10 ms·
> a music festival campground Which is fun for a while until people start dying or fighting like they always do and suddenly you need a group of people who spe
by solidasparagus 6y ago
> a music festival campground
Which is fun for a while until people start dying or fighting like they always do and suddenly you need a group of people who spend their time dealing with it. Anarchic utopias do not stay utopic for all that long.
- 0xddd 6y agoWhat examples do you have in mind when you say this? The main case studies that I see get brought up are Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War and the Paris Commune, but the wartime pressures that led to their collapse strike me as much different from the present situation. I think the CHAZ will be an interesting experiment given the context.
- solidasparagus 6y agoSpecifically the music festivals I've been to. It's fun and a wonderful feeling for a while, but eventually the idiots/assholes will become a problem that needs to be dealt with. Or nature throws a disaster at you and there is chaos. It's a little hard to come up with historical examples because the utopia portion is often quite short and overshadowed by the negatives that follow. Generally, I would point to almost any historical 'revolution' as a warning that tearing down a system and rebuilding it from scratch does not mean improvement, even if it appears to be at the beginning. You could probably point to the August 1789 period of the French Revolution as an example of the 'utopic' phase, but I'm not certain. The fall of Saddam's government in Iraq would be another example. Kurdish Syria is probably another decent example.
- staplers 6y agoeventually the idiots/assholes will become a problem that needs to be dealt with Like the police force?
- solidasparagus 6y agoI'm not sure what point you're trying to make. While many of the police actions are inexcusable, trying to have a society without an active group of people enforcing law and order doesn't work well. Just look at Baltimore for the downsides of police inaction.
- dwhit 6y agoBaltimore police are not exactly inactive, they are more like an organized gang (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/b... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/b...).
- solidasparagus 6y agoHere's data on the drop in police-initiated policing following Freddie Grey's death - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim...
- kempbellt 6y agoWhen people start policing the police force, don't they become....the police (by definition, not legality)? And therefore susceptible to becoming just like the "idiots/assholes" they were empowered to deal with. Certainly an interesting recursion problem.
- Kye 6y agoThey're trying out the many proposed and proven methods of community management other than armed, poorly-trained cops. Music festivals aren't trying to prove the viability of alternative societal structures. They're different things.
- solidasparagus 6y agoAnd I hope it works. But history says it's going to go poorly and they're going to need to end up with something resembling a police force, even if they don't call it that.
- Kye 6y agoI don't know how your interactions with police have gone, but I've never had them show up when I called, and most accounts I hear are that they don't do anything at best when they do. At worst, they kill someone. Most of what they do is not stuff they should be doing. There's some niche a well-trained police force can fill, but it's a lot smaller than what the poorly-trained forces do now. Almost no one is actually calling for a complete and permanent abolition of police. Just a redefinition of their role.
- solidasparagus 6y agoThe first line of the CHAZ demands: > The Seattle Police Department and attached court system are beyond reform. We do not request reform, we demand abolition. We demand that the Seattle Council and the Mayor defund and abolish the Seattle Police Department and the attached Criminal Justice Apparatus. This means 100% of funding, including existing pensions for Seattle Police Also, I would look at the Baltimore police/crime post-Freddie Grey to see how diminished police action leads to much increased crime. What the BPD did was horrifying but so was the rise in crime once they became less active.
- deathgrips 6y agoWith regular assholes you have the right to self-defense. With the police you don't.
- djsumdog 6y agoThe book Animal Farm is a great representation of this concept as a fable.
- ivanbakel 6y agoAnimal Farm is not intended to be a fable. It is an allegorical retelling of Stalin's co-option of the Russian revolution - and that co-option is presented as only being possible because the populace is illiterate and ill-informed, which allows for revisionism from the Stalin-figure. Orwell almost certainly did support anarchist revolution and utopia, given his role in the Spanish Civil War - and his concern about the suppression of anarchism through a totalitarian control of information is exactly what 1984 is about. He never would have felt that "Anarchic utopias do not stay utopic for all that long."
- tomp 6y agoIs it? I thought Animal Farm was specifically about communism (it's been a while since I read it). Wouldn't Lord of the Flies be a better fable?
- standardUser 6y agoThe continued existence of Christiania in Denmark should prove to you sufficiently that these types of attempts are not automatically doomed.
- solidasparagus 6y agoI mean would Seattle residents really consider CHAZ turning into Christiania a win? For a community of less than 1000 people, it seems to have a ridiculous amount of violence and crime.
- standardUser 6y agoWhat violence? How many serious injuries or deaths have occurred?
- earthicus 6y agoThere were quite a few utopian socialist (not necessarily anarchist) projects started in the United States in the 19th century, especially following the proto-socialist Charles Fourier. Wikipedia has a list based on a wide variety of different philosophies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Utopian_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Utopian_commu...
- Nursie 6y agoLook into what happened with the various hippie communes that sprung up across the US in the late 60s/early 70s, and how they fared. Most came together with utopian ideals but fell apart as tension arose between those that just wanted to drop out and take acid and those who actually worked hard and tried to build something. Only one remains AFAICT and that one is atypical, enforcing sharing of everything, down to having a communal wardrobe, and having work schedules etc.
- jtr1 6y agoRevolutionary Catalonia and the Paris Commune are interesting examples of libertarian socialism. You could also look at the Korean People's Association [1], Rojava more recently [2], or the Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities in Chiapas (EZLN), which seem to be exceptional in having lasted 30 years or so.[3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Association_in_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Association_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Municipalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Mun...
- woodruffw 6y ago> Anarchic utopias do not stay utopic for all that long. At least one counterexample to this is Exarcheia[1] in Athens, which has been relatively unpoliced for the last 50 years. I was there about a year ago and was struck by how both peaceful and lively it was. Nowhere in Athens felt nearly as alive. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarcheia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarcheia
- solidasparagus 6y ago> relatively unpoliced for the last 50 years Source on that? 75% of that link talks about: - riots following police action - attacks on police stations - special policing tactics for that region - evictions by the police
- woodruffw 6y agoMy source is first-hand experience: the police do not enter Exarcheia, because they know that they'll be attacked if they do. The Wikipedia page documents precisely what has happened each time the police have tried to establish a foothold in the neighborhood since the 1973 student uprising. They currently operate from patrols and bases outside of the neighborhood. Any effects they have on the neighborhood (like squat clearing) tend to be impermanent.
- solidasparagus 6y agoVery interesting. Although from what I could find on it, it doesn't really sound like a good example to argue that an unpoliced society can be a nice, safe place to live. I certainly wouldn't describe it as utopic. > locals and activists help with the cleaning and cooking and even take turns being a night watch after someone – reportedly far-right activists – set a squat on fire. > “It’s hard to live in peace when teenagers come here just to get high or you need to run to your car because protesters are setting them on fire,” says Dioni Vougioukli, a journalist who has lived in the neighborhood for 10 years.
- arcticbull 6y agoFreetown Christiania in Copenhagen is an anarchist commune too. [1] The police have largely left it to its own devices since 1971. They show up from time to time as the political whims change. Their green light district is something to behold, with the street vendors and their bricks of hash. I've been a few times, quite lovely, would recommend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
- djsumdog 6y agoIt's like we're watching Animal Farm play out in real time. All animals start off equal, but some animals will eventually grow to be more equal than others.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- empath75 6y agoYeah, eventually it will end up with all homeless people and drug addicts, unfortunately. For now, there's enough regular people to keep it feeling safe and fun, but eventually it will get 'scary' and the normal people will leave and it'll basically be skid row.
- chillacy 6y agoWell to be fair it's not like Cap Hill wasn't already full of "homeless people and drug addicts" before, and that hasn't stopped it from also being a hip neighborhood. It'll be a decent experiment to see if they can come up with non-violent policing alternatives to keep order, or if they resort to the same tactics as before.