The lefts better argument

I have a vision for the world yes but it is based on things that have happened or worked in the past.

For example I champion the idea of a global democratic government, now there never has been a global democracy but there are quiet a few democracies in the world. Those democracies may not be perfect but we can look at them and examine them to see what things seem to work and what things don’t. In that way a person could point to what might be the best way of building a world democracy.

“You have never lived or experienced the world you envision, so how can you possibly know it will be better?”

I live in a democracy, not the one that I would like, but from studying the history of Britain I can tell you it is a lot better place than it has been. (I’ve also lived in other democratic countries and have learned and taken lessons from them).

“You can only take the evidence around you and promote what you percieve to be the ideaology with the best possible chance of realizing the future that you envision”

Yes I can, I can see in what way institution could work by looking at how institution work now, I can see how people may react to certain policies by see examples of those policies already in place.

“You can guess what your world would be like, but you have no way of knowing for certain, any more than i do”

I don’t know exactly how something might turn out but I can try and show how it might work or should work. This was the problem that was highlighted by our discussion of ‘Jose’s land’, I was trying to find out very basic information on how things would be settled in you vision of the future and how the seemingly inherent contradictions were resolved.

And you replied that you couldn’t answer, you couldn’t say how things were settled beyond that there would some type of ‘organisation’ that would do something or other. And you couldn’t resolve the seeming contradictions because…well you just couldn’t.

Is Anarchy ‘post-leftist
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2683314#post2683314

 

I gave an answer, just one you that didn't like: Conflict resolutions will be resolved by those parties involved, in a way that best suits their needs.

Whether that's by consensus, vote, or strength is up to them.

The important thing to me is that it's resolved directly by those affected, they method they choose to use is secondary.

 

So is mine.

 

think of it this way, Balbus:

Lets say you want to paint a picture.

An expression of yourself.

What school of art you use to paint your picture means nothing if it's not a product of your own hands.

 

I gave an answer, just one you that didn't like: Conflict resolutions will be resolved by those parties involved, in a way that best suits their needs.

Yes you said you didn’t now, you still don’t know. Lets recap -

**

We began with Jose’s 20 acres who was not allowed to keep that land if others wanted it.

Your view seemed to be that if people wanted to have and use the land they could and if others were on that land and using it they had to comply because they didn’t and couldn’t own the land.

I asked what would happen if Jose had planted food and just before he was to reap what he had sown and worked to raise, someone came along and wanted to have the land including what was on it, Jose’s crop.

You said in such cases ‘organisations’ would be formed that would “settle issues of occupancy and use of land, crime, environmental caretaking ect”

But it is clear from [an article you posted about conflict resolution by Bob Black] that he is hoping that individuals wouldn’t act like. That, to him people would act as far as they could in the interests of the community the “fellowship with their neighbors” as he put it.

You say conflicts would be resolved by compromise but in what way, do you split the crop between Jose and the newcomer? Is that justice after Jose did all the work?

What if the individual doesn’t comply, what if he is asked to allow Jose to harvest his crop but refuses and harvests the crop himself and keeps it. What then?

I mean Jose could just go in and say he wants the land and the other has to move on but can he take the harvested crop? They have now both worked on it.

The problem as far as I see it in this discussion is that you don’t know, to you it has to be settled by others when anarchy is established.

**

And you said “I can't tell you what a world full of anarchists will be like since no one's ever seen one”

 

And you can't say what a world full of neo-liberals will be like since you've never seen one.

The only difference:
I'm content to let them figure out how to live their own lives without interference from any higher authority and to resolve their local problems.
You want to hand down another program, another system, another "right way" for them to conform to.

As i've also said: What a person or group of people do with their freedom and their autonomy is secondary to being free and self-governed.

 

LOL

I can’t paint to save my life…

Let’s taking engineering

Say you want to build a bridge across a gorge.

Do you look at pervious bridges and see why they failed

Check out other bridges that have worked

Find out what kind of load the bridge will have to take

Check out all the possible things that might go wrong and work them through.

Do the math and make the plan.

Or

Do you turn up throw something up and hope it works if it stands or if it fails is no concern of yours.

**

 

I say, if all those other bridges have fallen down, maybe i should respect the gorge...

You will never have the perfect bridge, but as long as resources are used for the purpose of bridge building you will always be improving your bridge, trying to find the perfect in it.

Fuck the bridge, if you have managed to survive relatively well without it, why waste time and resources on a task that will never be satisfied?

That is the Industrial-Technological system. Always improving and "progressing", to such an extent that we start to improve and adjust our behavior for the sake of the system instead of the other way around.

It's the difference between building a bridge to make life easier or revolving your life around a damn bridge.

When you reach the point where you can't funtion without the technology, you are no longer in control.

 

That's the pathology.

You are forever improving on the system in order for it to "work", until eventually you go as far as adjusting yourself to "work" for the system.
As if life is a car engine.

The more you tinker, the more fucked we become.

Stop tinkering and let it go.

 

-edited-

 

Is a child who stands and takes his first step always doomed to fall on his face?

Yes, but is his struggle doomed.

Well, in our case the odds of surviving the death-drive of Patriarchal Civilization's funeral-march is decreasing with each generation.

De-evolution, in a regressive step back to a more primitive psychological state, is natural under stressful environmental circumstances.

And unfortunately, the momentum of a downward slide is so desperate, that it feeds upon its own desperation and becomes a self-perpetuating system.

Anarchy is only possible in a non-coersive state of mental health, and is antithetical to our current regressive slide back to a primitive pre-human state of coersive Hierarchical consciousness.

Untill we climb back-up from our descent into insecure patriarchal primitiveness, and release our repressed psycho-sexual energy, we can never re-adapt our once normal cooperartive and egalitarian state of Anarchy.

Only healthy, unrepressed men can achieve a state of Anarchy.

We are on the same wave-length, except that the dynamics of civilization's collective momentum runs soo deep that I can't share your youthful optimism.

I can't blame the Left for falling on its face, because I sense the struggle to stand-up and walk like healthy men is more difficult than we care to admit.

Just knowing there are a few like you, willing to take any small stand and rattle the cage against hierarchical authority is a victory.

 

I see your point, and i thank you for the compliment.

 

shane


Let’s look at from another angle.

I agree that we live in the real world, but for me it is a matter of changing that reality to fit something closer to what I want.

Let us go back to your call to rip up the roads.

Actually to a large degree I agree with you.

But you don’t seem to know how it would happen or if it would happen you just hope that the anarchists that somehow would appear in the future would do it.

Well this is how I would do it.

Bring in Congestion Charging in all large urban areas, while making some areas within cities and towns very car restricted or car free. This is happening in London were the Congestion Charge has limited traffic and where areas have been restricted to car traffic (by narrowing lanes to add cycle lanes, etc) or closed to all private traffic. (And in fact I was part of the consultation process that brought in the Congestion Charge)

Once established these areas would be expanded (again this is happening in London) were roads that were once open to the car have become pedestrianised.

(an aside: did you know that Hybrid and electric cars travel free in the London’s congestion area)

At the same time invest heavily in urban public transport and improve the cycle network (something that is happening).

I would bring in taxes on all private (and company) vehicles with low mpg (again this is already being discussed in the UK)

By tax breaks I would encourage companies to hire at low rates large hybrid vehicles to encourage the normal day to day use of smaller (urban) cars or bicycles but given people the ability when needed to get hold of a larger car for motoring holidays, family visits, moving.

Invest heavily in improving the UK rail network (and R&D in meglev) and set up a truly integrated transport system.

I would also bring in a travel tax on private (and company) cars so that people would have a set quota and any amount over that would have to be paid for, the quote would fall over time (also being discussed).

In time I’d make roads that were underused less of a priority for maintenance work and then when they reached a certain level of disrepair close them.

Closed roads would be handed over to parks departments, so roads would be ripped up to make public parks (urban) or given over to nature to become linear national parks. (to a certain extent that is what happened to the closed parts of the old UK rail network)

**

The thing is that I say we have to work with what we have while aspiring to those things we’d want, so we have to change what we can of this world with what we have in this world.

This is the difference between us

You hope that at some point people will just decide to get out of their cars and rip up the very roads they are driving along. But while you wait for something to happen you are going to carry on using your car, because that is the reality of the situation and the other is an aspiration, a hope, a dream.

I want a better and more car free environment and I don’t really believe in private car ownership and would wish to limit it where possible, and since I have got by with public transport (or my bicycle), I don’t drive and have no licence. My partner has a car but it’s shared with someone else and they decides who needs it at different times while using public transport (or their bikes) at other times. So while we try to use private cars as little as possible we are pushing for and supporting those that wish to bring in legislation and regulations that would eventually lead to the closure of roads.

We both have a dream, (even if different) but while I support coherent policies, which can be explained and debated. Your views cannot be explained so they cannot be debated because by your own admission you don’t know what they are beyond the slogan and are not even sure if they could work let alone how they would work.