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You're either being extraordinarily disingenuous or ignorant if you're trying to claim that socialism and anarchism haven't historically been aligned with each

by npc 15y ago

You're either being extraordinarily disingenuous or ignorant if you're trying to claim that socialism and anarchism haven't historically been aligned with each other. Bakunin was in the first international with Marx, Russian anarchists participated in the 1917 revolutions, etc etc. Your idea that socialists are trying to "co-opt" anarchism is probably due to a misunderstanding of what socialism is both historically and currently. Socialists and anarchists had a similar goal, which was to create a society free from coercion, whether by force or by need. While socialism failed at this rather spectacularly in practice, the authoritarian states of Mao and Stalin were never the end goal of socialists. Also, your offhand dismissal of a quite well cited wikipedia article was rather classless tbqh. We know wikipedia is crowd sourced and vulnerable to bias, but to ignore cited factual statements because of that just leads me to believe you don't want to see anything that doesn't confirm your conceptions of both anarchism and socialism.

nirvana 15y ago
"You're either being extraordinarily disingenuous or ignorant if you're trying to claim that socialism and anarchism haven't historically been aligned with each other. " I find it amazing that you're using a strawman- something I've never said, and don't believe-- as an excuse to call me names. Anarchism is incompatible with socialism and communism. That is what I pointed out. You can't enslave people and make them act against their nature without a central government, and if you have a central government, you have no anarchism. "is probably due to a misunderstanding of " You're projecting on me.... " was rather classless" ... and characterizing me based on YOUR characterization: "offhand dismissal " and then you outright lie: "to ignore cited factual statements" (two lies by my count there) is used as an excuse to rationalize more ad hominem: " leads me to believe you don't want to see anything that doesn't confirm your conceptions" Why is it, so often, people refuse to argue to the points and instead insist on arguing to the person? I made my points in my original comment. All of these references to history of socialism are completely irrelevant to my point, I wasn't even talking about socialism, I was talking about libertarianism. You two are bringing it up as an opportunity to manufacture rationalizations to engage in ad hominam, nothing more.
- npc 15y ago
  Look, I'm not trying to attack you personally, I'm trying to say that the way you are arguing is detrimental to discussion. This includes things like making controversial statements ("I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists") without expanding on them, dismissing other peoples' attempts to refer to outside sources ("[wikipedia] is not authoritative, and it is often quite biased...") without providing any of your own, changing your definition of what you are arguing (you say "I think this is just an example of socialists attempting to coopt another movement", and later claim that "I wasn't even talking about socialism")and getting overly defensive and refusing to engage with people because of perceived insults. Any discussion about something important is going to get a little hot, taking your ball and going home anytime someone says something sharp is not going to be conducive to convincing others of your position or learning something yourself, dorkburlger.
  - jobeirne 15y ago
    > This includes things like making controversial statements ("I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists") without expanding on them The phrase you cite is "endlessly amusing" because it is a contradiction in terms; communism/socialism is predicated on the presence of a government, and anarchism is predicated on the lack of one. If you need that explained, I'm not sure why you're participating in this thread.
    - npc 15y ago
      > communism/socialism is predicated on the presence of a government It's really not. Socialism is about collective ownership of property, state socialism is only a subset of socialism. But perhaps you could explain why prominent anarchists like Bakunin aligned themselves with socialists when their ideals were so diametrically opposed? It seems like you're using rather ahistorical definitions of anarchism and socialism.
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      [deleted]
    - 15y ago

by npc 15y ago

nirvana 15y ago

"You're either being extraordinarily disingenuous or ignorant if you're trying to claim that socialism and anarchism haven't historically been aligned with each other. " I find it amazing that you're using a strawman- something I've never said, and don't believe-- as an excuse to call me names. Anarchism is incompatible with socialism and communism. That is what I pointed out. You can't enslave people and make them act against their nature without a central government, and if you have a central government, you have no anarchism. "is probably due to a misunderstanding of " You're projecting on me.... " was rather classless" ... and characterizing me based on YOUR characterization: "offhand dismissal " and then you outright lie: "to ignore cited factual statements" (two lies by my count there) is used as an excuse to rationalize more ad hominem: " leads me to believe you don't want to see anything that doesn't confirm your conceptions" Why is it, so often, people refuse to argue to the points and instead insist on arguing to the person? I made my points in my original comment. All of these references to history of socialism are completely irrelevant to my point, I wasn't even talking about socialism, I was talking about libertarianism. You two are bringing it up as an opportunity to manufacture rationalizations to engage in ad hominam, nothing more.

npc 15y ago
Look, I'm not trying to attack you personally, I'm trying to say that the way you are arguing is detrimental to discussion. This includes things like making controversial statements ("I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists") without expanding on them, dismissing other peoples' attempts to refer to outside sources ("[wikipedia] is not authoritative, and it is often quite biased...") without providing any of your own, changing your definition of what you are arguing (you say "I think this is just an example of socialists attempting to coopt another movement", and later claim that "I wasn't even talking about socialism")and getting overly defensive and refusing to engage with people because of perceived insults. Any discussion about something important is going to get a little hot, taking your ball and going home anytime someone says something sharp is not going to be conducive to convincing others of your position or learning something yourself, dorkburlger.
- jobeirne 15y ago
  > This includes things like making controversial statements ("I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists") without expanding on them The phrase you cite is "endlessly amusing" because it is a contradiction in terms; communism/socialism is predicated on the presence of a government, and anarchism is predicated on the lack of one. If you need that explained, I'm not sure why you're participating in this thread.
  - npc 15y ago
    > communism/socialism is predicated on the presence of a government It's really not. Socialism is about collective ownership of property, state socialism is only a subset of socialism. But perhaps you could explain why prominent anarchists like Bakunin aligned themselves with socialists when their ideals were so diametrically opposed? It seems like you're using rather ahistorical definitions of anarchism and socialism.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - 15y ago