I was a Punk and had the White A Encircled on my back,And it is true i lived a chaotic life,but was it Anarchy.looking back we thought it was,but in reality.It was anarchy in a relatively stable society.My question is can Anarchy work,can society function without laws?
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MarkJT
- 2008-06-24 @ 21:13:43
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jenray
Pro - http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-06-24 @ 21:53:18
The definition of anarchy n. , pl. -chies. Absence of any form of political authority. Political disorder and confusion.
Think it's difficult to be truly an anarchist in a society that has some form of political authority even if people are rapidly losing faith in politics now...you could say we're in a state of political disorder and confusion but that's only because our politicians keep confusing us by coming out with new ways forward every five minutes and none of them seem to go anywhere...I call myself a responsible anarchist because I've got no party anymore that I want to represent me...have heard quite a few people describing themselves as such over the last few years...there's probably a heck of a lot of us around now...
Don't really think anarchists would be able to organize things very well though as most aren't prepared to start bossing people around, which is basically what political parties do...and no, I don't think society can function without some laws...people need boundaries even if they don't feel bad about breaking some of them if they don't consider them fair or sensible...what we've got is too many damned laws, but then what do we expect when most politicians today seem to be lawyers!! There's dozens of them in Parliament now... -
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SeasideMan
Pro - 2008-06-25 @ 09:03:14
I think the first part of the answer is because most people don't really like heavy political theory mixed with their music, and more fundamentally because most of the bands weren't very good musically. The principle that even those without talent can make music is a fine one, but the result is often rather unmusical. Not surprisingly, the names that lived on are the ones who actually did have talent.
On the more wide question, I think people rather like the idea that the behaviour of others is constrained by mutually agreed laws, legally encoded standards of behaviour. Anarchy on a wide scale allows for preying on the weak by the strong even more so than our current system does.
Tom. -
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can society function without laws?
no. -
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technomist
- 2008-06-25 @ 15:34:17
Just look at Somalia if you want to look at a country without laws. For most people its an appalling nightmare, and I would certainly never set foot there.
Yet they also have import-export businesses, a coca cola bottling plant and distribution system, mobile phones and even banking. -
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SloshedAndVexed
Pro - 2008-06-25 @ 23:45:17
Can you name any original , founder-member , high-profile 'punks' who understood or cared about politics except in the simplest , working-class vs ruling-class terms ?
I think that the worst aspects of human nature , which we hear and see more than enough of as it is are too prohibitive of any notions of 'anarchy' to be able to work to the advantage of the majority .
I loved a lot of the music , a wonderful , necessary reaction to the excesses of 'prog rock' and the blandness of chart music , in a late 70's britain governed mainly by largely uncontrolled militant trade-unions .
But who were the intellectual advocates of 'anarchy' ?
- I never heard them , and surely was'nt 'anarchy' just a misunderstood , meaningless rebellious catch-phrase ?
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MarkJT
- 2008-06-25 @ 23:57:07
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon?
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SloshedAndVexed
Pro
- 2008-06-30 @ 00:47:32
non , sorry to disappoint you but , oh no not I !
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SeasideMan
Pro
- 2008-06-26 @ 00:02:53
Malcolm Maclaren and John Lydon. "Anarchy in the UK" has a very Paris 1968 Structuralist/anarchist feel about it.
But I do agree with you.
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The_Walrus
- http://www.doctor-dark.co.uk
- 2008-06-29 @ 11:56:57
Michael Bakunin wrote a quite good book about how a society might operate without laws, but he did tend to drift from there into authoritarian pronouncements about what the society should do to enforce the behaviour it wanted, which ended up sounding a lot like laws.
The best thing to do, perhaps, is to appear to co-operate with whatever is currently being forced on us, and quietly do things your way where you are not observed. Then again, the criminals do that, and I don't approve of them... -
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Antireptilian
- 2008-07-01 @ 15:41:37
Walrus
Hey there dude, I have read Bakunin. It is fantastic how the stuff he was writing about in the mid 1800s is relevent today.
Society is not ready for pure anarchy. People have no sense of responsibility for their lives, and would rather hand the decision making over to someone else so they can kick back and watch Eastenders.
Punk took up the statement, it is a shame most didn't bother to read anything about it. It is the same today of freedom. Everyone uses the word, but fails to understand the meaning.
What a freakin mess. -
The band Crass managed to survive without really conforming. Maybe it's not laws we need but boundaries.
{Zounds, The Mob, Subhumans - other good bands from my youth}