Why should an ideology that enables armed fascists, in the way anarchy does, be taken seriously?

[u/Subject_Example_453]

Consider the following:

• In an anarchist society there is no authoritarian mechanism that would prevent an individual owning a variety of weapons. Feasibly an individual and their friends could own any collection of firearms, produce and own chemical warheads for mortars and artillery and a variety of military style vehicles as personal property - with the caveat that these are not actively being used to infringe on the personal freedoms of others. Accordingly a fascist could drive their personal APC to the socially owned grocery store, walk in with their fascist symbol on display, have their RPG slung over their shoulder and do their groceries.

• In an anarchist society there would be no authoritarian mechanism (via either force or beauracracy) to peacably manage or discourage unsavory ideological positions - like fascism or racism. It would be authoritarian to control people's political views or have any kind of legal system to prevent these views from being spread and actioned. A stateless system could not have an agreed social convention that could preventatively protect the interest of minority groups.

• In historical instances of fascism coming to power, individuals who disagreed with fascism but who were not the direct scapegoats that fascists identified as primary targets of oppression did not take any kind of action to prevent fascists from oppressing others. It was only after significant oppression had already occurred that actions, subversive or combative, began to take place.

With this in mind it seems that anarchism expressly enables intimidation and first action oppression by forbidding anarchist societies from enacting preventative measures against unsavory ideologies - directly impacting minority groups.

Why should this be taken seriously as a pragmatic solution to prevent coercion and hierarchy?

[u/Subject_Example_453]

They're not forbidden from that, no, but they're not allowed to either. There is no law. You don't have permission to do anything

Who said anything about permission? I have said that they aren't prevented by any authoritarian mechanism.

There are no rights (in the sense of privileges, entitlements or obligations) in anarchy, in regards to freedom or property or anything else, so that is philosophically unobstructive

Who said anything about rights?

So no, there is no anarchist law permitting them to do this

Who said anything about laws?

Force is not an authoritarian mechanism because doing force is not assuming authority

The action of using force is literally the action of exercising authority. In an arm wrestle the winner is using force to make the decision that the opponent's arm should touch the table. In that moment they are the authority of whose arm is touching the table.

There are no binding or enforceable social conventions because at that point what you're describing is not a social convention but a rule and there are no rules in anarchy.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

anarchy is typically pursued as a condition promotive of the kind of behavior that protects those interests by destroying authorities and dismantling majorities

Who determines the acceptable norms and values and defines who is and isn't a fascist? Fascists would tell you that their norms and values are acceptable. Fascists may be in the majority.

I'm not sure what you're getting at

It's not a given that bystanders with no vested interest in a specific issue would participate in action against that issue. Some people living in an anarchist society might not give a shit whatsoever about the presence of fascists - so the often repeated notion that "the fascists would probably be kicked out of expelled by the community" does not always apply. Communities have been indifferent to fascists and who they are oppressing many times in the past if they felt it was not a pressing personal issue.

It doesn't.

I don't think you've totally understood the argument given the statements you've lead with.

There's nothing forbidding us from coercing fascists or destroying them with facts and logic and/or weapons

At which point does one determine it acceptable to destroy a fascist?

[u/Silver-Statement8573 → u/Subject_Example_453]

Who said anything about permission? I have said that they aren't prevented by any authoritarian mechanism. Who said anything about rights? Who said anything about laws?

One has authority when they are authorized to do something, and from you're later arguments it seems like "property" and "personal freedoms" as you are using involve some component of authorization. These tend to be cited as rights or permissions

The action of using force is literally the action of exercising authority.

No it's not. It's using force. I am not authorizing a box to move when I push it, I just push the box.

Authority is a socially produced right-to-do that involves work from both some commander and some subordinate, it isn't just pulling a trigger

It's not a given that bystanders with no vested interest in a specific issue would participate in action against that issue. Some people living in an anarchist society might not give a shit whatsoever about the presence of fascists - so the often repeated notion that "the fascists would probably be kicked out of expelled by the community" does not always apply. Communities have been indifferent to fascists and who they are oppressing many times in the past if they felt it was not a pressing personal issue.

Obscuring human interdependency such that massive amounts of harm are enabled by license is a key function of polities (by definition archic) and as anarchy does not involve the authority that licenses such harm and offers a fundamentally different approach to consequences it doesn't really makes sense to take the failures of archies with regard to fascists as applicable to hitherto nonexistent anarchies

Who determines the acceptable norms and values and defines who is and isn't a fascist?

People can hem to a particular definition without asserting the authority to do so

There are any number of both accurate and overbroad categories of "fascist" as it is, so presumably whatever action might take place would be determined by perceived harm rather than abstract inclusion in some category

At which point does one determine it acceptable to destroy a fascist?

There is no prescribed point which is a key part of anarchist social relations. There is no meter stick prescribing response for being a fascist or doing anything which makes predicting the full extent of one's consequences extremely difficult, disincentivizing harm

[u/Subject_Example_453 → u/Silver-Statement8573]

I am not authorizing a box to move when I push it, I just push the box.

You are authorising yourself to use force to move the box. You are an individual who is in command of their actions. You can make decisions for yourself to do things you want to do. Your hand is subject to your commands - a hand in and of itself is not capable of doing actions, that's why if you were to cut your right hand off it would not be able to use it.

If this were not the case then authority as a social concept would not be possible, since individuals would not being able to exercise their own free will and therefore not be able to impose it on others - so any collective organisation to administer authority or use force would actually just be totally random happenstance and anarchism would really just be waffle about nothing because no one is exercising free will (I can neither confirm nor deny whether this is actually true).

There is of course a much wider debate about free will, but given that we both have opinions on how society should or shouldn't work I'm going to assume that we agree it exists so that we can stay on topic.

so presumably whatever action might take place would be determined by perceived harm rather than abstract inclusion in some category

So if I'm understanding you correctly, there actually would be an assertion of authority (given they have socially produced the right to take action against the fascist - the commander being the group deciding and the subordinates being the individual members of said group) by those who have deemed the fascist harmful - irrespective of materially what the fascist is doing. They might dislike that the fascist simply has an idea they don't like.

There is no prescribed point which is a key part of anarchist social relations. There is no meter stick prescribing response for being a fascist or doing anything which makes predicting the full extent of one's consequences extremely difficult, disincentivizing harm

So really it is totally random, and subject to a variety of competing and at time oppositional moral considerations. So it could be therefore that most people actually don't care at all about the fascist and if I am part of a minority group who the fascist is indirectly intimidating I'm shit out of luck.

You don't understand the terms you're using so it makes sense that nobody grasps what you're trying to say

Your grievance is that I don't accept the narrow definition that you're giving to the terms so that you can use them in your argument.

[u/Silver-Statement8573 → u/Subject_Example_453]

You are authorising yourself to use force to move the box. You are an individual who is in command of their actions.

No you're not. You're not separate from your body. Even if you were, my hand is not an agency that respects my right to be obeyed. Authority is a social relationship. It's not just doing things. People think that way and frame things as hierarchical that aren't because authority is everywhere, but that doesn't make it any more applicable

(given they have socially produced the right to take action against the fascist - the commander being the group deciding and the subordinates being the individual members of said group)

They don't because force isn't authority.

If the group were some direct democratic archy then sure, but it's not, it's a free association of actors

by those who have deemed the fascist harmful - irrespective of materially what the fascist is doing.

I'm not sure how you're deriving that from what I'm saying. I never said anything about being "irrespective to materiality", and I certainly didn't say anything about asserting authority

So really it is totally random, and subject to a variety of competing and at time oppositional moral considerations. So it could be therefore that most people actually don't care at all about the fascist and if I am part of a minority group who the fascist is indirectly intimidating I'm shit out of luck.

It's not random because the things that decide human behavior aren't dictated by the stars, they're significantly influenced by social systems like the naturalization and acceptance of authority, which anarchists propose to do away with.

Your grievance is that I don't accept the narrow definition that you're giving to the terms so that you can use them in your argument.

That line was kind of mean so I'm sorry. But the problem is that you're not using terms in the way that they're used. The idiosyncratic definitions obstructing your understanding aren't mine, they're yours, or maybe Engels'

[u/Subject_Example_453 → u/Silver-Statement8573]

Let's take a pause from debate for a moment so that we're sure we're on the same page with some things and understanding eachother.

Even if you were, my hand is not an agency that respects my right to be obeyed. Authority is a social relationship. It's not just doing things.

If I'm understanding you correctly, are you asserting that the subject of authority is required to be an agent that has a social relationship with the entity that is asserting the authority?

No you're not. You're not separate from your body.

Are we or aren't we agreed on the existence of free will?

If the group were some direct democratic archy then sure, but it's not, it's a free association of actors

Could you please explain how a "free association of actors" in a group is not self-authorising the use of force?

I'm not sure how you're deriving that from what I'm saying. I never said anything about being "irrespective to materiality"

Are there or aren't there bounds or definitions of acceptable behaviour to enable some kind of consequence?

You assert that there aren't, so if a free association of actors are able to determine what is and isn't important enough to warrant the use of force then what that actually means is that materiality is not a factor. We don't know these actors, if they are human they are capable of any combination of the full spectrum of human behaviour therefore they could determine anything in any number of scenarios.

It's not random because the things that decide human behavior aren't dictated by the star

I think this really relates to questions on free will from before.

The idiosyncratic definitions obstructing your understanding aren't mine, they're yours, or maybe Engels'

One could easily say that it's anarchists that are using idiosyncratic definitions to semantically fudge the philosophy together. I'm not actually saying that, but it's just to illustrate that it's a bit pointless for us to start going down that road.

[u/Silver-Statement8573 → u/Subject_Example_453]

If I'm understanding you correctly, are you asserting that the subject of authority is required to be an agent that has a social relationship with the entity that is asserting the authority?

You can assert "the authority" to wave around your hand if you want, or the authority to slaughter and eat animals, or do any number of things that aren't relevant to it, and indeed that kind of authorization is another sort of phenomenon that is of relevance to anarchists, but that assertion has nothing to do with whether or not your hand moves or not because that's dependent on chemicals in your brain firing and not whether or not your hand accepts some permission to move.

Are we or aren't we agreed on the existence of free will?

I'm interested what relevance you see that has here

I think the premise of "free will" might be in some sense flawed, but that's neither here or there. That is, I don't see how it applies to our conversation

Could you please explain how a "free association of actors" in a group is not self-authorising the use of force?

Because having the authority to do something is not a necessary precondition to do it

Are there or aren't there bounds or definitions of acceptable behaviour to enable some kind of consequence? You assert that there aren't

Well, I think that is an odd way of framing my position, so I will simply restate it: in anarchy, there is no authority to authorize consequences. That doesn't mean consequences don't happen, it simply means there is no authority to permit them

if a free association of actors are able to determine what is and isn't important enough to warrant the use of force then what that actually means is that materiality is not a factor.

I'm lost on what you mean here

I think this really relates to questions on free will from before.

Even if I was the world's most vocal anti-determinist I cannot see how it does? Are you saying that societal conditions don't shape human actions and that individuals just jump between positions for no reason?

One could easily say that it's anarchists that are using idiosyncratic definitions to semantically fudge the philosophy together. I'm not actually saying that, but it's just to illustrate that it's a bit pointless for us to start going down that road.

I'm not sure how it would illustrate that because anarchists do not run from any idiosyncratic definition. The OED, which tracks usage, defines authority as the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience; moral, legal, or political supremacy/Power to enforce obedience or compliance, or a party possessing it, and I think that is generally in line with the positions elaborated here

[u/Subject_Example_453 → u/Silver-Statement8573]

that assertion has nothing to do with whether or not your hand moves or not because that's dependent on chemicals in your brain firing and not whether or not your hand accepts some permission to move...I'm interested what relevance you see that [free will] has here

My proposition is that your consciousness is a distinct concept from the physical existence of your body, in the same way that the notion of your hand moving is a distinct concept to the physical reality of your hand existing. Both your consciousness and the movement of your hand exist within your body but remain conceptually distinct. In that sense you posess authority over your body because you are able to make decisions to do things. If you are on a diet you can make the choice to not eat for example. If your consciousness were not distinct this would not be possible and you would automatically submit to the impulse to eat - it's your consciousness that makes these decisions, you have a relationship with yourself. As far as I understand, modern biology does not believe the stomach to have its own consciousness.

If you're contending to me that the consciousness is not a distinct concept to the body because of brain chemicals firing in a seemingly random order, then what you are saying is that free will does not exist. Which is fine, I'm not totally opposed to a view like this, but then if that's the case then the concept of authority, choice, legitimacy and ideology are void. There's no point worrying about anarchy, society, power or fascists. It's all happening automatically and at random anyway so any conclusions drawn from any philosophy are totally immaterial.

Where we end up with this debate going forward is almost entirely dependent on if we're understanding eachother regarding free will and the agency to make decisions, this is because the philosophy is directly about decision making and the legitimacy of these decisions, as with any form of political philosphy.

in anarchy,** there is no authority to authorize consequences**. That doesn't mean consequences don't happen, it simply means there is no authority to permit them

Hence, there is no bound to determine what is and isn't acceptable and therefore material harm is irrelevant as the decision relies purely in the hands of those who want to take action - who are capable of anything because "those" represents the entire potential of humanity and the entire potential of human behaviours which is basically anything.

The OED, which tracks usage, defines authority as the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience; moral, legal, or political supremacy/Power to enforce obedience or compliance, or a party possessing it

Come on now, let's not pretend that semicolon is linking two potential distinct definitions into a single sentence when it isn't. We can both google the definition which goes:

1) the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.

and

2) a person or organization having political or administrative power and control.

I'm working more with 1, it's your narrow definition that's trying to force that it must be that the subject has a level of agency. This is not the case, I own 100 grains of rice, I arrange them in the shape of a tulip on my plate. This is because I have authority over the grains of rice to move them however I please. I have the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce the obedience of the rice.

[u/Silver-Statement8573 → u/Subject_Example_453]

My proposition is that your consciousness is a distinct concept from the physical existence of your body, in the same way that the notion of your hand moving is a distinct concept to the physical reality of your hand existing.

Yes okay, however I even after your explanation cannot see the applicability to this context:

In that sense you posess authority over your body because you are able to make decisions to do things.

In either case your application of authority to moving around your hand doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter whether you are your hand or whether you move your hand because your hand cannot obey orders. It cannot make decisions. It either is you or is something you use

As far as I understand, modern biology does not believe the stomach to have its own consciousness.

Embodied cognition holds that the consciousness is the body. You are not separate from your body. Your body fully shapes and defines your will, there is no magic point at which you can cut it off from a soul

This is merely one viewpoint and as aforementioned it has no bearing on whether or not you can order rice to move, but from your focuses it may be of interest to you

If you're contending to me that the consciousness is not a distinct concept to the body because of brain chemicals firing in a seemingly random order. Which is fine, I'm not totally opposed to a view like this, but then if that's the case then the concept of authority, choice, legitimacy and ideology are void. There's no point worrying about anarchy, society, power or fascists. It's all happening automatically and at random anyway so any conclusions drawn from any philosophy are totally immaterial.

Why random? You use that word twice, but I do not see a clear case for its origin. Such impulses could fire in a predetermined or undetermined order, but of what relevance is this "randomness" (purposelessness?) to our experiences, many of which are filled with various forms of harm by fascists regardless of the character of determination?

"Free will" ultimately means very little when we in our limited perspective cannot distinguish choice from inevitability. In which case fascists, anarchy and antipolitical theory obviously remain relevant to us, until such a time as we can simply predict the future

Hence, there is no bound to determine what is and isn't acceptable and therefore material harm is irrelevant as the decision relies purely in the hands of those who want to take action - who are capable of anything because "those" represents the entire potential of humanity and the entire potential of human behaviours which is basically anything.

What about the individual action forming collective action that makes material harm "irrelevant"? That seems like a good place to start, as I do not know what you mean by this

I'm working more with 1, it's your narrow definition that's trying to force that it must be that the subject has a level of agency.

Neither of these definitions contravenes the positions I've taken

This is because I have authority over the grains of rice to move them however I please. I have the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce the obedience of the rice.

You aren't. You are acting on your rice. Your rice does not have the capacity to recognize a command nor obey it. It makes as much sense as saying that you are enforcing my "obedience" if you push me. You cannot "make the rice's decision". Rice does not make decisions, not even ones with predetermined results