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gghhyesterday at 3:52 PM7 repliesview on HN

Right. "Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion."

From: "Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!", David Graeber, 2009, https://davidgraeber.org/articles/are-you-an-anarchist-the-a...


Replies

halloleyesterday at 4:21 PM

That's one of those definitions that's so broad as to make the word being defined meaningless. It's always silly when one re-phrases their position into something trivial that no one would disagree with.

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jancsikayesterday at 6:07 PM

> "Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion."

If it were that simple, then every FOSS project would be considered to operate under Anarchists principles. After all, the license and software forkability made it so that no one is forced to conform to whatever social structure is used to maintain a given project. But in real life, Anarchists will still argue that a Benevolent-Dictator-For-Life governance approach is wrong, even if it applies to digital artifacts that have zero marginal cost.

There may be plenty of good reasons for them to argue that, but none of them are "very simple notions" as your definition would imply.

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throwway120385yesterday at 4:28 PM

If we define "leader" as "someone who commands by force or by some other means the obedience of a group of people" then Anarchy is a society without leaders. It doesn't mean a society without order, but it presupposes that people can behave reasonably and that that is enough to ensure order.

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smsm42yesterday at 4:50 PM

It sounds great until you see what kind of actual people operate under the banner of anarchism. Then it might turn out their definition of reasonable fashion may be quite different from yours.

dizhnyesterday at 4:53 PM

Here's another excellent piece. Ignore the site please.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2005/03/butler-shaffer/lx-what-i...

> almost all of your daily behavior is an anarchistic expression. How you deal with your neighbors, coworkers, fellow customers in shopping malls or grocery stores, is often determined by subtle processes of negotiation and cooperation.

BurningFrogyesterday at 6:33 PM

A core thing you should expect from anarchists is disagreement.

Some anarchists agree with Graeber's definition. A majority probably disagrees, in many different ways.

I expect this post will be met with disagreement. Wouldn't want it any other way!

verve_ratyesterday at 9:03 PM

But to bring it back to the topic at hand, the people doing this are forced to by the BLM, so not very Anarchistic.