Fahran wrote:In the absence of a consensus, coercion, either in favor of or against the status quo, becomes the means by which societal mores and values are established - with these mores and values more often than naught preceding the individuals who exist within a society. While anarchists are correct in calling the state a manifestation of coercion in human relationships, it's no less true that society, culture, and all things that stem from them are predicated on coercion as well. We must then endeavor to distinguish between that coercion which is legitimate and that coercion which is illegitimate.
Ya girl is red-pilled like crazy.
Fair enough, and, in all honestly, an Anarchist society would likely require some coercion; most prominently, of course, in protecting its society from something subversive to the ideals like the reestablishment of unjust hierarchies of any kind.
It's an option in most societies if you're intelligent and insane enough to attempt it. My question then becomes is it a moral decision to make in any respect?
If the society they're abandoning treats them like shit? Arguably, yes.
Does it align with human nature?
No. We're a communal species, that's just a given fact of life that we've come to the conclusion of through centuries science and history.
Does it make the individual, society, or the species better off?
In that regard, I can only say it depends on the circumstances. Some individuals, in times of crisis, may leave so that their community could survive; in that case, the individual would be worse off, but the society and species would be better off. In another case, where the society is harmful to the individual, it would be to their direct benefit to seek out a better life for themselves.
Would we want everyone to behave in this manner? Those are the more secular questions a conservative or liberal philosopher might ask regarding the ethics of such a decision.
There's no reason to want everyone to behave in this manner; that's absurd. However, there ought to not be a reason to deny an individual the right to choose whether they wish to remain with their society or not.
So you prioritize the individual over the community in some capacities? Coercion is present in both of the examples you provided, in one case preventing immigration and in the other preventing emigration. Why is one legitimate and the other not?
In the case of preventing someone from leaving, that would be a much more direct violation of the individual's freedom of movement and freedom of choice. In the latter, of preventing immigrants from joining the community, it could be argued to be a similar case as the former. This is another sort of case that'd require more context to determine whether the community's right of democratic decision making or the individual's right of choice are more important. A community with sparse resources would be right to want to avoid having another mouth to feed, but an individual wishing to join a community rich in them would be more right to join it than the community would be to deny them.
It comes to coercion then if consensus cannot be established.
In a sense, yes. I wouldn't readily call it an unjustifiable case of coercion, however; it still entirely falls under the given democratic principles of the community which, sadly, would sometimes have to resort to a simple majority vote if the sought-after option of a consensus couldn't happen.
I actually learned under a similar system my freshman year. We had a list of subjects and we discussed which ones we'd like to study most. We then voted and studied about three quarters of them, giving priority to the ones that had been the most supported. The system is still somewhat hierarchical, but it's designed to give students more agency in their education. I wouldn't really call it an anarchist model specifically though, even if it aligns with more general anarchist principles. Such a method would not have contradicted older models of education.
I chose to study chemical structures and metabolic pathways in cancer cells.
Interesting. Shame it was only done by majority vote, but that's still a better system, I'd wager.
