Post-Civilisation Anarchism
Over hundreds of years, civilisations fall. Often their very existence is forgotten for hundreds of years. However, they are never truly annihilated. Customs and languages, sometimes laws and religions, survive. Knowledge is never truly lost; it just gets covered in dust.
Civilisations are often remembered for their great leaders and prophets, but the bases of civilisations are their people and their technologies. And techniques and technologies can always be reborn so long as people are free to rebuild them. As technologies become more complicated, goods can be produced with less effort for more people. More importantly, simple procedures become easier to reproduce, which make the transition to more complicated procedures easier. With the collapse of a civilisation, these procedures are remembered so long as the succeeding civilisation does not suppress them.
There is always the possibility for a successor civilisation to suppress or distort, for political reasons, certain writings or ideas. As the Christian world took over from the classical Mediterranean world, ideas on science and mathematics were edited or suppressed by accident and by design. Thus the succeeding civilisation will always redefine what it means to be civilised.
Anarchy (being an ordered, non-hierarchical peaceful society) is possible after the collapse of a civilisation that has achieved post-scarcity, such as ours, for Anarchy is in fact prevented by the forcible re-establishment of civilisation. When past civilisations were re-established, there was always pressure on resources, and hierarchies were established for purposes of resource allocation. With sufficient technological advancement and universal propagation of ideas, this need not happen with the collapse of ours, or if it did, it would be easier in the future for Anarchy to (re-) assert itself. With the collapse of a sufficiently advanced civilisation, it would be feasible for “civilisation” to re-assert itself in a non-hierarchical manner.
Or, put another way, if a civilisation is sufficiently advanced then there is no need for it to exist!
Over hundreds of years, civilisations fall. Often their very existence is forgotten for hundreds of years. However, they are never truly annihilated. Customs and languages, sometimes laws and religions, survive. Knowledge is never truly lost; it just gets covered in dust.
Civilisations are often remembered for their great leaders and prophets, but the bases of civilisations are their people and their technologies. And techniques and technologies can always be reborn so long as people are free to rebuild them. As technologies become more complicated, goods can be produced with less effort for more people. More importantly, simple procedures become easier to reproduce, which make the transition to more complicated procedures easier. With the collapse of a civilisation, these procedures are remembered so long as the succeeding civilisation does not suppress them.
There is always the possibility for a successor civilisation to suppress or distort, for political reasons, certain writings or ideas. As the Christian world took over from the classical Mediterranean world, ideas on science and mathematics were edited or suppressed by accident and by design. Thus the succeeding civilisation will always redefine what it means to be civilised.
Anarchy (being an ordered, non-hierarchical peaceful society) is possible after the collapse of a civilisation that has achieved post-scarcity, such as ours, for Anarchy is in fact prevented by the forcible re-establishment of civilisation. When past civilisations were re-established, there was always pressure on resources, and hierarchies were established for purposes of resource allocation. With sufficient technological advancement and universal propagation of ideas, this need not happen with the collapse of ours, or if it did, it would be easier in the future for Anarchy to (re-) assert itself. With the collapse of a sufficiently advanced civilisation, it would be feasible for “civilisation” to re-assert itself in a non-hierarchical manner.
Or, put another way, if a civilisation is sufficiently advanced then there is no need for it to exist!
posted by Legal Smeagol at 11:42 AM
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