Socialism Four

Firstly, Douglas Adams should be declared a prophet.

Secondly, Are you agreeing then that in large scale communities, Anarchy may not be a reasonable form of government?

Thirdly,
By your reasoning all Native Americans should have settled for being called “Indians”, Blacks should have settled for being called negroes and other derrogatory terms, etc.

Interesting point only they weren’t originally meant to be derrogatory terms. I believe that, Native Americans were called Indians because they thought they had landed in India. The term just stuck. Africans were called Negroes because that was the generic term for the African races and was later transformed into the more unpleasant version because of mispronunciation. When new, more appropriate terms were coined, Native American and African-American, they were used instead. In Australia we are still struggling and use Indigenous Australian, Aborigine and Koori although strictly speaking Kooris are from only a small part of Australia. There are so many different tribes and languages that to generalise and lump people into one group seems somehow condescending. I’m sure the same things apply to Indigenous or Native Americans.

How does this relate to the use of the word Anarchist? What is being said is that it is important that everyone is clear on a definition of the word. If Anarcho-socialist is a better discription of the way you live then that should probably be used rather than just straight Anarchist. Look at the dates on the definitions and you’ll see that they have been around for quite a while. Pre suffregette, even pre Industrial. That said, it’s interesting to note that in the original draft of the Websters (I think??) dictionary, that a whole lot of definitions were actually submitted by a guy who was locked up in an Asylum. There’s a book about it.

I’m a huge fan of the type of Communal-Anarchistic lifestyle you are talking about. I just think it ends up being a bit exclusionist. In a larger context I think it’s important to be inclusive and have a safety net for people who don’t ‘fit in’ to the bigger picture. I work in the welfare field supporting marginalised people and it’s hard enough when there are services set up. Not to have any sort of organised mechanisms for them would be a nightmare.

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