A masterful piece. I hadn't heard the term 'voluntaryism' before, but it certainly has a more appealing sound than 'anarcho-syndicalism'! But, do we need more 'isms' and labels?
Thanks Lena. I did try to argue in Part I that voluntaryism is not just another ideological ism. It's a pretty straightforward life-affirming value. The problem is that a huge number of people don't really espouse it (even if they say they do), and that includes people in the 'freedom' movement. So, for this value to permeate social institutions, it's going to have to double up as a moral and political goal. That probably means giving it an ism label. But, unlike other isms, it's a straightforward Natural Law moral compass. A policy can't be sort of voluntary. It either is or it isn't.
This describes much of my own "journey", as a native Brit, from membership of the Labour Party to resignation after the bombing of Afghanistan and finally, in 2020, a complete disassociation from the tribe of "the Left", including a number of friends. As you rightly point out, tribal affiliation is not the same as values and mine are incompatible with a new form of tyranny cloaked in progressive language.
While my everyday associations were with "the Left", my theoretical understanding of where we were - important to someone with a PhD in philosophy who's taught political theory - concerned liberal democracy. According to that understanding, there was a consensus in society that certain rights were inherent and that governance was a matter of delegating power on a conditional basis - the condition being that those fundamental rights were respected. 2020+ showed me that governments were prepared to abolish those rights at the blink of an eye and - worse - that many people thought that was okay. I have come to realise that many modern Brits have a Hobbesian understanding of democracy which involves trotting out to vote every four or five years but, beyond that, handing over all their power to a "stronger" authority.
All of which makes me wonder: do we really have the maturity to maintain this kind of democracy? True self-governance requires real engagement, suggesting that other systems, such as a form of anarchism in which power resides with individuals and small communities, might be the path to a better future.
You've nailed the real problem in questioning maturity. The problem is not 'them', it's us. If we were collectively mature, 2020 could not have happened. We must institute a form of anarchism and calling it voluntaryism has the potential to be quite powerful since even immature people would struggle to argue against it. Immature people SAY they value non-coercion, but then accept coercion as the price to pay for not thinking and not having to make their own decisions about complex issues. That's because people have lost the ability to weigh up risks for themselves. That loss was enabled by The Science, which has usurped moral thinking and is now accepted as the arbiter of what to do / right and wrong. Ultimately it's a spiritual decay, or decay in consciousness, that we're dealing with.
I think 2020 was the final exploit of what fooled many, like you mentioned Chomsky.
What's interesting about Chomsky is that he dismissed questioning the 911 official story too!
Others like Chris Hedges were silent about 911 and COVID, though the silence means support and likely he got the shots.
A final example of this issue is with Julian Assange, who also downplayed the importance of questioning the 911 official story many times. Turns out that his team ignored the dangers of the COVID shots and it's probable that his stroke in jail was because of getting the shot.
See how even they weren't mature enough to question certain "holy" narratives, like vaccines, or 911.
This "spell" has been broken since COVID and we see all 3 of my examples still either dismiss or avoid talking about COVID or 911.
It's almost as if they're limited hangouts. And of course, they're FAR from alone in this regard.
While Chomsky, Hedges and Assange have imperialism fairly sussed, where do they stand on the three great blue-whale-in-the-room hoaxes of the 21st century, namely Covid, CAGW and 9-11? Things that make you go hmmm...
Isn't it odd that Norman Finkelstein's academic career was terminated and Chomsky's was not? I know Finkelstein didn't venture into 9/11 and other crimes but, within his specialism of Israel, he is/was dangerous. And yet Chomsky was not not deemed dangerous enough by the establishment.
I just can't figure out Assange's silence on so many things but then I'm pretty sure I'd also lose my focus under the same pressure that they applied to him! I think that once these people get really big and famous, they paradoxically become afraid to get it wrong. They fear losing what they've built up so they start to tread carefully, which is completely the opposite of what got them famous in the first place. And then there's this accusation that Assange is an 'asset'. I need that explained!
As for people like Hedges, they just haven't moved on. They found their groove and they can't get out of it. They know the world has changed but they don't know how to adjust their old paradigms that have served them so well to the new world, so they keep pouring new wine into old skins.
“But it's very hard not to loathe a lobotomised zombie death cult as it lumbers confidently into the climate alarmist and ‘pandemic’ traps set for it by the Owners and Controllers of Global Financial Capital.”
“As far as the history behind the branding problem goes, Etienne de la Boetie explained that Bastards Inc. succeeded at some point in changing the definition of Anarchy from "No Rulers" to chaos and dystopia by corrupting the dictionary aficionados. Disappointing but unsurprising – if you’re in the business of government, people trying to abolish it are clearly a threat.”
“The disease that is begging for a cure is the desire to impose order when taken to the sick levels implicit in technocracy – a manifestation of the will to power.”
“More and more of us are bridling at having to supinely accept government ‘authority’ to make us pay for an S&M service we never asked for, whether it’s spending our money on killing sprees in Ukraine and Gaza, laundering it in Rwanda, enriching Big Pharma executives for ‘vaccines’ that do a far better job of maiming than immunising, or generally subsidising the filthy rich with an endless slew of wealth transfer scams.”
Thank you Rusere, that is a succinct and well expressed perspective of where I have reached also. It will be interesting to see if this idea of Voluntaryism spreads widely here in the UK. I have certainly found anecdotally that many people I discuss these and related matters with are open to exploring this set of ideas as an alternative to the present moribund system.
A masterful piece. I hadn't heard the term 'voluntaryism' before, but it certainly has a more appealing sound than 'anarcho-syndicalism'! But, do we need more 'isms' and labels?
Thanks Lena. I did try to argue in Part I that voluntaryism is not just another ideological ism. It's a pretty straightforward life-affirming value. The problem is that a huge number of people don't really espouse it (even if they say they do), and that includes people in the 'freedom' movement. So, for this value to permeate social institutions, it's going to have to double up as a moral and political goal. That probably means giving it an ism label. But, unlike other isms, it's a straightforward Natural Law moral compass. A policy can't be sort of voluntary. It either is or it isn't.
This describes much of my own "journey", as a native Brit, from membership of the Labour Party to resignation after the bombing of Afghanistan and finally, in 2020, a complete disassociation from the tribe of "the Left", including a number of friends. As you rightly point out, tribal affiliation is not the same as values and mine are incompatible with a new form of tyranny cloaked in progressive language.
While my everyday associations were with "the Left", my theoretical understanding of where we were - important to someone with a PhD in philosophy who's taught political theory - concerned liberal democracy. According to that understanding, there was a consensus in society that certain rights were inherent and that governance was a matter of delegating power on a conditional basis - the condition being that those fundamental rights were respected. 2020+ showed me that governments were prepared to abolish those rights at the blink of an eye and - worse - that many people thought that was okay. I have come to realise that many modern Brits have a Hobbesian understanding of democracy which involves trotting out to vote every four or five years but, beyond that, handing over all their power to a "stronger" authority.
All of which makes me wonder: do we really have the maturity to maintain this kind of democracy? True self-governance requires real engagement, suggesting that other systems, such as a form of anarchism in which power resides with individuals and small communities, might be the path to a better future.
You've nailed the real problem in questioning maturity. The problem is not 'them', it's us. If we were collectively mature, 2020 could not have happened. We must institute a form of anarchism and calling it voluntaryism has the potential to be quite powerful since even immature people would struggle to argue against it. Immature people SAY they value non-coercion, but then accept coercion as the price to pay for not thinking and not having to make their own decisions about complex issues. That's because people have lost the ability to weigh up risks for themselves. That loss was enabled by The Science, which has usurped moral thinking and is now accepted as the arbiter of what to do / right and wrong. Ultimately it's a spiritual decay, or decay in consciousness, that we're dealing with.
I think 2020 was the final exploit of what fooled many, like you mentioned Chomsky.
What's interesting about Chomsky is that he dismissed questioning the 911 official story too!
Others like Chris Hedges were silent about 911 and COVID, though the silence means support and likely he got the shots.
A final example of this issue is with Julian Assange, who also downplayed the importance of questioning the 911 official story many times. Turns out that his team ignored the dangers of the COVID shots and it's probable that his stroke in jail was because of getting the shot.
See how even they weren't mature enough to question certain "holy" narratives, like vaccines, or 911.
This "spell" has been broken since COVID and we see all 3 of my examples still either dismiss or avoid talking about COVID or 911.
It's almost as if they're limited hangouts. And of course, they're FAR from alone in this regard.
While Chomsky, Hedges and Assange have imperialism fairly sussed, where do they stand on the three great blue-whale-in-the-room hoaxes of the 21st century, namely Covid, CAGW and 9-11? Things that make you go hmmm...
Isn't it odd that Norman Finkelstein's academic career was terminated and Chomsky's was not? I know Finkelstein didn't venture into 9/11 and other crimes but, within his specialism of Israel, he is/was dangerous. And yet Chomsky was not not deemed dangerous enough by the establishment.
I just can't figure out Assange's silence on so many things but then I'm pretty sure I'd also lose my focus under the same pressure that they applied to him! I think that once these people get really big and famous, they paradoxically become afraid to get it wrong. They fear losing what they've built up so they start to tread carefully, which is completely the opposite of what got them famous in the first place. And then there's this accusation that Assange is an 'asset'. I need that explained!
As for people like Hedges, they just haven't moved on. They found their groove and they can't get out of it. They know the world has changed but they don't know how to adjust their old paradigms that have served them so well to the new world, so they keep pouring new wine into old skins.
More nuggets ... thanks ...
“But it's very hard not to loathe a lobotomised zombie death cult as it lumbers confidently into the climate alarmist and ‘pandemic’ traps set for it by the Owners and Controllers of Global Financial Capital.”
“As far as the history behind the branding problem goes, Etienne de la Boetie explained that Bastards Inc. succeeded at some point in changing the definition of Anarchy from "No Rulers" to chaos and dystopia by corrupting the dictionary aficionados. Disappointing but unsurprising – if you’re in the business of government, people trying to abolish it are clearly a threat.”
“The disease that is begging for a cure is the desire to impose order when taken to the sick levels implicit in technocracy – a manifestation of the will to power.”
“More and more of us are bridling at having to supinely accept government ‘authority’ to make us pay for an S&M service we never asked for, whether it’s spending our money on killing sprees in Ukraine and Gaza, laundering it in Rwanda, enriching Big Pharma executives for ‘vaccines’ that do a far better job of maiming than immunising, or generally subsidising the filthy rich with an endless slew of wealth transfer scams.”
Thank you Rusere, that is a succinct and well expressed perspective of where I have reached also. It will be interesting to see if this idea of Voluntaryism spreads widely here in the UK. I have certainly found anecdotally that many people I discuss these and related matters with are open to exploring this set of ideas as an alternative to the present moribund system.
Thanks James. I'll try to keep the conversation about this going with more ideas as thoughts progress.