Anarchy

[Doktor Howl]

Political power is by definition violence.

Hmm. Because it has the threat of violence behind it, or because it is an attempt to force someone else's will upon you?

Yes.

[The Wizard]

Yes.

Okay. Thinking about it a little, that is true. Violence is the basis of all power. My point, though, was that the threat of violence is just as much an illusion as any other method of coercion. The only real power is violence, because violence is the only thing that can truly make you do something against your will, and that is to die. Violence is the only real source of power because of this, but it is limited to this. Trying to make someone do something other than die through violence is just another illusion.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay. Thinking about it a little, that is true. Violence is the basis of all power. My point, though, was that the threat of violence is just as much an illusion as any other method of coercion.

Go up and explain to a cop that he's a social fiction, and then give him a boot in the balls for good measure.

What is illusion and what is real will become crystal clear.

[Kai]

most anarchists strike me as simply ignoring power, as if it didn't matter or exist,

I do that.   

You don't run around yelling about it though.

[The Wizard]

Go up and explain to a cop that he's a social fiction, and then give him a boot in the balls for good measure.

What is illusion and what is real will become crystal clear.

Didn't say I was immune to coercion. The threat of violence, and getting my ass arrested are two lever that work fairly well for me. This is just a philosophical idea. Coercion relies on the victim being afraid of whatever he's being threatened with, but given that the only people who aren't afraid of something are zealots and similar crazies, the only thing you can do about it is try and limit the things that can be used to coerce you.

Its like a species wide fiction. Sure, speaking theoretically, most forms of power are based on fiction, but because everyone buys into the fiction, it is functionally true. Am I making sense?

[Disco Pickle]

Okay. Thinking about it a little, that is true. Violence is the basis of all power. My point, though, was that the threat of violence is just as much an illusion as any other method of coercion.

Go up and explain to a cop that he's a social fiction, and then give him a boot in the balls for good measure.

What is illusion and what is real will become crystal clear.

from TIT..   and one of my favorite parts of that damn book.

[Doktor Howl]

most anarchists strike me as simply ignoring power, as if it didn't matter or exist,

I do that.   

You don't run around yelling about it though.

*looks at Or Kill Me & Horrorology*

Um, okay.   

[Doktor Howl]

Okay. Thinking about it a little, that is true. Violence is the basis of all power. My point, though, was that the threat of violence is just as much an illusion as any other method of coercion.

Go up and explain to a cop that he's a social fiction, and then give him a boot in the balls for good measure.

What is illusion and what is real will become crystal clear.

from TIT..   and one of my favorite parts of that damn book.

Yep.  It's the only good part of that book.

[The Johnny]

The way society works is institucionalized violence.

Just because there is no bloodshed, doesnt mean things arent imposed.

[E.O.T.]

I'VE TRIED TO WORK WITH ANARCHISTS

          and now i'm prejudiced against people from L.A. AND anarchists. because they suck.

[Kai]

most anarchists strike me as simply ignoring power, as if it didn't matter or exist,

I do that.   

You don't run around yelling about it though.

*looks at Or Kill Me & Horrorology*

Um, okay.   

Or more importantly, you don't run around yelling that you are an anarchist.

[Cain]

It's all fine and good to convince people to take control of their lives, to defy the rules that don't suit them.

HOWEVER,

most anarchists strike me as simply ignoring power, as if it didn't matter or exist, as if they could simply say "I am free of your bonds" and the universe would be at their command. And those who ignore power suffer miserable misfortune. Those who ignore power and claim to have it all on their own are the most powerless. Better to seem to be a statist, than to say "I am an anarchist" and eliminate all power you might have. The only way to take power is to learn how to manipulate others, avoid being manipulated, seize the prize and eliminate your enemies. Control means controlling others, and not just yourself. For how much control do you really have, if other people fuck up your plans?

There is always a state. This one isn't so bad, relatively.

I would disagree that there is always a state.  Historically speaking, the modern nation-state is a relatively new invention.  While some past empires share similarities with the modern day nation-state, they didn't carry certain assumptions re: citizenship and nationalism that modern ones do, and of course, the history of feudalism shows a very different form of social organizing (feudal lords served their Sovereign or Prince, in theory.  Some had more than one Prince, which made diplomatic incidents interesting, but more importantly also meant their land, wealth, soldiers etc were considered to be serving two different countries at once.  Furthermore, various regional lords, such as the House of Lorraine and House of Guise, were significantly richer and more powerful than their own Kings, and could pursue their own foreign policy and private wars.  Intermingled into all this was the power of the Holy Roman Empire and the Vatican, both of which acted as transnational and national actors at the same time, capable of punishing crimes, levying taxes and declaring wars of their own, though with varying degrees of effectiveness, especially in the case of the Emperor).  Modern states arose only after Kings hobbled the nobility and the power of the Church, at least in Western Europe, and I would personally associate with the rise of bureaucracy in 17th century Prussia.  And I have no doubt that the situation was even more complex in other cultures, such as SE Asia.

The power point is a good one though, and reminds me of something Foucault said:

Might it not be possible however to constitute resistance in such a way as to utterly refuse and exclude power, and thus eventually abolish it? Hardly, since to utterly annihilate power would mean nothing less than the destruction of all actions upon actions. It cannot be done by appealing to a higher  action upon actions that will keep power in check, since that would of course itself still be power, hence the abnegation of total freedom. The complete disappearance of Foucaultian power relations would seem to require nothing less than the total abolition of sociality:

Power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not a supplementary structure over and above "society" whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. To live in society is, in any event, to live in such a way that some can act on the actions of others. (EW3 343)

Hence Foucault's injunction that "we must stop imagining that we can  escape power relations at a stroke, globally, massively, by a kind of radical rupture" (DE2 542), since "there is not then with power relations any one site of the great refusal, no soul of revolt, base of all rebellions, or pure law Resistance of the revolutionary" (VS 126; cf. WK 95–96). Hence, anarchism, qua the project of abolishing government, is a kind of fantasy that belies the real  reasons for its existence, which is always in fact the opposition to a real, proximal repression: in the discussion after a 1978 lecture in Paris, Foucault declares,

I do not think that the will not to be governed at all is something that could be considered an originary aspiration. I think that, in fact, the will not to be governed is always the will not to be governed like this, in this way, by these people, at this price. As for resolving not to be governed at all, it would seem to me to be some kind of philosophical and theoretical paroxysm of something that would be this will not to be governed relatively speaking. (Foucault 1990, 59; cf. PT 72–73)

However, he in fact goes on to make clear that, while he does not endorse a "fundamental anarchism," that is opposed to government, he does not "absolutely exclude it" either. Such anarchism, though "fundamental," is merely opposition to "all governmentalisation" (Foucault 1990, 59), not opposition to power per se. Foucault clearly had certain anarchist tendencies; like Nietzsche (Z:1 "The New Idol"), Foucault (2005, 128) has a keen mistrust of "this monstrosity we call the state," and at times he does indeed seem to endorse a fight against power itself, as in this excerpt from a 1980 interview:

We have to rise up against all forms of power—but not just power in the narrow sense of the word, referring to the power of a government or of one social group over another: these are only a few particular instances of power. (Foucault 1988, 1)

Yet, here Foucault does not mean that we must rise up against power itself, but rather that every form which does occur must be fought against.  Anarchists, on the other hand, as Todd May (1994, 65) has put it, assume as an a priori that power itself must be fought against. The difference is that the Foucaultian aim of fighting against specific forms of power is not to get rid of power forever, but only to modify the network of power relations in such a way as to change the power with which we are at that  moment concerned. As May puts it, the problem with the anarchist attitude, and the reason it is an a priori, is that their opposition to power is not based on an assessment of the tactical situation. Total opposition to power does not allow us to pick our battles, but rather condemns all power by way of a norm of the abolition of power relations which is thoroughly unachievable.

Which is a position I tend to agree with.

[Jenne]

I'VE TRIED TO WORK WITH ANARCHISTS

          and now i'm prejudiced against people from L.A. AND anarchists. because they suck.

[Cain]

Maybe if you became an anarchist, Jenne, the two would cancel each other out?

[Jenne]

So Foucault, if I remember and understand the above quote directly, wanted a more pragmatic stance in fighting "the power."  Don't throw away usable power in pursuit of non-subjugation.  Rather, fight that which necessarily needs fighting and shape or use to your advantage the power that is still useful.  Especially (and this is my own, actually), if you don't have a Plan B for what do once you do, actually, eradicate the current, "oppressive" power.

That's basically always been my complaint about revolutionaries:  ok, you overthrew the powers that be, gotcha, what now?  Revolutionaries themselves rarely make great planners, doers and executors of anything other than revolution, chaos and confusion.