#1 - Finding Peace When Politics Gets Toxic

In this episode, we dissect how politics gets toxic and oppressive, and how we’ve found peace in anarchism.

So right now we have this disagreement of whether or not people like to talk about politics. So for you, what is your stance again?

My experience is, people hate talking about politics. And when I say people, it's a majority of people.

And your basis on that is?

My basis on that is I love talking about politics. So I know what love talking about politics sort of means. And every time I do try to talk about politics, it's usually met with like, oh, let's not go there, man.

Okay.

Right. And so maybe if people like talking about politics, it's within like, a certain window or spectrum. But beyond that window, they quickly become disgusted and realize that, maybe this is something that I don't really want to have a conversation about.

Okay, that's fair, the way I see it, or have seen it, is that people like talking about politics. And, of course, my basis on that is social media—probably not the best source of, of my opinion. But that is what I'm exposed to 24/7. And I do get the sense that people like talking about it, because a lot of the people I see who post on social media and reply to other people's posts is, you know, they validate each other a lot. So for whatever issue it is, if they're on the same side, or they have the same politics, they will like talking about it. And they will like pointing out who was in the wrong, why they are wrong, why they're right. And I see that a lot in the comments on Facebook, and, you know, Twitter threads. So that's what that's where I'm coming from, but I do get, I do get you when you say that there are people who don't like politics when you talk about politics. But I think that's because you're coming from somewhere else. I think, well, because I know you, when you talk about politics, you sound negative. When you sort of say like, Oh, these things don't matter. It sounds negative. Because for another person, it matters to them. Or like, you know, it's just like, How could it not matter? When it's something that they value so much? I'm not saying that you're, I'm not saying that you think gay marriage being legalized doesn't matter. But let's just say it's gay marriage. And if you say, for example, lobbying for gay marriage, you know, doesn't matter, it's not a big deal, whatever. I could imagine other people, you know, just being like, Oh, how could you not be pro gay marriage or something? So, yeah, I think when you come from like—

But I am pro gay marriage.

Yeah, I know, I know. Okay, sorry. Yes, thank you for saying that. I, I know you're pro. But when you get, or when you sound nihilistic sometimes, or when you say that, Oh, for example, oh, it's pointless to vote, or you feel like it's pointless to vote. A lot of people don't like hearing that. And maybe some of them will engage with you. Meaning argue with you. But yeah, other people who just get offended will just get offended and just judge you.

Yeah. So basically, from our disagreement,we have different assumptions. Your assumption is people love talking about politics, and reaffirming their politics with like-minded people, when it comes to their politics. What I was talking about is people don't like talking about politics, when it's not reaffirming their own beliefs.

So it's debates.

Yeah. Which to me is politics in a way and it kind of, that's how I sort of define it. So we have we're coming from different places, right? Yeah, of course, when, if you're gonna say that people love talking about politics and it reaffirms their own beliefs, I can agree with that. And I think you agree also with what I'm saying, which is, people don't like talking about politics when it's something that they don't agree with. You brought this up, which is, in polite conversation, this axiom, right, which is in polite conversation, you shouldn't talk about politics or religion, because these are topics that people get very passionate about, right? And that passion can lead to disagreements, which would lead to not so polite conversations anymore. And what do those two have in common politics and religion? Why are people so passionate about it? It has well, perhaps, it has to do with—I don't want to say salvation—but you could say the solution to problems or, you know, something along those lines. In a democratic society—

Yes, go ahead. What's with a democratic society?

Basically we all disagree but we all have to come to an agreement, because there has to be like a top-down order, right?

Yes.

In solving whatever problem or policing whatever problem. And that solution, we theoretically, right? We come to that solution through voting or democracy, which is popular opinion. And, to me, that's one of the root causes of this problem of why people are so passionate and why people are so toxic is because you have to win. Your side has to win this sort of rhetorical, popular war, right? Civil War, in a way, it's a peaceful, it's a nonviolent civil war, but it is still a disagreement. And if your side doesn't win that war, then you get hurt, right? And so it's really very important. And it's a matter of, it's almost like an existential problem or crisis. And why people get so passionate about their movement is because if they don't win, then they lose, they get hurt. They don't get a bigger slice of the pie, so to say, you know. Their projects aren't funded, etc.

Yeah, that reminds me a lot of what I learned a few months ago about democracy, which is something along the lines of it being the majority exerting force, maybe or like, maybe majority, coercing or exerting their will, upon the minority. So it might seem like it was, it might seem like there was consent, because there was a vote, right? Or voluntary, because there was a vote. Not everyone still agreed, and those who voted otherwise, or those who lost the vote, would have to adjust now, and would have to pay whatever price they have to pay to be a part of whatever this new society will, whatever society will emerge from the result of the vote, something like that. And that was kind of interesting. I never looked at it that way before, but I like how nuanced, how nuanced voting became to me. I think we're just used to, you know, thinking of it as majority wins, period, you know, like, you just you just have to adjust, but I never thought of it as potentially being oppressive, coercive. So yeah, and another thing that what you said reminded me of was this idea that it is bad to have an ideology. And you were actually the one who told me that and when you told me that last year, I got pissed. I remember getting pissed off because in my head every, it's just natural for people to have an ideology. I don't remember if what I thought was if it was natural for people to have an ideology, or it's good to have an ideology. But as the months have gone by with lockdown, and other political problems that I'm seeing, I've seen how you can be blinded by having an ideology. Because you have an ideology, you will do whatever it takes, so that your ideology will win. I've, and I guess it's not so far-fetched, right? Like, there have been religious wars before, for the sake of God, for the sake of love, or whatever, for the sake of peace, world peace, right? But what ends up happening is more death, more violence. So it reminds me of that Avatar quote. With the owl Wan Shi Tong. He says something like, You think you're the first one to say that your war is for a noble cause? Something like that. And yeah, I see an alignment there.

Yeah, well, that reminds me of another quote from The Expanse. And in it, someone is trying to recruit, the hero is trying to recruit someone else and say, This is this is a cause that it's worth dying for. And she says, You're just another man with another cause to die for. Right? And which is kind of like the tale as old as time, which is, you know, here is something so important, so incredibly, you know, so incredibly, like life-changing, and it's going to help so many people, or it's going to protect so many people from getting hurt. And it's worth making the ultimate sacrifice, which is your own life, for, to fight this cause. And usually what ends up happening is, well, the people, people who do fight the cause, end up dying, and the people who do the sort of propagandizing they end up becoming very powerful and influential warlords or whatnot.

I have two things to say about that. The quote that you cited from The Expanse. Because I started this anonymous anarchist Instagram account, to post anarchist quotes, and I saw this quote. I don't know if Mahatma Gandhi is anarchist, but when I was looking up anarchist quotes, he said something about, Well, I don't I don't know what the subject is of, of the sentence. But he said that there's this thing that he is willing to die for, but not kill for. And I kind of want to maybe draw a line with what you said, because what you said was about dying for something, right? And it's just interesting that with Mahatma Gandhi with his quote, it was him dying for something not killing for something. And it was a personal thing for him. It's not him telling someone else you should die or kill for my cause. It's just a personal thing. And it's not, you know, imposing or persuading, coercing. And yeah, I just kind of want to draw that line. Because if you want to die for something, go ahead. That's on you. Right. That's your choice. That's your life. Whoever wants to maybe advise you against it, talk you out of it, fine. But we know that the choice still lies on the individual. What, for me is not right is to decide for someone else. You should fight for this. You should die for this. You should love this. Right? You should do this because whatever, whatever. I think. I mean, right now, it sounds like advice, right? I mean, it can be framed as advice. But a lot of the time when we're talking about politics, it's not advice. It's an order for the most part.

It's, just to be more precise. It's not really just an order. It's, I am going to lobby so that it can become an order. Right? It's like we need to, we need to, this this problem is so important and so existential, this crisis is so existential, that we need to justify using violence to solve this problem, or we can justify violence to solve this problem. And what do I mean by you know, we need to we need to commit violence to solve this problem. Just to go back to the whole democracy thing, right? When we say when you say that there are these two opposing sides, one wants something A and the other side wants something else, which is B. And whoever wins means that their their version is enforced on the other. Right. So if a wins, then A is enforced over B. Right? And, and well, when I say enforced, it's, they use authority, they use authority, basically, basically push that agenda, because it's justified, because the majority wants it, right? And so it's now justified, and we can basically, we can basically use force and authority to make this the rule for everybody, because everybody's equal or whatever. And so yeah, that's what we mean by violence, right? Because whoever loses doesn't get to, basically has to do something that they don't want to do. Right? Yes, or is not allowed to do something that they want to do, right. And if they do that thing, or don't do that thing, which whichever, whichever way works, there is, the state will use authority, and that authority is violent in nature, to impose the will of the people or whatever. I mean, but the will of the people in this case, it's not even, it's not even like the people can be divided into A and B, right? In fact, there's A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and so forth. Right? In fact, there's, if if a population is made up of 100 million people, there's actually 100 million sort of sub groups, each person being kind of like their own subgroup and, I don't want to get into like how impossible it is, or like, how unrealistic all of that is, of course. But the point is, the point I was trying to make is that the violence is incurred. It's not like, Oh, I voted for I voted for it, and therefore I'm not, you know, and therefore I belong to Group A, right? In fact, most people don't really even belong to group A or B. And most people, you wouldn't even know what kind of like, what kind of policies or how these policies would affect their lives. And that's because usually, the way these policies are like, conducted or whatever, you know, it's top-down, they say there's a law and then, and then as you go lower the levels because, you know, that's how the bureaucratic system works. So that how you're affected would be determined almost by like, whoever is in charge of your local area, or whatever, and how they interpret sort of the will of the people, right?

Yes.

And that experience is going to vary per person. And even if you were, even if you voted A, the authority, the authority that will be exerted on you is not—wouldn't even be what you voted for. Right? It would be some, you know, sort of mutated version of what you wanted. And when I say you dated version in me, it has gone through the bureaucratic process and gone through all the stakeholders gone through all the lobbyists, right, gone through all the various interests that will like alter it and then and then and then have that parse down and be misinterpreted by you know, every level as it gets parsed out and so what you yourself experience could be totally different from what you actually intended or wanted when you voted in favor of this thing.

Yeah, that reminds me a lot of what I hate about these you know about these like moral dilemma question riddle type of questions like the I guess the classic example is, you know, you have a train packed with people and then there's a guy tied in the tracks, and you're the conductor or the guy who moves the track. Are you just gonna let the train kind of go by or save the one person, whatever, you know that dilemma I hate that. I hate that. I've always hated it.

Why?

Okay. I never knew why I hated it. But I always hated it, because it, it just felt like it boxed me at that time. You know, when I when I first heard it, like years and years and years ago, I just did not like how the question boxed me. It just seemed like an instinctive reaction, I think. But a few months ago, I was watching, like, Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad, like video essays on YouTube. And there was this YouTuber who made this video about morality. And Breaking Bad, I think. I haven't finished the video yet, because I haven't finished watching Breaking Bad yet. But the guy was saying that the thing with these morality, dilemmas or riddles is, it's as if we can predict the outcome. But that is never the case in real life.

Or the outcome is some kind of like binary and like fixed. Fixed choices are of possible outcomes.

Exactly. So he was saying that, you know, there's, like, understated, maybe hubris there? Or just, I mean, it's just not clearly it's clearly not realistic. And when I, when he phrased it that way, I think I was able to make the connection with my instinct at the time from before, which is like I felt boxed in. Because that's not how life works. It's not an easy, you know, cookie cutter, kind of result. That's never what you get. And I think that's also why I get bothered. When people would sort of say that, at least, you know, when it comes to politics, and you see it on social media, everything gets watered down, and people say you Oh, you shouldn't do this, because it means this and that. Or you should vote for this person, because we will get this as if these promises have ever been, you know—

Delivered?

Delivered. Yeah. They haven't. Like we were promised federalism. What happened to that? Nothing. Right. Like, there's so many of these promises that you just don't get.

Yeah, well, yeah. So the just just on the on the other train thing? Yeah, that's, that's absolutely right. Like, you think there's only two choices, all right. Rather, you think you're choosing between two outcomes, right? Or this action or non action will result in Result or Nonresult, when in fact, when in fact any action would result into into any sort of so many different outcomes. You might even say it's there's an infinite number of outcomes, especially when you realize that, that that action would then result in people making action, which would then result in making action, and then that randomness even you would never be able to, like, determine sort of beforehand what that result would or could be. And so it will always be futile to make that action, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to bring up this thing that I've been sensing for, like weeks, and I've told you about it, but I, I am convinced that the Avatar The Last Airbender creators were like onto something. So this is about Aang, in season four, who has to kill Fire Lord Ozai. And everyone around him, or almost everyone around him, says that he has to do it. To bring peace and order in the world.

He has to kill the Fire Lord.

Yes. Yes. And that goes against everything that Aang believes in. And, I mean, Aang is, you know, he's Buddhist, he he believes in respecting all life forms, etc. So for him, killing is not, it's not in the cards and he does everything he can to think of, you know, just think of other ways to go about this. And of course, part of that is asking his friends, the GAang, if it's the right thing to do, and they're quite empathetic about that. I don't remember if they tell him if he should or shouldn't do it. But I remember something like Katara being empathetic and saying that he'll know what the right thing to do is, whatever that is. And the other thing that I remember apart from you know, Aang just kind of like disappearing, like doing his soul searching thing, is he asks all his past lives for guidance and advice. Whether or not he should do it. And infamously, maybe Avatar Kyoshi, who was, I think, one avatar before him. Who was like, who doesn't hesitate to kill someone, you know, tells Aang to just kill him. That's what you have to do. You just kill him. And so Aang was like, he feels like, no one seems to understand where he's coming from. Because for him, it's wrong to kill period, and he shouldn't be forced to it forced into it. So you know, he asks, he was like a maybe an airbender avatar will understand him. So he contacts Avatar Yangchen. Basically, to get advice. Anyway, long story short, after he does all of that discernment act of discernment. He gets to learn about energy bending, which is what the lion turtle bestows upon him. And I, maybe it's not right to phrase it as a reward from like the universe, that Oh, because you've searched far and wide, the universe or some higher being rewards you with energy bending, but I do feel like it it's a possibility, when you do your best to figure out another way out, when you do your best to go beyond a binary of do this or do that the possibility of finding another way increases. Or it just opens up. So yeah, maybe other people would think that the whole energy bending thing is probably out of nowhere, but I would say that it was earned. Because of all that active discernment. Because I think that's the thing like for for a lot of the politics that people are exposed to, a lot of it is just either or. And I feel like, at least for me, try to go beyond the black and white of it all has given me a—it's gonna sound arrogant to say that, Oh, it's given me a lot more perspective. But if I can't say that, or if it's arrogant to say that, I will say that it's given me a lot more peace. That, I'm more confident to say.

To go beyond the black and white of what the politics gives you, right? That the the either or thing for a lot of people, you know, that sounds so vague. I can imagine that would sound so vague as if, well, what what, how would you know that this beyond is not just another person or another, you know, entity trying to trying to give you trying to force you through their agenda or whatever. So it doesn't really provide a good framework for like, okay, when it comes to politics, what should you support? Or where should your stance lie, right? People also might be listening and thinking, Okay, so are you saying inaction is better than no action? Right? And for people, it's like, well, if we if we want to solve problems, right, we need to have action, we need to do something about it. Right. And I think what I want to stress here, that's really important is what we're trying to say is it's not it's not that inaction is better than action. It's inaction is better than coercive action. If your solution if part of your solution means coercing people to do something that they don't want to do, otherwise wouldn't want to do, right, for me, I think it's better to leave it alone leave the leave the problem or leave these people just fix their own problems or whatever, whatever it is. Inaction in this case would be better than coercive action. Right? Why? And well, why is it better? We already touched on this. Right? We don't know. What are the downstream effects? What are the downstream consequences of this coercive action? However, you know, some people might say, well, this, this outcome is worth, it is worth it, it's better, you know, it's, you'll be better people better will be more people better off, right, compared to people that we, that we've hurt in the process. So to say it like that the good outweighs the bad, the cost, right, the benefit outweighs the cost. And I have a very simplistic response, right? Maybe we can hash that out a little bit more. And my this simplistic response is because violence, right, is the very at the very core of the solution, right? Is violence, the outcome will always be biased, so that there is more people hurt than any benefit. Is that always the case? Is there ever is there ever a case where violence is used and it actually benefited more people than it hurt? I want to argue that because that, you know, because at its core it's violent, so authoritarian, the result will be, always be, I want to say hurting more than helping people.

And hurting in more ways than you can ever imagine, I would, I would add.

That you couldn't even imagine.

I think you brought up a lot of things that could be hashed out in in different ways. I think where I'm coming from is, okay so maybe this is where we kind of differ a little bit. I'm not super sure yet but this is sort of like my gut feel right now is that I think in terms of like oh you know between like coercive action and just you know your personal action versus inaction or whatever I think the one that i would prize the most right now is inaction And I don't like how that word is phrased because it's phrased in such a negative light.

It's negative.

Yeah it is negative right like you're you're you're just letting things happen and I mean you have all these examples of, oh you know the Holocaust is happening and you know inaction it's just you know turning a blind eye for example and so what I'm gonna say does not relate to the Holocaust and stuff like that um but it's more on like on a personal level that I think some people might have forgotten or don't quite think about which is just, do no harm. I think when you think of doing no harm you will second guess a lot of the things that you want to do. And that doesn't, that's not to say that you know, do no harm means you will never act on anything. It's just a matter of thinking through it a bit more maybe and having that humility of not speaking for someone else, not deciding for for someone else and yeah, that's that's where I'm at at the moment. It doesn't yeah so it doesn't really answer the whole like you know if something bad is happening what do you do right? Like are you gonna be passive or not I think that's up to you know individuals to decide but prescribing and being you know just throwing yourself out there and not thinking about it, I think you should think about it just think or just weigh everything as much as you can. Earlier I brought up I'm not sure if I was very specific on this but in my mind this is like where my mind was going about ideology which I brought up earlier like not having an ideology and I think part of this idea that I have now which is do no harm is also I guess detachment and trying not to be very passionate as much as you know as much as possible because with the climate now with social media and you know people behind social media, behind news agencies behind these social media companies the algorithms, it is so easy to manipulate you if you have you know this this thing that you're so passionate about or your your ideology and I mean earlier I mentioned the Holocaust and you think that just happened just like that? Of course not! Right like I'm sure the propaganda machine when it comes to patriotism was at work for for that sort of thing to happen like I wouldn't be surprised right like when you when you have these values or these I guess ideologies it is really easy for a government to spin that and use that against you so that you hurt others so I think for me part of my do no harm is detaching myself as much as possible. I mean here's the thing I'm human right so there are things that I see online that will anger me or frustrate me or make me sad, right? That's the knee-jerk reaction but what do I do after that I do my best to just you know to step away detach try to evaluate things and I just let it I eventually I'm able to let it go. Right? The thing is there are things that obviously I would like to change about how our society works today but I think the change that I want to see in society today, II was able to kind of reframe that in such a way that these are changes that maybe I can make just for myself because I guess the way I see it, do I want to be specific right now? Okay let's, I'll be specific right now. I'll bite the bullet if that's the saying or whatever. For example with the whole mask mandates, I personally do not like mask mandates but here's the thing if other people want to wear masks I and I don't want to wear masks like I'll just let I'll just leave them alone like if you still wanna if you still wanna wear a mask if you wanna mask your kids, fine, but don't force me to wear a mask you know what I mean? I mean I know that is a very contentious issue and people are likely to get mad or be happy that I'm saying something like that but I'm just saying in terms of you know policies like that I'm just saying that I've learned to sort of also not impose what I want on other people and that's given me a lot of peace. I don't know why but it was kind of, I don't know, I guess it's just kind of freeing or maybe this is what harmony feels like. You know when people think sometimes with harmony it's like oh we all just have to like be together we have to like be the same but no the point of harmony is we're different but there's this sort of acceptance and it works when we're different. So yeah, I just I kind of just like that just letting people decide what what's best for themselves because for all you know maybe you know they do they live with older people or vulnerable people—whatever. Right? So I'm happy to just let them decide for themselves best outcome for themselves and for me to just do what I think is best for myself.

Yeah so when you're evaluating like a political stance or you know some kind of issue and you wonder whether what is the right issue, for me at least when whichever side says you know, we don't want to force people to do things they don't want to do, I will always side with that side and like you said earlier you know like for example the whole mask mandate thing, there is one side that says I just want to be left alone and there's another side that says, uh no based on my own understanding in my my own based on basic basically my own beliefs, I want to force you to do something that you don't want to do because I think it's better for everybody, and well we know how that sort of turned out. Many people don't but it's already common it's already accepted at least outside the country. There's something else I was gonna say.

I think—

Go, sorry.

Well what are you gonna say?

No, I was just gonna well the I think mask mandate is a very tricky example because we've seen the argument on both sides, right? I mean, the the the side of people who are pro mask mandates is that if you're not masked then you are you know hurting other people um you are spreading the virus whatever. And I think it's, that may be true but we're not the only ones. Right, like even people who are masked can still spread the virus for one.

Well we can't. I mean if we go into that—if we go into that then I'm going to say the masks just don't work.

Okay fine you can say that.

And so it's you know it's if we're going to argue about whether we should mandate, it's like well this do the masks even work.

No, I, no, I'm not talking about like that part of the argument. I'm just sort of bringing up this whole idea of personal responsibility. For me what I'm trying to say is that it's so funny that you have this one side that gets kind of like extremely paranoid whether or not that's you know that has any grounds but I'm just saying that it's funny that all the blame is from one side to the other. That's what I'm trying to point out, with for example with mask mandates. The the whole argument is because you're not masked you're the one who's spreading the virus as if the other side who's worried about the spread of the virus you know is not doing everything. You know what I mean? I think that's what I'm trying to say like the blame is just very one-sided as opposed to, okay accepting this reality that maybe other people have other you know other beliefs therefore what what else can you do in terms of, if you want to protect your family so much? So that's where I'm trying to that's where I'm coming from like, there has to be this extreme like acknowledgement of like your responsibility if you want to be like safe, absolutely from you know COVID.

Well you said you know blame, right? And what and I just wanted, I want to point out how with these sort of you know political divides, usually that's what ends up happening, where you end up just sort of, it becomes a blame game, right? Oh this is our problem because this group of people aren't following or aren't doing XYZ, right? And blame games oh I mean obviously they're very toxic to society because they create you know sort of other groups who are the reason for your for your pain, or your suffering or your anxiety, right, and if you could only just do something about this other group, you know do something, right, that you blame for your anxiety then perhaps you could fix a problem. And you know, unfortunately and unfortunately, in the past that has resulted in just the most horrific outcomes, right? And you already brought up one of the most most popular you know most popular example, which is the Holocaust. But that's not the only example, right?

Yes.

The only example of people murdered, killed, silenced. And we can talk about all that, we can go on with the list of like crimes that have been done in the name of sort of because of this blame right? This blaming of the other.

Wouldn't it be great if the people who just agreed could just live together?

You mean, the people who want to be left alone.

Yeah, I mean the people who want to be left alone could just come together and form their own community and the people who you know want to be under some sort of you know authority you know would stay together, right, like if like I think it would be just cool to just be in the same place and live with the same you know like-minded people. Open the borders!

Well I would say, wouldn't it be cool to just opt out, to be able to opt out of this state this government uh society. And when i say opt-out i mean like not be subject to its authority. Even if you are living in that society, right? But no that that can't be right? Because it has to be that everybody is subject to the same you know sort of authority, the same kind of uh question. And that is that is something that's out of the question right? So you realize that the side that's this sort of this this side gonna go the side that says you know this is what i want you to do, they also say you have no other option you must right comply comply right? If you want to opt out that is something you cannot do. And usually usually it will justify it by saying like well how could you benefit from all the all the things that you know government and society modern society brings you and yet you don't sort of pay the price, right? I mean there's so much there's so many things wrong with that I mean to assume that all of all of what is good here is because of government uh is right i think it's unfounded right?

And it belittles you know human ingenuity.

And it just goes to show i mean like if if it is truly good, right? If this is truly the way that we're supposed to organize then why is it that you need to force people to do it right?

Right.

Why is it that opting out can never be an option, right? It has to be this thing and nothing else.

Yeah, it reminds me of like anarchist communities in southeast asia when they don't agree with their community whether it's cultural practices or religion or certain rules, they will just leave the community and form their own community with like-minded people. And yeah that doesn't seem possible with the world we live in. You need papers to be able to do that right?

When modern people here you know could be opt out, they think oh that means you have to go out in the mountains and live this like hermit life like hermit uh you know off-grid sort of lifestyle or whatever—

It's tempting for me.

Well I mean like yeah, but that doesn't have to be the case. And I think modern society is able to hold itself up without the state. I mean, rather, modern society as we know it, as we're living in it today, is functioning because it just functions, right? It doesn't, it's not functioning because of the government. I might even argue that it's functioning despite the government, right? If you go I mean and we live in Metro Manila and this is a this is a perfect example of what I mean. Do you think Metro Manila is orderly or disorderly because of the government, right? I argue it's disorderly because of the government and it's and it's orderly because because of like the chaos the order that comes from chaos so to say, right? Metro Manila as like a you know as like a microcosm or something like it's only like sort of miniature world is to me so fascinating. Because it's almost like this anarchy anarchist society that we have that—it's it's almost like Metro Manila is the textbook definition of an anarchic society that we have the misconception of, right? The misconception of what an anarchic society would be, it kind of looks like, you think it kind of looked like this and yet we're in a in a government, in a statist society, right?

So when you say like the misconception of an anarchist society, you mean chaos, right?

Yeah. So when I say when we opt out it's not like it's not like we we need to abandon our modern lives. It's it's it's literally we can ignore the government and continue with our normal lives without the government getting in our way, so to say.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's really hard to imagine right? We we were sort of brought up and institutionalized. You might say, you know through public schooling, but this is the only way. We can't imagine any other way and that's something like being able to imagine what that world would be like, I think that is what anarchism sort of lacks and that's where you know, I mean this is this is my own personal hope which is that creative side you know the more sort of cultural cultural side is able to imagine what that world could be like. This modern stateless world, that's something that I wanna, we're probably gonna explore in many many more like discussions.

Well I would say that as much as it's, you know, natural for us to want to know what that world will look like, I think for me personally, I find that not having a precise answer is the beauty of anarchism because it's not for someone to to say, that this is what an anarchic society looks like. You know what I mean? Like I know it sounds like meta or something, but like, I feel like it's in the very nature of anarchism or an anarchic society is like, it's whatever you make it out to be and it's not planned.

Yeah it's probably not planned.

And you know whatever planning that you'll have, it it might, you know, I mean there would be self-corrections along the way, right? Because you could make really bad decisions that would you know make the anarchist society become a coercive totalitarian state, you never know, right? But the beauty is in going there and figuring it out, and I love that. I love that there is no there is no you know, like a like a plan, like an architecture plan of okay this is what it is, or like a recipe. Like, I like that there's none of that. At least to the T.

Exactly you, you've sort of you sort of hit one of those you sort of hit one of those, I would say all encompassing answers that you usually hear from libertarians and anarchists, which is which the question is you know what does it look like, and the answer is we don't know because it's a free market, right? People think it's a cop-out because it's like, well how can I support something that I don't know, right, okay, how can we how can we dream or plan out or whatever, and again this is always the wrong way of thinking, wrong way of approaching what should be done.

I think the interesting part of it is, you know, asking for what it will look like. I mean it's an honest question it's a question that you know stems from our natural curiosity—

What about this, what about the roads, what about the schools, what about the military—

Exactly! It's asking, it's like you're already asking for something to be given to you, or you have all these like checklists or something, as opposed to coming at it from you know maybe from fresh eyes.

So uh there's this saying, there's this saying, I don't know if it's a saying, but there's this idea at least in libertarianism or the free market, which is, don't underestimate the creativity or the imagination of the free market or the ability for the free market to provide solutions, right? And what that means is, okay, you have these problems. Whatever solution that the free market will come up with, we have no idea. And the possibilities is endless, right? On the other hand I also want to say if you if, you shouldn't underestimate the free market in providing solutions and those solutions being infinite, we shouldn't also underestimate the capacity for bureaucrats to sort of come up with absurd and nonsensical solutions, which would end up hurting people. So the same way the same way the creativity of the free market is limitless and boundless in like providing you know actual solutions, likewise the bureaucracy is—their creativity in how to sort of enslave people is just as limitless and just as—actually their imagination is limitless. What isn't limitless is their capacity to enforce.

When you talk about how creative the state could be when it comes to as you said enslaving people that sounds very dark, I guess? And pessimistic. Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel?

Yes so yeah I realized that it does sound pessimistic. We are critiquing government or the state after all, and in the Philippines that is a bottomless well that—we will never run out of things to say the critique and criticize the government for, and it does sound pessimistic because we're not offering an alternative—we are offering an alternative.

But maybe it's not tangible or maybe it doesn't feel concrete to other people?

Yeah it doesn't sound concrete if you're thinking of it in terms of you know plans or programs which is typically how we think of it think of government or think of the future in a statist in a statist mindset. But what we are trying to offer is a different kind of mindset altogether so it's not plans or visions or imaginations. It's more of a mindset one that says okay this state the state the government is probably the issue and that you yourself and the people that you interact with, you don't need to be you don't need to be violent and antagonistic and sort of you know really really passionate about about these issues and the solutions that we think will solve them. It allows us to sort of take a step back almost almost just accept the suffering that the state does, understanding it, and then also understanding that other people around you are going through the same thing. And it allows you to be somehow more empathetic with other people's struggles. So so this mindset ever since I've kind of adopted it, it's also allowed me to talk about politics and not feel like I have to win this argument or this discussion. And it allows me to sort of listen to other people and think to myself, okay whatever is they thinking about or whatever it is they want to do, so it allows me to sort of accept or validate their experience.

I think when that happens at least for me when I've seen it happen and have experienced it in like, really small ways, though, it's kind of interesting to see how there's just this connection. Or like a surprising connection that you could have with someone that you know let's say traditionally you wouldn't get along with. So it's nice to find that common ground and from there I think who knows, it's probably up to you know the people involved to come up with something. But it's cool now that they've paved the way to something together, as opposed to trying to silence each other.

So shall we end on that note?

Yeah I think that was good.