Talk:Anarchism

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"It is based upon the belief that people are good (see human nature), and will not commit crime if there is no law." ... People cannot commit crime if there is no law. Maybe we should say "won't do bad things to each other if there is no law".

  • It may be a good idea to distinguish "anarchy" from "anarchism", as two separate articles. "Anarchism" is the political movement/ideology. "Anarchy" could be a very short article, saying that "anarchy" has two meanings: (1) chaos, (2) the ideal society believed in by anarchists. For more information on meaning 2, the user would click the link.
    • I think that we shouldn't separate these two ("Anarchy" and "Anarchism") in the Simple English Wikipedia unless there is a very good reason to do so. We should explain the difference in one article.

I have removed the word "most" from the phrase "most anarchist philosophy does not promote chaos..."

I'm relatively well-schooled in all the classical and modern anarchist texts and I have found no anarchists (in the philosophical sense of the term, not the pejoritive) either self-described or objectively measured, who promote "chaos" as their goal. This word seems to have found its way into the text as a way for someone who does not know enough about anarchism to write the article and avoid NPOV problems. But I think an objective look will illustrate that there is no school of anarchist thought which endorses chaos as goal. Brendan141.140.6.66 16:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If you look in the article history you can see that I re-added "most" some time ago with the comment:
"Anarchist philosophy" is anything but unified or organized, there's no central authority or standard; thus it cannot be generalized.
I still believe this to be the case, therefore I will have to add it yet again to avoid making sweeping generalizations about something that refuses and defies all generalization. Blockinblox 17:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Comrade, find me a single text from an objectively anarchist source that promotes chaos and I'll drop all objections. I can't think of any. Anarchism as chaos is a misconception spread by the media. Wikipedia should be here to speak the truth of the matter, not repeat unsubstantiated claims by sources with no interest in the matter. Brendan 141.140.123.117 20:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Anarchy by its very definition from Greek an-arche means "without leadership". There is no leadership. Therefore there is no one to define dictate what anarchy "is", and no one with the authority to state that "this can't be anarchy, because we said so". Having said that, any groups that do espouse chaos certainly would meet the definition of anarchist, so we cannot generalize and say "no anarchists espouse chaos". Chaos itself can have several different meanigns, so it's safest to leave some wiggle room and not generalize the un-generalizable. Blockinblox 21:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, but you still haven't provided a single anarchist writer who promotes chaos as an objective. Find me one and I'll drop all objections. (And for the record, I've always read that anarchy comes from an-anarchos, that is "without rulers". I could be mistaken though.) Brendan 141.140.123.117 20:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)