Atheism & Hope

[joreth]

"Atheism and anarchist theory were the first things that gave me any hope in this world. They were the things that said we had the power within us to make things better. Everything else said we were either evil or helpless to fate."
~Unknown

From http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/09/atheism-and-hope.html

This reminds me of tacit 's post http://tacit.livejournal.com/205515.html Why I'm An Optimist

(I'm not an anarchist, but that's part of the quote)

Comments

[aclaro.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if you already know all this.. but I wouldn't have identified as an anarchist 6 months ago because I didn't realize how the rest of the world uses the word. As far as I can tell, anarchists do not believe that people need an "elite class" to rule them.. ie, having a *boss* isn't necessary, the workers still know how to make the factory run. Anarchists believe that people can organize and run their own society. Catalonia was an example of anarcho-syndicalism where people organized in groups according to specialties and ran business democratically. It was still an organized society with law and structure, it just lacked an elite body tasked with making decisions for the people who were affected. My guess is the quote referred to this kind of anarchism.. the power of the people to control their own lives and working conditions, NOT a system of total chaos (sometimes I think the redefining of this word in America is not accidental).

just some links - catalonia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Catalonia

anarcho-syndicalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

off my soap box now :).

[joreth]

Thanks for the links!

Yes, I did know that about anarchy but, much like Communism, I think that system really only has any hope of working on a small scale, if at all. Considering that the majority of US Citizens think the earth is 6,000 years old, I'm a little more inclined nowadays to think we really do need an "elite" class of people to make decisions "for" us. Unfortunately, I don't think the US has it quite right and I have not come up with a better solution because I just haven't spent that much time thinking about it.