Psychoanalysis with Dialectics

[Wolfgang Absolutus]

One could say Yahweh exists too since the crusades happened but that wouldn't really be true.

Please, making such logical fallacies is just insincere, an "yahweh" is an "invisible entity" in the sense that it's an abstract; the State is a very real and tangible institution, with power and officials and the ability of enforcement.

Others might have heard me say this multiple times and might be sick and tired of it by now, but not you so ill repeat it: discourse =/= practice. I say this in the sense that even if you dont have a subservient mentality, and you still act subservient, the State's power remains the same.

Good luck with that "collective resistance", go and wake up the "sheep" from their "slumber".

So the only way to get rid of the state's power would be to change both the subservient mindset and the subservient action, fine.
In terms of the sheeple thing I don't think it's about waking sheep up from their slumber to realize some grand truth. I do think however that it is possible for groups of people to agree on the nature of their quarrel with the state. It seems to be that people often believe that their experiences are not shared by others. If people can agree on what they don't want and what they do, then they can take a group action just like any group does.

I think you might get more productive thinking if you look at The Machine as a personification of cultural inertia. States are real solid things that exist, the idea of The Machine is the stuff that keeps a state (or any group) steamrolling people over a cliff in spite of the fact that everyone insists that's not what they want.

I can agree that States are real solid things that exist if the state is the state of affairs where a group of people rules over another with force, in the case of America, the government of this state being the really existing people in branches of government, the police, and the military.
In terms of the Machine being a personification of cultural inertia, if we agree that we don't want to be steamrolled off the cliff then I guess my question would be why don't we just stop doing those things, (which was apart of my original question) since it is the case that no one likes it.
If it is that  we cannot stop doing these things because the cultural inertia of the machine can never be stopped then the anarchistic project and any that attempts some radical change is doomed to failure.
On the other hand if there is a way to bring the machine to a halt, or at the very least slowed, then radical change becomes possible ( the means for which I do not know).
What I am trying to get at by calling the state a psychic projection is that it is a real thing that exists and it is made up of people, on either side of the authoritarian relationship, who believe in the existence of the state and act as such. If it is that this state of affairs is really not desirable for most people then cultural inertia toward robotic acceptance is a seemingly good explanation for why it continues.
On the third hand though it brings up another point of debate about whether, even though people insist they don't want to be pushed off the cliff and don't want to push others over it, are those sentiments really true? Do we have an unconscious desire for this state of affairs which drives us to accept it's existence rather than change it. If this is true then nothing really can be done then it seems.

I find them to be undesirable if there are better alternatives for living.

Like, say, Somalia?  Or Liberia? 

Not really. I find anarcho-communism to a seemingly pleasant way to live, then again I've always lived under state so I guess I can't really say what kinds of arrangements are pragmatically better.You would have to get rid of the state before you can really experiment with how to live without one, just like you have to leave home and be poor all on your own before you can know what to do in such a situation. 
I am however open to other living arrangements, such as living under a less terrible state of affairs than this one.
I do know that I don't like the idea of labour unconnected to survival and I don't particularly like the idea of living under the rules of other people, much less rules that were created and enforced in ways that are not really influence-able by me personally.

[Doktor Howl]

 

[Doktor Howl]

I do know that I don't like the idea of labour unconnected to survival and I don't particularly like the idea of living under the rules of other people, much less rules that were created and enforced in ways that are not really influence-able by me personally.

Well, then, we should abolish the universe while we're at it.  You and I had no say in things, and it's obviously not set up to cater to our American Exceptionalism™.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Okay, so:

Everyone split off into tribes of about 150 people, each occupying an adequate roaming territory with plentiful resources. Only come into contact with other tribes to exchange genes once in a while, to keep things fresh.

There. Once you manage that, you've regressed humanity far enough to render institutionalized government unnecessary.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, so:

Everyone split off into tribes of about 150 people, each occupying an adequate roaming territory with plentiful resources. Only come into contact with other tribes to exchange genes once in a while, to keep things fresh.

There. Once you manage that, you've regressed humanity far enough to render institutionalized government unnecessary.

Yeah, and I'm gonna get MY 150 people to sneak up on HIS 150 people while they sleep, bash 'em on the head, and run off with their women and their shit.

WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Doktor Howl]

I refer to this as Doktor Howl's Gimme Your Sammich Theory.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

this may be relevant:

[Cainad (dec.)]

Okay, so:

Everyone split off into tribes of about 150 people, each occupying an adequate roaming territory with plentiful resources. Only come into contact with other tribes to exchange genes once in a while, to keep things fresh.

There. Once you manage that, you've regressed humanity far enough to render institutionalized government unnecessary.

Yeah, and I'm gonna get MY 150 people to sneak up on HIS 150 people while they sleep, bash 'em on the head, and run off with their women and their shit.

WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Right, so we just need some kind of system to prevent-


Oh. Ooohhh.
Yeah.

[The Johnny]

Cultural inertia exists for a reason, partly because it's the reiteration of our patterns of action driven by fear and desires as a species, a.k.a. "SHUT UP! Monkey is driving the bus!"

Besides that, there's infrastructural constrains, we need a power/water/comms/transportations/gas network for starters and that cannot be managed by anarchist communes... we also need a type of centralization for research and technology to flourish...

Who would build the bridges? Who would create medical pills or do brain surgery? How would electricity, water and basic services be maintained?... To have the quality and expectancy of life we currently have its an implicit that we need centralization and specialization in the social roles/functions of the individuals.

[Left]

I used to be an anarcho-syndicalist, then I realized I was being ridiculously optimistic about humanity.
We're all selfish little monkeys, we always will be.

Having a government makes the exploitation more predictable than having wandering robber gangs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

psychoanalysis is a very specialized and technical language, so one either goes balls out and develops the idea THROUGHLY with it or one simply does not use it, any middle ground i consider it as "omg, my psychobabble sounds so interesting"

also, applying the terminology which was designed as a map to the territory og the mind, and transitioning as using it as a map of the territory of society is at best sketchy...

the more i think of it the more ragefrotthy im getting

Well abandoning the psychoanalysis language I would still like to talk about what kind of options are available for those dissatisfied with the status quo, if the institutions which they seek to oppose, such as the state, are just projections of their minds. My main point of ambivalence here being whether collective or individual action would then be more effective. I've thought myself that a combination of the two would be the most pragmatic approach as it cuts off both the physical and psychic manifestations of the state. Then again physical and psychic approaches are both prone to ideology and co option. Or could it be alternatively that The Machine^TM is a mental construction which is eternal and essential to the human mind much like our instinctual desires and as such the path of anarchism is at best naive if it thinks it can destroy coercive law-making bodies in a real capacity. If we cannot rid ourselves of the insecurities and guilt that make us want to form and strengthen governments then governments will always exist by this logic.

Are you having some sort of episode?

I'm confused by what you mean by that.

I mean that you are using a lot of words, but your meaning is not particularly clear, and I'm uncertain of what to make of that.

I thought it was just me.

No, I think he's either sixteen or schizophrenic.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I used to be an anarcho-syndicalist, then I realized I was being ridiculously optimistic about humanity.
We're all selfish little monkeys, we always will be.

Having a government makes the exploitation more predictable than having wandering robber gangs.

This! Although, the fact that I would most likely be part of one of those gangs is why I'm still pro-anarchy 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

this may be relevant:

Very apt, I was going to post the same thing.

I've always interpreted that as "Hey, dumbass, People WANT to do that shit"

If no one wanted war, there wouldn't be war. If no one wanted murder, there wouldn't be murder. The sad fact is that most people are primates, and primate behavior involves shit flinging, murder, territorial squabbles and US vs THEM (monkeys hunting down 'outsider' monkeys and killing them has been observed in nature). Sure, some humans want peace and love and no government and could, possibly take care of themselves. However, there are billions of humans and most of them aren't prepared for common local emergencies (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires etc), let alone any sort of self sufficiency.

As for The Machine... I see it more as the whole mess. The pro-government people, the anti-government people, the business people, the protesters, the college students, the rednecks, the blue collar workers, the while collar criminals, the gun nuts, the stoners etc etc. Even those fighting against the machine, are a part of The Machine. One dude fights against the Machine and nails some shit to a door, a couple generations later and his action has created a whole new bit of the Machine so people could fight over which group was really with their Invisible Friend (the dude in the funny hat, the dudes with the belt buckle shoes, or whoever was getting backed by the King at any given moment).

Freeing humanity isn't going to happen. The best we can do, I think, is free ourselves as much as possible within our own neurological system.

[Wolfgang Absolutus]

Well fine I had suspected that the anarchist project was naive at best, though you seem to be confirming it. So then what can be done to change the way the global state capitalist machine works to act in the favor of more people? What can actually be done with this kind of world?
Then again I might be eating the menu here. Focusing on one's life in a more individual way  in terms of reshaping how one relates to the world and is treated by it seems to be a better solution from this angle. Changing the world in some universal grand way is a recipe for all kinds of foolish things and is generally focusing on the wrong level of the problem, if that problem is about the way we live our lives individually.
So then the first scenario of my last post is true and we are kind of stuck with the products of our past and our current biology. Thanks for all your help.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, I think there are ways to effect change. We don't have to be stuck. It does, however, take mass action.