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> how “anarchy” is used colloquially. > E.g. It’s NOT about “There was anarchy in the mall today as shoppers demolished the stores and injured eachother fighti

> how “anarchy” is used colloquially. > E.g. It’s NOT about “There was anarchy in the mall today as shoppers demolished the stores and injured eachother fighting over Black Friday deals.” It always annoyed me how anarchy is conflated with chaos. Nowhere is implied that a lack of coercive hierarchy means to be allowed to smash everything and kill people.

mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
I agree that it's silly to assume that's what people would do without coercive hierarchy (I think this conflation is often intentional to make the concept less attractive to folks who aren't paying attention), but surely it would be "allowed" because who would be disallowing it?
- SamWhited 4y ago
  Some (most?) flavors of anarchy eschew hierarchys, not rules in general. Eg. your local collective or union or guild (depending on your flavor of anarchy) would collectively decide "killing is wrong, here's what happens if someone does it".
  - mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
    Ah, thanks, that's fair since most people are going to make those sort of voluntarist associations. I guess I was imagining an edge case for people who opt to not do that, but that feels an awful lot like when people today make arguments like "well, nobody's forcing you to carry a phone!" I suppose this all comes back to the point that nobody is pragmatically advocating for absolute anarchy - it's simply a valuable concept to reference as we collaborate to build actual, functioning social systems. Or, at least, that's how I tend to think about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
      Anarchy should be the ultimate (and always moving) goal of any healthy society. Once hierarchies solve the issues they are born from, they cease to be necessary. Hence a government that permanently solves poverty and thus crime in the most common sense, eliminates the need for an authority to regulate interactions between individuals.
      - mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
        I think we're just using different definitions here. There will still be a non-zero amount of hierarchical order within social systems even if it doesn't come from the government.
        pastacacioepepe 4y ago
        We actually agree, hierarchies can exist and be good, they just need to be voluntary and not in the capitalist sense, where you can "voluntarily" choose between homelessness or wage slavery. I just wanted to elaborate (since I agree) on your point that Anarchy is "a valuable concept to reference as we collaborate to build actual, functioning social systems". I won't exclude that Anarchy could eventually concretize though, who knows!
        mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
        We definitely agree and I also wouldn't exclude that! I tend to speak this way because I lean towards discussing near and mid-term futures as opposed to longer term ones in many conversations for a number of reasons. I do this in part because I'm biased toward the now both subconsciously and out of pragmatism as a material being living in the present, but also largely because I find that other people I encounter tend to be even more that way and struggle to envision the longer-term possible that may require a number of intermediate steps. Anyway, to our future, voluntarily!
pessimizer 4y ago
It's a relic of the successful destruction of anarchist unions and parties in the early 20c (especially in the US.) It's similar to how the philosophy of the People's Party (populism) somehow got propagandized from every direction over the next century until it became an epithet suitable to throw at extreme-right authoritarian nationalists.
Wohlf 4y ago
They're literally synonyms. From Merriam-Webster: > anarchy - a state in which there is widespread wrongdoing and disregard for rules and authority If the political ideology doesn't want to be conflated with this it needs a new name. It sucks but language is descriptive not prescriptive, and meanings change over time.
- AndyNemmity 4y ago
  It meant "without ruler" when it was chosen. It was demonized after the fact.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    The idea that the absence of a ruler meant total chaos goes back at least to Hobbes.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      If I was Calvin's pet tiger I'd probably come to a similar conclusion.
  - lynnk 4y ago
    It's the other way around. Historically "anarchy" almost always had negative connotations. Then Proudhon co-opted the term to use it in a positive sense.
- mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
  Dictionaries are neither objectively descriptive nor apolitical - their definitions reflect the biases of their authors and the systems they exist within which allowed them to obtain positions of relative authority.

mandelbrotwurst 4y ago

I agree that it's silly to assume that's what people would do without coercive hierarchy (I think this conflation is often intentional to make the concept less attractive to folks who aren't paying attention), but surely it would be "allowed" because who would be disallowing it?

SamWhited 4y ago
Some (most?) flavors of anarchy eschew hierarchys, not rules in general. Eg. your local collective or union or guild (depending on your flavor of anarchy) would collectively decide "killing is wrong, here's what happens if someone does it".
- mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
  Ah, thanks, that's fair since most people are going to make those sort of voluntarist associations. I guess I was imagining an edge case for people who opt to not do that, but that feels an awful lot like when people today make arguments like "well, nobody's forcing you to carry a phone!" I suppose this all comes back to the point that nobody is pragmatically advocating for absolute anarchy - it's simply a valuable concept to reference as we collaborate to build actual, functioning social systems. Or, at least, that's how I tend to think about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
    Anarchy should be the ultimate (and always moving) goal of any healthy society. Once hierarchies solve the issues they are born from, they cease to be necessary. Hence a government that permanently solves poverty and thus crime in the most common sense, eliminates the need for an authority to regulate interactions between individuals.
    - mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
      I think we're just using different definitions here. There will still be a non-zero amount of hierarchical order within social systems even if it doesn't come from the government.
      - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
        We actually agree, hierarchies can exist and be good, they just need to be voluntary and not in the capitalist sense, where you can "voluntarily" choose between homelessness or wage slavery. I just wanted to elaborate (since I agree) on your point that Anarchy is "a valuable concept to reference as we collaborate to build actual, functioning social systems". I won't exclude that Anarchy could eventually concretize though, who knows!
        mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
        We definitely agree and I also wouldn't exclude that! I tend to speak this way because I lean towards discussing near and mid-term futures as opposed to longer term ones in many conversations for a number of reasons. I do this in part because I'm biased toward the now both subconsciously and out of pragmatism as a material being living in the present, but also largely because I find that other people I encounter tend to be even more that way and struggle to envision the longer-term possible that may require a number of intermediate steps. Anyway, to our future, voluntarily!

pessimizer 4y ago

It's a relic of the successful destruction of anarchist unions and parties in the early 20c (especially in the US.) It's similar to how the philosophy of the People's Party (populism) somehow got propagandized from every direction over the next century until it became an epithet suitable to throw at extreme-right authoritarian nationalists.

Wohlf 4y ago

They're literally synonyms. From Merriam-Webster: > anarchy - a state in which there is widespread wrongdoing and disregard for rules and authority If the political ideology doesn't want to be conflated with this it needs a new name. It sucks but language is descriptive not prescriptive, and meanings change over time.

AndyNemmity 4y ago
It meant "without ruler" when it was chosen. It was demonized after the fact.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  The idea that the absence of a ruler meant total chaos goes back at least to Hobbes.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    If I was Calvin's pet tiger I'd probably come to a similar conclusion.
- lynnk 4y ago
  It's the other way around. Historically "anarchy" almost always had negative connotations. Then Proudhon co-opted the term to use it in a positive sense.
mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
Dictionaries are neither objectively descriptive nor apolitical - their definitions reflect the biases of their authors and the systems they exist within which allowed them to obtain positions of relative authority.