Riffing off Dave's "I'm a better anarchist than you theme" I have to ask (now that I have an opening) why keep using the term Anarchist when it has so many negative connotations? When I hear it I think of two things. The dumbass larpers at Chaz and the Spy vs Spy comics from Mad magazine. Not exactly a positive image. Kind of ridiculous actually.
Why not completely reinvent yourselves, including a different more catchy name? Judean People's Front or something? Well maybe not that, but something that captures the essence of the philosophy without the negative associations? Speaking of the philosophy, that is something that always irked me, because you ask a dozen people what it means to be an anarchist and you get a dozen different answers. Reminds me of a concert I went to at the Horseshoe back in TO when Truths and Rights were playing there. During a break I asked the band members what all these different terms like 'dread' and 'i-ration' meant, and sure enough four different answers, and then they started arguing among themselves about what it all meant. Pretty funny actually. Great tunes though. Super inspiring.
The ideas I get. The basic problem I have is how to get there, and what to do when you've arrived. Trouble is, nobody I ever talked to that claimed to be an anarchist had the slightest idea of how to run a modern industrial economy. I've worn a few different hard hats over the years, so I have an understanding of what it takes to put food on the table and gas in your car. That shit doesn't happen by itself. You have to learn how it's done and then be serious about doing it.
I was part of the 70's counter-culture, and even when I realized I needed to do more with my life and went to college, I had a foot in that world right up until the late 80's. No anarchists in my faculty, which was all about science and engineering. Plenty of art students and wannabe musicians though. Most with crappy service level jobs, or on welfare. Nice enough people, but most of them couldn't change the oil in their car, if they could even afford one. Not exactly a promising group of people to run things like air traffic or a nuclear reactor, should they ever get the chance. Not even competent enough to shut one down if they thought nuclear energy was a bad idea.
So what's the plan? I'm basically adrift as far as ideology goes. I don't see answers in any of them. Practical solutions to the problem of survival of as many people as possible under the best possible conditions is what I'm about. That's what keeps me going. I'm a tiny cog in a massive enterprise, but I at least turn up for work and make myself useful. So far that's all I've been able to come up with. Being useful. Not fucking up and making it worse for those around me, nor expecting them to carry me either. That's my philosophy. My two cents.
Well, to be honest, I see the fragmentation of the Anglo-American World Empire as inevitable at this point, so I'm not really trying to preserve it. I guess you could call me an "apocaloptimist"... I believe that we're in for some dark days, but that a time of tumult and turmoil is what is necessary to bring humanity back into balance with nature...
I also think that one of our main problems is that we're ruled by psychopaths who use a "strategy of tension" to keep ordinary people fighting amongst themselves. I think that part of what is going on is the largest intergenerational wealth and power transfer in recorded history... I hypothesize that certain elites have gotten old and are hanging onto power longer than they should... and indulging in delusional fantasies like transhumanism, digital immortality, global technocracy with CBDCs and exponential economic growth fuelled by gambling with biodata produced by surveillance...
I believe that what we're experiencing is a mass psychosis on the part of the elites which has spread to significant parts of the population... but their plans will ultimately fail and we'll be back in feudalism... which I think would be an improvement over the dystopian nightmare we've got now...
I'm not easily offended, but your characterization of anarchists annoys me. We have been on the front lines for social movements for decades whilst engineers and scientists have been building the infrastructure of domination. Now the collapse we've long predicted is upon us and you're making fun of anarchists for being downwardly mobile (i.e. poor)?
There has been lots of talk in recent years about alternatives to the "anarchist" label, but I belong to the Popeye school - I yam whattayam, whattayam.
"I'm not easily offended, but your characterization of anarchists annoys me. We have been on the front lines for social movements for decades whilst engineers and scientists have been building the infrastructure of domination."
Some examples to support your argument would be nice because it's not what I've seen. What I've seen just in my own lifetime is amazing advancements in science and technology that far from building the "infrastructure of domination" have improved people's lives immensely.
The chart above also shows the dramatic progress that was recently achieved. Most children in the world still died at extremely high rates well into the 20th century. Even as recently as 1950 – a time that some readers might well remember – one in four children died globally.
More recently, during our lifetimes, the world has achieved an entirely unprecedented improvement. In a brief episode of human history the global death rate of children declined from around 50% to 4%.
After millennia of suffering and failure, the progress against child mortality is for me one of the greatest achievements of humanity.
This is not an improvement that is only achieved by a few countries. The rate has declined in every single country in the world."
"Now the collapse we've long predicted is upon us and you're making fun of anarchists for being downwardly mobile (i.e. poor)?"
Not making fun. Criticizing. For being lazy and uninspiring. For latching onto a theory of social organization which lacks any substantial proof of its viability, outside of a few isolated instances, such as Spain in the 1930's. Meanwhile communism swept the world as a revolutionary movement. That's not an endorsement, just a comparison of the effectiveness of one ideology vs another.
My basic issue is with ideologies in general. My position is that we need a new organizing principle that can produce the maximum quality of life possible for as many people as possible, instead of just talking about it. Thus far, the only serious progress in that direction is owed to science. The methodology and discipline, not the people claiming to be scientists of which there are many imposters, as we've seen recently. But to denounce science for being subject to the same human failings and conceits as every other human endeavour is completely disingenuous. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
You yourself expressed disappointment with your former comrades, which is one of the things that impressed me about you. You think for yourself. But have you seriously examined your own beliefs? Have you asked yourself what exactly they're based on and where the evidence is of their success?
That was great stuff. I've definitely check out David's channel.
His songs remind me of the Great Maurice Pooby of Courtenay BC, who used to appear on Dave Wisdom's Nightlines on CBC radio back in the 90's. Yeah, CBC believe it not. That was in the before time, in the long long ago.
I can't find any of Pooby's material on the web or YT, but I have about an hour's worth that I recorded to cassette and later digitized. Maybe I'll put it up on one of my substacks if someone wants to hear it.
"if it's bringing you down, if it's making you frown, then just stop listening.... it's only music."
Riffing off Dave's "I'm a better anarchist than you theme" I have to ask (now that I have an opening) why keep using the term Anarchist when it has so many negative connotations? When I hear it I think of two things. The dumbass larpers at Chaz and the Spy vs Spy comics from Mad magazine. Not exactly a positive image. Kind of ridiculous actually.
Why not completely reinvent yourselves, including a different more catchy name? Judean People's Front or something? Well maybe not that, but something that captures the essence of the philosophy without the negative associations? Speaking of the philosophy, that is something that always irked me, because you ask a dozen people what it means to be an anarchist and you get a dozen different answers. Reminds me of a concert I went to at the Horseshoe back in TO when Truths and Rights were playing there. During a break I asked the band members what all these different terms like 'dread' and 'i-ration' meant, and sure enough four different answers, and then they started arguing among themselves about what it all meant. Pretty funny actually. Great tunes though. Super inspiring.
The ideas I get. The basic problem I have is how to get there, and what to do when you've arrived. Trouble is, nobody I ever talked to that claimed to be an anarchist had the slightest idea of how to run a modern industrial economy. I've worn a few different hard hats over the years, so I have an understanding of what it takes to put food on the table and gas in your car. That shit doesn't happen by itself. You have to learn how it's done and then be serious about doing it.
I was part of the 70's counter-culture, and even when I realized I needed to do more with my life and went to college, I had a foot in that world right up until the late 80's. No anarchists in my faculty, which was all about science and engineering. Plenty of art students and wannabe musicians though. Most with crappy service level jobs, or on welfare. Nice enough people, but most of them couldn't change the oil in their car, if they could even afford one. Not exactly a promising group of people to run things like air traffic or a nuclear reactor, should they ever get the chance. Not even competent enough to shut one down if they thought nuclear energy was a bad idea.
So what's the plan? I'm basically adrift as far as ideology goes. I don't see answers in any of them. Practical solutions to the problem of survival of as many people as possible under the best possible conditions is what I'm about. That's what keeps me going. I'm a tiny cog in a massive enterprise, but I at least turn up for work and make myself useful. So far that's all I've been able to come up with. Being useful. Not fucking up and making it worse for those around me, nor expecting them to carry me either. That's my philosophy. My two cents.
Well, to be honest, I see the fragmentation of the Anglo-American World Empire as inevitable at this point, so I'm not really trying to preserve it. I guess you could call me an "apocaloptimist"... I believe that we're in for some dark days, but that a time of tumult and turmoil is what is necessary to bring humanity back into balance with nature...
I also think that one of our main problems is that we're ruled by psychopaths who use a "strategy of tension" to keep ordinary people fighting amongst themselves. I think that part of what is going on is the largest intergenerational wealth and power transfer in recorded history... I hypothesize that certain elites have gotten old and are hanging onto power longer than they should... and indulging in delusional fantasies like transhumanism, digital immortality, global technocracy with CBDCs and exponential economic growth fuelled by gambling with biodata produced by surveillance...
I believe that what we're experiencing is a mass psychosis on the part of the elites which has spread to significant parts of the population... but their plans will ultimately fail and we'll be back in feudalism... which I think would be an improvement over the dystopian nightmare we've got now...
I'm not easily offended, but your characterization of anarchists annoys me. We have been on the front lines for social movements for decades whilst engineers and scientists have been building the infrastructure of domination. Now the collapse we've long predicted is upon us and you're making fun of anarchists for being downwardly mobile (i.e. poor)?
There has been lots of talk in recent years about alternatives to the "anarchist" label, but I belong to the Popeye school - I yam whattayam, whattayam.
"I'm not easily offended, but your characterization of anarchists annoys me. We have been on the front lines for social movements for decades whilst engineers and scientists have been building the infrastructure of domination."
Some examples to support your argument would be nice because it's not what I've seen. What I've seen just in my own lifetime is amazing advancements in science and technology that far from building the "infrastructure of domination" have improved people's lives immensely.
Here's one metric that proves my point:
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
"The mortality of children today
The chart above also shows the dramatic progress that was recently achieved. Most children in the world still died at extremely high rates well into the 20th century. Even as recently as 1950 – a time that some readers might well remember – one in four children died globally.
More recently, during our lifetimes, the world has achieved an entirely unprecedented improvement. In a brief episode of human history the global death rate of children declined from around 50% to 4%.
After millennia of suffering and failure, the progress against child mortality is for me one of the greatest achievements of humanity.
This is not an improvement that is only achieved by a few countries. The rate has declined in every single country in the world."
"Now the collapse we've long predicted is upon us and you're making fun of anarchists for being downwardly mobile (i.e. poor)?"
Not making fun. Criticizing. For being lazy and uninspiring. For latching onto a theory of social organization which lacks any substantial proof of its viability, outside of a few isolated instances, such as Spain in the 1930's. Meanwhile communism swept the world as a revolutionary movement. That's not an endorsement, just a comparison of the effectiveness of one ideology vs another.
My basic issue is with ideologies in general. My position is that we need a new organizing principle that can produce the maximum quality of life possible for as many people as possible, instead of just talking about it. Thus far, the only serious progress in that direction is owed to science. The methodology and discipline, not the people claiming to be scientists of which there are many imposters, as we've seen recently. But to denounce science for being subject to the same human failings and conceits as every other human endeavour is completely disingenuous. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
You yourself expressed disappointment with your former comrades, which is one of the things that impressed me about you. You think for yourself. But have you seriously examined your own beliefs? Have you asked yourself what exactly they're based on and where the evidence is of their success?
That was great stuff. I've definitely check out David's channel.
His songs remind me of the Great Maurice Pooby of Courtenay BC, who used to appear on Dave Wisdom's Nightlines on CBC radio back in the 90's. Yeah, CBC believe it not. That was in the before time, in the long long ago.
I can't find any of Pooby's material on the web or YT, but I have about an hour's worth that I recorded to cassette and later digitized. Maybe I'll put it up on one of my substacks if someone wants to hear it.
"if it's bringing you down, if it's making you frown, then just stop listening.... it's only music."
The guy was a rebel genius.
Yes please! If it's as good as you say I'll give you a signal boost.
OK. I'll put it up in a day or two. Working this weekend.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.