Fair enough, if the original assertion above is along the lines of “groups thinking for themselves also leads to mob violence like lynching”, no real disagreement. But it sounds like you’re saying “and that’s why hierarchical systems are necessary”, or “better”, or something.
I just don’t find it very compelling to point out mob violence, when comparing it with the brutality enacted against our scapegoats today done with the full might of the state. Which is what your original comment seemed to do, yeah?
We have genocides, we have a teeming for-profit prison system, we have generations of families and people broken beyond repair from targeted attacks on their communities.
But small groups also do the immoral mob violence thing. And it can get really fucked up, yep. Okay? To me, pointing it out just serves to highlight how hierarchical systems are so much better at systematizing that human tendency toward scapegoating and violence.
I’m not going to pretend I don’t think some sort of hierarchical system is most effective for minimizing instances of mob rule. I think it’s fair to say it is an inevitability that sometimes the majority will want something that is very bad for a minority or an individual.
I have a hard time thinking of a non-hierarchical method of preventing the tyranny of the majority. For example, what happens when a To Kill A Mockingbird type situation happens where someone is falsely accused of a heinous crime and the public wants blood? There won’t always be an Atticus Finch in reality to persuade people to choose logic over emotion.
I’m pretty uneasy about those kinds of questions myself. I think caring about ideals of justice and fairness inherently carries some amount of “…so your rules should be like my rules” along with it, and how could it not? Self-determination allows choosing rules and behaviors I think are bad, including horrifically bad.
Nonetheless. Me imposing my judgment and values on what people should do, shares enough of the problems with some faraway monolithic state doing so, that I probably just shouldn’t.
And again, hypothetical harms from self determination vs known really horrific crimes at extreme scales, many done for fairly shallow and otherwise heinous goals, to boot. I understand unease, I don’t understand defending present systems against even just the idea of trying some better ways.
If everyone was like you and me, anarchy would work perfectly fine as a social system. I don’t want to control anyone and I don’t care how anyone lives their life as long as it doesn’t directly harm me. But rules aren’t developed for reasonable people, but because of unreasonable people. Ultimately I’m more afraid of unreasonable people with no restrictions than I am of the present system.
But communities of people naturally, inevitably, develop rules to deal with unreasonable people.
In a way you’re just pointing out - “notice how some people are bad and must be controlled” (yes, clearly) and then arriving at “so the way we’re doing it now is better than what I’m imagining anarchists are suggesting”.
What I’m trying (probably failing) to say clearly is that - for me, the fundamental principle of *an-*archism - anti-hierarchical thinking - revolves around people in their own communities knowing what’s best for them. As an idea. As opposed to just gigantic new feudalism + boundlessly scary tech - knowing what’s best for folks. Which we have.
The launch into “but what if everyone can just do what they want” is…well, it’s you not thinking very hard. It’s not what I mean, I can’t speak for anyone else, but fairly sure it’s not what others mean either.
I absolutely get that communities will develop their own rules. I just don’t see a third option besides mob violence or creating a hierarchy. Either everyone collectively metes out justice, or you make justice someone’s job which creates a hierarchy of control. Maybe that’s too simplistic thinking?
What we have has big big problems, no doubt. Getting to a better place just takes so many big changes, I have a hard time visualizing getting from A to B.
But again, you seem to just lurch between “mob violence” and what sounds to me like “the hierarchies we have”, and imagine that these are like two inevitable and distinct outcomes.
Again, I don’t see smaller groups of people deciding for themselves what justice means as scarier or worse than what we have, and really I think it’s ridiculous to argue otherwise. Signalling poor awareness of what the world is like, or a borderline-paranoid misunderstanding of what most folks are like. Or something.
The question and useful discussion is “so how to make better things for all of us?”, not “what if worst case version of other_idea is somehow even fucking worse than alllllll this?”
It’s just a useless and silly premise. Self-defeating. Worse, everyone-defeating.
What we have is indefensible. It can’t be defended, it’s beyond the pale, that’s the end of that discussion for me. But “oh no what if other_thing…”
Well. We’re over here saying “what if”, not like you though.
I will say I enjoy the slow unpacking of ideas, this has been roughly what I like about Lemmy mostly, and I don’t intend to be an asshole, really. I do feel pretty strongly about things, and I don’t have a lot of patience for shallow critical takes amounting to “what if mob violence”.
“What if we keep this?” There’s a softball.
Again. It’s not hypothetical. Its ruinous. That’s the crucial distinction, what we have is ruinous, not a preferred choice among whatever you’re imagining as alternatives. The “elites” have abandoned humanity in favor of their own fantasy of someday eking out some version of isolated luxury (note, this is corroborated by an article by an experienced sex worker attending I think most recent Davos - event? The dickhead Olympics I guess?).
Instead of accepting that they have to share and stop working strictly toward their own ends. Not all of them think precisely that way, but they all have roughly the same ideas and plans for all of us.
It’s that simple. They’ve been doing that, they’re doing it, we’re seeing what happens by them doing it. It’s as evident as the sky being blue.
Fair enough, if the original assertion above is along the lines of “groups thinking for themselves also leads to mob violence like lynching”, no real disagreement. But it sounds like you’re saying “and that’s why hierarchical systems are necessary”, or “better”, or something.
I just don’t find it very compelling to point out mob violence, when comparing it with the brutality enacted against our scapegoats today done with the full might of the state. Which is what your original comment seemed to do, yeah?
We have genocides, we have a teeming for-profit prison system, we have generations of families and people broken beyond repair from targeted attacks on their communities.
But small groups also do the immoral mob violence thing. And it can get really fucked up, yep. Okay? To me, pointing it out just serves to highlight how hierarchical systems are so much better at systematizing that human tendency toward scapegoating and violence.
I’m not going to pretend I don’t think some sort of hierarchical system is most effective for minimizing instances of mob rule. I think it’s fair to say it is an inevitability that sometimes the majority will want something that is very bad for a minority or an individual.
I have a hard time thinking of a non-hierarchical method of preventing the tyranny of the majority. For example, what happens when a To Kill A Mockingbird type situation happens where someone is falsely accused of a heinous crime and the public wants blood? There won’t always be an Atticus Finch in reality to persuade people to choose logic over emotion.
Andrewism recently wrote a article addressing your concern
Interesting! I’ll check it out. Thanks
You are welcome :>
I’m pretty uneasy about those kinds of questions myself. I think caring about ideals of justice and fairness inherently carries some amount of “…so your rules should be like my rules” along with it, and how could it not? Self-determination allows choosing rules and behaviors I think are bad, including horrifically bad.
Nonetheless. Me imposing my judgment and values on what people should do, shares enough of the problems with some faraway monolithic state doing so, that I probably just shouldn’t.
And again, hypothetical harms from self determination vs known really horrific crimes at extreme scales, many done for fairly shallow and otherwise heinous goals, to boot. I understand unease, I don’t understand defending present systems against even just the idea of trying some better ways.
It sounds like we disagree about that.
If everyone was like you and me, anarchy would work perfectly fine as a social system. I don’t want to control anyone and I don’t care how anyone lives their life as long as it doesn’t directly harm me. But rules aren’t developed for reasonable people, but because of unreasonable people. Ultimately I’m more afraid of unreasonable people with no restrictions than I am of the present system.
But communities of people naturally, inevitably, develop rules to deal with unreasonable people.
In a way you’re just pointing out - “notice how some people are bad and must be controlled” (yes, clearly) and then arriving at “so the way we’re doing it now is better than what I’m imagining anarchists are suggesting”.
What I’m trying (probably failing) to say clearly is that - for me, the fundamental principle of *an-*archism - anti-hierarchical thinking - revolves around people in their own communities knowing what’s best for them. As an idea. As opposed to just gigantic new feudalism + boundlessly scary tech - knowing what’s best for folks. Which we have.
The launch into “but what if everyone can just do what they want” is…well, it’s you not thinking very hard. It’s not what I mean, I can’t speak for anyone else, but fairly sure it’s not what others mean either.
I absolutely get that communities will develop their own rules. I just don’t see a third option besides mob violence or creating a hierarchy. Either everyone collectively metes out justice, or you make justice someone’s job which creates a hierarchy of control. Maybe that’s too simplistic thinking?
What we have has big big problems, no doubt. Getting to a better place just takes so many big changes, I have a hard time visualizing getting from A to B.
I struggle with that too, to be perfectly honest. I certainly don’t have all the answers. Almost none of them, if I’m really being honest.
I’ll expand a bit because I’ve got some time now.
But again, you seem to just lurch between “mob violence” and what sounds to me like “the hierarchies we have”, and imagine that these are like two inevitable and distinct outcomes.
Again, I don’t see smaller groups of people deciding for themselves what justice means as scarier or worse than what we have, and really I think it’s ridiculous to argue otherwise. Signalling poor awareness of what the world is like, or a borderline-paranoid misunderstanding of what most folks are like. Or something.
The question and useful discussion is “so how to make better things for all of us?”, not “what if worst case version of other_idea is somehow even fucking worse than alllllll this?”
It’s just a useless and silly premise. Self-defeating. Worse, everyone-defeating.
What we have is indefensible. It can’t be defended, it’s beyond the pale, that’s the end of that discussion for me. But “oh no what if other_thing…”
Well. We’re over here saying “what if”, not like you though.
I will say I enjoy the slow unpacking of ideas, this has been roughly what I like about Lemmy mostly, and I don’t intend to be an asshole, really. I do feel pretty strongly about things, and I don’t have a lot of patience for shallow critical takes amounting to “what if mob violence”.
“What if we keep this?” There’s a softball.
Again. It’s not hypothetical. Its ruinous. That’s the crucial distinction, what we have is ruinous, not a preferred choice among whatever you’re imagining as alternatives. The “elites” have abandoned humanity in favor of their own fantasy of someday eking out some version of isolated luxury (note, this is corroborated by an article by an experienced sex worker attending I think most recent Davos - event? The dickhead Olympics I guess?).
Instead of accepting that they have to share and stop working strictly toward their own ends. Not all of them think precisely that way, but they all have roughly the same ideas and plans for all of us.
It’s that simple. They’ve been doing that, they’re doing it, we’re seeing what happens by them doing it. It’s as evident as the sky being blue.
“What if mob violence”. Right. So scary.