Where am I?

[Thunder]

Hello.
I'm still trying to sort things out. And yes, yes I know the motto here for questioners is to READ READ READ!, which I try do, but I'm still trying to see where I am.

I see religion as evil, for mainly these reasons. 1: It is authoritarian and teaches to OBEY! We all know we're that goes to so I wont focus on that right now... 2: It teaches anti-rationality. Religion, whether organized or not, teaches that it is okay to believe in silly absurd things because faith, belief without evidence, is good and is to be promoted. 3: It devalues this life. You are focused on the "after life" and not the only one you truly have. This works in with number 1. Those in lower classes accept their place since it wont matter if there is an after life.

Capitalism is wrong as well. 1: I don't see how you can "own" land. It is like saying you own air, or a galaxy, or a star. (NASA [or some other organization?] actually "sells" stars to people. If you pay them, you'll get a certificate that says Star 1M123 [you know what I mean] is yours. This is stupid.) Human society as a whole owns the Earth. Trying to fence off a peice of land and saying, "This is MINE!" seems more like theft to me. 2: Capitalism is not fair to everyone. I don't see how someone like a janitor might earn shit for her/his work while some CEO earns six figure plus. Even though it might not be too obvious, the janitor is just as needed as the doctor in the human society. If someone does not fulfill the role of janitor, the world will get dirtier and dirtier and more disease ridden due to uncleanliness. Yes, the doctor might have a more immediate and urgent action to do, but in the long run, it is just as important as the janitor/miner/factory worker/etc.

I am conflicted about the state. (By state, I mean any kind of governing body that is given authority by a population) We do need some kind of organization, but the state is way too easily corrupted by capitalism, religion, imperialism, and such. Just as many wars have been fought for religion, many wars have been fought by states to control other peoples for profit. It seems the only way the state could be incorruptible if people were incorruptible, which we know is not so.

I also believe that freedom is the most important thing for an individual to have. (S)he is a human who has the ability to make hir (not a spelling error) own dreams and to follow them. Humans must be allowed to be free and to act on their free will, as long as it does not impose on another's.

The individual must not be lost. We need to be a connected society, but we also need to be individuals, not sheeple.

[Hit The North]

You're an opponent of the capitalist system. Putting a label on what kind of opponent you are, is less important than having the chops to be one in the first place. Your opposition to religion, private property, inequality and the state shows you've got a great instinct for freedom and justice and the intelligence to be critically aware of the hypocrisy of the ruling ideas.

But we can too easily fall into tribalism and dogmatism on the left. Our history is a testament to that. Intellectually, you/we should aim to be flexible over some of the big questions. So I wouldn't hurry towards pigeon-holing yourself just yet.

To comment on some of the questions that seem to trouble you:


I am conflicted about the state. (By state, I mean any kind of governing body that is given authority by a population) We do need some kind of organization, but the state is way too easily corrupted by capitalism, religion, imperialism, and such. Just as many wars have been fought for religion, many wars have been fought by states to control other peoples for profit. It seems the only way the state could be incorruptible if people were incorruptible, which we know is not so.
I think its worth noting that it isn't the State which determines the type of society we live in, but the type of society we live in which determines what kind of State we have. A true socialist revolution, achieved directly by the working class, will have only as much centralisation of social and economic functions as it requires.


The individual must not be lost. We need to be a connected society, but we also need to be individuals, not sheeple.
This is why we fight. The "individual" under capitalism is continually threatened with economic extinction and has no control over the forces of production which throw storms down around his head. Even the capitalist individual sometimes gets blown to oblivion.

As Marx points out in Capital, in a capitalist society it's not the human individual who rules, but his own creation, capital, which rules over him.

Our mission therefore is to liberate the individual (that is, ourselves) from this upside-down state of affairs.

[Sam_b]

Where am I?

Florida, I believe.




Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Nwoye]

Capitalism is wrong as well. 1: I don't see how you can "own" land. It is like saying you own air, or a galaxy, or a star. (NASA [or some other organization?] actually "sells" stars to people. If you pay them, you'll get a certificate that says Star 1M123 [you know what I mean] is yours. This is stupid.) Human society as a whole owns the Earth. Trying to fence off a peice of land and saying, "This is MINE!" seems more like theft to me.
just a minor note, because i pretty much agree with you.

i understand the concept of communitarian property rights, but every single human being, in order to survive, needs land and resources out of that land to live on. your average worker, by building a house and living in it, fences off a piece of land and says "this is mine!". so for me, the issue arises with absentee ownership, and when someone excludes another person from a piece of land that second person needs to survive. i don't have a problem with someone owning a house and a plot of land, i have a problem with renting out land and land speculation.

for a pretty cool critique of private property, i would recommend Pierre Joseph Proudhon's What is Property?

here: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html


I am conflicted about the state. (By state, I mean any kind of governing body that is given authority by a population) We do need some kind of organization, but the state is way too easily corrupted by capitalism, religion, imperialism, and such. Just as many wars have been fought for religion, many wars have been fought by states to control other peoples for profit. It seems the only way the state could be incorruptible if people were incorruptible, which we know is not so.i share your aversion to the state, but i don't think you should adopt a purely ideological approach to anarchism. by that i mean "the state" can take many different forms, and can come about in many different ways. for example, research Robert Nozick's theory of anarchy and the state (from Anarchy, State, and Utopia). yeah i know he's a right-libertarian, but he has a very intriguing view of how a state could arise from anarchism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia


I also believe that freedom is the most important thing for an individual to have. (S)he is a human who has the ability to make hir (not a spelling error) own dreams and to follow them. Humans must be allowed to be free and to act on their free will, as long as it does not impose on another's.

The individual must not be lost. We need to be a connected society, but we also need to be individuals, not sheeple.i completely agree.

[21st Century Kropotkinist]

I think due to this,

[QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]I see religion as evil, for mainly these reasons. 1: It is authoritarian and teaches to OBEY![QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]
this,
[QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]I don't see how you can "own" land.[QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]
this,
[QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]I am conflicted about the state. [QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]
and this,
I also believe that[QUOTE=Thunder;1446776] freedom is the most important thing for an individual to have.[QUOTE=Thunder;1446776]
you may very well be an anarchist. You seem to favor Bakunin's idea that socialism without freedom is slavery, and freedom without socialism is privilege. If you don't know what anarchism is, it is the opposition to human domination and oppression wherever it is in the world, i.e., capital, the State, patriarchy, homophobia, racism, etc. In oppression's place, anarchism envisions a loose federation of free communities without any kind of central authority. So, there would certainly be organizations in an anarchist society like worker's councils, perhaps.

As you said, studying is important. There is a ton of anarchist literature on the web. Check out infoshop for some good links, anarchyarchives, and others. Watch out for right-wing extremists fraudently calling themselves, oxymoronically, "anarcho"-capitalists, though.

I would also make one minor correction, though (at least as I see it): the modern nation-state only serves to protect capital, so essentially capital and the State are the same structure. The line of thinking that suggests that capital has corrupted the State, imo, could suggest that the State without capitalism would be altruistic. I think that's a faulty line of thinking. But what can I say, I'm an anti-authoritarian.

[Thunder]

I think its worth noting that it isn't the State which determines the type of society we live in, but the type of society we live in which determines what kind of State we have. A true socialist revolution, achieved directly by the working class, will have only as much centralisation of social and economic functions as it requires.

But, as had been said before, it seems that those who get into the state will eventually get corrupted and the "workers' state" will eventually go into decay. Is that not what happened to the USSR, Cuba, China, and the rest?

[Sprocket Hole]

But, as had been said before, it seems that those who get into the state will eventually get corrupted and the "workers' state" will eventually go into decay. Is that not what happened to the USSR, Cuba, China, and the rest?

Some people will agree with you, and some wont. That's pretty much Lenninist vs Anarchist right there.

I personally agree with you, and do not think a state should exist.

[Hit The North]

But, as had been said before, it seems that those who get into the state will eventually get corrupted and the "workers' state" will eventually go into decay. Is that not what happened to the USSR, Cuba, China, and the rest?

Which is why I emphasise a revolution made directly by the working class. In the examples you cite, it is the weakness of an active workers mass democracy which allowed the centralised state to take control.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

But, as had been said before, it seems that those who get into the state will eventually get corrupted and the "workers' state" will eventually go into decay. Is that not what happened to the USSR, Cuba, China, and the rest?

But in a workers state "leaders" are supposed to be directly responsible to the people below them and bound to their instructions, meaning they aren't leaders at all, just administrators. If the workers aren't in control then it isn't a workers state. If the people the workers elect can go against their decisions, then the workers aren't in control.

What's funny is that Bakunin called the Paris Commune the negation of the state. Marx called it a workers state. It's not a difference in ideas, it's a difference in what the definition of the state is.

[Thunder]

But in a workers state "leaders" are supposed to be directly responsible to the people below them and bound to their instructions, meaning they aren't leaders at all, just administrators. If the workers aren't in control then it isn't a workers state. If the people the workers elect can go against their decisions, then the workers aren't in control.

So the leaders or "administrators" are really controlled by the population, then it seems they'd be more of a figure head for the majority of the population.

[Thunder]

What's funny is that Bakunin called the Paris Commune the negation of the state. Marx called it a workers state. It's not a difference in ideas, it's a difference in what the definition of the state is.
Something I just realized is, if this "middle step" between capitalism and Communism isn't really a state, then what middle step is there? It seems that if it really wasnt a state that'd we'd already of reached our goal with the "middle step."

[revolution inaction]

Hello.
I'm still trying to sort things out. And yes, yes I know the motto here for questioners is to READ READ READ!, which I try do, but I'm still trying to see where I am.

You sound most like an anarchist.

[ArrowLance]

The individual must not be lost. We need to be a connected society, but we also need to be individuals, not sheeple.

The individual can not be found without society, both are dependent on each other. How much of an individual is someone trapped on an island by himself, unable to express himself?

And where is society without the individual? You can hardly call empty space a society!

Both are dependent on each other and IMO the best way to promote individualism is through society.

[Nwoye]

The individual can not be found without society, both are dependent on each other. How much of an individual is someone trapped on an island by himself, unable to express himself?

And where is society without the individual? You can hardly call empty space a society!

Both are dependent on each other and IMO the best way to promote individualism is through society.
in my opinion saying "the individual must not be lost" is just saying that the rights and liberty of every individual must be respected, and that no individual's life or rights are expendable for "the greater good".

[Killfacer]

You're in the Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space. Currently flying around the sun, 1 millions years in the future.

[ArrowLance]

in my opinion saying "the individual must not be lost" is just saying that the rights and liberty of every individual must be respected, and that no individual's life or rights are expendable for "the greater good".

And what I'm saying is that the individual's life, rights and liberty being respected IS FOR the greater good.

[Nwoye]

And what I'm saying is that the individual's life, rights and liberty being respected IS FOR the greater good.
fair enough.