Doug Henwood:
> >> Well, you might need bookstores or libraries or databases - all of
> >> which would require - ewwww - institutions. And to read them, you'd
> >> need schools - ewwwww again. But we'd all be so unalienated we'd
> >> forget to miss them!
Gordon Fitch wrote:
> >So now we need coercion even to read?
Doug Henwood:
> To a point, yes. Would kids go to school on their own, if neither the
> law nor their parents required it?
I think they would learn, because it seems to be coded into the genes of human beings (as well as those of monkeys and cats) to be eager to learn. "Going to school" is a somewhat different question. _School_ is formulated, in America anyway, as overt physical and mental subjugation to a coercive, totalitarian institution similar to a prison or an army base. It would seem pathological for a free being to voluntarily show up at one with any regularity (unless, like some abused children, it were even worse treated elsewhere).
> But leaving that aside, I was referring to Chuck0's antipathy to
> institutions of any breadth or permanance. He seems to be agin' 'em.
I seized upon your remark because I'm trying to provoke people into answering my question as to whether they think coercion, that is, holding a gun to someone's head, is necessary for the building of airplanes or computers, and if so, why they think so and whether and why the airplanes and computers are worth it. So far I haven't seen much development of either of these propositions. A _reductio_ based on one facet of anarchist thought won't do.
I don't agree about institutions. It my view it is unanarchistic to specify what sort of organizations, enterprises, associations, parties, mobs, families, etc. that people (and other sentient beings) may belong to, as long as they're voluntary and harmless.
-- Gordon