Can someone educate me on anarchism?

[Zygote]

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how would the teacher respond if the student said, "anarchism/full privatization is the most competent, moral, technologically efficient, and inevitable structure imaginable."?

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No it doesn't.

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i dont get your answer

[ALawPoker]

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No. But you would struggle to name a single anarchist thinker whom proposes capitalism and free markets who has gained the notoriety and respect of the forementioned anarchists.

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Do you use words to define words too?

Again, you seem to wish to weigh arguments not necessarily on the logical merit of the arguments themselves but on the fact that other people disagree.

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If you'd like to explain *why* these writings should make us question AC, feel free.

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I should hope they would challenge your opinion. It is the purpose of much of their work afterall. I have certainly found some of the more coherent and thought out responses on this forum to have challenged my view in instances.

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OK, so pick a topic and start a thread, and I'll let you know what I think of your arguments. You talk as if people who believe in AC haven't already thought deeply about it. It's possible to reject arguments because you find them flawed, even if you've given them an honest shake.

I take your word for it that those 4 books you mentioned do in fact exist; I'm sure they have big words and everything. But it's hard for me to say they would challenge my opinion when I still haven't heard anything other than that these books are out there somewhere.

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So allow the OP to evaluate and not restrict his/her learning to ACist ideas by dismissing the forefathers of anarchism as teenage angst victims?

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The OP was clearly focused on AC; and every reply took it that way too. If you read that OP to mean he was looking for a comprehensive historical breakdown of all the various forms of anarchism, then feel free to enlighten him, but don't attack others for sharing the perspective he made blatantly clear that he was interested in hearing.

And BTW, you totally misread lehighguy too. What he meant was that most people who think they're "anarchists" just haven't thought about it much, and are probably in it for the rebellion factor. He wasn't attacking AS or the ilk with the "teen angst" comment.


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It is not wrong or grossly exaggerated... It's fact

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AC is not "almost entirely unique to America." The fact that its underlying school of economic thought originated in Eastern Europe during the 1800s should be enough to highlight the exaggeration on its own.

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and it would be no depriment to any ACist to acknowledge that.

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Which is exactly why I wondered what your point would have been in the first place.

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It is evident that the OP is extremely ignorant of anarchism as demonstrated by his/her blurring between distinctions between ACism and actual anarchism. One can suppose a thread with the title "Can someone educate me on anarchism?" would yield some responses about its forefathers, traditions and history and not only revisionist opinion dismissing everything else.

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Ya, you could assume that. If you closed your eyes and missed the actual OP, which began with:

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Since there are so many ACs on twoplustwo, I would like to get a better sense of what it is.

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if anyone asked me about anarchism I would be sure not to be completely dismissive or censory concerning ACism (as you all have demonstrated towards the main branches of anarchism).

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You know damn well he was interested in AC in the OP. Stop playing games. If you can't handle ACers sharing their views in a thread that specifically requests they do so, then stay out.

Your open mind seems to be so open that it's making a lot of odd assumptions here.

[nietzreznor]

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It is evident that the OP is extremely ignorant of anarchism as demonstrated by his/her blurring between distinctions between ACism and actual anarchism. One can suppose a thread with the title "Can someone educate me on anarchism?" would yield some responses about its forefathers, traditions and history and not only revisionist opinion dismissing everything else.

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I actually agree here 100%. While I take exception to the idea that ACists aren't 'real' anarchists (it seems to me that a self-professed socialist like Tucker has quite a bit in common with contemporary ACists), I think that there is a lot of common ground between anarchists of all stripes, and that someone interested in anarchism (or even someone who is already an anarchist) shouldn't close themselves off from any subest of anarchism (esp. the subset that constitutes the 'founding fathers' of anarchism).