> Being a sociable member of a social species, my first stop was to seek out others like me—in this case, in an online group of anarcho-libertarians.
Is the problem not the freedom-advocacy folks, per se, but that such people tend to "meet" online rather than in the person?
There are enough republicans and democrats that they actually know one another in their towns and maybe at higher level organizations, too. But freedom advocates don't have such in-person organizations. Even before the internet, much of freedom advocacy was done remotely through reading articles and books. That's not really a *social* movement, even though the word "social" is in the term "social media."
I certainly wouldn't deny that in-person and online are different. However, I have made many actual friends online. I met my wife online, and that has been going great for a quarter century. So, while I agree that we could definitely use more in-person groups and interactions in the freedom movement, I do think it is possible to have real social exchange online.
"Can we all agree that the mainstream left is a problem and needs to be phased out through an ideas revolution? That’s something, common ground, all libertarians should stand on."
—Interesting. I am certainly stridently opposed to leftism, in all its varieties. And I think it really is libertarianism's opposite.
But would it be effective to try to get libertarians to agree on that? It may not be. There are left libertarians (a contradiction in terms, sometimes, but it is what it is). And many libertarians are heavily emotionally invested (erroneously, in my view) in seeing themselves as different from left AND right. More accurate would be to say that libertarians are the far right, with anarchists being the extreme right. But enough do not see it that way that such an attempt would likely produce more strife than value.
If we can just agree on the nonaggression principle or the notion that the consent of the individual is the fundamental unit of moral concern, that would be enough. And then we could let everyone just have and explore their separate approaches and nuances.
"I’ll also be another one to admit that I’ve fallen into the trap of seeing libertarian as an alternative to the left and right."
—TBH, I think it is a bit of a libertarian conceit—a desire to set themselves/ourselves apart. It's also an outgrowth of a certain personality type's desire to be iconoclastic and not a "joiner."
Plus, the further you go on a libertarian scale, the more that everything to the other side just seems like a blurry mishmosh of wrongness.
In other words, I get why we do it.
But yeah, it's the wrong way to look at things. If freedom is the unit (and it must be!), then the continuum goes from less freedom to more freedom.
As individuals we have different strategies and tactics that we have discovered or gotten effective at over time, and we all have differing priorities. Which is why we should be free to take different approaches to a common goal and be glad for anyone making efforts to improve this situation we are facing. Someone else's approach to the problem of coercive government may be quite different than mine. As long as that someone is doing something that shows awareness of some aspect of the real problem I may offer my view, but will appreciate the efforts, and trust that in perhaps that "six months" their understanding will deepen and widen.
This is a hugely important point. I cover it in Part 4, which is still a few weeks from publication here, but it touches on some of those same things. We don’t all need to be taking the same approach or pursuing the same solutions. Indeed, it is good if we do not. A decentralized movement needs decentralized solutions.
Sorry. The man was a legend, and the story is hilarious and complex. How would one properly “summarize” the Iliad and the Odyssey, giving the reader the gamut of revelations and emotions contained therein?
One certainly cannot summarize them and maintain the richness therein. I simply thought you might be trying to call my attention to some specific element or fact, rather than to the entirety of the richness.
I'm almost certain you're familiar with 'Notes from the End of the World' by Joel Bowman. His latest sub stack article: Voluntary Servitude is simple, powerful and clear. I think it's perfect intro into your work. Thank you, keep it coming
Actually, for some reason, I'd never seen his Stack. I just subscribed and read that first article. And yes, it is heartening to see others thinking along the same lines. Evolution > Revolution is exactly where I am going next. Thanks!
There is a story, perhaps apocalyptic, about an anthropologist running out of supplies in the grip of a Hudson Bay winter. Trapped in his cabin, he was wondering if he would make it when one of the indigenous folk he was there to study showed up with a sled’s worth of everything needful. Grateful to his core, he offered payment, but the individual rounded on him, highly insulted. “We knew you were in need! Did you not know we are human beings?”
I could be a left libertarian, wouldn’t know, but that indigenous gift-bringer is my kind of socialist.
I haven’t done the work to understand the foundations of anarchist and libertarian thought, and I tend anyway to distrust anything with an -ism on the end. The act of codifying thought is inherently reductive, and has the effect of affixing the thought to its code. But my little tuning fork of intuition resonates with anarchist and libertarian thought. “Free also of labels, free people should be,” says Yodanarch.
Jacqueline Rendell (https://dancinginadream.substack.com/) and I were just talking about labels. They can be constraining, for sure. But they are also useful in the same way that any word is useful—it categorizes the things of the world based on pattern recognition and allows us to communicate about them. So it's a mixed bag.
Very often, the problem with labels is that they are too broad. For example, "socialism" used to (and ought to) mean something very specific. ("An ideology advocating a system in which the state owns the means of production," for example, would be good, since that is closer to what the word originally meant.) If we start defining it to mean "sharing" or "doing nice things," then we've made it so that the word no longer serves a useful purpose for us, since it can basically mean anything.
I think we can fairly argue that the problem with labels is that they become diluted. If we were to make them more accurate, then they would be just like other words whose meaning is clear (coffee, avalanche, thunder).
I understand the notion of language being reductive, but I think there is a danger in falling into the Derrida trap of endless recursion. For as we know, Derrida and his cohorts used that to render reality itself up for grabs, and that wasn't helpful. Language is a useful tool; all the more so if we use it well.
- Look to current events and the fracturing of the left to see where a purity spiral leads you.
- Conservatives are the majority among those who love freedom because they "do" - they put their solutions (for good or bad) into practice. We libertarians and anarchists basically sit around and argue theory.
- As libertarians and anarchists, we generally eschew leadership. With no leadership, there is no coordination and no real general goal and no plan to get anywhere.
"He who fails to plan, plans to fail".
This is another point for Conservatives, who have no issues with embracing leadership, especially when that leadership removes fiscal and regulatory burdens imposed by more totalitarian leadership.
- I see conservatism, libertarianism and anarchism; not as static points on a continuum but as groups with differing ideas moving in the same direction. Perhaps if we look at it this way, we can avoid the purity spiral and choose to support each other.
Well said on all accounts. As to your last paragraph, I believe you will enjoy part 3, which goes over some of that same idea. I will be interested to hear your thoughts.
That's why I say that any improvement is welcome. I do not begrudge anyone their efforts, either inside or outside the system. I personally believe it is important to acknowledge (even if only in one's own mind) that the system is morally impermissible, even if one is working to reform it. But the reform has value.
Believe it or not, I am (agonizingly slowly) getting to a practical point in my work. And it is designed with the children in mind, since I don't think it will be able to be applied quickly.
> Being a sociable member of a social species, my first stop was to seek out others like me—in this case, in an online group of anarcho-libertarians.
Is the problem not the freedom-advocacy folks, per se, but that such people tend to "meet" online rather than in the person?
There are enough republicans and democrats that they actually know one another in their towns and maybe at higher level organizations, too. But freedom advocates don't have such in-person organizations. Even before the internet, much of freedom advocacy was done remotely through reading articles and books. That's not really a *social* movement, even though the word "social" is in the term "social media."
I certainly wouldn't deny that in-person and online are different. However, I have made many actual friends online. I met my wife online, and that has been going great for a quarter century. So, while I agree that we could definitely use more in-person groups and interactions in the freedom movement, I do think it is possible to have real social exchange online.
One of those pieces that, ideally, is worth the read and will bring some of us from different sectors of libertarian together.
For me, I’m Rothbardian, but the way I ultimately see it: any brand of libertarianism is better, way better, than the mainstream leftist agenda.
I’m not gonna care if there’s minute differences, or even moderate differences, in our thinking.
Can we all agree that the mainstream left is a problem and needs to be phased out through an ideas revolution?
That’s something, common ground, all libertarians should stand on.
"Can we all agree that the mainstream left is a problem and needs to be phased out through an ideas revolution? That’s something, common ground, all libertarians should stand on."
—Interesting. I am certainly stridently opposed to leftism, in all its varieties. And I think it really is libertarianism's opposite.
But would it be effective to try to get libertarians to agree on that? It may not be. There are left libertarians (a contradiction in terms, sometimes, but it is what it is). And many libertarians are heavily emotionally invested (erroneously, in my view) in seeing themselves as different from left AND right. More accurate would be to say that libertarians are the far right, with anarchists being the extreme right. But enough do not see it that way that such an attempt would likely produce more strife than value.
If we can just agree on the nonaggression principle or the notion that the consent of the individual is the fundamental unit of moral concern, that would be enough. And then we could let everyone just have and explore their separate approaches and nuances.
What do you think?
Yeah, you’re getting somewhere with the non-aggression principle.
I’ll also be another one to admit that I’ve fallen into the trap of seeing libertarian as an alternative to the left and right.
Definitely an eye-opener of a view to see it more from libertarians leaning far right, anarchists even further. Not a bad thing, either.
"I’ll also be another one to admit that I’ve fallen into the trap of seeing libertarian as an alternative to the left and right."
—TBH, I think it is a bit of a libertarian conceit—a desire to set themselves/ourselves apart. It's also an outgrowth of a certain personality type's desire to be iconoclastic and not a "joiner."
Plus, the further you go on a libertarian scale, the more that everything to the other side just seems like a blurry mishmosh of wrongness.
In other words, I get why we do it.
But yeah, it's the wrong way to look at things. If freedom is the unit (and it must be!), then the continuum goes from less freedom to more freedom.
As individuals we have different strategies and tactics that we have discovered or gotten effective at over time, and we all have differing priorities. Which is why we should be free to take different approaches to a common goal and be glad for anyone making efforts to improve this situation we are facing. Someone else's approach to the problem of coercive government may be quite different than mine. As long as that someone is doing something that shows awareness of some aspect of the real problem I may offer my view, but will appreciate the efforts, and trust that in perhaps that "six months" their understanding will deepen and widen.
This is a hugely important point. I cover it in Part 4, which is still a few weeks from publication here, but it touches on some of those same things. We don’t all need to be taking the same approach or pursuing the same solutions. Indeed, it is good if we do not. A decentralized movement needs decentralized solutions.
Exactly!
Good points Christopher!
🫡
My all-time favorite libertarian. He fought an epic battle against everything that sucked in his beloved Hudson Valley … and lost.
https://biffogram.substack.com/p/the-burning-of-allan-wikman
Sorry. The man was a legend, and the story is hilarious and complex. How would one properly “summarize” the Iliad and the Odyssey, giving the reader the gamut of revelations and emotions contained therein?
One certainly cannot summarize them and maintain the richness therein. I simply thought you might be trying to call my attention to some specific element or fact, rather than to the entirety of the richness.
Due to time constraints, I am unable to read a piece of that length. Could you summarize the portion about which you would most like me to be aware?
I'm almost certain you're familiar with 'Notes from the End of the World' by Joel Bowman. His latest sub stack article: Voluntary Servitude is simple, powerful and clear. I think it's perfect intro into your work. Thank you, keep it coming
Actually, for some reason, I'd never seen his Stack. I just subscribed and read that first article. And yes, it is heartening to see others thinking along the same lines. Evolution > Revolution is exactly where I am going next. Thanks!
Outstanding, Christopher.
There is a story, perhaps apocalyptic, about an anthropologist running out of supplies in the grip of a Hudson Bay winter. Trapped in his cabin, he was wondering if he would make it when one of the indigenous folk he was there to study showed up with a sled’s worth of everything needful. Grateful to his core, he offered payment, but the individual rounded on him, highly insulted. “We knew you were in need! Did you not know we are human beings?”
I could be a left libertarian, wouldn’t know, but that indigenous gift-bringer is my kind of socialist.
I haven’t done the work to understand the foundations of anarchist and libertarian thought, and I tend anyway to distrust anything with an -ism on the end. The act of codifying thought is inherently reductive, and has the effect of affixing the thought to its code. But my little tuning fork of intuition resonates with anarchist and libertarian thought. “Free also of labels, free people should be,” says Yodanarch.
Jacqueline Rendell (https://dancinginadream.substack.com/) and I were just talking about labels. They can be constraining, for sure. But they are also useful in the same way that any word is useful—it categorizes the things of the world based on pattern recognition and allows us to communicate about them. So it's a mixed bag.
Very often, the problem with labels is that they are too broad. For example, "socialism" used to (and ought to) mean something very specific. ("An ideology advocating a system in which the state owns the means of production," for example, would be good, since that is closer to what the word originally meant.) If we start defining it to mean "sharing" or "doing nice things," then we've made it so that the word no longer serves a useful purpose for us, since it can basically mean anything.
I think we can fairly argue that the problem with labels is that they become diluted. If we were to make them more accurate, then they would be just like other words whose meaning is clear (coffee, avalanche, thunder).
I understand the notion of language being reductive, but I think there is a danger in falling into the Derrida trap of endless recursion. For as we know, Derrida and his cohorts used that to render reality itself up for grabs, and that wasn't helpful. Language is a useful tool; all the more so if we use it well.
Thanks!
Well written, Chris.
My thoughts are these:
- Look to current events and the fracturing of the left to see where a purity spiral leads you.
- Conservatives are the majority among those who love freedom because they "do" - they put their solutions (for good or bad) into practice. We libertarians and anarchists basically sit around and argue theory.
- As libertarians and anarchists, we generally eschew leadership. With no leadership, there is no coordination and no real general goal and no plan to get anywhere.
"He who fails to plan, plans to fail".
This is another point for Conservatives, who have no issues with embracing leadership, especially when that leadership removes fiscal and regulatory burdens imposed by more totalitarian leadership.
- I see conservatism, libertarianism and anarchism; not as static points on a continuum but as groups with differing ideas moving in the same direction. Perhaps if we look at it this way, we can avoid the purity spiral and choose to support each other.
Well said on all accounts. As to your last paragraph, I believe you will enjoy part 3, which goes over some of that same idea. I will be interested to hear your thoughts.
Good stuff, dude. But how about we have a conversation about something more than 80% of Americans agree on – term limits?
Did you ever wonder how a career politician could have a nepo baby and how term limits might have eliminated that from occurring? Just tossing out some ideas for solutions to end big government because BIG GOVERNMENT SUCKS: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/how-does-a-life-long-career-public?r=76q58
Since I do not think this sort of government should exist at all, it is hard for me to comment too much 🤣
But any improvement is welcome.
Yeah, I understand that but I’m tired of theory. We need some practical solutions sooner than later or our children are doomed.
Right there with you.
That's why I say that any improvement is welcome. I do not begrudge anyone their efforts, either inside or outside the system. I personally believe it is important to acknowledge (even if only in one's own mind) that the system is morally impermissible, even if one is working to reform it. But the reform has value.
Believe it or not, I am (agonizingly slowly) getting to a practical point in my work. And it is designed with the children in mind, since I don't think it will be able to be applied quickly.
Looking forward to it!
🙏🏻