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Not directly associated with Anarchism, but their school of thought could be crucial for personal enlightenment and being at peace with yourself. I only have basic knowledge of them so am also looking for enlightenment on their beliefs a little more.
by (170 points)

1 Answer

+2 votes
My short answer: not much.

My longer answer: not much. But, why?

Admittedly, I'm far more acquainted with Plato than with Confucius, but have read enough of the latter to understand the inherent tyranny of reified 'higher ideals'  so blatantly in favor of a ruling class structure, I have no affinity for it whatsoever. Never have. Most likely, never will.

I have no desire to try and make myself comfortable within the confines of authoritarian socio-political structures,* nor find my place or station within one. I have no desire to build a social pyramid-scheme with philosopher-king as capstone any more than I do to live my life based in a notion of a 'mandate of heaven' of some imagined golden era, be it of a benevolent dictatorship or otherwise.

I  despise both philosophers' denigration of our unique bodily, tactile existence. That, for me, is a deal-breaker. All thinking which seeks to assuage a deep fear of our ephemeral, conditional existence, through hope, resignation, and/or the postponement of joy, particularly  in the name of reification/absolutes, is wholly malodorous to me. I don't care to what degree they've become venerated as philosophers and how much their life-, world-, and body-hating thought has become normalized and manifests itself as 'society.' I see both projects as pretty much something to be joyfully dismantled, undermined, and destroyed at every turn.


* A sort of bourgeois 'progressive' Confucianism has become popularized today as 'positive-thinking' (http://anarchy101.org/9219/when-did-positivity-start-to-enter-our-culture#a9224)
by (7.5k points)
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