Submitted by Ohawkins21 on Sun, 07/25/2010 - 16:06.
The main argument that anarchist receive is always about human nature. If we are to argue in favor of human beings naturally being good, sententious creatures then why don't we ever think about trying to find the relationship between human happiness and human well-being from a philosophical and scientific perspective. If we do this we maybe able to find the answers between human values of conscious creatures and facts about the world.
just a thought
Man is not our ideal
Anarchists do not argue in favor of humans being inherently good. Liberals usually do. We believe Man to be inherently corrupt.
Man is something that has to be overcome: That is what Nietzsche said, and anarchists would agree.
The entire concept of Man, your 'human beings', is a bourgeois compromise. We not only recognize that as coercive, we reject it, and hold those who harbor such notions in profound contempt.
yes nietzsche does say that
Nietzsche does say something close to that but I am not convinced the he is the father of anarchy or that his philosophy is whole to be taken as some sort of authoritative dogma either. Is it a bourgeois compromise to use "human beings" the way it is used above? I question weather the author of the above post has said enough about what that means to him or her to make that judgment. I like Nietzsche but having said that there man has been used by fascist and Nazi's as a justification for their political beliefs so I question the value of sighting him in such a general way and would like to see a more exacting argument from you supporting your point.
Personally I do not believe man is inherently corrupt. It's just to close to the Christian concept of original sin and I do wonder how Nietzsche separates his acculturation and his philosophy. Do you believe he escaped completely the world view of his day? His place in time and geography, his acquired conditioning of life, he was certainly in practice (of his life) an individual who did not exactly live up to anarchist ideas if memory serves me right.
your comment on Neitzsche
Although I agree with you about Neitzsche's philosophy being taken out of context, I still see no harm in using him all because his sister decided to fabricate everything that he said and used it for the benefit of fascism and incrementalism. With that being said, if anyone knows anything about what the Nazi's did with Neitzsche's philosophy they will know that it was not his philosophy at all that was being taught.....I suggest that you guys read about "Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche" or read what Walter Kaufman has said about it...then one will understand that it is safe to use Nietzsche in terms of anarchism, although one does not have to agree with it and knows that it is inappropriate to use him.
Our Acculturation
Ohawkins21's 'human beings' is a general term used in a manner synonymous with Man, albeit with two meanings. That is enough to pass judgement.
Like statistical-average-man, Ohawkins21's Man #1 simply does not exist. There are Frenchmen, Chinese, Turks, etc., but there is no Man, i.e. a selection of men and women of various identities whom we anarchists could determine 'the relationship between human happiness and human well-being', and 'find the answers' Ohawkins21 thinks we are interested in finding/establishing authoritatively (cf. 'a philosophical and scientific perspective'). Although such exercises are routinely pursued in academia, and are considered to be an extension of idolized Enlightenment thought, anarchists shun such bullshit.
Original Sin is not exclusively understood or accepted by Christians. That is, it is not a mere two thousand years old.
Anarchists and Christians both understand that wickedness and akrasia are universal - that Man (Ohawkins21's #2) is inherently corrupt.
Although anarchists are against first beginnings, categorically rejecting universal evil/Original Sin is not quintessentially anarchist, for it neither restores nor transcends but rather ignores the empirical evidence that we are not living in the Garden of Eden, and narrowly interprets anarchism as a starting point for an everlasting political journey.
Thus, fictitious Average Man and tangible Fallen Man must be overcome, for both constitute our acculturation.
Re. Nietzsche: I did not say or infer anarchists would agree because Nietzsche said it. I simply said anarchists would agree.
all the evidance is there
I'll go in order to show you how flawed and how much sense you are making
The word human being is definatly ambigious. I will admit in my very first post it did seem authoritative but I asure you that was not the perspective that I was coming from. In terms of using the word human being I understand the persepctive you are coming from but that does not mean that you are correct. It is definatly an ad hominome and totally irrelevant. If you want to see me as a corecive individual then go right ahead but if you personally knew me you would to the conclusion that I am using the word human being as a general statement. But for your sake I will stop saying such a thing.
Secondly, no matter if we define individuals as human beings, people, society, etc all of these concepts are thus created by "man" as a way of putting people into catogories. If man does not exist then what are we? If you are refering to man not existing as external beings then I agree with you..Our consciousness, our minds are who we really are but I would totally not disregard the physical aspect that makes us "human beings". I also hate to place catogories among certain things but at the same time, our rules of grammer sort of prevent such a thing. At its orgins the word human being, the word man, the word women is authortative but that does not imply that anyone who use such a word is using it in that context. This next part is where you should really watch who you are talking to: I agree with you that our current educational system is nothing but a corecive, authoritative, galvinizing, capitolistic, and bullshit insitution. I really agree with that. Noam Chomsky states that "if an authoritative [insitution] does not have a burden of proof to bear it should thus be dismanteled and replaced with a free and participatory system". Trust me I see the academic realm as being bullshit....But at the same time I will not disregard the benefits that philosophy, science, math, etc provides. I am not a big fan of the academic arena myself. Truth be told everything I learn about is from my own outside, unrestricted studies. I do not put my trust in this screwed up educational system. I simply believe that our intellect can be cultivated much better than this system that we are stuck in. If you really knew what you were talking about you would realize two things. #1 you would realize that it really takes simple common sense to acutally come up with even the most convoluted concepts (such as is having such an authoritiave government even neccessary?), one does not need an educational insitution for that. Secondly, if you knew anything about anarcho-syndicalism you would come to the conclusion that not all authortiave relationships are bad (such as a father teaching his daughter how to read, or a teacher teaching a student how to sew. this is only acceptable if it is done in a just, non corecive manner). I'm not saying that authority is bad, Im saying that some authoritative relationships are hard to avoid.
Ok, I understand that wickedness and atrocities do happen. I never said that individuals cannot do bad deeds or even become corrupted. I mentioned in my earlier post that humans have the capacity to become corrupted and cause other to feel oppressed. I would be a fool to deny such things. But this does not imply that humans are inherently corrupted. People are simply not born that way. If anything they are born neutrual. If you really look at all the unjust actions that occur, they were caused by some sort of external force or stimuli (i.e opression, not having one's basic neccessities, repression, etc), and Alexander Berkman mentioned this in his book, "What is Anarchism" by saying "but what caused one to do such bad things" or somthing similar to that? Most of our bad deeds can be traced back to our previous expereinces or some sort of external force exterting itself forcefully upon us but you are simply wrong in saying that human beings are corrupted. One does not need an academic professor to tell them this, one can simply open their eyes and think critcally.
As for original sin, I will not waste my time with that nor do I think it was directed towards me. But I do have a comment one your garden of eden statement. I am not implying that once we find the correlation between human happiness, human conciousness and human well being , that we will be living in utopia. If you got that impression from me then that is my mistake. But at the same time most of our problems will be reduced dramatically which is why I believe that we are accepting of anarchism in the first place. You certanily base human natrue off what you experience in life without realizeing that all of our actions are dictated by motive and if you look deep enough one will find their answer. All the evidence is right in front of us. We do not need a lab from this.
you never answered my question from the other post and nice talking to you
ad hominem?
In your initial post in this thread you said that it was just a thought, but if you identify with the thought then it wasn't just a thought.
I attacked the thought.
yes ad hominem
whenever one is engaging in polemic discourse and decides to divert the attention to attacking the individuals character (you were basically saying I was a corecive, authoritative individual due to the fact that I used the word human being) then that is an ad hominem. All though you did not directly say it, I just happened to be the individual who used the corecive word. No harm done, I was just playing your game since this is another pointless argument? Your a smart indidvidual, I was hoping you were going to respond to my second rebuttle since I left many loopholes in the arugement.
I just realized
in that case Anarcho-syndicalism is two words.....anarcho-capitalism is two words, communist anarchism is two words.....So I take it as these words are coercive as well right? It is funny because they are used in the same context as the word human being........with two different meanings
Nice Response
Most of the anarchist that I have met would agree with the statement that I have just mentioned. If humans are naturally corrupted, coercive, manipulative creatures then I would not even waste my time advocating in favor of anarchism. We are surly products of our environments. If you look at it from the level of the brain and look at the different cultural variations that we encounter(or learn about) you would surly understand that our environments shapes or even cultivate who we are. Most of the anarchist that I have read about would disagree with your statement being that they would feel like they were wasting their time. I have never got the impression from Noam Chomsky that humans are naturally corrupted. Chomsky looks at it in terms of people being more consciously aware of what they really want. Although you may disagree with this there are truths to be told about the true nature of human beings. Human beings are naturally good, but have the CAPACITY to do bad things due to the fact that the physiology of our brains change with the different experiences that we encounter. You might as well say the nature of babies are bad and corrupted and that they cry not out of survival but in terms of wanting being an coercive individual. Your basing your response of human nature off of what you experienced in your life time. In order to understand the true nature of individuals you would have to look at it from the level of the brain and understand how our phenomenological experiences(such as language, people we encounter, etc) affects the brain.
In response to your statement "we believe man to be inherently corrupt" my question to you is how so? and if that we're true why would you waste your time even trying to advocate anarchism? The only way I could agree with your statement is if it is the objective for all anarchist to somehow change this coercive nature of man, being that they have already overcome man themselves. But that leads to the never ending question of how did you manage to change your corrupted nature and how another individual did not?
In terms of human nature if you are referring to our basic drives then I agree with your statement about man being overcome (If my memory serves me right, I believe that you are talking about Nietzsche's "Overman" concept) in that case I agree with Nietzsche and Im sure my anarchist friend Matt would as well.
Advocates of anarchism?
Anarchists do not advocate anarchism. Anarchists advocate anarchy.
They are essentially the same thing
all because one adds an "ism" to a word does not neccessarly deprive it of its orginal meaning. All it does is add more baggage to the orginal meaining.Heres a quote: "Anarchy refers to condition. Anarchism is the theory or teaching about [the condition]" (alexander berkman "what is anarchism" pg 144). taking your postion berkman might as well change his title to [what is anarchy]. This argument is pointless. Even if I did get the words somehow mixed up you knew what I was implying so this leads me to ask, what the point of this argument?
Response to "Human Beings"
There is a correction I have to put out. I am not using the word "human beings" in some sort of authoritarian way. I am using the word in terms of simplicity or for the lack of a better term. You guys can nitpick at the very word and make it to something that it is not but the fact that I consider myself to be an anarchist myself should not even put such a thought into your head. This is why I dislike the academic realm of philosophy. We have to waste our time defining irrelevant information, when there bigger issues to be discussed. I like debating but I dislike having to watch every word that I say in order to say something that is beneficial to the masses. I've used the word "human being" in front of many anarchist and they never had a problem with it because they did not focus one that one word....they looked at the perspective that i was coming from and did not waste their time arguing.
For the sake of you guys, since I am somewhat offended and feel as I am contradicting myself I will use the word individuals, people, greg, humans, whatever rocks your boat...