think that the United States is simply trying to work both ends against the middle in the sense that they want ISIS to be a disruptive force in Syria and in other parts of the Middle East where there are governments that the United States ultimately wants to over-flow,” Preston told Press TV on Wednesday.
“At the same time, I think that the United States does not want ISIS to engage in terrorist actions against the United States itself or against its allies in Europe or the Middle East such as Israel and the [Persian] Gulf states,” he added.
“So, on one hand the United States wants to convene ISIS, at the same time I don’t think they want to see ISIS completely defeated, because of their usefulness as a disruptive source in the region and because they are inflicting so much destabilization on Syria.”
US President Donald Trump has ordered increased military operations in Syria and delegated more authority to his generals despite lacking a comprehensive strategy, an approach that may spark a confrontation with Syria, Iran and Russia, according to US officials and analysts.
The United States has taken a series of military actions over the past three months against Syrian government forces and its allies, including the shoot-down of a Syrian jet on Sunday.
In April, Trump ordered cruise missile strikes against a Syrian airfield from which Washington said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched.
Analysts say these incidents are tactical and not part of any military strategy in Syria.
“The primary objective of the United States continues to be eliminating independent nations in the Middle East that refuse to be incorporated into the Washington system, whether its Syria or whether its Iran or whether its Hezbollah in Lebanon,” Preston said.
“So, ISIS is not something that the US sees favorably but ISIS can be a useful tool for the US in some instances because of its efforts to destabilize Syria and I think ultimately the United States wants to see this period.”
Praise of Folly Podcast Interview #4: Michael Cushman Reply
Todd Lewis interviews Michael Cushman on Southern Nationalism.
Your Freedom is My Freedom: The Premise of Anarchism Reply
Sometimes words are just words — interchangeable and discardable — but sometimes a word belies a knot in our thought, tightly wound and tensely connected. “Anarchy” is one such word.
Centuries ago the English peasantry rose up to overthrow the king and radically remake society. The vanguard of this revolution, the levellers and the diggers, sought to demolish the feudal hierarchy, to revise property and the division of land. In their revolt they were joined by opportunists who sought the overthrow of the king to assert their own power. Naturally these factions clashed. It was in this civil war that the word “anarchy” was leveraged to great effect. Those with the audacity to explicitly oppose anyone ruling over anyone were characterized as desiring “anarchy,” and when this happened the idealistic rebels were forced to backpeddle, to stumble and prevaricate on a trap built into their very language.
The Next Wave of Anarchist Movements Reply
A reader on Facebook recently asked me for a definition of National-Anarchism, and my response is posted below. I think this is a pretty good summary of the ATS philosophy and the general pan-anarchist perspective as well. This definition is broad enough to include the many hyphenated forms of anarchism, along with their prototypes and overlapping ideological tendencies.
“If I had to come up with a working definition of N-A, I’d say it’s a philosophy that favors stateless societies based on autonomous, voluntary communities comprised of freely associating individuals and groups, with an orientation towards decentralized, pluralistic particularism, human scale institutions, mutual aid, an infinite array of individual and collective identities, and self-determination for everyone. A nation is this context simply means a common ethnic, religious, cultural, sexual or lifestyle affiliation, not a national state or national chauvinism. The same way indigenous people around the world often think of themselves as a nation (Kurdish nation, Sioux nation, Lakota nation, Ibo nation, Yazidi nation, etc) even though few if any of these have states of their own. And a “nation” in this context doesn’t have to be an ethnic group. Presumably it could be Star Trek or Star Wars freaks or fans of football teams.”
Troy Southgate also has a post on the N-AM website that defines National-Anarchism fairly comprehensively as well:
We have to come to expect that people who have only recently discovered our ideas will inevitably have retained some of the negative ideological baggage of the past, but unless people are willing to discard all traces of their former political allegiances then they have absolutely no place in our Movement. National-Anarchists do not support Trump, Putin, Assad or Le Pen; National-Anarchists do not endorse racist behaviour or misogyny; National-Anarchists are opposed to fascism and neo-Nazism; National-Anarchists do not defend imperialism and colonialism; and National-Anarchists are not anti-communist to the extent that they forget about the capitalist ruling class or ignore the fact that the historical roots of our struggle can be found among those who have always fought against injustice and oppression. The list goes on. Ironically, there are people on the Left who seek to demonise us by associating us with the Far Right, something which can then lead to members of the Far-Right gravitating towards National-Anarchism itself in the mistaken belief that we are simply ‘playing’ at being Anarchists or using Anarchism as a convenient means of advancing fascist objectives in a more covert and surreptitious manner. Sometimes, of course, it is deliberate and there are people on the Left who fully realise that we are genuine but who also recognise how much of a threat we present to their dishonest stranglehold on the anti-capitalist movement as a whole. Similarly, there are people on the Right who have tried to use National-Anarchism as a vehicle for their own fascist views. Let’s get one thing perfectly straight. We National-Anarchists, above and beyond all else, are Anarchists. The clue, after all, is in the name. As free-thinkers who adopt a decidedly non-coercive attitude, however, we also welcome people of various races, cultures, religions and sexual orientation and remain strongly anti-fascist in the sense that we completely reject both the overt fascism of the Right and the violent Left-wing hypocrites who gather under the counter-productive banners of Antifa. So, remember, if you wish to become involved with the National-Anarchist Movement then you must (a) learn what it means to be an Anarchist, and (b) discard the remaining vestiges of those bankrupt ideologies which have already resulted in the death of millions of innocent people all over the world.
Why You Must Understand the System before It Can Be Dismantled Reply
Rutgers Online: http://online.rutgers.edu/master-library-info/
Many people who think of themselves as dissenters opposed to government regulations have hopes and dreams, and lofty goals of one day being the ones who help to take it all apart. Besides being able to recite the names of a few prominent pan-anarchists, do you fully understand the system that supports life as you live it today?
If the answer to that question is no, you will need to begin by working on your master of information education. You see, whether it is total anarchism or just a sense of social justice that you believe in, nothing can be accomplished if you have no clue what you are going up against. Reading books on your own will provide you with insights into the inner workings of traditional Western civilization, but you need to see these systems from the inside in order to dismantle them.
Why Information Is Power
You might not agree with the way that the majority people in this country live their lives or agree with the idea of one uniform power system. Most of them were raised to think that way, and in most instances, you were as well. At some point during your journey, you began exploring different schools of thought and came to the realization that anarchism was the most viable solution for modern society. It is likely that you did lots of reading and speaking to more educated people to come to that conclusion. The information that you can gain while completing an online master of information program will enable you to advance your individual ideas, even if they are contrary.
How You Can Resist Conforming
Growing up, you likely went along with everyone else because you wanted to fit in. Being socially well adjusted allowed you to earn the respect of your teachers, parents, and peers more easily. Although there are other benefits that you can get from conforming to group ideas, you won’t get the answers to many of your most controversial questions.
What if capitalism no longer existed and you didn’t need credit in order to make a major purchase. Would people be happier and more successful if they kept their money at home and didn’t allow banks to make profits from their deposits? With a formal education, you can still maintain your ideas but be prepared to give sources and cited materials that will back up your claims. Conforming is not necessary when you are pursuing your education.
Explaining Your Societal Ideas without Being Deemed As an Imminent Threat
As soon as the term anarchism is thrown out, people tend to think that you are in support of total chaos. Because few have been exposed to the reasoning behind pan-anarchism, there are lots who will think that you are not in support of freedom, liberty, or even personal choice. With a master’s degree in information, you will be looked at as an academic rather than a rebel. This will give you the opportunity to fully explain yourself and, hopefully, more people will begin to understand and support your cause.
In order to succeed in the pan-anarchism movement, more support is necessary. Those who have never logically thought of the benefits of leading their own lives can be intimidated by the thought of free rein. Use your education to quell their fears and empower them to be free thinkers.
The Future of Radicalism Reply
Great new graphic from Adam Ormes!
Great Degree Choices for People Who Enjoy History and Politics Reply
University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.
Find out more about this program at http://librarysciencedegree.usc.edu/resources/articles-and-blogs/six-innovative-library-programs-from-around-the-world/
When choosing that “perfect” career path it’s important to think about a variety of different factors and criteria with the goal of picking a career that is rewarding and enjoyable for you. Ideally, this is a career you want to be in for a long time, so enjoying it will certainly help to make that possible. For those who have an interest in history and politics, there are a number of career paths worth considering.
With that in mind, here is a look at the top degree choices for those who want to merge their love of history and politics.
The Centralising Axiom Reply
By Chris Shaw
The multiple debates surrounding ideology constantly devolve into simplistic concepts like capitalism and socialism, referring to each other as opposing axiomatic systems that proffer significantly different visions of the world. However, both are fundamentally centralist systems. They understand society, economy and politics as universalisable wholes that need to be integrated into a full structure of production and decision-making. For capitalism, the main axiomatic point is the profit-motive achieved through multiple avenues of capital accumulation. Markets and states are the main entry and exit points through which capital is accumulated and profit is achieved. For socialism, it is the production of value for the meeting of basic needs and necessities, providing a society of equality where political and economic cohesiveness is supposedly developed. Economic planning and social provisioning through centralised structures (usually the state but forms of global democratic planning have been theorised) are the mechanisms for this accumulation.
Don’t Like Militarized Police and Mass Incarceration? Blame Progressivism. Reply
Reason
Our cities are saturated with militarized law enforcement officers. An extraordinarily high number of American civilians are killed by police each year. The U.S. prison population is the largest in the world. And we are only beginning to understand why.
In recent years, scholars such as Naomi Murakawa and Marie Gottschalk and activists in the Black Lives Matter movement have broken from the civil rights generation’s obeisance to the Democratic Party, and from the left’s reflexive assumption that “law and order” Republicans are exclusively to blame for this situation. Instead, they have persuasively argued that much of today’s criminal justice regime originated in policies forged by liberal Democrats in the second half of the 20th century, in particular under the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton.
Yet even this new and welcome historical analysis of militarized policing and mass incarceration does not go deep enough.
The campaign to criminalize victimless behaviors and then build a carceral system large and efficient enough to contain the criminals it would create began long before the 1960s, with the formation of the political regime we now call liberalism. The intellectuals and policy makers who created the modern wars on drugs and crime were the direct descendants of the original progressives, who emerged at the turn of the 20th century. Those progressives consistently argued that disruptive and marginal populations should be encouraged to assimilate into the formal culture of the country and to adopt the responsibilities of American citizenship, but they also held that individuals who refused to do so should be removed from society. Indeed, it could be said that progressivism was created around those twin projects.
Unlike scientific racists, who were the dominant ideologists of race until World War II, progressives generally maintained that there were no innate barriers in any race of people to acquiring the personality of a “good” American. Progressives believed that certain races and nationalities had not attained the level of civilization of white Americans and northern Europeans, but also thought those peoples could and should be raised to that level. That is, most progressives were simultaneously anti-racist and hostile to cultures other than their own. Immigrants who brought alien ways of living, radical political ideas, and criminal behavior into the U.S. were invited into progressives’ settlement houses, where they were given free vocational education, subsidized room and board, and instructions on the proper attitudes and behaviors of Americans. Those who demonstrated a willingness to follow the rules of their new society—even those who were originally believed to be of an inferior race, such as Italians, Jews, and Slavs—were deemed worthy of full citizenship.
Most progressives believed that the culture of blacks was especially retarded, but they nonetheless funded hundreds of settlement houses for blacks and helped establish the first major civil rights organizations, the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. One mission of those organizations was to eliminate the “pathologies” of native black culture, to “adjust or assimilate” blacks to the dominant culture, and to make them into “orderly citizens.” This was a brutal and puritanical assimilationism, but it ran directly counter to the belief of the scientific racists that blacks were biologically incapable of becoming civilized. Nonetheless, progressives acknowledged that some immigrants and blacks and even some native-born whites would choose renegade lives of crime over constrained lives as citizens, and for that eventuality they created the basis of what is now called the carceral state.
This is Going to Ruffle Some Feathers… Reply
The ever expanding political polarization in the United States appears to be splitting off into four basic factions. The two largest factions are the Red Tribe represented by the Republicans and the Blue Tribe represented by the Democrats, and this conflict between the mainstream tribes is now turning violent as evidenced by the assassination attempt against Steven Scalise and other Congressmen. The two smaller factions are the fractious alliance between the various far right tendencies as evidenced by the poster below, and the SJW/Antifa/neo-Marxist/Communist configuration on the far left.
I do not share the ideals of any of these four factions (or collections of factions). Here’s a brief and incomplete rundown of where I think each is insufficient.
-The Republicans are the party of plutocratic, imperialist, police statism, and I have said for nearly thirty years that if everything the Republicans tend to favor were put into practice the United States would have the economy of the traditional Latin American oligarchies (see the Kochs), the civil liberties of the Soviet Union (see Jeff Sessions), and the foreign policy of Nazi Germany (see the neocons). Trumpist pretensions about trying to move the GOP in a more paleoconservative direction are a demonstrable failure, and Trump has become clearly subordinated to the interests of the wider ruling class oligarchy. Noam Chomsky’s claim that the Republicans are the most dangerous organization in history might be hyperbole, but one that is closer to the truth than one might think.
-The Democrats are likewise the party of plutocratic, imperialist, police statism, although one that prefers to have a greater diversity of skin colors, genitalia, and sexual habits within the ranks of the ruling class. The persistent Russia-baiting of the Democrats indicates that they have arguably moved to the right of the Republicans on foreign policy (if such a thing is possible), their economics represent the left-wing of the plutocracy, and they have contributed to the growth of the police state every bit as much as the Republicans.
-The far right is increasingly abandoning any libertarian inclinations it may have ever had, and instead orienting itself towards authoritarian rightism of the Pinochet-Franco-Salazar-Mussolini model, and given state power would likely create a society that was at least as bad as that of the Republicans.
-The far left is becoming increasingly contemptuous of liberal values of any kind such as those outlined in the US Bill of Rights, and is instead adopting the Marxist critique of liberalism as merely a mask for class rule, and supplementing this with the Marcusean notion of “repressive tolerance.” Not coincidentally, the presence of hammer and sickle Communists (“tankies”) among the ranks of the far left is also growing, and the anarchist contingent among the far left is once again being overrun by Marxists as has been the historical norm. The far left would create a society that would be at least as bad as that of their far right opponents.
The best possible outcome of this conflict would be one where an equilibrium is maintained, where the various factions remain pitted against once another, with none of these being able to monopolize power, and where the state eventually fractures into enclaves for different factions while avoiding a full blown civil war.
We Are Inches From A New World War, And Clintonists Are To Blame Reply
By Caitlin Johnstone
Medium.Com
This is your fault, Clinton Democrats. You created this, and if our species is plunged into a new world war or extinction via nuclear holocaust, it will be your fault. You knuckle-dragging, vagina hat-wearing McCarthyite morons made this happen.
American military provocations against the pro-Assad coalition in Syria are fast becoming a daily occurrence. In response to the US air force’s gunning down of a Syrian military plane on Sunday, Russia has cut off its hotline with which it was coordinating operations with America to avoid aerial collisions, and has warned that all US aircraft west of the Euphrates river will now be tracked and treated as potential targets. Today, 25 miles northwest of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, a US reconnaissance plane was intercepted by an armed Russian aircraft which came within five feet of the plane’s wingtip. This on the same day that the US shot down yet another Iranian military drone in Syria.
U.S. risks further battles as it steps deeper into Syrian quagmire Reply
The US ruling class is the world’s largest collection of idiots. Treason to Washington is loyalty to humanity.
Washington Post
BEIRUT — The United States is becoming more perilously drawn into Syria’s fragmented war as it fights on increasingly congested battlefields surrounding Islamic State territory.
On Sunday, a U.S. fighter jet downed a Syrian warplane for the first time in the conflict. By Monday, a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia, had suspended a pact used to prevent crashes with the U.S.-led coalition in the skies over Syria and was threatening to target American jets.
Separately, Iran said that it had launched a barrage of missiles into Islamic State territory in eastern Syria. That assault marked Tehran’s first official strike against the extremist group in Syria, and it signposted the reach of its military might against foes across the region.
The incident followed a series of U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed forces advancing on partner forces in a strategically prized swath of land along the Iraqi border.
As the major powers on the opposite sides of Syria’s war intensify operations against the Islamic State, the risks of an accidental conflagration appear to be growing by the day.
The Revolutionary Potential of Illegal Immigrants Reply
by Derrick Broze and John Vibes
Since the issue of borders and immigration continues to be a hot topic of debate among “libertarians” I figured I would share a quote from my recent book. Please feel free to respond regarding your thoughts on our take and tag your closed border friends. As you will see, John and I argue that the language around “open” and “closed” borders is a part of the problem.
“Traditionally, libertarian and anarchist positions on borders have favored an “open border” solution. This would be in contrast to a “closed border” with immigration controls. This is naturally in line with anarchism considering the fact that governments implement and control borders, and anarchists seek to abolish governments. However, recently some anarcho-capitalists and libertarians have argued for closed borders. They believe private property norms justify forcibly restricting the movement of other free humans, even beyond the borders of their own property. The Alt-Right takes it a step further and argues that the State may even be a necessary evil in order to save “western civilization” and “traditional values” from an ”invasion” of immigrants.
Politics and Anarchist Ideals Reply
Center for a Stateless Society
A fundamental difference between anarchism and statism is that anarchists do not assume that public officials are any more morally entitled to use force or to threaten people with violence than anyone else1. Anarchists therefore argue that officials are not entitled to enforce borders that prevent people with different birthplaces from associating with each other, for example. Or that officials are not entitled to force everyone to participate in a particular collective project that some may reject. In this sense, as Grayson English notes in this symposium, anarchism and democracy have a similar spirit, to the extent that democracy also denies that certain people have a greater entitlement to participate in political rule than others.
Another fundamental difference between anarchism and statism is that anarchists generally think that it is very difficult to justify the violation of a non-liable person’s natural rights, such as rights against force and coercion. For this reason, anarchists think that all people are equally required to refrain from using violence or coercing their compatriots. It is on this point that democrats and anarchists part ways. Democrats think that all people are equally entitled to determine how political acts of violence will be used and whether and when they and their compatriots will be coerced.
Anarchism as Radical Liberalism: Radicalizing Markets, Radicalizing Democracy 1
Center for a Stateless Society
Classical liberalism emerged as a radical ideology, challenging the status quo of monarchy, mercantilism, religious tyranny, and the ancien regime. The liberals promoted two ideals, markets and democracy, as alternatives to the old despotisms.
Yet markets and democracy seemed to be at odds, leaving liberals advocating a middle of the road compromise between the two. Left-liberals favored a broader role for democracy and a narrower role for markets, while right-liberals (more often called conservatives or libertarians) favored a broader role for markets and a narrower role for democracy. Across the spectrum, they agreed that democracy and markets were at odds to at least some extent.
This left an opening for radicals to propose radicalizing the commitment to one liberal ideal by abolishing the other. Most famously, socialists proposed abolishing the market and replacing it with radical democratic control over the economy. Anarchists joined in as well. Many anarcho-communists joined the call to embrace radical democracy by jettisoning markets. On the opposite extreme, many anarcho-capitalists proposed radicalizing our commitment to markets by abolishing democracy.
Demolish the Demos Reply
Center for a Stateless Society
There has long been a certain kind of democratic spirit in anarchism. Of course when we bring forth the imagery of statist and authoritarian injustice, we feel the rhetorical pull to illustrate it as a collective issue: one that is relevant and applicable to all and as such in the interest of all to take to heart. When we wish to persuade people that the interests of the elites are distinct and separate from theirs, we talk of general violations of, and opposition to, popular visions and desires. And of course we must do this, because to speak about anarchism publicly requires speaking to public interests, and calling for the severance of society from the state in public language fits most naturally with calls for democracy, the independent self-government of society.
It is probably easy to understand, then, why so eminent an anarchist thinker as David Graeber would content himself with the conclusion that “anarchism and democracy are—or should be—largely identical (Possibilities, 330).” If we wish to maintain society without the state, isn’t self-organization and self-governance the obvious solution?
The Regime of Liberty Reply
Center for a Stateless Society
The relationship between democracy and anarchism is undoubtedly a contentious one.
In his work The Principle of Federation1, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon makes it clear that democracy has an important legacy to respect. Because Proudhon declared that Universal Suffrage was above The Republic, he had to evaluate the character of democracy in ideal terms. Proudhon categorized democracy as a “regime of liberty” related to its evolutionary successor — anarchy:
“We know the two fundamental and antithetical principles of all governments: authority and liberty.
Regime of Authority:
A) Government of all by one — monarchy or patriarchy;
B) Government of all by all — panarchy or communism.
The essential feature of this regime, in both its varieties, is the non-division of power.
Regime of Liberty:
A) Government of all by each — democracy;
B) Government of each by each — an-archy or self-government.
The essential feature of this regime, in both its varieties, is the division of power.”2
Oppression comes in all forms. Any exercise of liberty can, in certain conditions, succumb to tyranny. Even if we, as anarchists, stand in opposition to democracy, it would be a mistake to consider it tyrannical in its own right. Compared to monarchy and communism, democracy stands firmly on the side of liberty. Proudhon was keen to emphasize this point. Far from advocating democracy, however, he held his ground and asserted the principles of anarchy. While anarchy and democracy share important characteristics, Proudhon was careful not to reduce anarchy to democracy.
On Democracy as a Necessary Anarchist Value Reply
Center for a Stateless Society
As a working definition of democracy, I think about the best we can do is this description of anarchy in Pyotr Kropotkin’s 1911 Britannica article on anarchism — the attainment of harmony:
“…not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free arrangements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.”
To elaborate on this working definition, I would add that a democracy, understood in this way, attempts to maximize the agency of individual people, and their degree of perceived control over the decisions that affect their daily lives. In keeping with the principle of equal liberty, democracy seeks to maximize the individual’s control over the forces shaping her life, to the extent that such a control is compatible with a like degree of control by others over their own lives.
The Lumpenproletariat as Class Vanguard: Why Anarchists Must Attack the Left from the Left 6
The conflicts between myself and the mainstream leftist-anarchist movement are well-known. When I am asked about the source of this conflict by outsiders to the anarchist milieu, my usual response is that what they are observing is a continuation of the historic battle between the anarchists and the Marxists. Fundamental to this conflict is a contending view of the concepts of state and class. For Marxists, the principal target of revolutionary conflict is capital. However, for anarchists it is the state that is the primary enemy. This difference was acknowledged by Friedrich Engels.
“The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletariat revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state. But after its victory the sole organization which the proletariat finds already in existence is precisely the state. This state may require very considerable alterations before it can fulfill its new functions. But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.”
– Frederick Engels, “Engels to Philipp Van Patten in New York,” London, April 18, 1883.
Anarchy and Democracy: Examining the Divide Reply
By Shawn Wilbur
Center for a Stateless Society
This piece is the fifth essay in the June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.”
Philosophical Considerations
If we had the luxury of sticking to the philosophical terrain, the question of distinguishing anarchy and democracy would, it seems to me, pose very few problems. Certainly, it would be unlikely to pose the persistent, seemingly intractable problems that it does at present. Anarchy describes the absence of rule, while democracy describes rule by “the people,” and it seems fairly uncontroversial to maintain that the two concepts fall on opposite sides of a divide marked by the existence of rule, of archy, however narrow that divide might sometimes appear. On the two sides of that divide, relations are structured according to two distinct, opposing principles of social organization. On the one side, there is the principle of authority or governmental principle, which provides the rationale for hierarchical institutions like the State, capitalism, the patriarchal family, etc. On the other, there is an anti-authoritarian or anarchic principle, perhaps still only vaguely understood, which might form the basis of social relations free from hierarchy, claims of authority, and the various forms of exploitation that seem to inevitably arise from them.
Still, even this terrain can be difficult to navigate when we attempt to clarify the relationship between these two concepts, and their underlying principles, as we inevitably must do when we turn back to the very practical aspirations of anarchists: the transformation of relations based on the principle of authority into anarchic relations.
The Linguistics of Democracy Reply
By Alexander Reid Ross
Center for a Stateless Society
This piece is the fourth essay in the June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.”
Democracy is a word that evokes an array of affective responses depending on time, place, and people involved. For the Patriot movement, democracy stimulates a constellation of ideals, values, and principles. People who view the Patriot movement’s adherence to such forms as hypocritical might attempt to recuperate the term or abandon it entirely. To decipher the usage of democracy in everyday discourse, we must first plunge into the phenomena of words, concepts, and ideas in efforts to understand and properly define it. The following admission must be made: I use terms for practical purposes but with intent, recognizing that their meanings as defined in this essay cannot be seen as universally understood. Suffice it to say that they are adequate to the facts of this piece but should not be seen as their only conceivable usage. Words are useful in context and must not be made into altars. This is, perhaps, the first principle of understanding the word “democracy.”
Most people will agree that the world exists to us insofar as we can perceive it. That it is not a formless soup of undifferentiated matter, existential phenomenology tells us, is due to our ability as a species to discern one thing from another. Such discernment can be driven largely by the evolutionary form our species has taken. For example, I cannot keep my eyes open or breathe underwater. At the same time, discernment can be intentionally conditioned through cultural practice and repetition, like “acquired tastes” such as wine.
