Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Tony writes in to ask about how to introduce his Swedish friends to voluntaryism. I don’t know about Swedish language resources, but if you’re looking for a manual on voluntaryism in English, boy, do I have some suggestions for you!
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble / Substack / Download the mp4
SHOW NOTES:
Fundamentals of Voluntaryism – voluntaryist.com
Interview 1429 – James Corbett and Liberty Weekly Recommend Books
Authoritarian Sociopathy by Davi Barker
The Voluntaryist Handbook Organized by Keith Knight
Introduction to The Voluntaryist Handbook in Swedish
Interview 1741 – Keith Knight Presents The Voluntaryist Handbook
The Politics of Obedience by Etienne de La Boetie
Interview 1563 – Keith Knight and James Corbett Dissect Voluntary Servitude
How to Present Info for Visual Learners – #SolutionsWatch
“Government”—The Biggest Scam in History…EXPOSED!
The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose
Interview 1510 – Larken and Amanda Rose Shine Candles In The Dark
Short Video promoting home-schooling
https://www.bitchute.com/video/dVdurkMSxKXO/
In the end of that movie the Dad sends his kids off to school :/
I have not seen the full movie.
Did not expect the bad ending after such a defeat against the
government schooled children.
But the fragment does show a father that lives outside society.
And is presented as a bit extreme, from a statist point of view.
Not having seen the full movie, I thought it was a clear win.
It reminded me of Good Will Hunting NSA job interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH0bTpwQL7U
It is really extreme how the statist children are playing
computer games and not doing or learning anything valuable.
If it was only about video games. Kids are engineered to be as useless and possible, with their natural interests subdued. Early conditioning to divide the day into three 8 hour segmets will stick for the lifetime and never questioned by the majority.
The movie is a big letdown for me as it sends some idiotic messages. Basically, Dad makes some poor decisions for his kids (like rock climbing for the whole family with the youngest being 8, I believe, or performing stunts on roofs) and then after injury of one of them he concludes that they should in fact be sent to school.
A big non sequitur for the stay at home dad. Their education based on heavy reading and debate (which presumes dad had also done heavy reading) had squat to do with injury after relatively risky physical activity. Which was undertaken willingly by one of the older daughters.
There was also a minor injury by one of the sons during rock climbing, a son who was very mad after mom passed away and who due to unresolved anger did not want to spend time with family/dad.
The dad’s conclusion should have been “lets adjust the risk assessment but unavoidably I can’t ensure kid’s safety” instead of “I’ll send off my highly educated kids to school and they’ll keep them safe over there”.
There was also the issue of reverence toward Noam Chomsky, which activated my heeving reflex.
Watched the film only once years ago but I can recollect my resententment to great detail. Funny how the brain works.
The full movie is the opposite what I think is real.
And it is good for a better discussion or investigation.
I think that school is actually far less safe than a farm or nature.
With animals and nature you really quickly learn boundaries.
The restriction on freedom on school gives children an urge
to break other boundaries. Usually safety related or bullying.
The boring part of school gives them the need to do something
exciting. Like racing or shooting in video games.
Or make tik-toks and get excited from views.
I work sometimes on a free-choice school.
Where children can choose what they want to do.
With some restrictions, like no gaming, no social media,
nor unsafe things.
I noticed that these children knew far better what they
wanted than any children from other schools.
And they knew a lot of the things that they were
interested in. Like making movies, or chemistry.
And they were never really bored.
While on schools that I know of, all children are bored all the time.
I think that a small community with working adults,
where children can learn things that they want,
would be the optimal learning environment.
That can include artistic things (painting,woodwork)
or learning the world (maths, biology, geography, physics).
The success of the controller’s nefarious agenda to bring down our nation has been decades in the planning and manipulation.
The removal of creative, self motivated behavior and thinking has lead to a couple of generations of people needing outside stimulation and influence to enjoy themselves. To be audience members, not participants.
Since I am from the last generation of no helicopter parents, skinned knees, playing with others by hiking, sneaking around at night stealing fruit from the neighbors trees, swimming in the river, etc. and no restrictions beyond “Be home for dinner,” I really can’t understand what it would be like to be a child these days.
Auto didactic learning and expression has been made to seem like something bad. Poetry, artistic expression, etc. has been taken out of the curriculum of the schools as well as physical exercise. How many time we played flag football in the rain :-))
I MISS THE OLD DAYS (song)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/o2Z7IlZLjadH/
I guess anything that people do that smells of freedom is going to be extreme for statists. The rest of the family was a bit cringy, but faithfully represented.
“I know better than you just because I’m a woman with no imagination” coming from that woman was a bit noxious, but, again, faithful reimagination of real life.
@mkey and zyxzevn
Have either of you heard of a school called Summerhill (in the UK)?
It has supposedly been in operation for over one hundred years now and has some pretty interesting ideas presented on it’s website
https://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/self-government
I have heard of it, yes. There’s a story of this ex Summerhill allumny who was so obsessed with fish and fishing that of his own volition he read everything he could get hos hands on and then taught other children about fishing.
Children have natural interests and schools are gass chambers for imagination.
@mkey
Very interesting stuff, I look forward to learning more about the experiences of other allumni and students to maybe borrow some ideas for how I will structure the regenerative gardening/food forest school I want to create in the future.
Bitchute link is broken.
Trying to interest people in voluntaryism or anything similar is an uphill struggle where I live in the west of Scotland, mainly due to psychology. I would imagine that there are similar issues playing out in Sweden, because so many people passionately believe that governments that appear to be progressive “have their backs”.
In the west of Scotland this has a lot to do with long-held feelings of being seen as second-class citizens by the authorities in the south of England. The ruling SNP government has made a lot of this, and many people see paying taxes as an actual virtue that helps the community and empowers the nation. There were similar feelings in the days when Labour was in power. Many people in the west of Scotland identified so strongly with Labour that it was like a religion. It took the Iraq War to destroy that bond, though I have friends who still passionately love the Labour party; arguing with them is like trying to argue with a Jehovah’s Witness.
The Plandemic and all the authoritarianism that went with it did not really damage majority trust in the SNP. I notice that more cracks are appearing due to Ukraine War propaganda and the Gender Recognition Act. The other bastion of taxpaying worthiness is the NHS.
There is a kind of social contract. People will tolerate the excesses of government if they see that they are benefitting from it and that anarchy would be more threatening to their peace and prosperity. That line is being crossed, but certainly where I live, people are slow to wake up to it. The more people cling to seeing government and taxation as a virtue, the more authoritarian the government becomes.
@minnie
Thanks for offering your unique perspective and insights on this. I have both Scottish and Irish in me though I have never been to visit the ancestral lands of my forebears.
Recently, I have begun to explore the ancient ways of our ancient Celtic and Druidic ancestors in the hopes I might glean some wisdom from their ways of perceiving the world, perceiving their fellow humans (and non-human beings) and their strategies for cultivating food and organizing communities so that I might draw from their deep well of experience as I move forward to contribute towards creating intentional communities and decentralized food/medicine cultivation systems.
Perhaps taking a look at the various ways in which our ancestors made their stateless existence possible can offer us some wisdom on the path ahead? Perhaps we can look to those that lived in pre-roman invasion Scotland/Ireland to find some common ground to stand on as we seek to inform people that are brainwashed to adopt authoritarianism in modern times? Perhaps our ancestors can teach us something about forging a path towards embracing our own “Saoirse” as individuals and as a community? Perhaps we can help those that have been indoctrinated into the religion of statism to awaken Saoirse within themselves by looking to find common ground in our recognition of the sacredness of the natural world?
For those that are unfamiliar with the term who are reading this, ‘Saoirse’, is an ancient concept that comes from the original Brehon laws of the Celtic world before the time of Christ.
In those days the idea of freedom, honoring the non-aggression principle (or facing the consequences directly from your peers) could not be separated from the community or nature, because it was embedded in the medicine, language and culture of the Celtic tribes and the Druids.
(continued..)
(continued from above..)
Saoirse means many things to different people. For some it means freedom to think, express and freedom to learn. for others it’s the freedom of imagination and the freedom of the spirit. And for some it also means freedom to set up societies.
The forest and all aspects of the living Earth were seen as sacred and revered by the Druids, and their successors, the Brehon.
Thus, the wrapping of that freedom (or “Saoirse”) which the ancient Celtic people’s were taught to embody (and respect) was rooted in the truth and freedom which was recognized in the natural world, or more specifically in trees. Each tree had a series of philosophies around it in the oral culture — a voluntarily agreed upon system for protecting nature. This system was agreed upon each time a word was written or carved into stone for it became the foundation for the Ogham Script.
For those that are not aware, Europe’s very first alphabet (Ogham Script) arose in Celtic culture and is comprised of characters that are mostly named after trees — all of which were considered sacred because of their medicinal properties. The alphabet begins with a symbol for a shoreline pine and ends with a blackthorn tree.
The usage of this living language rooted in the trees and medicine plants provided a cultural and literary foundation that ensured people didn’t harvest everything and left medicine for their children’s children’s children. Trees with important medicine had a sacred status as a form of protection against human greed.
Irish botanist, medical biochemist (and keeper of the ancient indigenous Celtic medicine knowledge) Diana Beresford-Kroeger comments on the connection of the natural world to the word and concept of Saoirse by saying:
“A great forest not only heals people with medicinal aerosols but rekindles freedom.
You go into a forest and come out in peace. That is the spiritual reality. You go in one way and come out changed, whether you have dogs and cats with you or people. You go in and it opens up your spirit, and your thinking changes as your breathing changes and you come out and you are refreshed.
You never come out with tension in your heart. You come out feeling liberated. And again, there is that word, saoirse. You feel and come out of the forest with saoirse, liberty in your soul.
It is such a gift to the human body. It becomes a hospital for your soul. And then you are ready to go on with your life.”
No ancient culture was perfect, and the Druidic ways/Celtic tribes are no exception. That being said, perhaps we can glean some wisdom from the worldviews embodied in the language and culture of our ancient ancestors to find common ground as we strive to cultivate freedom and Voluntaryism in our modern communities?
For some additional context on how Brehon Law (is seen by some) to have facilitated the foundation for a peaceful and productive society which existed without police or prisons:
“???? ??????? ??? ?????????: For nearly a millennium, the Irish lived without a state under a legal system known as Brehon Law.”
https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/portraits-liberty/when-ireland-was-stateless
————————–
*disclaimer: I do not agree with everything shared in the interview above*
While a hierarchical structure (a caste system and multi-generational “noble family” bloodlines etc.) existed in the mechanisms of the ancient Celtic culture described above and there were other aspects of their societal structure that appear (to me) to not be fully aligned with Voluntaryism, I still feel there is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from parts of their philosophy, their ways of organizing communities and how they incentivized behavior based in integrity and reverence for nature.
One of the things I cannot work out in a voluntary based society is how imbalance is dealt with. Imbalance of power to be precise.
Yes the central notion is that there are no rulers, but that does not remove the fact that there will always be those capable of coercing others. This can be due to their physical stregnth or priviledged control of other resources.
The question is not what should those with this ability do with it, voluntarism has some answers for that along the lines of using it in a way that is mutually beneficial, if used at all. The question is what are those without this capacity to do to deal with the ever present threat of those with capacity to force?
Saying they can hire those with capacity to defend doesnt quite cut it for me. Those who can defend can force, and having a group of people with a mandate to defend seems like a slippery slope towards other forms of social structures which are not consistent with voluntarism.
Firstly, you seem to be equivocating force and violence. These two terms are very different. Violence is unjsut application of force. From the contex, I assume you are refering to violence, not force.
Secondly, you are appealing to the craving for security. False promises of security is exactly what lead us down this path. Life is inherently insecure and much of the time quite unfair.
I do not state this to incite depression but to make it clear that there will not be an invisible hand keeping checks and balances in order.
Thanks a lot mkey.
Guilty as charged on both accounts which seem connected to me.
What I do not get is what you are actually saying about the problem of “unjust force”?
The freedom we so crave is a function of the absence of such an unjust force and not putting safe guards against those who could undermine the social system we are aiming for also seems short sighted.
Yes insecurity is part of life, but what are we to do with it? Accept the inconsequential threats and mitigate the more severe ones right?
The threat of unjust force does not seem trivial to voluntarism, in fact there could be an argument that it is quite central.
Voluntarism is against rulers. Rulers tend to emerge from consolidation of unjust force, so the question is:
What mechanisms can be baked into voluntarism to prevent the emergence of rulers from unjust force?
The slippery slope nature of having a defence force (or “just force”) is something I alluded to in my original question, but in the absence of that what options are left?
I guess we will just have to grow some balls.
minx
questions you have are perfectly meaningful and reasonable in the current paradigm.
Anarchism is about paradigm change. Change of Worldview. Worldview is more than just belief, it’s about faith, but not in religious sense, and can be summarized in a saying you probably heard many times: That’s how the world IS. No matter how things might be bad people have faith it will be better some day and they can’t get it won’t be unless we change the system. Also, known bad is generally preferred to unknown good.
“It’s Abuse!” – David Pakman In Heated Tax Debate With Patrick Bet-David
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rzVzk3jxMk
Not the most exquisite debate ever, but I think it serves well to show the kind of garbage some people believe.
@mkey
Thanks, watching now..
@mkey
When David Pakmam was attempting to justify his stockholm syndrome-esk brainwashed stance about how he thinks the state is necessary in that debate I immediately thought of this quote. https://archive.org/details/john-fire-lame-deer-sioux-lakota-1903-1976-copy-copy
I stumbled across this interview on that same youtube channel you linked above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiKT2z5HiDU
I bought the $100 Government bundle from the French guy squared. I like how they and Keith Knight put their content out for free in electronic format form, too. It’s a good model, I think.
I’ve listened to several Keith Knight podcasts in recent weeks while @ work, too. I think I was looking for content by Mark Passio and he came up (on Keith’s show) discussing natural law. I come in recent years to a /pol/-tier ‘far Right’ worldview, by way of Red Ice’s politics shift circa the mid previous decade. I think the first after the Passio one was with David Cole. I guess I wasn’t initially aware that Keith was Jewish, and ‘David Cole’ is a pseudonym for a Jew who is a(n official) Holocaust narrative denier. ‘Based!’, as we say in the far right Nazi troll farm of 4chan. Anyhow, I wouldn’t mind reading more up on Thomas Sowell, now, and even Pat Buchanan with Keith’s ebullient praise of them.
Many in the ‘far right’, or reactionary right or alt-right or whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-call-that-milieu will still have problems with Sowell, no doubt, and certainly the libertarian ideology. I can be sympathetic to a persuasive argument from this camp, but I am hoping that these divergent, online political and ideological camps can start dialoguing more in this decade. James Corbett has been on Red Ice in the past, and I think it would be a gesture of good will if more of these conspiratards, civic nationalists, libertarian-types (including you ‘voluntaryists’) and others who were former guests of Red Ice would consider chatting Henrik up again. I think Greg Carlwood of The Higherside Chats claims in a recent members podcast that the Super Important James Corbett is too busy and preoccupied to do the 2-hour podcast interview format these days (I’m completely making up that characterization, btw. I’m sure Carlwood was gracious to Corbett regarding the fielding of that question by a listener). Still, maybe James would have a half hour to bury some kind of ideological hatchet with Palmgren at some point.
Another conspiracy camp fellow, ‘snychromystic’ Christopher Knowles claims that Henrik and Red Ice is ‘dead’ to him. Well, fuck you, you Gen-X shitlib. If you can’t appreciate why many in the younger demographic camps have been persuaded by JQ memes (admittedly many of these males or younger men [and often unmarried and/or without families – certainly a talking point worth having in itself amongst the proposed parties concerned]), infographics and the culture of further right message boards and emergent media since the Syrian war and the refugee migration crisis en masse in Europe (let alone the U.S.’ issues with open border policies and woke, Marxist liberalism gone wild), then maybe you’re ‘dead’ to me, too. Anyhow, I predict that spiritual boomer is going to have to reckon with the ‘Nazis’ they despise on the horseshoe right this decade (insofar as having dialogue with them). You’ve always been ahead of the curve, James – be proactive in this and make some good faith gestures in this direction!
[SNIP – Please keep comments to 500 words or less. Longer comments can be split into multiple posts. -JC]
Hey James! Tell Tony about liberstad, tell the audience about liberstad. I just found them after i had to google the Norwegian name for voluntaryism. I feel it’s kinda cool that little Norway has this community…!
https://www.liberstad.com/
Great ideas, and info, but the public has to just start acting and not likely that will happen.
The US has a constitution and if we ever chose to shake off the brits and their imperialism and expunge ourselves of dual citizens, then we might rely on the innate human power that is entrenched in the document.
All too many “ifs” and no reason not to take the Voluntaryist approach, it is human and normal and the underlying thing that makes anarchy desirable.
If there is truth that is written in a document (that is also innately imbued and embodied within each of us independently of the document) than I would suggest rather than glorifying documents, document writers, or institutions claiming to protect the assertions about “freedom” and “rights” made in the document, we should help guide people to look within to directly perceive the truths for themselves, so they can become walking embodiments of those truths. That way, humans beings would no longer require any external force, institution or other individuals to remind them of that which they already possess within.
Has anyone here seen a film called “Summerhill” (2008) ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxngqMavda0
I have not watched it all yet but it is supposedly a fictional depiction of a real school in the UK.
There seem to be Voluntaryist themes being explored in the film from what I have seen so far.
Found this on the website for the real life school that the story in the film I linked above is based on:
“Self-government at Summerhill is a well-oiled machine, having been in operation since the school began in 1921..
We are a self-governing community
Which means that the whole group makes all the decisions regarding our daily lives in the school.
Each adult and child has an equal vote. Thus the youngest child has the same voting power as the Head. Not only do the children have equal power in the school meetings; they also vastly outnumber the adults.
New children at Summerhill join a mature working unit of self-government with almost a hundred years of experience behind it. They learn as part of the unit about .. their own rights and those of other people. But most of all they learn to take responsibility for themselves and for others.”
(from: https://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/self-government )
Argument, let’s use voluntaryism because anarchism became tainted is just bad. What, we’ll have to come up with new name every time the previous won’t be good enough for general use.
Also, as far as I understand voluntaryism is more a libertarian flavor of innumerable flavors anarchism. Anarchism’s purpose is a flourishing society. How can voluntaryism, that is so individualistic (a product of western thought, mostly English speaking thought), bring about a flourishing society is a mystery, of course, not for the faithful.
One thing is certain, read also non English European authors. Proudhon is a must. Basically, it is about a philosophy. There is a huge difference between English speaking philosophy, roughly, so called analytic philosophy and European philosophy, so called continental philosophy. The latter is better suited for profound questions and that certainly is the case. We need much much more than just abolishing the state, rational argumentation and psychological manipulation. When we will realize this and have at least provisional answers we will get people on our side.
I’ve always found this episode very interresting. F-I.W.
https://www.corbettreport.com/and-then-there-were-none-film-literature-and-the-new-world-order/
@Theo
Yes! If it wasn’t for Hollywood’s proclivity to water down, distort, smuttify, neuter and otherwise infect cool stories and ideas with toxic materialism, statist overtones and the glorification/desensitization of violent acts I would say “Man that book would make a great movie!”. 🙂
On Monday Feb 6, 2023 U.S. time, the CorbettReport.com Home Page had a…
FEATURED VIDEO
Are You Subscribed?
(video 4 minutes)
James Corbett walks the walk when it comes to Voluntaryism.
(literally in the video)
I hope that people grasp this aspect.
CorbettReport.com’s content is all given freely and voluntarily.
Supporting Corbett is voluntary.
𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐄𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬
This post explores Statism through the lens of the Permaculture Ethics, touching on Voluntaryism, Brehons, “The Indigenous Critique” offering sign posts to instead choose a different future.
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/why-involuntary-governance-structures