Anarchy is Stupid

Let's say for example someone hits your only vehicle and you need it to survive. Totals it and runs. How are you gonna get paid for your car if there is no law? You expect the guy that just totalled your shit and ran off to bring you $5000?
Or are you gonna play detective and show up to his house with weapons and bully the bully out of bullying you?

You don’t understand what anarchists propose. It’s preventing exactly what you predict in your OP.

Hopefully someone else will fill you in before I get the time.

There are many different layers and flavours of what ‘anarchy’ means. You seem to be presenting a combination of nihilism and anarchism?

Straight from wiki:

Anarchism is an anti-authoritarian political and social philosophy that rejects hierarchies deemed unjust and advocates their replacement with self-managed, self-governed societies based on voluntary, cooperative institutions.

As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview, many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely.

Of course, implementing such ideas in society is another thing. It is certainly a worthy perspective to consider. I would suggest you present a better outline of what you mean rather than some strange hypothetical about someone destroying a car and running away - in many anarchic societies the perpetrator would be caught and then made to pay (which would inevitably lead to ‘kangaroo courts’ and is certainly a flaw if we view this political idea superficially - there are positives though).

The basic philosophical notion of anarchy doesn’t mean anyone can do anything without repercussions. At an extreme level it would end in witch hunts and vigilante activity (obviously that isn’t a great outcome). Either way it is a counter position to centralised power where complete strangers dictate what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ do and punish/reward accordingly to those views.

I’m more for a ‘happy’ medium with more inclination to being ‘anarchical’ when it comes to questioning authority rather than blindly accepting rules and regulations because it’s ‘easier’ to just go along with pointless, impractical, and possibly dangerous rules/laws. The problem embedded here to is whether you are in a position to question authority without worrying about possible kickback simply from voicing concerns.

A society in which there is no law.

Anarchy can turn into hell if everyone only thinks about themselves. If people care about one another because that's what they want and not because some law forces them to, anarchy can work well.

Reply to Lif3r You’re against an imaginary world or exploring the limits of anarchism? I don’t really understand what your post is about but it seems to hold to a rigid definition that you’re syruggling to make explicit.

Maybe a comparative analysis between other -isms and anarchism would help outline the benefits and deficits regarding what your view is?

Reply to leo that's the problem. The whole system is contingent on upholding moral values without regulation. The exploitation of which results in those who are forceful taking the upper hand.

Reply to Lif3r So you prefer to have others tell you what is and isn’t ‘moral’. The reverse problem is, well, a problem too. What is your point?

Reply to I like sushi that for an anarchist to claim that his stance is more logical than a statist is a stupid claim, especially considering that anarchy forms a state regardless. That there is no such thing as a lawless land where laws dont exist. There can be a revolt of law, but that isn't lawlessness.

This is due to the natural cycle of leadership. Why do I have to keep explaining the same thing

Reply to Lif3r The reverse argument works just as well. Again, what is your point? Is it that you believe everyone thinks everything is black and white or that you just happen to prefer your own position as the ‘middle ground’?

All I can see here is a rather superficial analysis of two political poles with a strange need to cling to one and dismiss the other.

Don’t you see that you’re setting out the ‘anarchist’ stall as ‘completely lawless’ and the ‘statist’ stall as ‘libertarian’ rather than ‘authoritarian’? There are ‘anarchic’ political models that are more than happy to accept state laws, the issue being with the decentralisation of power not the complete obliteration of law/rules.

Basically you’re setting up a strawman argument here against imaginary opponents - that said maybe there is someone on this forum who likes the idea of a ‘lawless’ society where murder, rape and theft are not considered ‘immoral’ due to there being no ‘law’. See the problem?

Reply to I like sushi yeah I do see the problem and that's my point. You obviously get my point, but you are belittling it as insignificant when in reality I know people who are under the impression that lawlessness is acceptable, and this is why I disagree. I didnt ask you to reply to me, so if it's not important enough for you, why are you wasting the time telling me that?

Reply to Lif3r Give that you’ve edited the first two posts I’d say I‘ve done you favour. I’ll leave you to it.

Quoting Lif3r

that's the problem. The whole system is contingent on upholding moral values without regulation. The exploitation of which results in those who are forceful taking the upper hand.

Same with the law, those who create the laws force them on those who don't want to follow them.

Yes if you remove laws some will try to take power by force and to impose their own will onto others. But other people won't like that and will fight that power, then eventually there will be a revolution of some sort and so on. So how do we break out of that cycle?

I believe it's possible to break out of it, but we have to do things differently, we have to learn to see things differently, if we keep behaving the same way we'll keep getting the same results. People have to understand that they're all in the same boat. That their survival and happiness depends on that of others. People have to learn to understand that fighting fire with fire doesn't kill fire, fighting fear with fear doesn't stop fear, fighting hate with hate doesn't stop hate, fighting oppression with oppression doesn't stop oppression. Cause that's what we do and have been doing for a long time now, and it simply doesn't work. Jesus and John Lennon and so on were more than hippies, they understood important things that most people still don't understand. So people have to wake up. In order for things to change people have to wake up. So let's work on helping people wake up, instead of forcing others to do what we want them to do, cause that never worked and that will never work.

Reply to leo without law there is no incentive to "stay woke" if you will.
There are no guidelines for morality. It's left to the individual, and I agree we should try to convince humanity to uphold morals and standards that help the world sustain itself, but let's face it we just can't trust people to do it on their own.

Let's take something incredibly simple for example: go outside in any town or city and just look around on the ground. Covered in trash. People are legally obligated not to litter, yet they regularly do it anyway. If they weren't legally obligated it would happen more because there would be no repercussions for the action.

The aim of anarchism is to figure out a way to enforce moral behavior without in the process of doing so committing immoral behavior by exercising unjust authority over people. It’s generally considered immoral to just make someone obey you on threat of violence, but that’s what all state laws are. So the challenge is to figure out how to stop people from doing things like that, without yourself doing things like that.

Reply to Pfhorrest Never gonna happen unless people magically stop being shitbags.

And people aren't going to magically stop being shitbags. Not anytime soon. Allllllllll of history: shitbags exist and usually prevail dominance.

As many here have been quick to point out, positive flavours and fundamental aspects of anarchism are all in line with The Spirit of the law and justice theory but are obviously prone to as much error as any human endeavor in application. Its the root of civil disobedience though.

I try super hard to not be a shitbag. Doesn't change much, but it's the best I can do. We can all do this until we are blue in the face, but we are fallible beings and we don't always do the right thing and many of us intentionally do the wrong things that we all know and have decided are hindrance for progress, fairness, and well being for everyone.

Anarchists speak of the individuals policing themselves, but how can I possibly go to work and also play cops and robbers when I get jacked because there are no police so it's super easy to get away with and the likelyhood of robbery is higher?

I mean that's just one example, but you all get the point.

Reply to Lif3r

without law there is no incentive to "stay woke" if you will.
There are no guidelines for morality. It's left to the individual, and I agree we should try to convince humanity to uphold morals and standards that help the world sustain itself, but let's face it we just can't trust people to do it on their own.

Let's take something incredibly simple for example: go outside in any town or city and just look around on the ground. Covered in trash. People are legally obligated not to litter, yet they regularly do it anyway. If they weren't legally obligated it would happen more because there would be no repercussions for the action.

Because people would litter is not an indictment on anarchism, but an indictment on the morality of those who would litter. I know of many people, myself included, who refuse to litter because of many reasons that don’t involve its legality.

Reply to NOS4A2 but you are missing the point. Under anarchy there is no incentive not to litter other than the individual's own moral compass

Reply to Lif3r

but you are missing the point. Under anarchy there is no incentive not to litter other than the individual's own moral compass

There a plenty of incentives not to litter. For one, garbage is ugly and damaging to the surroundings.

There are multiple examples explaining the same idea here. Hit and run, robbery, littering, but they are all based on the same premise. Crime is easier under anarchy, and there is less incentive to make moral decisions because there is no authority to provide these incentives. As a result, the people who naturally rise to leadership and become the new, perhaps "unofficial government" are the people who are willing to take advantage of their peers for a leg up in society; leaders of criminal organizations. Crime leadership boils down to who has the biggest guns, and who is willing to use them to retain or gain control.

Reply to NOS4A2 just because you know that and I know that doesn't mean everyone else does. Even if they do understand what you say, that doesn't mean they care.

Let me ask you this:

Who keeps the criminals from being criminals in a society with no authority? The criminal themselves? Isn't that counterintuitive to being a criminal?

Reply to Lif3r

Who keeps the criminals from being criminals in a society with no authority? The criminal themselves? Isn't that counterintuitive to being a criminal?

I suppose it would have to be a force of volunteers.

Reply to NOS4A2 well that's not anarchy, that's voluntarism.



vol·un·ta·rism

/?väl?n(t)??riz?m/

noun

1.

the principle of relying on voluntary action (used especially with reference to the involvement of voluntary organizations in social welfare).

"some councils connected the twin themes of public spending cuts and the strong emphasis on voluntarism"

2.

PHILOSOPHY

the doctrine that the will is a fundamental or dominant factor in the individual or the universe.

I think the philosophy version is a short sighted attempt at some sort of ignorant "do what thou will" cliche, but I am referring to definition 1.

Reply to Lif3r

If we want to appeal to definitions, we can.

an·ar·chism
/?an?r?kiz?m/
Learn to pronounce
noun
belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.

Reply to Lif3r

No, I think you’re right that anarchists would necessarily need to enforce some body of rules or principles, if not to maintain their anarchism, than at least to defend their lives and livelihood. But I don’t think these principles would be coercive in the sense that people would need to follow these rules or else be punished. They don’t enforce a moral code; they defend a moral code and the people who believe it.

So I agree with you but on whether anarchism is stupid I do not. Anarchism is noble on its premise of freedom and anti-authoritarianism alone. Whether an anarchist society is possible I am not too sure.

Reply to NOS4A2 You are just saying police but with extra steps

Reply to Lif3r

You are just saying police but with extra steps

More like a night-watchmen.

Reply to NOS4A2 with CBS radio's and billyclubs. Right. So a cop

Cb *

And while we are on the subject...

an·ar·chy

/?an?rk?/

noun

a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.

"he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy"

Similar:

lawlessness

absence of government

nihilism

mobocracy

revolution

insurrection

riot

rebellion

mutiny

disorder

disorganization

misrule

chaos

tumult

turmoil

mayhem

pandemonium

Opposite:

government

order

absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

Reply to Lif3r

with CBS radio's and billyclubs. Right. So a cop

They defend others from aggression and violence, and they are volunteers or privately payed. So, not a cop.

Lif3r, you are saying that anarchy would be hard to maintain (unstable and collapse into another state), not that it is bad. Nobody disagrees with that. Anarchists, the kind who actually read and write about it, don’t say we need to just get rid of existing governments and then everything will be fine. They say we need to replace those governments with organizations that will do the same good that they do without doing the bad (coercive) things that they do, or to reform existing governments to become like that in time, by increasing liberty, equality, democracy, etc; dismantling hierarchies and authorities and replacing them with egalitarian, libertarian alternatives.

Anarchy doesn’t mean no rules, it means no rulers. And no rulers doesn’t mean no governance, it just means no state: no monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Anarchists want to somehow establish, or at least move closer to, some form of stateless governance, where there are social organizations that help to keep the peace, but they’re not hierarchical or authoritarian.

Reply to Pfhorrest that's also the same thing with extra steps.

Social organizations? So you mean like the fda, the CIA, FBI etc. Same thing, different names.

Except what, no one is in charge? How do you propose that the military would operate if no one is in charge?

So the soldiers are going to sit around and what? Take a vote? Say they dont feel like going to war right now?

Reply to NOS4A2 oh so you mean mercenaries? So now we hire police based on what? What we want them to do for us? Not based on a lawful obligation, but an individual's ability to pay them? This clearly does not turn out ethical.

Reply to Lif3r

oh so you mean mercenaries? So now we hire police based on what? What we want them to do for us? Not based on a lawful obligation, but an individual's ability to pay them? This clearly does not turn out ethical.

No I mean volunteer community members...or for those unwilling to fight, maybe a sort of hired bodyguard. It is entirely ethical for you and I to band together and defend our livelihood, property and community from those who would inflict harm.

Reply to NOS4A2 ok so how do I do that and keep my day job? Now I'm all of the sudden a cop and so are my buddies under what guidelines? Our own? Someone robbed us and now we go fight them? Then we are all gonna pitch in and build a prison on the weekends. I don't see it. There's no structure to that. It results in gang wars. Instead we agree upon a set of principles. Principles that have the ability to shift with contingency in society's general consensus of morality. Represented by specialists who are responsible for actually making these decisions, but also mandated by society itself.

This is where law falls short. Law and the general consensus of morality are not fully parallel at any given moment, and although crime is reduced per the advent of law, it isnt fully effective in limiting all criminal activity.

The general consensus of morality also varies at any given point in time, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. This is in reference to the idea that morality can be considered a consensus based on the individual perspective, a region's perspective, a planet's perspective, and perhaps a universal perspective.

I had this thought of decentralization of law and perhaps a blockchain representation of legality that can be voted on and documented on a ledger like bitcoin. I feel like it has a lot of refinement to it but that's just an idea.

Reply to Lif3r Same thing as what? And also, maybe the “extra steps” are an important difference?

There are a lot of different views on how anarchism could be implemented in practice. Each one requires quite a bit of explanation for someone who’s evidently read very little about the topic at all like you. If you want to see my take on it from the ground up, you can read my essay On Politics, Governance, and the Institutes of Justice. For a more general overview of the whole range of views Wikipedia’s article on Anarchism is a good place to start. If you have more specific questions I’m happy to answer them.

Quoting Lif3r

without law there is no incentive to "stay woke" if you will.

But precisely there is, once you’re woke you see why it is important to remain woke, why it is important to keep preserving what you’ve been preserving, why it is better than going back to the old way of only caring about oneself. When you see why caring for others and yourself is better than only caring about yourself, you don’t want to go back to only caring about yourself.

At the moment not enough people understand that, so if tomorrow all laws were abolished the result wouldn’t be pretty, though I think it would be less bad than you imagine. But the more people understand, the more laws will come to be seen as unnecessary and even as part of the problem.

Reply to Lif3r Now you sound in favour of anarchist ideology? Were you purposefully setting up a poor argumentative position to allow yourself to flip the argument on its head or are you just exploring this concept as you type? (Not having a pop because I think it is good to allow your ideas feel their way around without fear of making a few wrong turns along the way).

There are basically two nonexistent poles (ideological axioms around which we orientate ourselves). There is ‘Centralised’ and ‘Decentralised’ positions in regards to ‘institutions’. I use parenthesis to guard against taking any position as some illusionary ‘absolute’ form. People managed prior to writ Laws, so we know from ‘anarchical’ societal groups we developed and refined rules creating centralised powers/laws in institutions (civilization). We mist keep checking the balance yet the obvious conundrum is knowing which way to push and when. It is no huge surprise that today people are becoming more and more aware of each other due to technological advances in global communications, this has presented ‘institutions’ and ‘public opinion’ to clash on a scale never seen before in human history - the stronger ‘conservative’ tilt is now fighting the side of what used to be the ‘liberal’ position and the ‘liberal’ position is now fighting for what used to be the ‘conservative’ position. The landscape has become so confused you have people on the left demanding more centralised power/law whilst on the right they’re demanding decentralised power. The bizarre thing is they are also under the impression that what they are saying is in line with what is happening.

In short the world isn’t black and white. People don’t really want ‘freedom’ - because people are lazy cowards who would rather someone else deal with shit jobs. No one wants ‘peace’ when ‘peace’ means destroying any sense of useful conflict which enables discovery and exploration. We’re in a hedonist phase which, hopefully, will be consumed by an age of aesthetic sensibility and allow us to navigate the flat featureless political landscape we have at the moment. All there is today is a choice of blandness, a broken compass and a huge divide between cultural generations across the globe. It’s not likely to level out until the end of the century and in the meantime anything could happen.

Anarchy is the natural state of humanity. Look out your window. No one knows what they are doing or why beyond their immediate impressions which are often willfully short-sighted and actively avoiding any claim of agency unless it comes under the guise of ‘groups’ they perceive to have ‘power’ - I don’t think anyone really bothers to ask what ‘power’ means they just attach it to friend and foe to suit their homegrown myopia.

All that said, I think things are peachy :)

‘Do what thou wilt’ is good enough because generally speaking only a few have the nerve to act on this principle so encouraging a few more along the way is beneficial EVEN if this happens to foster some ‘moral’ glitches along the way. How we regard time will dictate the future of politics. Somehow we’ve gotten into the habit of trying to learn form the past unlearning the past - it’s just a game of narratives now and you can be sure the ‘best’ narrative always wins out in the end.

Reply to Lif3r 'Extreme' Anarchism is merely a response to Fascism. See what is happening in Hong Kong. What Anarchists aspire to is a pluralistic Democracy.

Reply to I like sushi you think just because I am trying to consider means of decentralization that all of the sudden I think anarchy is viable? Nah. I still want law to be in motion, I'm just trying to think of ways to do it while removing human fallibility.

Reply to ovdtogt That's not anarchy, that's revolution.

Reply to Lif3r That is the purpose of anarchy (disobedience): to create a revolution.

Reply to ovdtogt well I'm not opposed to revolution, but I am opposed to a non governed, lawless state or community. So take it as you will.

Reply to Lif3r I’ve no idea what you’re thinking. The ‘block chain’ idea sounds vaguely interesting though, just wish you’d started there.

This thread probably had legs on it if you explore that idea and flesh out exactly what you propose.

Reply to Lif3r Anarchy is the counter force to Fascism. (The Antifa's in the US) The middle ground is plural democracy. And that is what we all want. -

Reply to I like sushi I made a post about it and it disappeared into the nether

Of course I don't really know exactly what I mean and I was hoping one of you would but I digress

Quoting Lif3r

Anarchists become statists to the natural cycle of leadership, and in anarchistic society the general leadership that forms is a forced leadership of violent individuals with little concern for morals. The bullies. So that's out.

Anarchism, yes, is stupid, but the current way that we decided to implant the "State" on society is stupid too. On my point of view, we should create a new structure, more refined, more individual, to take the place of the State, something that we doesn't even have a noun to project it.

Experience, especially in the Ukraine and in Spain, seems to show that anarchy is impossible to achieve without an organised political party to hold people together and teach them about the past, but such parties either fail or turn deeply authoritarian in revolutionary crises. If you just stop obeying on a mass scale, they send in the bully-boys to kill a few of you and frighten the others. There seems to be a similar personal development over time - the two keenest anarchists I've known are appallingly authoritarian figures. Obviously, any kind of power of one person over others is obnoxious, but the best answer seems to be to co-operate as little as possible, always. Italy seems to me rather good at this, despite everything that has happened there.

Reply to Gus Lamarch yeah I have thought of that too and the best I have come up with is blockchain law, with ledgers and records. I dont even know how to conceptualize it.

Reply to iolo what do you mean by cooperate as little as possible always?

Isolation?
Or do you mean defiance?

Ok so maybe it's a voting system, but instead of electoral college, it's built like a blockchain.

A blockchain is basically a transfer of money from one person, to a public list of every transaction, and then to another person.

What if it wasn't a transfer of money to a public list, but a transfer of information?

What if you cast your vote from your phone, it uploads to a public list that you can verify your vote is yours with your registered number, and you can also verify anyone in your community if they give you their number? Then it is transparent to the degree that you can prove your individual vote and the votes of others. And then instead of the electoral college making the decisions it can actually be the people.

Reply to Lif3r So it’s just a method to implement a direct democracy?

What about all the problems with direct democracies, or the problems they just don’t solve?

Reply to Pfhorrest yeah I dont know anything about that, I have just always been skeptical of the electoral college system

Like I said, this is an idea and I don't really know what I mean by it. Basically what I am trying to do is limit human fallibility in the system that is in play by implementing something new into the mix.

Blockchain is designed to decentralize money. I like that. It takes part of the human out of the game and gives you honest organization of where your money actually is.

I like the idea of doing the same with government somehow, at least I think removing much of the centralization could help if there is more accountability to honest distribution of information, voting or otherwise?

Quoting Lif3r

yeah I have thought of that too and the best I have come up with is blockchain law, with ledgers and records. I dont even know how to conceptualize it.

We could come up with something in the near future to replace the "State". The problem is how to stop people of corrupting it, and how are we supposed to implement it on society nowadays. Some may call it "Anarcho-Capitalism" but this line of thought, in my view, is not the correct way, because as I already pointed out, Anarchism is, indeed, stupid.

Reply to Gus Lamarch Anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism anyway because capitalism is hierarchical and so antithetical to anarchism.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism anyway

Oh my friend, but there is many people that still views it as an anarchist ideology...

Not anarchists though.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Not anarchists though.

I'm not disagreeing with you on this one.

Reply to Lif3r Reply to Lif3r

Never ever volunteer, never rush to obey the bosses, always express extreme scepticism, make fun of the mugs who believe in the system - stuff like that.

Reply to iolo Blind obedience is stupid. Blind dis-obedience is also stupid. Anarchy is 'well-considered) dis-obedience.

Well at least we agree on something.

Reply to ovdtogt I'm baffled. Why should I obey anyone?

Quoting iolo

Why should I obey anyone?

You don't know why you should obey the rules (not made by you) that regulate traffic or society?

Reply to ovdtogt I don't 'obey' anything - I observe rules I think sensible.

Reply to iolo Observe, obey oh yes. let us quibble about semantics. Observe is what I do when I see 2 people arguing.

Reply to ovdtogt 'Obey' is what you do when you allow someone to treat you as a trained dog. I'm not one of those. If they want me to obey, they'll need someone standing over me with a rifle all day, and there's no profit in that, or in shooting me. Why give inadequates power over you unless you have to?

Reply to iolo You are constantly obeying rules. You are just not aware of it because you agree with most of them. You have been pre-conditioned by your parents and teachers to obey societies rules without questioning them.

Reply to ovdtogt If I agree then I'm not obeying anything - I'm doing what I choose. What society are you talking about? Capitalism? The English occupiers here? It is easier to grin and bear this silliness, but I certainly don't 'obey' these clowns. In schools they used to teach you to respect them by hitting you on the arse with sticks. Happy days! I just developed a tough arse, and they couldn't kick me out because they wanted an Oxbridge scholarship out of me! :)

Reply to iolo The Op is "Anarchy is Stupid'

The essence of Anarchy concerns dis-obeying. Perhaps you should just restrict your thoughts on that.

Reply to ovdtogt The point about Anarchy is that it is hard to achieve, and people are too easily persuaded into striking prematurely.. Compete disbelief in the bosses' propaganda is an essential start.

Reply to iolo Anarchy is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end. Anarchy is the civil disobedience in an autocratic political system in order to achieve a (more) plural democracy.

Reply to ovdtogt Anarchy is an attempt to get bullying clowns off our backs. Governments are systems for allowing bullying and exploitation. There are further - economic - questions about how such idiocies could have developed, but I stick to the obvious.

Quoting iolo

Governments are systems for allowing bullying and exploitation.

I live in a plural democracy. I have the ability to vote for who I believe best represents my values.

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

Reply to ovdtogt The point is that all forms of government stink. That's why anarchism exists. Do vote for whomever you please, if that's the way you like to pass the time: it will have very little influence on your capitalist masters. Churchill was the gangster who sent troops to Pontypridd in 1910, to scare the most Liberal working-class seat in Britain. That's why his Liberal Party soon disappeared as a serious force - they demonstrated just how much capitalist democracy was worth.

Reply to iolo As day follows night you will always have rulers. Try to make good out of bad situation.
Anarchy is war.

Reply to ovdtogt
We haven't got many more days or nights if we keep your rulers and their system, have we? 100 years' worth, if we are VERY lucky.

Reply to iolo Okay, how do you want to be ruled? You either rule or be ruled or find yourself a nice island somewhere.

Reply to ovdtogt I'm afraid that is total rubbish. The main thing is to stop believing such arrant nonsense and learn to co-operate with all the other people.

Quoting iolo

I'm afraid that is total rubbish.

Clever response..

Reply to iolo I was going to comment on your use of arrant, but others have used it AND they have used it correctly (as you also did). But you are in a select group of persons deploying the phrase "arrant nonsense". It's not the coveted "Congratulations! You are the first person to use 'arrant' on The Philosophy Forum!", but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

'Rubbish' and 'total rubbish' are also used quite a bit. "Total" seems to function as an intensifier. Rubbish is rubbish, but total rubbish is more so. Much like 'fucked' and 'totally fucked'.

Reply to iolo But you can't expect people to naturally understand how to coordinate or cooperate without guidelines of some sort. It simply doesn't work out. Especially if you omit law altogether. Then it becomes the individual's responsibility to take justice into their own hands. How many times can you expect that to work before it totally collapses the entire society?

I'm gonna say 3, you rob me, I rob you, you shoot me, gang wars ensue, justice becomes in the eye of the beholder and not in the eye of predetermined agreements. Why would anyone revert back to a system of lawlessness when they can simply adhere to predetermined morality teachings that have come before us to solve these issues and make changes or alterations as seen fit by the society?

I just see no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Modify, alter, expand... well sure.
But to throw it all out completely?
I'm sorry but pride and honor over complete control of the entirety of your individual life is a farce.

You belong to a community called Earth, so pay attention and don't pretend you are alone.

Unless!
Unless you have a total replacement that actually makes sense. You can throw out the system entirely if there is a completely new system that actually works out, and I would be happy to hear it.

Reply to iolo

The idea of getting rid of things we don’t like is appealing: get rid of money, get rid of the bosses, get rid of the government. Maybe you haven’t realised that we all have different things we don’t like. Some people you know may want to get rid of you, but you would disagree. So we compromise and make the best of it with ideas we apply as law. Not all of them work. Over time we modify them with new ones. You can’t escape this. You have what you have because of those that came before you and it enables you to think what you like. Maybe even influence things. That’s not so bad.

Reply to Bitter Crank Fair enough. I once taught English and I'm relaxing! :)

Reply to Lif3r If you keep capitalism there is no point in bothering with a 'society' at all, surely? It is just a looting-machine, and we shall only get shot of it by learning to combine together like sensible people instead.

Reply to Lif3r We'll have to make it up as we go along, doubtless. I'm no utopian bossman.

Reply to Brett They can get rid of me when they please. I've been here a long time, and it's getting worse by the day.

Quoting iolo

?Brett They can get rid of me when they please. I've been here a long time, and it's getting worse by the day.

How solipsistic can you get?