[SolarCross]

It is perfectly natural when faced with an armed gang of strangers, against whom one is physically incapable of defending oneself, to accommodate oneself to their demands. They demand "your money or your life" and one gives them the money because one values one's life more than one's money; so far so very sensible and pragmatic. This is something to which a healthy mind might well acquiesce but inevitably resent even if silently. It is also somewhat rational when faced with an armed gang of strangers to try to leverage them for one's own advantage. So when they demand your "money or your life" one attempts to bargain for something else besides the privilege of keeping one's life; perhaps offer to pay a little extra on top if in return they will brutalise some other person whom one finds to be annoying.

Some people however do rather more than passively suffer the state or try to turn it to their own advantage; these people want more state. They want the state to look after them, feed them, give them presents, tell them when to go to bed and even to read them a bed time story. These people are broadly called socialists and include communists, fascists and social democrats.

It is tempting to think that these people desire a bigger state because they want there to be more room in the gang for them to get a piece of the action but I don't think that applies to many. It seems to me that most socialists are actually rather emotionally in need of a parent and they see in the state a possible surrogate mother. When one is a child one doesn't have to work or do business, Mummy and Daddy does all that, one doesn't have to take responsibility for any harm or loss one causes others, Mummy and Daddy does all that, food and playthings just magically appear from the hands of Mummy and Daddy. Why then do some people want to stay in a condition of perpetual childhood by transferring onto the big and powerful state the same expectations they had on their big and powerful parents when they were a child? The answer must surely be that in their childhood the expectations they had on their parents were painfully unmet and so they never grow out of the desire to be dependent on a big powerful other. As an aside, much of the power of religion may have a similar source.

[Fasces]

I support the state out of spite towards anarchists I knew in childhood who didn't let me play in their reindeer games. Now I take my truncheon and my state issued uniform and give tickets to the proles in what can only be described as a sadistic revenge fantasy.

[Thunderhawk]

other: Cooperation for greater well being then as a lone actor.

[SolarCross]

other: Cooperation for greater well being then as a lone actor.

Well co-operation for greater well-being is what companies, charities, families, social clubs and all sorts of other arrangements accomplish. The state is, as even Obama admitted, just a monopoly on violence and that isn't co-operation in any civilised sense of the word.

[Fasces]

Slaves, not a free commune of like-minded individual, built the Pyramids. Fuck your feelings, I have monuments that need building.

[Technology]

People can't get all of the things they need themselves, which leaves survival open ended. They counteract this by legitimizing force against others in the name of community, and thus pool a much greater amount of resources than could be obtained through agreement, and it also creates a singular standard backed up by force which can be used to at least practically cut through the ambiguity and subjectivity of property claims.

It is exactly this which makes any reasonably achievable libertarianism rest on the fulfillment of materialistic concerns, as opposed to the mere philosophical moralism of it.

[quetzalcoatl]

Voted other. The choices presented are utterly ridiculous.

Statism does not exist, so how could it have a psychology? It is a bogeyman, like collectivism vs individualism.

[SolarCross]

I think we can be even more precise. Taking the authoritarian <-> libertarian axis of the political compass the further towards the authoritarian end of the scale that one is the less evolved the human as they seek total submission to the surrogate parent. So a nazi or bolshevik would have about as much the same level of emotional maturity as a domesticated animal, such as a pet. A social democrat probably would be something like a small child because although they want to be looked after and provided for they do like to be given some small choices. A left-anarchist would be perhaps as far up as a teenager because as much as they still want the world to owe them a living they also don't want to be told what to wear and what to do.

Nazi / Pets




Social Democrat / Small child




Left Anarchist / Teenager

[Fasces]

Anarcho capitalist.

Yes, they're about as intelligent as they look.

No, don't bother telling them. Dunning-Kruger.

[quetzalcoatl]

This thread gets more ridiculous by the minute. Human society is not some kind of smorgasbord that allows you to pick and choose your method of organization, as a matter of simple preference. You cannot start from zero. The available choices are strongly bounded by the deadweight of history, evolved tribal tendencies, and the conflicting interests of countless subgroups. Government is one method of deploying force, for sure, but it is not the only one by any means. Private government is still government; calling it something else is merely childish. Whether public or private, governments must be backed by force to be successful in playing their role as final mediators between social groups and individuals.

[Andropov]

Slaves, not a free commune of like-minded individual, built the Pyramids. Fuck your feelings, I have monuments that need building.

Actually, there is no evidence whatsoever that slaves were used to build the pyramids. Archaeological records show the builders were well-paid and were given vacations.

[J Oswald]

Other: Lightman's Rule.

[mikema63]

I do so out of my psychopathic and sadistic traits.

I desire to have a ready supply of puppets to torture.

[Paradigm]

Other:

1. Complacency with the current system and fear of the unknown.

2. Dominant political discourse that frames the interests of capital as opposed to the state rather than reliant upon it(see: Liberalism).

3. Convenience of using a state apparatus to impose a new socioeconomic order(see: Marxism and Fascism).

4. Dumbass libertarians throwing around the word "statist" as an epithet rather than engaging in constructive dialogue around alternatives to the state.

5. Lightman rule

[Drlee]

Voted other. The choices presented are utterly ridiculous.

Statism does not exist, so how could it have a psychology? It is a bogeyman, like collectivism vs individualism.

I agree with this.

There should have been this option:

"This is another loaded pole by a deluded Ancap which is boring the shit out of the adults.

[The Immortal Goon]

Other: Lightman's Rule.

[SolarCross]

Lots of emotional responses so far but no rational refutation which suggests to me that my perception that statism and / or socialism is rooted in childhood abuse or neglect is quite true. I can tell you, that on reflection, although I have never been a statist I was a left-anarchist and I think a lot of my interest in the socialistic aspects of left-anarchism was really rooted in my rather miserable childhood. For the past 10 years or so I have matured a lot though since practising Vipassana meditation, marrying and becoming a parent and having my own business, and all that helped me transcend my last vestiges of unconscious pining for a surrogate parent. Basically that is the cure for statism, therapy directed at the old emotional hurts of childhood. If you can get over the scared child inside that is looking for a big powerful other to take care of you then the true freedom of individualism awaits.

[The Immortal Goon]

no rational refutation which suggests to me that my perception that statism and / or socialism is rooted in childhood abuse or neglect is quite true.

There is no rational refutation for your irrational screeching because the premise of the thread is so bats hit crazy that it creates a dynamic where anything rational like trying to explain physics to a ranting and raving lunatic.

The only thing to do in the thread is to verge on breaking rules as you clearly, by your own admission, have mommy issues. And it seems rather clear that you're using psychoanalytic projection to deal with your these issues. It's clearly an emotional issue with you as there is no material, philosophical, or historical reason to link what you're attempting to link. It is only how you, Taxion, feel about the association, something that is impossible for anyone else to feel.

But there's little more to say beyond this that won't be breaking rules in that they may be interpreted as being negative toward you.

[SolarCross]

There is no rational refutation for your irrational screeching because the premise of the thread is so bats hit crazy that it creates a dynamic where anything rational like trying to explain physics to a ranting and raving lunatic.

The only thing to do in the thread is to verge on breaking rules as you clearly, by your own admission, have mommy issues. And it seems rather clear that you're using psychoanalytic projection to deal with your these issues. It's clearly an emotional issue with you as there is no material, philosophical, or historical reason to link what you're attempting to link. It is only how you, Taxion, feel about the association, something that is impossible for anyone else to feel.

But there's little more to say beyond this that won't be breaking rules in that they may be interpreted as being negative toward you.

Yes see how emotional this post is? Why are you so threatened by a simple hypothesis? It might not be correct for sure but so what? Why the emotion?

[The Immortal Goon]

You're clearly projecting emotions where there are none. I could honestly not care less what a crazy neo-feudalist thinks about his feelings.