Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 03:22:47 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: arch-anarchy 


--- "Michael A. Lewis" <mlewis-AT-unm.edu> wrote:

>     Not at all. No need to unnecessarily antagonize
> me!
>     I'm talking specifically about the site the you
> linked to:
> 
>     "Arch-anarchy: The view that we should seek to
> void all limits on our
> freedom, including those imposed by the laws of
> nature."
> 
>     This is absurd! We cannot void limits imposed by
> nature, at the risk of
> being voided ourselves. This is a concept devised by
> someone who has little
> contact with the natural world.
> 
>     Michael

Well, I do think that the way it was phrased,
"including those [limits] imposed by the laws of
nature", was rather poor.  The Laws of Nature
obviously can't be broken, otherwise they wouldn't be
The Laws of Nature.  But what I think he meant was
something along the lines of "refusing to accept the
limits that we humans happen to have due to
evolutionary happenstance".  In other words, freely
choosing to augment, enhance, or change one's self
with any type of medical, medicinal, technological, or
genetic procedure that one chooses.
     In my opinion, coining a new word isn't
necessary.  It would seem to me that no tenet of
anarchism would oppose anyone who wanted to do such a
thing.

"We cannot void limits imposed by nature, at the risk
of being voided ourselves."

I think that this comment of yours illustrates many
things.  Though I think it primarily illustrates fear.
 Fear of change.  Or more specifically, a fear of
change brought about by the ever quickening pace of
technological development that neither you, nor anyone
else, fully comprehends.  It's certainly
understandable that people react this way.  After all,
there are hugely profound changes that are beginning
to occur that will radically and completely change
practically everything.  (The Primitivists are so
scared that they're either burying their heads in the
sand in an effort to make it all go away, or lashing
out unthinkingly and irrationally.)
     Personally, I think that the worry of "being
voided ourselves" is unnecessary.  We've evolved into
what we are now by natural selection.  There's nothing
"special" or "sacrosanct" about what we are now.  In
fact, many of our organs and systems are designed
quite poorly, not to mention all of our genetic and
mental diseases and birth defects.  Why would you NOT
want to make yourself better if you could?  Or perhaps
the question that I should really be asking is:  How
could you prevent someone ELSE from doing whatever
they choose to their person and still call yourself an
anarchist?

-Z


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