11 ms·

Was My Life Worth Living? (1934)

132 points by t0dd 13y ago

ljlolel 13y ago
Where are today's anarchists?
- rquantz 13y ago
  Right here.
- thenerdfiles 13y ago
  I leave my books on Post-scarcity Anarchism on the table when in public. I talk about Planned Economies openly in public. I decided not to pursue academia to show you what an Anarchist looks like. But a majority of society needs to feel validated by the exploits of Miley Cyrus and needs to feel connected with the limits of Obama's sermon-like ratiocinations or the GOP's economic exploitation strategies.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    Have you considered the possibility that you're just nonsensical and really annoying?
    - thenerdfiles 13y ago
      Quot capita tot sensus.
- CitizenMe 13y ago
  We are all over the place. Uniforms for easy identification aren't really our thing.
- angersock 13y ago
  Cataloged meticulously.
- moxie 13y ago
  See: http://www.crimethinc.com http://www.crimethinc.com Also, it looks like you're in the Bay Area. You can stop by Bound Together Books in SF, The Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, or The Holdout in Oakland. The East Bay Anarchist Conversation and Book Event is next Saturday at Humanist Hall in Oakland: http://eastbayanarchist.com/the-second-annual-east-bay-anarchist-conversation-book-event/ http://eastbayanarchist.com/the-second-annual-east-bay-anarc... As an entrepreneur, you might also be interested to read about the anarchist community's overlap with the creation of projects such as Twitter (see the Institute for Applied Autonomy), as well as the early emphasis on self-publishing through projects like Indymedia.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    I just came across iSee[0]. Do you know if it has an API? It would be really cool to try to automatically plot routes to places without surveillance cameras. [0] http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1?zm=0&id=5876 http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1?zm=0&id=5876
- Joeboy 13y ago
  I don't know about today, but yesterday a pretty large number of them were at the 2013 Anarchist Bookfair at Queen Mary's College in London. http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/ http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/
- anachrokate 13y ago
  There's a host of radical spaces in the bay beyond the ones Moxie mentioned. But hackerspaces like Noisebridge and Sudoroom have a large quantity of explicit and involved anarchists as core members, as well as a long tradition of using anarchist organizing models and even on occasion referring to themselves as anarchist projects.
marmaduke 13y ago
Reading this essay gives the impression that this person was singular, and her time singular as well. I was always told anarchism implied violence and generally other bad things, but after reading Graeber's "Debt: the first 5000 years", I chanced upon "Anarchy works" http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anar... which is interesting to read, for at least the depictions of how anarchism has played out in several previous situations, socially and economically.
- thenerdfiles 13y ago
  Robert Tucker, Kropotkin, Chomsky, etc. all give us a clear idea as to how and why anarchism MUST work. Governments (where before religions, but at a moral level, religions still do) exist as a function of hegemonic markets (corporations) such that governments limit the powers of liberty of individuals through the frameworks of blind justice (corporations are just like us). This is not new. Corporations are not just like us. What do economic categories have to do with the rightness or wrongness of action? What does economic stratification have to do with the limits of human freedom? If our autonomy is limited, we do not need an Indexed Dollar to inform us of this; the market will tell us all by itself. Just like as J.S. Mill argued in terms of Women's Suffrage — Why do we need a government to legislate what Women can or cannot do when Nature will determine this all on her own? Why do we need a Government to legislate what we are economically capable of or not? (We don't.)
  - mynameishere 13y ago
    Why do we need a government to legislate what Women can or cannot do when Nature will determine this all on her own? What an odd think to say. It's the nature of humans to form government, and the most natural one is despotism. Shut down the macro-governments we have now and you'll have millions of micro-tyrannies overnight. And the role of woman there would be about that of a slave. Similar stuff about god giving "inalienable rights" is rhetorical hocus-pocus.
    - snitko 13y ago
javajosh 13y ago
There is definitely a thick, deep, wide current of "gov love" in pop culture, and it's good to question it. It's expressed in movies (and TV shows) where government representatives solve problems for the common people. Those reps can be cops, James Bond, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, or what have you. They are the heroes, the saviors. In these narratives, the government heroes swoop in to protect the weak from being preyed on by the strong. And yet there is no shortage of stories that highlight the incompetence, corruption, and even out-right malicious intent of government, even popularly elected ones. So it's not one-sided, at least. In my view, what's missing from all such arguments is any kind of frame of reference. The anarchist claim is unsatisfying, to say the least, that the governments role is to maximize individual expression. To me, the best possible world is not the one where people can express themselves. Specifically, the best possible world is the one which can colonize other worlds. And it could very well be that dictatorship would work for that purpose (but I hope not). Why is spreading life beyond earth so important? Because without doing that, in the long run, life will end. And that is the closest I have come to having an article of faith: that we humans are the stewards, and the hope, of all life on earth. Unless we act, every living thing is doomed in the long run. (Of course, the question arises: what if we colonize other worlds successfully? What then? To which I answer: let's cross that bridge when we get to it.) With that frame, one can start to answer the question "Is Anarchy right?" The answer that I come up with is: probably not. We have a lot of problems with the way the US gov is structured, and particularly problems with how the judicial branch oversees the executive and holds it accountable. That important check seems to have degraded at virtually every level of society, federal, state and local, and I believe represents the greatest societal challenge we face. But is it a problem that is inherent to democracy, and something only something like anarchy can fix? Society is a lot like a life-raft, making high density human habitation possible. Laws are the framework that any government provides and constitute the lowest level interface you must support to participate in the maintenance and growth of the life-raft. Basically: Don't speed. Don't kill people. Don't steal stuff. Pay your taxes. If you do these things, you're mostly going to be okay. The real craziness starts with regulation, particularly when that regulation doesn't fit the popular view of what that regulation is or what it's purpose is. The three big national regulators that people think about when it comes to "government interference" would be the FDA, the FCC, and the SEC. We find it problematic when these organizations actively stop (and punish) small entities looking to compete with larger ones, often for arbitrary and clearly corrupt reasons. There is a revolving door between industry and government that is difficult for non-specialists to penetrate. But it is my view that these battles must be fought, and leadership (which starts with the President) must pro-actively root out corruption and misapplication of the law. And the best place to start with that, is simplicity. We need a profound reduction in the size of the legal corpus. Adding a rule that, for the next 20 years, Congress must repeal 2 laws for every law pass would be a good start. In any event, my point is that I don't think anarchy could lead us to the highest goal of human society, the colonization of other worlds. Authoritarianism, as distasteful as it is, is handy for large-scale, complex tasks like that. I don't like it. But I don't see another option.
daviddaviddavid 13y ago
I am as taken by the form as I am by the content. What beautiful writing. While there's something to be said for concision, an essay like this shows that medium-to-large sentences can be deployed to great effect. It almost feels like she's establishing a cadence at points.
- t0dd 13y ago
  I'm happy to hear you've had the same reaction to it I've always had. The words flow with some supernatural precision. I always return to it, for the beautiful writing, for reminders of her lifelong commitment to an ideal. If you want to read more from her, check out her autobiography: "Living My Life" http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-living-my-life http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-living-m...
ahultgren 13y ago
I've never understood (even after reading this article) how anyone who's anti-authoritarian can honestly believe that removing a government is a good idea. The author claims that it's human nature to abuse power as an argument in favor of anarchism. But to me it seems very obvious that that is exactly what will happen if people are left without constraints. Those who can get some power will get more, and there's nothing to stop them. So, is there anyone who sympathise with the author who would like to explain how a society could become more equal/fair/anything positive without a government?
- jes 13y ago
  I agree with your comment. I want a society that understands and cherishes individual rights, and a government that is limited to and efficacious in protecting them.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    I suppose that the amount of people that are willing to work in quantifiable/effective ways that give the individual, as much as any society, the incentive to push towards a society that understands and cherishes individual rights, and a government that is limited to and efficacious in protecting them will be less than the amount who want it, so in the logical conclusion of things: we will get neither until that imbalanced can be addressed.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    > a government that is limited to and efficacious in protecting them (individual rights). Oddly, you just provided the downfall of such a government. From the obvious 'think of the children' type of abuse of power you would also have those that see protecting some rights as infringing on others. The FDA is an example of the latter. The FDA is a consumer rights organization, yet there are no shortage of people that see any protections as infringing on their rights.
    - ekianjo 13y ago
      > The FDA is a consumer rights organization No, not really. It does not even remotely represent patients needs, and patient organizations do not take part in any of the FDA decisions, as far as I know.
confluence 13y ago
Great essay in its early stages, where she talked about how we should always fight for freedom and equality. But she lost me on the second half. Anarchy is the same as having a government, except instead of having one entity terrorizing the population, you get thousands of psychopaths terrorizing the population. People are fundamentally shitty organisms. Giving them free rein, either as a dictator of one government, or as the leader of a band of marauding anarchists, is never a good idea. Monopolizing violence and creating protections against the corruption of government by the strong at the expense of the weak should be the goal. Democratic balanced government with strong individual protections is a good thing if it is protected from corruption. If not, you just end up with a kleptocracy. Government is just another tool. It can be used for good or evil. It's up to us to make it stay on the right side of the line.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Also, it's not useful to refer to "government" as the thing being opposed by anarchism. What they are really opposing is hierarchical organization in general. I used to be more sympathetic to that point of view, but I eventually realized that too many nifty things (such as the computer I'm typing on) could not possibly have come into existence without a disciplined, well-managed hierarchy of some sort. Somebody has to be the boss, or we might as well all go climb back into the trees.
donniefitz2 13y ago
The article was interesting as I haven't had much exposure to anarchist thought. But I'm bothered by one glaring assumption and that is, just what does she mean by freedom or liberty? Obviously she means freedom from external forces such as governments and other institutions, but the way she refers to it, it's as if it's something more than that. What she's referring to seems more comprehensive, idyllic or transcendent even. Anyone, any anarchists, care to elaborate on a rough definition of freedom within that frame of thinking?
- nutball 13y ago
  Good question. Early anarchists use the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' in a vague manner. This is OK, because anarchy isn't a theory that needs to be based on logical assumptions. It's not a theory at all, but a tendency and a force against the existent. Goldman is using the words in a transcendent fashion, so that when (old) anarchists say 'freedom,' they mean a vague situation beyond the State, unknowable for now- a dream worth fighting for. Present-day anarchists almost never use the two words in part because of their vagueness and inherent liberalism and in part because of their modern co-optation by neoliberalism and the right. Liberals use the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' to mean the agency of property owners to do what they will with their property and the right to possess things so that others may not use them. It's about markets and money. Freedom of speech, 'having your say,' is important in the marketplace of ideas, where ideas are flattened and life is exorcised. The anarchist tendency views 'freedom' as the ability to live one's life in a way of their own choosing. It's certainly freedom in the communist sense: the ability to freely access the goods, food, housing, clothes, etc. necessary for life. But anarchy is also freedom from the influences of the State, patriarchy, civilization, white supremacy, all of the great forces which seek to corral us and fuck with our lives and desires.
  - donniefitz2 13y ago
    Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.
tomcam 13y ago
We do get that she was an admitted terrorist and conspired to murder a man, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman#Homestead_plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman#Homestead_plot
- camdez 13y ago
  Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment... Most of us, for fairly obvious reasons, decry the use of violence by individuals, yet we are all complicit in the use of violence by the state. Our democratic governments imprison and kill in our names both in war and for the enforcement of our laws. Sometimes (often?) wrongfully. Why is our collective violence de rigueur but individual violence is immediately presumed to be evil and wrong? Presumably use of violence by the state is intended to be "justified"; i.e. it is not random, emotional, or for gain (except, perhaps a societal gain of increased safety), but either for the cause of "justice", or for safety--and these calculated, functional properties with an aim of public good make the action acceptable. The obvious difficulty of individual violence is the tendency for it to be emotional or for personal gain, or for a lack of rigor in establishment of guilt in the presumed crime of the victim. But if guilt has been firmly established, if the target of violence has, beyond a shadow of a doubt, committed heinous acts, then what is the fundamental difference? Isn't the elimination of a destructive force by an individual precisely the same in outcome as the elimination of the same force by a collection of individuals? And in a thoroughly corrupt system which promotes, protects, and encourages these destructive forces--or a system which feigns to protect and represent its citizens (but doesn't actually do so)--mustn't the responsibilities of protecting and shepherding at some point eventually fall to the citizens themselves? Surely evil carrying your banner is still evil? Now don't get me wrong, I'm no proponent of violence. I think (even) our government should commit considerably less violence. I think we generally need to scorn violence by the individual because of the likelihood that it be unrigorous, emotional, or selfish. But I don't know that the difference in emotional weight between "kill" and "murder"--that is to say "unlawfully kill"--should be so great. It seems to me that the philosophical basis for the two should be the same, rather than scorning one and supporting the other because it carries a badge.
  - vasilipupkin 13y ago

132 points by t0dd 13y ago

ljlolel 13y ago

Where are today's anarchists?

rquantz 13y ago
Right here.
thenerdfiles 13y ago
I leave my books on Post-scarcity Anarchism on the table when in public. I talk about Planned Economies openly in public. I decided not to pursue academia to show you what an Anarchist looks like. But a majority of society needs to feel validated by the exploits of Miley Cyrus and needs to feel connected with the limits of Obama's sermon-like ratiocinations or the GOP's economic exploitation strategies.
- aaronem 13y ago
  Have you considered the possibility that you're just nonsensical and really annoying?
  - thenerdfiles 13y ago
    Quot capita tot sensus.
CitizenMe 13y ago
We are all over the place. Uniforms for easy identification aren't really our thing.
angersock 13y ago
Cataloged meticulously.
moxie 13y ago
See: http://www.crimethinc.com http://www.crimethinc.com Also, it looks like you're in the Bay Area. You can stop by Bound Together Books in SF, The Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, or The Holdout in Oakland. The East Bay Anarchist Conversation and Book Event is next Saturday at Humanist Hall in Oakland: http://eastbayanarchist.com/the-second-annual-east-bay-anarchist-conversation-book-event/ http://eastbayanarchist.com/the-second-annual-east-bay-anarc... As an entrepreneur, you might also be interested to read about the anarchist community's overlap with the creation of projects such as Twitter (see the Institute for Applied Autonomy), as well as the early emphasis on self-publishing through projects like Indymedia.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  I just came across iSee[0]. Do you know if it has an API? It would be really cool to try to automatically plot routes to places without surveillance cameras. [0] http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1?zm=0&id=5876 http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1?zm=0&id=5876
Joeboy 13y ago
I don't know about today, but yesterday a pretty large number of them were at the 2013 Anarchist Bookfair at Queen Mary's College in London. http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/ http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/
anachrokate 13y ago
There's a host of radical spaces in the bay beyond the ones Moxie mentioned. But hackerspaces like Noisebridge and Sudoroom have a large quantity of explicit and involved anarchists as core members, as well as a long tradition of using anarchist organizing models and even on occasion referring to themselves as anarchist projects.

marmaduke 13y ago

Reading this essay gives the impression that this person was singular, and her time singular as well. I was always told anarchism implied violence and generally other bad things, but after reading Graeber's "Debt: the first 5000 years", I chanced upon "Anarchy works" http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anar... which is interesting to read, for at least the depictions of how anarchism has played out in several previous situations, socially and economically.

thenerdfiles 13y ago
Robert Tucker, Kropotkin, Chomsky, etc. all give us a clear idea as to how and why anarchism MUST work. Governments (where before religions, but at a moral level, religions still do) exist as a function of hegemonic markets (corporations) such that governments limit the powers of liberty of individuals through the frameworks of blind justice (corporations are just like us). This is not new. Corporations are not just like us. What do economic categories have to do with the rightness or wrongness of action? What does economic stratification have to do with the limits of human freedom? If our autonomy is limited, we do not need an Indexed Dollar to inform us of this; the market will tell us all by itself. Just like as J.S. Mill argued in terms of Women's Suffrage — Why do we need a government to legislate what Women can or cannot do when Nature will determine this all on her own? Why do we need a Government to legislate what we are economically capable of or not? (We don't.)
- mynameishere 13y ago
  Why do we need a government to legislate what Women can or cannot do when Nature will determine this all on her own? What an odd think to say. It's the nature of humans to form government, and the most natural one is despotism. Shut down the macro-governments we have now and you'll have millions of micro-tyrannies overnight. And the role of woman there would be about that of a slave. Similar stuff about god giving "inalienable rights" is rhetorical hocus-pocus.
  - snitko 13y ago

javajosh 13y ago

There is definitely a thick, deep, wide current of "gov love" in pop culture, and it's good to question it. It's expressed in movies (and TV shows) where government representatives solve problems for the common people. Those reps can be cops, James Bond, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, or what have you. They are the heroes, the saviors. In these narratives, the government heroes swoop in to protect the weak from being preyed on by the strong. And yet there is no shortage of stories that highlight the incompetence, corruption, and even out-right malicious intent of government, even popularly elected ones. So it's not one-sided, at least. In my view, what's missing from all such arguments is any kind of frame of reference. The anarchist claim is unsatisfying, to say the least, that the governments role is to maximize individual expression. To me, the best possible world is not the one where people can express themselves. Specifically, the best possible world is the one which can colonize other worlds. And it could very well be that dictatorship would work for that purpose (but I hope not). Why is spreading life beyond earth so important? Because without doing that, in the long run, life will end. And that is the closest I have come to having an article of faith: that we humans are the stewards, and the hope, of all life on earth. Unless we act, every living thing is doomed in the long run. (Of course, the question arises: what if we colonize other worlds successfully? What then? To which I answer: let's cross that bridge when we get to it.) With that frame, one can start to answer the question "Is Anarchy right?" The answer that I come up with is: probably not. We have a lot of problems with the way the US gov is structured, and particularly problems with how the judicial branch oversees the executive and holds it accountable. That important check seems to have degraded at virtually every level of society, federal, state and local, and I believe represents the greatest societal challenge we face. But is it a problem that is inherent to democracy, and something only something like anarchy can fix? Society is a lot like a life-raft, making high density human habitation possible. Laws are the framework that any government provides and constitute the lowest level interface you must support to participate in the maintenance and growth of the life-raft. Basically: Don't speed. Don't kill people. Don't steal stuff. Pay your taxes. If you do these things, you're mostly going to be okay. The real craziness starts with regulation, particularly when that regulation doesn't fit the popular view of what that regulation is or what it's purpose is. The three big national regulators that people think about when it comes to "government interference" would be the FDA, the FCC, and the SEC. We find it problematic when these organizations actively stop (and punish) small entities looking to compete with larger ones, often for arbitrary and clearly corrupt reasons. There is a revolving door between industry and government that is difficult for non-specialists to penetrate. But it is my view that these battles must be fought, and leadership (which starts with the President) must pro-actively root out corruption and misapplication of the law. And the best place to start with that, is simplicity. We need a profound reduction in the size of the legal corpus. Adding a rule that, for the next 20 years, Congress must repeal 2 laws for every law pass would be a good start. In any event, my point is that I don't think anarchy could lead us to the highest goal of human society, the colonization of other worlds. Authoritarianism, as distasteful as it is, is handy for large-scale, complex tasks like that. I don't like it. But I don't see another option.

daviddaviddavid 13y ago

I am as taken by the form as I am by the content. What beautiful writing. While there's something to be said for concision, an essay like this shows that medium-to-large sentences can be deployed to great effect. It almost feels like she's establishing a cadence at points.

t0dd 13y ago
I'm happy to hear you've had the same reaction to it I've always had. The words flow with some supernatural precision. I always return to it, for the beautiful writing, for reminders of her lifelong commitment to an ideal. If you want to read more from her, check out her autobiography: "Living My Life" http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-living-my-life http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-living-m...

ahultgren 13y ago

I've never understood (even after reading this article) how anyone who's anti-authoritarian can honestly believe that removing a government is a good idea. The author claims that it's human nature to abuse power as an argument in favor of anarchism. But to me it seems very obvious that that is exactly what will happen if people are left without constraints. Those who can get some power will get more, and there's nothing to stop them. So, is there anyone who sympathise with the author who would like to explain how a society could become more equal/fair/anything positive without a government?

jes 13y ago
I agree with your comment. I want a society that understands and cherishes individual rights, and a government that is limited to and efficacious in protecting them.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  I suppose that the amount of people that are willing to work in quantifiable/effective ways that give the individual, as much as any society, the incentive to push towards a society that understands and cherishes individual rights, and a government that is limited to and efficacious in protecting them will be less than the amount who want it, so in the logical conclusion of things: we will get neither until that imbalanced can be addressed.
- mhurron 13y ago
  > a government that is limited to and efficacious in protecting them (individual rights). Oddly, you just provided the downfall of such a government. From the obvious 'think of the children' type of abuse of power you would also have those that see protecting some rights as infringing on others. The FDA is an example of the latter. The FDA is a consumer rights organization, yet there are no shortage of people that see any protections as infringing on their rights.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    > The FDA is a consumer rights organization No, not really. It does not even remotely represent patients needs, and patient organizations do not take part in any of the FDA decisions, as far as I know.

confluence 13y ago

Great essay in its early stages, where she talked about how we should always fight for freedom and equality. But she lost me on the second half. Anarchy is the same as having a government, except instead of having one entity terrorizing the population, you get thousands of psychopaths terrorizing the population. People are fundamentally shitty organisms. Giving them free rein, either as a dictator of one government, or as the leader of a band of marauding anarchists, is never a good idea. Monopolizing violence and creating protections against the corruption of government by the strong at the expense of the weak should be the goal. Democratic balanced government with strong individual protections is a good thing if it is protected from corruption. If not, you just end up with a kleptocracy. Government is just another tool. It can be used for good or evil. It's up to us to make it stay on the right side of the line.

CamperBob2 13y ago
Also, it's not useful to refer to "government" as the thing being opposed by anarchism. What they are really opposing is hierarchical organization in general. I used to be more sympathetic to that point of view, but I eventually realized that too many nifty things (such as the computer I'm typing on) could not possibly have come into existence without a disciplined, well-managed hierarchy of some sort. Somebody has to be the boss, or we might as well all go climb back into the trees.

donniefitz2 13y ago

The article was interesting as I haven't had much exposure to anarchist thought. But I'm bothered by one glaring assumption and that is, just what does she mean by freedom or liberty? Obviously she means freedom from external forces such as governments and other institutions, but the way she refers to it, it's as if it's something more than that. What she's referring to seems more comprehensive, idyllic or transcendent even. Anyone, any anarchists, care to elaborate on a rough definition of freedom within that frame of thinking?

nutball 13y ago
Good question. Early anarchists use the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' in a vague manner. This is OK, because anarchy isn't a theory that needs to be based on logical assumptions. It's not a theory at all, but a tendency and a force against the existent. Goldman is using the words in a transcendent fashion, so that when (old) anarchists say 'freedom,' they mean a vague situation beyond the State, unknowable for now- a dream worth fighting for. Present-day anarchists almost never use the two words in part because of their vagueness and inherent liberalism and in part because of their modern co-optation by neoliberalism and the right. Liberals use the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' to mean the agency of property owners to do what they will with their property and the right to possess things so that others may not use them. It's about markets and money. Freedom of speech, 'having your say,' is important in the marketplace of ideas, where ideas are flattened and life is exorcised. The anarchist tendency views 'freedom' as the ability to live one's life in a way of their own choosing. It's certainly freedom in the communist sense: the ability to freely access the goods, food, housing, clothes, etc. necessary for life. But anarchy is also freedom from the influences of the State, patriarchy, civilization, white supremacy, all of the great forces which seek to corral us and fuck with our lives and desires.
- donniefitz2 13y ago
  Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

tomcam 13y ago

We do get that she was an admitted terrorist and conspired to murder a man, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman#Homestead_plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman#Homestead_plot

camdez 13y ago
Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment... Most of us, for fairly obvious reasons, decry the use of violence by individuals, yet we are all complicit in the use of violence by the state. Our democratic governments imprison and kill in our names both in war and for the enforcement of our laws. Sometimes (often?) wrongfully. Why is our collective violence de rigueur but individual violence is immediately presumed to be evil and wrong? Presumably use of violence by the state is intended to be "justified"; i.e. it is not random, emotional, or for gain (except, perhaps a societal gain of increased safety), but either for the cause of "justice", or for safety--and these calculated, functional properties with an aim of public good make the action acceptable. The obvious difficulty of individual violence is the tendency for it to be emotional or for personal gain, or for a lack of rigor in establishment of guilt in the presumed crime of the victim. But if guilt has been firmly established, if the target of violence has, beyond a shadow of a doubt, committed heinous acts, then what is the fundamental difference? Isn't the elimination of a destructive force by an individual precisely the same in outcome as the elimination of the same force by a collection of individuals? And in a thoroughly corrupt system which promotes, protects, and encourages these destructive forces--or a system which feigns to protect and represent its citizens (but doesn't actually do so)--mustn't the responsibilities of protecting and shepherding at some point eventually fall to the citizens themselves? Surely evil carrying your banner is still evil? Now don't get me wrong, I'm no proponent of violence. I think (even) our government should commit considerably less violence. I think we generally need to scorn violence by the individual because of the likelihood that it be unrigorous, emotional, or selfish. But I don't know that the difference in emotional weight between "kill" and "murder"--that is to say "unlawfully kill"--should be so great. It seems to me that the philosophical basis for the two should be the same, rather than scorning one and supporting the other because it carries a badge.
- vasilipupkin 13y ago