Order, Chaos, and What “Anarchy” Really Means
by Jason GodeskyBartel, Chief Lieutenant of the Fourth Underworld and regular blogger for Digital Myth, had some thoughts on the Hussein trial; now he’s been rebutted by Jan, ” celestial agent of the heavenly court sent to Earth to save you from the likes of [his] pal Bartel, here.” The conversation’s turned to one of human nature, but specifically I’m interested in Jan’s comment that, throughout human history, “we see again and again a pursuit of order.” I’d see I agree with the angel, but how does that jive with my repeated comment that I am an “anarchist”?
“Anarchy” means “rule by no one.” The “-archy” element indicates that there is still some kind of rule–only that no one is doing the ruling. That’s what true anarchy means to me. No biological entity will ever exist in a world of true chaos for very long. Chaos theory is correct, but out of that chaos emerges order. Evolution is order; tribes are an order. This kind of order is organic. It develops on its own, it adapts to changing circumstances, it is flexible, it accepts things as they are and fits them into a context that works best for all.
Other forms of rule–monarchy, theocracy, democracy, whatever–are anything but. They have an ideological vision of what that order should look like, and they are intent on imposing that vision on the world. They want order, but they want their order. They want to shoe-horn everything into that vision, however maladapted it may be. Where anarchy’s order is organic, their order is ossified; where anrchy’s order is adaptive, theirs is reactive; where anarchy’s order accepts others for what they are and builds a system around that, theirs builds a system, and violently pushes everything into it no matter how ill the fit. Anarchy’s order is elegant and gentle; it gives meaning and context. Theirs is rudimentary and violent; it is oppression and despotism.
Order is inevitable, but laws and governments are unnecessary contrivanes, unnecessary evils that afflict us. They burden us without benefit, they drain us without giving anything back. They take, but they do not give.
Anarchy’s order accepts humans for who they are, and does not need any higher, better form to work well. Adams commented that if men were angels, governments would not be necessary. Yet it seems to me that governments are not necessary because men are not angels–it is governments that require angels, and anarchies that require men.
I disagree with your use of “order”. But I think it’s because you seem to think of chaos and order as the only polarized possible states a given system can be in.
I see nil and occasionally anarchy as two other radically different alternatives on a broader spectrum.
Maybe this is because I’ve always seen Order as equaling Structure rather than being compatible with organicism or dynamicism.
For me, Anarchy depends on constituent, indivisible components acting with absolute free will. As such they have to actually exist (a denial of nil), not have their actions governed by any inert mechanistic structure (a denial of order) and yet have some sense of absolute self (a denial of chaos).
And, of course, even though they have free will, a state of Anarchy depends on all these components choosing actions that reinforce their freedom rather than breaking the anarchy (i.e. being greedy, violent, oppressive…).
Unlike all the other -isms, Anarchism is about showing people how to do good. Letting them choose good freely rather than at gunpoint (an approach that, by nature, denies good). More broadly, Anarchism functions on the unique arrogance that we don’t need to force people to behave the way we want them to. If we just do a good enough job of showing them, they’ll recognize that our way (not oppressing folks) is superior to all others.
Comment by William Gillis — 24 October 2005 @ 12:30 AM
Maybe this is because I’ve always seen Order as equaling Structure rather than being compatible with organicism or dynamicism.
I see order as anything that, well, isn’t chaotic–that has some kind of order to it. I see an organism as being very orderly. Hobbes’ vision of the “state of nature” would be chaos; a tribe has order.
Like the laws of physics?
There’s the anarchism I know and love!
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 October 2005 @ 10:19 AM
Precisely.
I believe in the old dualism of atman and brahman. And if the self is not a mechanistic predetermined cog of the greater whole than it follows that our free will in someway places us outside the laws of physics. And I’ve actually found that most other physicists feel the same way.
I figure one can find “order” in anything if one chooses to define what one sees as orderly. Entropy makes me highly aware of how much we project our everyday concepts of “order” (which can be completely different). So I guess I redefine it into that which is completely random, that which has a high degree of fluid interrelation and that which is rigidly defined.
Comment by William Gillis — 24 October 2005 @ 10:57 AM
Here’s a few thoughts that are by NO means very well developed. I am in fact, probably talking out of my ass.
Canada and Norway function EXTREMELY well as socialist nations; they have legendary health care, good education, low crime rates and low unemployment(all complemented by high taxes, of course, but who’s counting?).
Why can Canada and Norway pull this off where the U.S.A., the Greatest Nation In The History Of Ever cannot? (Hereafter abbreviated as GNITHOE, pronounced “nieth-oh”).
The answer, methinks, comes from the uniformity of the culture. In Norway, the population isn’t very diverse culturally (and mostly genetically as well). In Canada, you’ve got the eh’s and the oui’s. So all of the people of these nations, BY DISPLAYING CULTURAL UNIFORMITY WITHIN, put themselves on the same page and allow for the implementation of a socialist government that the GNITHOE simply can’t match, not in spite of, but because of its extreme diversity.
What point am I making here? Well, if everyone in an anarchist community is playing the same sheet of music, then little is necessary to keep them all doing the same thing and agreeing on the same things. You’ll see disagreements here and there, but these will be minor, and usually fixable by talking. If the disagreements cannot be resolved, the group fissions, and those of a like mind go their separate ways, to produce another group that displays uniformity within.
Now, let’s look at an anarchist community composed of randomly selected members of the GNITHOE: we’ll start with a few corn-fed Nebraskans, throw some Alabama bible-thumpers into the mix, liberally mix with musicians from Seattle and artists from San Francisco (wink, wink), toss in some black dudes from rural South Carolina and some LA black dudes and… well, we’ll just leave it there, because you can see what I’m getting at.
Diversity without and uniformity within will pretty much guarantee a world filled with stable, anarchist egalitarian communities that still flow with ideas from all over.
- Chuck
(p.s. It is interesting to note that even in beautiful Socialist Canada, with only the eh’s and oui’s, the oui’s have been trying to fission for a good long time.)
Comment by Chuck — 24 October 2005 @ 1:09 PM
So monarchy, theocracy, democracy, etc, are all artificial structure created by man to suit the particular ideology of some group of people? How does anarchy actually differ from this? The claim that it is not “artificial” is valid to a certain extent, but the construction of an anarchist society today requires a conscious decision to accept anarchist ideals. Which is the same decision making process we would undergo to embrace monarchy, theocracy, or democracy. Man has reached a point where every decision is artificial. We cannot subvert our own conscious attempts at rationalizing decision-making.
Certain ruling structures (monarchy, theocracy, democracy, as examples) have evolved from anarchy. I am making an assumption that at some point in time there was Adam and Eve and no control structures beyond nature itself. So here’s a scenario: we make a conscious decision to embrace anarchism, and construct an anarchist society. I cannot believe that the same sort of ruling structures would not evolve from this new anarchy, without some un-anarchistic way to control the populace.
Comment by Erik — 24 October 2005 @ 3:22 PM
While ideas such as monarchy, theocracy, democracy, etc. might have evolved initially among a group of people, shortly after that they began being imposed by way of colonization. Anarchy or egalitarianism evolved in individual groups in separate areas over generations, and no two ways are identical, therefore reinforcing the diversity that is key to survival of the species.
Also, anarchy is a “bottom-up” strategy. Take a group of individuals and, through experimentation, figure out in a dynamic, constantly evolving way that they all work best together. The other “-archies” are “top-down” strategies. Decide what the way is first, then make everyone comply with it. It is codified, which makes it much more resistant to change.
Roxy
Comment by Raku — 24 October 2005 @ 3:34 PM
Correction: Anarchy’s technically not really a “bottom-up” strategy, as it lacks the pyramid structure of hierarchy. So I guess it’d be more of a “level ground” structure, with various peaks. Analogies, anyone? I’m at a loss…
Roxy
Comment by Raku — 24 October 2005 @ 3:41 PM
Which is as likely as me taking a fart and flaming, flying monkeys screaming out of my butt. The much more likely scenario is the breakdown of the current, artificial system, and the natural return to our preferable, anarchic, default state.
Nor would any such measures succeed, long-term. But, if the resources will not allow for it, well then, you’re golden. The only reliable check on power structures ever rising again is the fact that they won’t be able to ever rise again….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 October 2005 @ 3:49 PM
Yarg. You goddamn primitivist.
Pure Anarchy cannot be imposed. Cannot exist until individuals are absolutely free of oppression, hierarchy, power… whatever you like to call it.
Though humanity once existed in a state that was, on many levels, far closer to Anarchy, it was not Anarchy. Individuals had next to no strength over the physical world. And a lack of information technology meant factionalism which led to us-v-them violence and oppression. So two things developed that have become sorta interrelated but are not necessarily: Technology and Social Power.
Much as I love the wilderness and your grandiose cataclysms, I’d far rather move toward a world with infinite Technology and zero social power. The key then is to wake people up and let them see for themselves how stupid and immoral power is. So that by the time our technological progress advances to the point each individual has the potential ability to destroy the universe, we’ll be mature enough not to. There’s no fundamental evil in human nature. No reason why we should suffer under power structures.
Imposing (or wickedly standing by and allowing) a forced withdrawl of individuals’ strength over their material world is a distinctly oppressive tactic. And I simply don’t see how one could ruin the world enough that Anarchists wouldn’t need to continue oppressing folk to keep them from re-developing infrastructure or advanced technology… at least without making this ruining of the world so grand that it becomes completely and radically hostile to human life.
The hostile environments you’re talking about have a nasty tendancy to channel the need to control the physical world into a need to control human beings. (Slave labor to accomplish a task easy today.)
Yeah. I’d say throw out the term ’structure’. I’d use the analogy that if other states of social interrelation are based on lines of power connecting and controlling individual points, Anarchy would just be a free-form jumbling of the points. Minus all the lines.
Comment by William Gillis — 24 October 2005 @ 6:47 PM
And since such absolutes are impossible, so is “Pure Anarchy.” Nothing in the real world is pure.
I reject the notion that anarchy must (or even should) include “freedom” from the laws of physics. The unnatural, artificial imposition of man-made laws is clumsy and maladaptive, but the kind of pure, absolute freedom you’re talking about begins to become a constraint in itself. See the last two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Why does that notion fill me with a cold dread?
Which, since the thought patterns predominant in a society is determined by that society’s economic reality, is as impossible as absolute freedom or pure anarchy.
Oh, OK, that’s wherefore the cold dread. Everyone with the ability to destroy the universe, and the only thing stopping them is, “because that would be bad.”
Neither is there any fundamental good in human nature. Humans are only, fundamentally, human. That means being as self-interested and short-sighted as any other animal.
I do love this argument that I “allow” things to happen. I allowed the invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, global warming and ABC’s fall schedule! Am I become a god, then, that I “allow” the laws of physics to do as they will? Did I somehow miss my own apotheosis? The Greeks seemed quite sure apotheosis involved burning away the mortal parts so only the divine remained–I think I would have remembered something like that…
So, no, I also reject this notion that it’s wrong to somehow surrender our hubris, let go of our delusions of granduer, and accept that we are part of the world, rather than its lord and god. In fact, it’s the opposite that I find “wicked.”
Stay tuned. That discussion comes up a lot. See “Peak Wood” for a start. (Note: I’m not terribly concerned with the trivial case of some small, peripheral kingdoms rising for a century or two and then collapsing–in fact, I’d call it a good thing, for those few people who genuinely enjoy dragging stones up pyramids, so long as the rest of us can be free.)
Anyway, it basically comes down to this. The first iteration of civilization made a second iteration impossible. We’ve made almost all land on earth infertile without petrochemical fertilizers. All the surface deposits of fossil fuels were long ago exhausted; that’s why we dig so deep for them now. They’re so deep, you need fossil fuels to reach them. All the near-surface ores have been mined; now, in order to mine metals, you need to already have metals. And without metals or fossil fuels, there’s very little of the earth’s surface that can be farmed.
So, a second attempt at civilization will have to start after a clear break, so there won’t be anything to build on. It won’t have metals or fossil fuels necessary for expansion, so the “Peak Wood” problem will set in after a century or three, as with Cahokia, and they’ll collapse, having reached a maximum radius bound primarily to how far their soldiers can march before they run out of food. So, if you live in the capital of such a kingdom and want to be free, start walking. By the end of the week, you’ll be so far away that you’ll never see another officer of the king again.
Only if you try to live contrary to the laws of nature. It’s only then that the environment becomes hostile, and it’s only then you’ll feel a need to control the physical world. Otherwise, it’s benevolent and abundant. It’s only hostile if you try to control it. It’s shoving a square peg in a round hole–like trying to farm your food. Funny how it’s only farmers who enslave others, isn’t it?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 October 2005 @ 7:17 PM
I disagree. This statement arises from a misunderstanding of anarchy itself. Anarchist societies could have extremely rigid and evident structures, or very fluid and subtle structures, and the entire gamut in between. The structure of a society has nothing to do with anarchy; anarchy is found when there is nothing forcing you into the structure of the society but yourself and the general opinions of your community. Anarchy means literally, “Without rule.” This doesn’t mean chaos, and it doesn’t mean lawlessness. It simply means that no one is ‘in charge,’ and that no one implements the laws but the people themselves, and the laws are implemented according to the laws.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 24 October 2005 @ 7:52 PM
You’ve pretty much managed to restate everything I was saying.
Relationships between individuals can be devoid of hierarchy. (In fact they are, in Anarchy.) Thus they have none of these person-to-person powerlines. No one has direct control or authority over anyone else. How they choose to associate or work together is something else entirely, and would obviously have so many infinite constantly changing ’structures’ spread out across all the various possibilities. Neither chaotic or orderly. Unless you stretch the vague common perceptions we have of each term to encompass it all.
I guess I don’t understand any positive or negative connotations with Chaos or Order (in the sense of association rather than power).
Granted, all the words we’re using here vary extremely per person. But I wonder as to why you seem to gravitate towards terminology of “order” and “law” when both of those are popularly considered synonymous with the imposition of some external power upon individuals.
Comment by William Gillis — 24 October 2005 @ 8:24 PM
I don’t consider there to be any implication of imposition inherent in the concept of “order.” I consider it to also be roughly synonymous with “organized.” I consider, for instance, the cells of a plant to be very orderly. But that’s a VERY different thing from laws….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 October 2005 @ 8:32 PM
Oh, of course. To the extent that nothing we can think of can be embodied in a “pure” manner. But it’s important that we don’t throw aside our ideals to settle for some muckity-muck of oppression. So long as there is ANY oppression in this here world, I am oppressed. And it’s extremely dangerous to start proclaiming that oh… we can settle with just this much freedom. Anarchists should never (on a ideological level) settle for anything less than infinite freedom. Momentary tactics aside, the moment we say “we’ve gone far enough” is the moment we justify all sorts of Fascism.
And since this has turned into techno-worship v a-primitivism, I might as well point out that primitivists tend to get so focused on acomplishing something dramatic in the short term that they become willing to ignore and erase from their mind any higher sense of morality. But that’s a low pot-shot and I’m a cyber-punk, rapture-of-the-nerds worshipping script kiddie, so let’s continue, shall we?
Whoa-whoa-whoa! Hang on a sec. Nothing can’t break the laws of physics. That’s stupid. Perhaps a better translation of my earlier bit is that individuals are free from mechanistic causality. We have free will. Which violates causality, but doesn’t make the force of gravity work as an inverse cube.
Terminology, but I’m all with the physics, so it’s important.
What I’m talking about is the sort of post-human extrapolation of the principle of technology (technological development increases the amount of control we have over our inert material environment) ad infinitum to where we’re something like Clarke’s child-gods whose bodies’ inner workings aren’t black boxes, and who don’t have to waste their existence trying to stay alive, because they’ve surpassed the cheap constraints of scrounging for food. That sorta thing.
Just like the exact details of what a-primitivism will develop and how, so must you allow me not to waste paragraphs fleshing out the (near) infinite technological-power that’s inevitable providing we neither completely destroy ourselves or revert to primitivism (near enough to the same thing, eh?).
Let’s not go there.
The author was institutionalized for being insane. Did I mention insane?! If you can gleam any sort of coherent logic out of the madness of the last two episodes… well you’re smarter than me. 
Nihilist.
Stop dooming the proles as sheep.
And what’s wrong with that? Either our sense of morality (not oppressin’ folks) is correct under any deep and openminded analysis or it’s not. If it is, than what could be more solid a wall against the annihilation of creation?
Should we continue to pull through and avoid falling off the technological ladder this point is going to get progressively closer. Thus making it all the more important to use the developing dissolution of informational boundaries to gradually awaken (or concrete, since it’s always been there to find) an absolute global morality.
What’d I say about not dissin’ on the proles, man? Individuals are free thinking beings, any free thinking being, given the philosophical absolute of cogito ergo sum will rationalize empathy towards other individuals.
Okay, that was a little cheap. It’s unfair to expect you to single-handedly avert the crisis, and you have after all been doing what you can to assist the transition. But I still can’t help but pick up on a certain sense of glee on the part of a-primitivists regarding all this.
Hmm… yeah, I don’t know how further we can beat this philosophical divide. I believe in Atman and Brahman. I believe in free will. We are more than just cogs in the universe, we are infinitely more than that. Not some call for arrogance, but one of exaltation and the source of all human respect. When we mechanize one another into abstract elements of the world rather than fundamentally individuals… we excuse all manner of immorality.
I agree. To a certain extent. Interestingly enough it was Crichton’s thesis on all this in Jurassic Park (and my dad’s protest stories) that prompted me to rapidly fall head-over-heels in love with Anarchism all the way back in elementary school. (Weird, huh
)
Chaos Theory is a really good critique of our attempts to dominate earth’s biosphere and force our own limited desires into existence. Stupid. as. fuck. I am an environmentalist.
But three things:
#1. What makes you think we won’t initiate some sorta singularity before the global infrastructure collapses.
#2. Why can’t we just head off into space? Chew up regolith and the like? Just ’cause stuff is complex is no reason to think we won’t be able to figure out all the stuff pertaining to keeping our own selves alive.
and
#3. What makes you think we haven’t already interfered too much in the dynamic structure of the biosphere? Only takes a butterfly and, heck, we’ve got asphalt covering 10% of the world. Things could already be too far destabilized. I really doubt it’s bad enough to destroy the whole biosphere (however one would do that), but it could easily mean another iteration of the biosphere that adamantly doesn’t include us.
Comment by William Gillis — 24 October 2005 @ 9:20 PM
But I think that it may simply be the poverty of the English language that’s leading to a conflation here of two very different things. Freedom from the laws of man is a very different thing than freedom from the laws of nature. I believe the former is necessary and critical; I believe the latter is impossbile and undesirable.
I’m agnostic about free will. We’ve certainly never displayed it. If we do have free will, you’d never be able to tell. Our history remains very, very mechanistic. Not once have we defied the current of history and decided, “No, we’re not going to do that.”
Oh, yeah, sounds like … fun. And by fun, I mean like living out a Lovecraftian nightmare of non-Euclidian madness. I think it was for such visions that the ancient Greeks decided that the souls of the dead must be violently jealous of the living, for our chance to enjoy the simple, sensual pleasure of life–a drink of wine, the taste of meat, a lover’s warm touch….
I like being human. I want to live and die as a man. I don’t want to be a god, and I don’t want to aspire to delusions of godhood–because, ultimately, technology isn’t all that great. So it will always be a delusion.
Opposites, I would say. The domesticated strain of Homo sapiens is as far removed from “human” as the domestic cow is from that monster of legend from whence it springs, the auroch. Destroying ourselves would be the end of our species; progressing to primitivism (not a reversion, but a huge step forward after our long fall) is the rebirth of the same.
Indeed he was! And genius is born in such moments. Shamans are insane, too. Those last two episodes marked the only time I ever had a spiritual experience watching TV–they taught me the true meaning of all pain.
The proletariat has no monopoly on such people; neither the bourgeois. They are fairly evenly distributed, but they are the majority of the human race. That’s why our history is so deterministic–even if we do have free will.
Because morality is always the very weakest form of social control. Tell somebody not to do something because “it’s wrong,” and I can guarantee that someone will do it.
The Theodosian Code is very useful in studying Late Antiquity. Why? Because if it’s outlawed, we know people were doing it.
See Ben’s recent post, “Techno-Salvation.” Also, technological innovation is not infinite. Many problems really are unsolvable (they taught me that in computer science school). Moreover, technological innovation is subject to diminishing marginal returns, and we’ve passed the point of diminishing returns. From now on, every invention will cost more, and for that greater cost, we’ll get increasingly modest innovations. There’s an asymptote you approach, and it’s not that much higher than where we are now. This is pretty much all the technology there will ever be.
Again, I don’t know if any of that is true. There’s certainly no evidence for it, I know that. But even so, some people will do that, and some won’t. The bell curve of human decency, if you will. Humans are neither good, nor evil. They’re simply humans. Being self-interested and short-sighted is not a bad thing; it is a perfectly natural thing. If you consider it a bad thing, then it’s because the way we’re living makes it so; and that means we’re living in a manner maladapted to who we are. So, we should change the way we’re living.
Certainly–the same way the early Christians looked forward to the apocalypse. The crash itself will be horrific, but afterwards … we’re going to be the first humans to know freedom in 10,000 years. How can I not feel a bit of glee at that? The trial will be hard, but the reward is incredible.
Understanding culture as a system doesn’t excuse anything done to individuals. If anything, the deterministic nature of culture may be because we have free will–and because of that bell curve of decency. For every saint, there’s a villain, but most people cluster in the middle as just ordinary folks. That’s never changed in the past, and I don’t expect it to ever change in the future. Every plan that requires shifting that mean is utopian–and every such plan, to date, has failed utterly.
Because the singularity is a pipe dream. Our technological innovation is coming more slowly now, not more quickly. Compare a city in 1900 and 1950; now compare 1950 to 2000. Most of our big innovations came between 1900-1950. They’ve tapered off. Our innovations now tend to be refinements of existing technology, not radically new technology. The airplane and the computer, these were radically new technologies. The iPod nano, sexy as it is, is not a radical innovation over the iPod mini.
And while our inventions are becoming more modest, they’re also becoming pricier. Penicillin was one of the greatest medical achievements we ever made–it cost $20,000, total. It’s diminishing marginal returns, and we passed the point of diminishing returns for technology a few years ago. We’re approaching an asymptote. There will always be more innovations, but they’ll be increasingly modest, and increasingly expensive.
It’s a problem of the “low-hanging fruit.” Our earliest innovations were the ones that were easiest to achieve, and had the most dramatic effect. Now, there’s little left to do but refine those things. Essentially, the singularity rests on the idea that technology is somehow divine and independent of such piddly things as marginal returns. That’s just delusional; it is not.
Because Peak Oil hit last week, and we passed the point of diminishing returns for technology. Even the cheeriest estimates put the first manned mission to Mars by 2019, but I’ll be surprised if we still have cities by then.
Because of how quickly the biosphere bounces back when we stop raping it. See Marufu, et al, 2004. “The 2003 North American Electrical Blackout: An Accidental Experiment in Atmospheric Chemistry.” [PDF; listed in the Vault] It took just 24 hours of blackout in New York for the air quality in Pennsylvania to improve drastically. Sure, it’ll be centuries before we see old growth forests again, populated with spruce 11 feet wide. But forest of some kind springs up damn quick. The biosphere is incredibly resilient. Some parts of it are delicate, but itself, it is nigh impervious. Such is the strength of diversity.
Civilization is fragile, but humans are among the most adaptable things on the planet. We’re omnivores; to starve us out, you need to wipe out all multicellular life on earth. We live in every habitat on the planet–even as foragers (in fact, for most of those habitats, only as foragers). Whether we’re looking at a new ice age (which was where we grew up, anyway), or a sweltering new jungle-world, a la the Jurassic, there will be some latitude at which humans will be just fine.
At the end of the world, I expect the last human to eat the last cockroach.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 October 2005 @ 10:40 PM
Not true, Jason. We are not humanity. Not to be nitpicky, but it’s always important to notice how ethnocentric our own thinking is. Other cultures have maintained freedom despite this culture’s craziness. The entire continents of North and South America did pretty well, until the white man came.
Comment by Devin — 25 October 2005 @ 1:55 AM
Well there’s a lot of faith there, but to be honest it’s not like I spent a lot of time justifying my assertions. Anyway, I’ve been trying this new thing called a bedtime and so I’ll close quickly and see whether I feel like carving out the holes I see in the morning. Quickly, though:
I think the diminishing returns theory is the best thing a-primitivists have going for them. And yes I’ve been very interested to see how this blog is going to further them. But I just don’t see it invalidating the concept of letting lose hordes of reproducing robots to tear up some resource (like asteroids) and do the building for us.
I’m quite enamored of the world where the means of production are controlled by each individual individually. ie via the classic swarm of nanotech living on our shoulders as a cloak we can create anything we choose. Pipe enough energy in and it’s just mathematics to get any material substance.
Peak oil may have an effect on the space race (and I’m damn sure it will, which is why we folk are promoting space development as quickly as possible). If we beat this supposed window to get a toehold out of the gravity well, then we’ve got it made.
Why must I be confined to this body?
Why must I slave as a part of a greater eco-system?
Why must humanity (in whatever form) end with the destruction of our wimpy out-in the middle of nowhere solar system (or whatever earlier natural disaster takes us out)? *
These seem like tacked-on LAWS of primitivist philosophy that MUST BE followed.
Yes there is a difference between following the laws of man and the laws of nature. And it’s an important difference. But I feel like yall are personalizing nature as a god and then going on about how it’s absolutely important that we follow these commandments.
Why shouldn’t someone be able to change their gender, for instance? Now there’s a can of worms.
Personally I agree with the whole, going as little against the flow as necessary, no need to presumptuously kick the shit out of our environment. …But that’s pragmatic wisdom, it doesn’t mean our environment should control us.
The reason we’ve gone so far from the original a-primitivist template is because (along with an emergent universal desire for freedom from human oppression) folks also just don’t like nature telling them what to do. They don’t like getting born with handicaps. Like the human body. I mean I’m a big fan. But is it so wrong to wish it was more opensource?
*(For the record, I’m all about beating the shit out of heat-death. If we really do have free will then that causation stands in contradiction with entropy and there just may be a loop to exploit to keep the universe going forever. Not out of a desire to live forever, mind you, but out of a desire to live in the first place. For if everything ends, cranks mechanistically to nil, then the case could be that universe will/is/was never to have been in the first place. Therefore, in order to embrace our existence, in order to be, something is required of us. And it’s interesting how that something corresponds with never giving in and saying that something is fundamentally out of our reach. Or accepting that we are doomed to die.) But that’s going into deep self-causation / free-will philosophy and I promised quickness.
Anyway, I still feel that my original comments on the whole chaos/order/cosmos/nil/anarchy terminology are important.
Comment by William Gillis — 25 October 2005 @ 2:03 AM
the last time we tried to control “nature,” we had easter island, global warming, peak oil, etc. we are not gods. we don’t have the knowledge of it all, therefore any attempts to control “nature” will end in disaster. how the hell can we? we are so puny!
folks don’t want to be “controlled” by nature? i don’t feel controlled by “nature” when i go into a forest, do you? food is everywhere. shelter, too. and any kind of living requires SOME kind of control. it just so happens that in nature, there isn’t alot…since we are programmed to live with nature..therefore we mix well.
what makes you think that the transhuman age will be lovely? i see the state maximizing it’s control over us. i see venture captialists spending billions on it. i see the us govt. spending billions on it.
sorry to hog the debate.
here’s a fun read.
Comment by posion oak — 25 October 2005 @ 11:04 AM
A comment found on Martian’s blog, which I found to be amusing, linguistics nerd that I am:
“She broke the law, (albeit an unjust one but WE don’t get to make those decisions on our own or else anarchy would rule all the time) so she was arrested.”
So rule by “rule by none”. Say what?
Comment by Raku — 7 November 2005 @ 5:46 PM
Pure anarchy is not unlike schizophrenia.
I believe schizophrenia is the original mindset of humanity. In schizohprenia we experience our personalities completely split, we live in complete mistrust, world is full of dangers and what forces us into cooperation is paranoia. Anarchy works in schizophrenia because every mistrusts each other - and fears someone else will grab the power and domination.
If you have ever played Illuminati, or worked with small children and detected their model of human relationships, you know what I mean.
What we call “sanity” is actually insane in the minds of the primitive cultures, who consider schizophrenia as the normal mindset of men - hence anarchy.
Comment by Susanna Viljanen — 9 November 2005 @ 10:13 AM
In schizohprenia we experience our personalities completely split, we live in complete mistrust, world is full of dangers and what forces us into cooperation is paranoia.
But this is the mindset of people who live in large, densely populated cities, not in hunter-gatherer societies.
Roxy
Comment by Raku — 9 November 2005 @ 10:43 AM
Susanna… are you planning to back up any of your statements with, say, links or book titles or some kind of evidence of serious research? Or are you under the impression that if you keep repeating the same things over and over and over again that all the anthropological data in the world will just magically disappear?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 9 November 2005 @ 3:58 PM
well i think that this website clearly states what anarchy is and i will stand for it. there shouldn’t be a government and everything that comes out of george bush’s mouth is bull shit.
Comment by anna — 15 November 2005 @ 6:17 PM
To dust away the cobwebs on this discussion, your post is interesting Susanna Viljanen… except I think it has more to do with earlier stages of human evolution, than modern homo-sapiens and tribal life. However, people with schizophrenia/psychosis did fair better in tribal societies (often as shamans), and some religious socieities today. There also must be some sort of evolutionary advantage associated with it–but we don’t know what it is yet.
Comment by adc069975 — 3 April 2007 @ 12:16 PM
Either that, or schizophrenia is just a common genetic mutation that the incredibly malleable social structure of our race has learned to take in stride, along with a laundry list of other quasi-beneficial to not-so-beneficial mutations that we’ve managed to work with quite nicely.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 3 April 2007 @ 2:11 PM