Resistance Vs. Rewilding

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#21

Okay then, I’m willing to be enlightened.

From my point of view, I work with hundreds of people in New Orleans on a weekly basis. I’m not concerned as to people’s creditials to to what they know and what they do. So I have tendency to appreciate conversations like “%50 of police officers in the united states are felons or sociopaths or used to be elementary school bullies”, or whatever.

I am, however, interested in my perceived, implicit privilege.

Also, in regards to gentrification, what are the implications for you personally, as regards to changes in police behavior and quality of officer recruitment.

I believe it should be understood that personally, I recently lost a friend, an officer with NOPD. She was a friendly officer who who talk with us and share her stories of being in the line of duty. Two weeks ago, while asking a homeless man, and who was later known as a severly mentally unhealthy person, to move away from sleeping in front of a business, she was assaulted, had her service weapon taken form her, and shot several times.

http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1201933803244600.xml&coll=1

She was sunshine to me, and representative to the fine officers of New Orleans, not an exception to the rule.

I find most of the needs to resist culture do not require us to resist power structures, as they are the most civicly engaged and informed of us, people who understand the importance to follow the law and the will of the people.

I feel resistance comes in the form of resisting the negligence that convenience provides, resisting the sloth that despair entrenches, and resisting the cultural ineptitude that specialization requires.

#22
I find most of the needs to resist culture do not require us to resist power structures, as they are the most civicly engaged and informed of us, people who understand the importance to follow the law and the will of the people.

Can you please clarify what you mean by this?

#23

Well, specifically, those power structures are designed to be bent by one particular will or another, with the American ideal that they bend by either blind lady justice or the invisible hand of the market, revealing a culture looking desperately to find justice in the universe and live in the hands of the gods of order.

However, in practice, it is people who write laws, not altruistic spirit entities.

And so, there is in my opinion, a belief system of spiritual magnitude when it comes to the majority of americans.

For the majority of North Americans, tearing down civilization just doesn’t resonate, but ideals such as reason and accountability do. Which, depending on your perspective, can mean the very same thing.

I think it makes the most sense, then, to respect the will and belief systems, even if they are a crock of shit, because what is important, the people around you, is more important than one’s own version of what’s ‘really going on’.

And so, while being very libertarian (the new word for anarchist), I realize the process to get us there has as much to do with ingratiating myself into those processes as much as it has to do with recreating those processes, and handing them off to small communities, rather than federal governments and multi national corporations.

Paraphrased, I heard before, “overt rebellion is a part of the game.” I think, because, it doesn’t work. Subversive rebellion, now to me, that sounds like it has a better 401K :wink:

#24

Hi TonyZ … As one who seeks anarchic social systems, and who feels very strongly about what anarchism means, I feel that I need to supply my own perspective on your statement that libertarianism is “the new word for anarchism.” I don’t know if you meant that you personally consider it equivalent to anarchism, or merely that it means something similar in the eyes of others. To me, libertarianism and anarchism are VERY different. And I think that most of the libertarians and anarchists I know would agree.

For example, a libertarian might run for US president. You’ll never see an anarchist running for president, though. Why? Because anarchists don’t believe in government.

Anarchists organize worker collectives. Libertarians don’t – they’re OK with hierarchical structures in the workforce.

I can list more examples if you want.

Are there any other libertarians or anarchists out there who have a perspective to supply?

#25

However, in Europe the term libertarian means anarchist. This is related to the Libertarian Socialist collectives from the Spanish Civil War. The Libertarian party here in the U.S. sort of took the word, and not totally without reason.

I think it’s more appropriate to think of it this way:

#26

Libertarians generally agree with Grover Norquist’s stated goal “to get [the government] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” They don’t necessarily see a problem with hierarchy per se, or they accept it as a necessary evil, they just want as little of it as possible. You could call them minarchists.

It definitely relates to anarchy, though here in the U.S., while I applaud their skepticism of the public sector of the government, I cannot fathom why they place so much faith in the private sector of the government. Corporations operate by charter; they really always have formed a different arm of the same system.

#27

A lot of the people I’ve met who identified themselves as libertarians were people who had actually been treated pretty well by capitalism and were looking to slide out from under any “social” responsibility to help others who were less fortunate. They also didn’t seem to recognize how privileged they are or how many perks they recieve from society. Instead they seemed to like to portray themselves as self made men/women who had worked their way to where they are by the sweat of their brow and didn’t owe anybody for what they enjoy.
They basically had a pretty simplified view of things in my opinion and chose to ignore most of the more complex aspects of social structure that provides the environment that people like them thrive in.

#28

That’s what I’m used to as well. The reason Libertarians are Minarchists and not Anarchists is because they want to preserve the parts of government that protect the wealthy from the poor. They want to do away with the parts that protect the poor from the wealthy.

However, they also tend to have much better organized ideas about how to provide for certain aspects of the public good without having to form a government to run them. I do think there are ideas within libertarianism which, like their car stereos, are worth stealing.

#29

Having grown up a frontier libertarian in Alaska then having moved toward a more anarchist orientation post-college, I could offer this…from my experience most libertarians basically want govt. to exist merely to protect the institution of private property, but should never have the power or right to tell anyone what to do with that private property. While anarchists tend to want to do away with private property all together.

It seems most libertarians up here in Alaska are ok with having a state, a military and a local sheriff so long as the state doesn’t tax their land, regulate what they can build/do on it, or take their guns, and the military is more of a citizen militia merely for the protection of homeland. In my experience Libertarians love the Swiss Army as a model for an ideal military. They also tend to be totally against welfare and socialized medicine, prefering these activities to be handled by non-profit corporations because they don’t want to be taxed for them.

The danger of libertarianism in a modern capitalist state is that it tends to unbalance society in favor of corporate rule. Since corporations are basically dictatorships (albiet with the ability to choose which dictatorship you want to belong to) this doesn’t help the cause of freedom except for the owners of capital.

Another way I could put it is from what I’ve seen Libertarians tend to want to be free individuals, while Anarchists tend to want to be free individuals in a free, yet cohesive and socially-responsible community.

#30

A more thought out and accurate assessment. Nicely done.

I think a lot of libertarian Ideals might work out provided that everyone involved had relatively even access to resources. The problem is that libertarian ideals make no provision for maintaining such a balance, and most actively resist attempting to include some.

#31

To continue along that vein … I think that there are many well-intentioned libertarians out there who make the mistake of overemphasizing “a priori” equality (“all men [sic] are created equal”) and not recognizing the empirical reality of historically-based socioeconomic inequality.

I was just talking with a libertarian friend of mine yesterday. He equates libertarianism with anarchy as well (or more accurately, he described libertarianism as a type of anarchism). I asked him to explain what he meant by that. He said that the eventual goal of libertarianism is to do away with government, and that was enough for it to qualify as anarchism. I said, “Well, what about other hierarchical social systems?” He didn’t seem to understand what I was asking. :-\ I continued, “If you look at the word anarchy it means ‘no hierarchy’ not ‘no government’.” There is hierarchy in most existing business structures, and there’s also a kind of social hierarchy that imposes a behavioral code." …And for once in my life, I had defeated him in debate. Thanks, rewilding! :wink:

#32

Very interesting conversation, I think a person can accomplish a lot by keeping several sheepskins hanging in the political closet. I think it is most wise and most prudent for anyone entering the world of politics to start at the bottom and work their way up. I think capital-L Libertarians have been the most successful in appealing to a wide range of people at a local-government level, as well has many Greens. I think libertarian for me is a philosophy that gives me and my community a choice in government, and I’m perfectly fine if some people choose to opt-out of social responsibility and buy-in to burning their wealth off having others serve them.

It is those who choose to govern themselves who for me will win the tug-of-war. For those who choose to be catered to will go broke or die trying. Those who give support and get support are choosing wise for many generations to come.

I feel as though anarchy was a 19th-century reaction to a particular set of problems. I feel like libertarianism is a 20th century reaction to a particular set of problems. And I like to be a person of current events, and so am still in the market for a response to 21st century problems.

I continue to support those who are in the process of becoming more wild. But then where to go once one has achieved peace of mind and strength of will and knowledge of the world? I think any community approach, given that one community respects the next community, is resonant of the response I’m still looking for.

I’m less concerned about hierarchy even because I have to respect that there are people who can only, psychologically, respond to that. I have to respect anarchy, because there are people who can only respond to that.

And so I feel any historic response, given their mutations and similarities, is a part of history and a smaller part of this great wide unknown we’ve dared ourselves to step towards.

I think there are opportunities in many communities to run on an entirely unabashed recreate-the-human-opportunity platform where one of us could get some serious traction and accomplish a lot once elected.

When I think of the precolumbian experience in america, and I think of those 1200 language groups, I think of all these people voting with their feet, setting out towards their own vision of community and freedom from their previous community. I think in postcolumbian america, a similar vision can be enacted.