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November 29, 2007
Anarchist Forum Statism
The
anarchist movement never ceases to amaze me. I constantly face
people who are anarchists and have been anarchists for a very long
time and know everything about the great anarchist thinkers, yet who
merely wish to replace the state with something rather similar but
with the prefix “anarchist.” I also receive numerous death
threats from anarchists who believe my views of what an anarchist
society would be like (not my choice,
but my prediction) are
wrong.
One
has to wonder what is wrong with anarchists who want a state of
their own instead of the state today--or who think they have a
right to kill, or at least threaten to kill, another human being
simply because he says things they don’t agree with. It doesn’t
add up--anarchists can’t both be against the state and want a
state of their own, and they cannot call for equality and freedom
while threatening to use force on other people.
The
same goes for privacy, which is something I am strongly in favor of.
I frequently receive thank you e-mails from anarchists discovering the
forum on my web site Anarchism.net
because the forum doesn’t require registration and giving up your
true identity. As I have learned from these e-mails, most anarchist
forums require their users to first register in order to take part
in the discussions.
I
don’t see the reason for wanting to know exactly who is saying
what in a forum. Especially if you are anarchist--what could
possibly be your interest in being able to identify who says what?
Unless you want surveillance and control over the forum and anyone
who uses it.
Actually,
this seems to be the reason for the required registrations. Most
anarchist forums are supervised and moderated by people who believe
they know what should and shouldn’t be accepted .This isn’t only
for the protection of the forum, which would be a valid reason –
there are quite a few people who think it is “funny” to plant
illegal material on web forums in order to make the government shut
the site down. No, the reason for requiring registration and
moderating the forum is to control what
thoughts are expressed.
Does
this make sense from an anarchist point of view? Maybe if you
dedicate the forum to a certain idea and believe in your right to
control your property. But most anarchist forums aren’t dedicated
to a specific idea; they are established to let anarchists discuss
whatever issues they find interesting. And most anarchists don’t
support the idea of property--they believe property is a
privilege enforced only in state capitalism.
As
a market anarchist, I believe it is my full right to moderate the
forum I have invested time and money in establishing, and I also
believe I have the right to require registration if I want to. But I
see no reason for doing so--if I want the discussion to be free
and let as many people as possible express their views (which would
actually be anarchism in action), I cannot moderate. So I refuse to
moderate my forum and I do not ever require registration. This is
the only way you can have a free discussion, and I very strongly
believe a free discussion is what anarchism is about.
So
why do all these anarchist websites everywhere offer moderated
forums? The only reason I can think of is that the people who run
the forums are blueprint
anarchists--they don’t want to abolish
control, structure, and system; they want to replace the state with their own “superior” system. And they
don’t want to allow people who are not already dedicated to The
Cause to express their ideas. As always with statism, people who
think differently must be silenced and excluded. Or eliminated
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