Brainpolice : Stefan Molyneux

On Amoralist Anarchism

Brainpolice — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:18:00 GMT

I've been a part of numerous online social networks or general social groups online that contains some amoralist anarchists, who either are former libertarian anarchists who have come to reject libertarianism or they are anarchists who rejected libertarianism from the get-go and reached the conclusion of anarchism from a completely different conceptual framework.

On the most personal level, the youtuber D4Shawn and the persona formerly known as Stodles (who now runs this website) are the two amoralist anarchists that I've interacted with most. D4Shawn used to be a libertarian anarchist, and made a separate channel one day trying to approach anarchism from a more utilitarian or relativistic perspective, which has recently devolved into an ethical nihilism. Stodles never was a libertarian, he jumped straight from white nationalism to anarchism, which created some confusion about his position along the way.

Both Stodles and D4Shawn philosophically reject libertarianism while still prefering anarchism. D4Shawn effectively claims that ethics is completely useless metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and thinks that we should be speaking in purely preferential terms. Stodles even appears to go so far as to imply that any conception of ethics inherently leads to rulership. On the other hand, both of them practically take positions that may very well tend towards libertarian anarchism, but it is functionally a mere statement of preferance from their perspective. This starts to hint at the complications that leads me to see this approach as silly.

While these amoralists may philosophicaly reject libertarianism, they essentially practically support it and they cannot completely avoid value-laden terminology. So while they may loudly proclaim their opposition to ethical principles and rights-concepts until they are blue in the face, they ultimately would like to live their lives in a way consistant with certain ethical principles and rights-concepts. While, unlike Stefan Molyneux, I am not argueing that this by itself proves those ethical principles and rights-concepts, it certainly gives reason for pause when comparing one's behavior to one's philosophy and may hint at a need to reanalyze the moral-practical dichotomy.

Anarchism is indistinguishable from anomie if there is an ethical vacuum. There is no such thing as a society in an ethical vacuum. Even if one concedes to the existance of some kind of subjectivity, I don't think it logically follows that ethics is completely useless and irrelevant. An anarchist society either cannot conceptually be an anarchist society to begin with or will not last as an anarchist society for long if its philosophical and cultural norms deliberately undermine it. So it doesn't make sense to act like anarchism is compatible with any set of values or to act as if all values are equal.

Various ethical principles can undermine anarchism, help foster it and widen its scope. Furthermore, merely having an ethical principle, wether it's sensible or not, doesn't necessarily lead to the use of violence to enforce it. Questions of the use of violence inherently are ethical questions themselves, and the behavior of an individual doesn't always align with their philosophy. There really is no such thing as a person who has no ethical considerations, and this includes self-proclaimed ethical nihilists and various post-modernists. Noone can really divorce themselves from goals, reasons for goals and means towards goals.

Such things almost always have a reason. It makes no sense to proclaim that you favor a society in which rulership is normatively shunned, and then say you have no real reason for it other than preferance. To borrow Molyneuxian terminology, that reduces it to the level of "I like ice cream". Surely, a cause such as anarchism is not at the level of "I like ice cream". If one is putting foreward anarchism as a goal, surely one must explain why it is your goal beyond a mere appeal to the fact that your do favor the goal. It makes no sense to have a goal, and then proclaim neutrality as soon as the question of its foundation and application comes up.

So, by the very least, this ethical nihilism is highly impractical. If taken to its extremes, one is simply advocating anomie. If one is more practical about it, one is nonetheless sort of advocating both anarchy and anomie at once. On one hand, I think there's a sense in which this ethical nihilism is harmless, since the ethical nihilist may practically take a libertarian type of position anyways and most people aren't going to practically take ethical nihilism seriously. On the other hand, it poses a threat to libertarian anarchism to the extent that it encourages people to either think that anarchism is a pandora's box compatible with any set of values or to ultimately reject libertarian values in the name of putting on a facade of neutrality.

Children and The Family

Brainpolice — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:18:00 GMT

The question of children's rights and familial authority is often regaurded as a grey area for libertarians, as it remains an issue of contention. I generally take a fairly anti-authoritarian view on the matter. While I think that Murray Rothbard's views on children's rights that he expressed in "The Ethics of Liberty" is an improvement over a more traditional conservative view, I ultimately do not find it to be entirely sufficient. In this regaurd, I genuinely think that Stefan Molyneux has provided a more rational libertarian view on children's rights and familial authority than Rothbard and this is his most significant contribution to libertarianism, although my own view is not identical to his.

On a normative ethical level I contend that the non-aggression principle applies to children just as much as it applies to adults and on a psychological level I contend that the imposition of any kind of physical violence is not necessary to raise a healthy child. I do not think that the consistant application of the non-aggression principle to children should be controversial, but apparently it is controversial, especially among many of the more culturally conservative libertarians. I see no reason why child abuse should be considered any more legitimate than adult abuse. That being said, I wouldn't necessarily want to blur the lines between a few light spankings and something more overt and egregious. But I still nonetheless would contend that spankings are not necessary to raise a healthy child.

Furthermore, for some of the exact same reasons behind why I oppose the state, I do not think that the mere fact that a child lives in their parent's household or the mere fact that they have a biological connection to their parents that this grants the parents the right to initiate violence and have completely arbitrary authority over every single aspect of their lives, nor does it mean that the child has an unchosen positive obligation to their parents. Even the capability of the child to run away is not a sufficient justification for whatever their parents do to them, and it is at this point that Rothbard's expressed views on children's rights starts to fail, since the love it or leave it argument is no more legitimate for parental authority than it is for a state.

In Rothbard's view, the child gains their rights as soon as they express the capability to run away. In my view, the child already has rights, it's just that their circumstances limit their ability to express them, particularly because of their dependance on their parents. This dependance is more understandable the earlier in childhood it is, but in either case it does not mean that the child has no rights. I do not think that children are the defacto slaves of their parents until they move out or get a job. In my view, parents are not owners of their children so much as caretakers. In a normative ethical sense, the child cannot be owned by anyone. Noone can be.

I think that families should be voluntary. The fact of the matter is that not all families are voluntary, which is part of why a conservative view on the family doesn't make sense, since it broadly assumes the benevolence of "the family" as such. But I think that it is just as ridiculous to be "pro-family" as an absolute as it would to be "anti-family" as an absolute. The context that is missing from both absolutes is the actual behavior of the family members and the consequential way in which the family is structured. A family can be generally healthy or abusive and parental authority could be nurturing or arbitrary.

I see no more reason to treat parents or family members as having intrinsic authority than to treat nations, states or corporations as having intrinsic authority. I don't believe in intrinsic authority or intrinsic value of any kind. I think that a transcendental concept of the family is just as irrational as a transcendental concept of society. Parents and family members should be judged as individuals and associate freely. An individual should always have the choice to disassociate with parents or family, as there is no intrinsic obligation. Otherwise, the family can be structured as a form of slavery, which sets up the basis for the authorian tribe when blown up on a somewhat larger scale and devolved.

The family, when it is voluntary, is the simplest anarchistic form of government, and it definitely deserves praise in such a context. However, when the family functions as an authoritarian institution, it is precisely what plants the seeds for the more large-scale forms of authoritarianism such as the state that libertarians commonly critisize. The initial breach of liberty always starts small-scale, at the level of the family and the immediately surrounding community. The logical and historical outgrowth of an authoritarian family structure is the authoritarian tribal system and monarchy. It is not a mere coincidence that monarchies are based on familial lines, and a tribe is essentially just a large extended family.

Another interesting point to consider is that in a sense authoritarian political ideology could be thought of as viewing political institutions as a surrogate family, so there is an important psychological element to all of this. While this tendency may not always be completely overt, it is nonetheless a fairly obvious connection. People may tend to want the state to play a paternal or maternal role because they feel that either they themselves or others in society are missing or in need of such a role or out of a feeling of obligation that can be traced back to a familial root. Likewise, the powermongering of various individuals can often be traced back to a familial root. As long as one doesn't dive head first into fruedian absurdity, I think such an analysis can make a lot of sense and be very useful.