why the word "anarchy" always rings like something negative in countries that call themselves "democracies" ?

Question

i wonder if we can still think about revolution in our occidental countries, and i learned to love "anarchy" for what it is, and it doesn't mean "the biggest mess ever". i was wondering how many people think this is a political manipulation. In french it really means "messy", and i'm french actually (by the way, french medias also didn't say a word about what recently happend in Oaxaca, Mexico).

And they call this freedom ? (democracy ?)

i really think anarchy doesn't mean the abscence of organisation. in fact it only means no governement. We have in france the same kind of proble with the word "individualism", whitch is like a synonym of the "american way of life"(we say it like this), means way of life in a capitalist country (doesn't mean the people is happy with it, just that it's how it looks like from outside), and it became like another way to talk about "egoism" and "oportunism" (i hope i can say that in english !!).
It's not my vision of individualism : i think it's just realising that everyone is different, and that it would be good to express ourselves a little more in a world that tryes (and almost succeeds) to make every one trying to look like everyone.

well, i don't know if i'm "understandable", but i think language is some kind of weapon, it's one of the bullets of culture. we own it, let's have it back, and use it properly.

by the way, i don't feel like an utopist, but more like an idealist. an ideal is something you can make, an utopia is something you're dreaming about, something impossibe. That's also, again, a miss use of langage. There's definitly something political around the language of revolution. Censure has been here since sutch a long time, and came so slowly that nobody has seen her come.

i won't choose a "best answer", i really think that's not the point with this kind of questions !!

thanks to think about it keep reading about La Commune de Paris, Spartakism in Germany (sort of communists anti leninists in 1918), and Oxaca Mexico (2006).

"tierra es lo que la trabaja" emiliano zapata

"The popular and most recent definition of the word is one fraught with lots of political overtones. The current usage is that of, as mentioned above, "lawlessness" and "lack of control" by the authorities. This is where the concept has been manipulated - the authorities would rather not abrogate control!
(...)
The definition of "Anarchy" which I am much happier with is this: it is a state in which we all take complete and total responsibility for ALL our actions, no matter what they are. This precludes the need for laws of any kind, because we live with our own! Together with this is an understanding of what effects our actions have all along their multifarious pathways, from their origins to a final destination. "

but i must say this might be exactly my opinion. i don't know for budhism and all (i don't even figured out if its a religion or not !) but those sentences express my thoughts pretty well.

yoooouure the winner jarrah !! i really don't see the point voting for answers...

"Csn" est ce que j'appelle un oportuniste. C'est ce genre de personne qui fit de l'anarchy ce que nous ne voulons pas. Je n'ai que mépris, dégoût, et même de la haine pour ces gens là. T'as tout compris, un peu d'anarchie pour toi, ça veut dire un max de liberté pour qu'on te foute la paix ? la liberté est un truc qui se partage mon gros.

à bon entendeur...

Answer 1

Anarchy is not the opposite of democracy. Unregulated freedom is anarchy because people abused their rights.

Answer 2

The popular and most recent definition of the word is one fraught with lots of political overtones. The current usage is that of, as mentioned above, "lawlessness" and "lack of control" by the authorities. This is where the concept has been manipulated - the authorities would rather not abrogate control!

I was going to use the word "chaos" as others have done, but this, likewise, has had it's meaning corrupted. The REAL definition of Chaos is a description of the state of all matter and the fact that every particle is in constant flux, is forever changing and that everything is located in a web of interconnected possibilities. You've heard of "The Butterfly Effect"? The concept that a butterfly's wingbeat on one continent can create a cyclone on another? It's an extreme example, but it's a way of seeing the idea.

The definition of "Anarchy" which I am much happier with is this: it is a state in which we all take complete and total responsibility for ALL our actions, no matter what they are. This precludes the need for laws of any kind, because we live with our own! Together with this is an understanding of what effects our actions have all along their multifarious pathways, from their origins to a final destination.

For example: If you steal an item from a shop, there is a chain of reactions. The shopkeeper loses out because he or she has paid for the product, you lose out because you'll feel guilty (a negative and delusional emotion); the owner of the premises loses out because the shopkeeper's ability to pay rent is lessened; other shoppers lose out because the shopkeeper has to increase prices to cover the cost of the stolen goods as well as the cost of installing surveillance equipment to prevent further losses. The shopkeeper will also be a lot more suspicious of everyone who shops there - "Is this person going to be the next to rip me off?"

So that's why we need laws to stop people stealing. Most don't follow the chain of actions and reactions their activities create. If we did and took Responsibility that would mean that we would actually, actively "care" of each other, rather than being content to pass on responsibility to a higher authority!
This brings me to my final point - those that ARE this "higher authority" - the government, the church and the media - are the ones who have corrupted the word. This is because they do not want to lose their privileged status and the paypacket that comes with it!

A truly Anarchistic society is a complete Utopian paradise!! It's one where we DO NOT need laws to govern our behaviour because we govern our own!!! It's also a very Buddhist view of the way the world could work too. Buddhism is all about looking within, sorting our own selves out and taking responsibility for the way we feel, amongst many other things!

Hope this helps!!!

Love and Light,


Jarrah

Answer 3

Anarchy is a silly thing to aspire toward.

As a Libertarian, people often mistake me for an anarchist, because our view of what government should do (at least in a free society) is so much less than what it takes to give people the freebies they think are their right.

We recognize the fact that all government is force. Government has nothing else at its disposal to be able to govern. We ask the question of what the limits of the legitimate use of that force might be, and where Liberals and Conservatives basically say "none!" and anarchists are at the other extreme saying there is no use, we say "only that force necessary to protect its citizens from the INITIATION of force."

Under anarchy, what stops your neighbor from moving into your house? The fact that you're big and bad and armed to the teeth? Well, what's stopping you from moving into their house? Why do you pay for groceries if you're so big and bad?

Under true anarchy, everyone has to spend over half their time protecting what they have from everyone else, making it tempting if not more efficient on a personal level to spend the other half seizing what others have produced rather than use that time producing.

Libertarians may be dreamers to hope for a minimalist government, but anarchists are total idiots to even want no government at all.

Answer 4

Democracy is viewed as anarchic by the communist (Marxist/Stalinist) mind. Democracy denies the oligarchic nature and dialectic goals of communism. Democracy is like two coyotes and a chicken deciding what is for dinner.
Once a populace finds it can have justice and largess for itself by taking it from their neighbors, their government will soon fall.
I believe this is what we saw during and in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
What France (Europe?) seems to be facing now is a crisis of western thought versus Islamic thought. And nobody is willing to do the hard things it will take to get the problem under control.

Answer 5

Anarchy = NO GOVERNMENT: no law, rules; each man for himself.

Democracy = A GOVERNMENT for/by "the people."
____

I think most average American minds are mortified by the idea of what they believe to be "anarchy" because somewhere inside themselves they crave order, structure, direction and accountability/consequences for crime.

Even though other minds are titillated by it, smaller minds may be terrified by it. As you know, anarchy doesn't necessarily mean outright chaotic hedonism. It's a term that isn't prevalently comprehended, and as a result, is widely misconstrued.

By the same token, [the true meaning of] democracy has eroded over time, and is not, by definition, what was originally purported to be. It's also a misunderstood and misused word.

Another example of politically-charged, improperly interchanged terms would be pro-choice and pro-abortion. Many people (conservatives, generally) think pro-choice = pro-abortion. That is obviously not the case every time.

Americans on both ends of the bell-shaped curve are pro-choice; those who loathe abortion, yet believe each woman should come to her own conclusion, and those who firmly believe that a woman's body is her own and that life does not begin until birth.

It depends on who you are, and who you ask, but (to get back to your initial query) as a whole, I think this nation fears anarchy [in concept] because of the stigma attached to it, and also because deep inside, many may want to believe that "democracy" can still work. (Whatever that means....once again: different things to different people.)

Answer 6

A little anarchy in the economy is good.
de-regulate, privatize, get local and state government out of our way in the local economies!

Answer 7

Because the idea of mass control with no government or rules doesn't appeal to ppl... especially minorities...