A Deep Anarchy List has been created.
In DEEP ANARCHY -- AN ELIMINATIVIST VIEW OF "THE STATE"
<http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/tl07d.shtml>, Max More,
Ph.D., President, Extropy Institute <http://www.extropy.org>
(writing as Max T. O'Connor) coined the term "Deep Anarchy":
"Traditional anarchists want to abolish the "State." In
planning their strategies and in doing their thinking about
this they rarely question the existence or fundamental
nature of their enemy. This situation wouldn't be so bad if
it wasn't for the fact that their mistaken beliefs often
lead them into counterproductive political strategies. Thus
we observe the ludicrous sight of self-named anarchists
joining political parties (usually the Libertarian Party) in
order to hasten the end of the system. The idea seems
to be: We can remove it by being absorbed by it!
I want to suggest that when we talk of "the State" we are
not talking of any entity, either concrete or abstract. I
will provide two main arguments for this: One from
considerations of methodological individualism, and another
that could be called "the argument from fuzziness." "Deep
Anarchy" is the view that results from these thoughts; it is
the idea that we already live in an anarchy."
The purpose of the Deep Anarchy List is to explore the
deepest aspects of coercive political systems -- which
manifest in individual human minds. According to Robert
Pirsig in 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance':
"But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a
government or to avoid repairs of a motorcycle because it is
a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as
long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is
possible. The true system, the real system, is our present
construction of systematic thought itself, rationality
itself. And if a factory is torn down but the rationality
which produced it is left standing, then that rationality
will simply produce another factory. If a revolution
destroys a systematic government, but the systematic
patterns of thought that produced that government are left
intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the
succeeding government..."
A Deep Anarchist is someone who has examined and radically
changed certain "systematic patterns of thought" which most
traditional anarchists take for granted, without question or
challenge.
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Frederick Mann
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