Context: a broken step is someone or something within your community which only the locals know to avoid.
Suppose we have a confederation, and someone within the confederation is accused of being dangerous to others in some way. If we kick them out then what stops them from going somewhere else and repeating the pattern? Or coming back for revenge? Or, Stirner Forbid, they’re innocent? And even if they are dangerous, is that any reason to turn them away? We make considerations when it comes to wolves and cacti but draw the line at cousins? But they could hurt the community… you see my dilemma.
Edit: this is not a hypothetical, but I don’t want to get into details. We’re not going to beat anyone up because we can’t confirm anything actually happened.
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Imo the only realistic option is rehabilitation and repair. Cutting people off from society is pretty hard-core and way more cruel than involuntary rehab.
100% agree.
Threat of social exclusion is a threat to material conditions. Practically noone can survive completely on their own. It invariably creates a toxic social atmosphere of mistrust, as the first priority of each individual must be self-preservation. If you feel like someone is out to get you excluded from the group, for any reason big or small, then you must be out to get them first.
Social cohesion is built via trust, trust comes when you believe the community at large has your best interests at heart. Preservation of the group becomes more important than preservation of the individual.
Its certainly a hell of a lot of mental and emotional labor to rehab problematic people, but the payoff is a system that’s sets people up for success.
Soooo…the idea going in is already to avoid or kick someone out, im not an anarchist but i used to be one and I dont think my answer regarding this kind of hypothetical has changed since I was. So I’ll try to be as anarchisty as possible here. What happens to a person everyone locally knows to avoid in the first place? If theyre cut off from community and the necessary services those provide that leaves next to no hope for rehabilitation and also would mean they’d just kinda…die if cut off from a system based on mutual aide cause theyre to be avoided. I dont think any society should starve people as punishment, so it’s either you have to be unconditionally willing to help people or the whole thing is doesn’t really work. My conclusions for what to do isn’t anarchist but I figure any society anarchist or not cant jusr excile people to the wilderness or socially shun them.cause historically that’s tantamount to torturing someone to death
Not a hypothetical. Actual thing I’m currently dealing with.
Your first two sentences started with the word ‘Suppose’. If this is a real situation then I would need to know what is really happening. I dont really think what you have could really be called a confederation either, it’s an org at best and friend group at worst. A anarchist confederation is bigger structurally than something happening in your own life or it would make the news. So if its something youre currently dealing with, you can kinda just cut them off, maybe for an agreed upon period of time since you arent referring to a hypothetical anarchist society but a real life org and whoever gers the boot isn’t gonna lose access to food or shelter over it.
You’ve gotta make it awkward until they step up and improve, or they get fed up and leave. Make a fuss when they do something bad so everyone knows. Tell new people whatever’s wrong with that prson (and that they’re working on it (they are, right?)) AND tell the person in question that you said something (how is this supposed to get better if they don’t know they’re a problem). Don’t be a bunch of conflict-averse nerds who will let anything fester to avoid a fight.
This is impractical in organizing. We don’t have time or energy for this. And the org has a mission, it puts other people off, new members see dysfunction.
In every anarchist space I’ve been in, people let whatever harm happen until it crosses some unspoken line, and them everyone decides to kick that person out and cut them off in a really harsh way. Even when they had devised a code of conduct or adopted “anti-racist” principles or whatever, they would allow the thing to happen most of the time until something egregious would force them to follow their own stated agreements in that particular case.
The answers you seek have been written about in works of restorative and transformative justice. That is where I would look. The prison abolitionists have tried to answer the question of how do we create justice and accountability.
I looked for an article I had read that your post reminded me of but I couldn’t find it. It was somebody talking about how ridiculous it is having communities constantly on guard because a predator was just left in their midst and everybody just treated it as one of those things. The author thought it was less a broken stair and more a pit trap for the naive.
There is a cost to leaving predators in your community. Vulnerable people will be harmed and leave. I’d be out if I find an org had somebody they considered dangerous. You can find example after example of destroyed disbanded orgs because one predator was left there festering. Women lqbtq and poc disabled people trans people will leave and they should but probably not before they are harmed. The police themselves have sent sexual criminals as saboteurs.
Having accountability requires the person who is causing harm to do work and make change and recompenses and if they will not then gtfo. Most of your reason for letting this person potentially stay is rooted in fear of what they will do or duty to care for them. Our duty to care for others is nullified when people do not respond with care to us. Toss them out and if they want back they can change.
I feel a lot of the “broken steps” that I have met only exist because it’s illegal to beat the crap out of them.
Here’s why I’m against that: even in recent history, people have beaten and killed people for being homeless, or gay, or cross dressing, or being the wrong ethnicity for that part of town. The community’s idea of a ‘broken step’ could be my right to simply exist. There has to be a discussion on whether the behavior is actually harmful or just unlike the typical. Walking through a neighborhood by itself is not bad – not even if you look atypical. Walking through a neighborhood with, say, a political sign might be an issue in some cases but fine in others – unless the sign has easily recognized hate speech, a swastika, or such, you’d have to spend some time figuring out if your objection is legitimate.
That said, creating a community, book club, gaming group, or other voluntary subgroup can put hard limits on allowable behavior by members, and if the rules aren’t followed, you can educate violators or kick them out, but you still can’t beat them up just because they didn’t act as expected… Who’d join AA if people who relapsed were beaten for it?
Valid! I’m sure if the problem is ignored long enough it will sort itself out.
There have been various cases which eventually came to be well-known of people (all men iirc) were were exiled out of anarchist-type regional communities. Those people moved to a different town and started fresh, til they were eventually exiled again after causing a great deal of harm.
Revenge I’ve never heard of at least to any effect. Maybe someone had a fantasy.
Or, Stirner Forbid, they’re innocent?
Stirner? what the actual shit is wrong with you. I’d write more about the question posed but with this additional context I can’t really know what you mean by “anarchist” but it could be any twisted up right libertarian shit. Impossible to properly respond with dearth of shared context. I suggest you do whatever feels good, what else even is there. I don’t even know how someone who invokes max sterner can complain about the actions of others. Probably he was just living his full self. Pairing this with the idea of “innocent” only serves to muddy things.
Long story short, to full deal you need to properly understand the context + your limitations as individual and collective. If your collective is full of people who think max sterner is cool, then you should probably push for exile because nothing more sophisticated will be possible. And you’ll be lucky if you can even accomplish that. More likely the aggressor gets elected chair of the events committee.
It was a joke. A play on “God forbid” because an individualist would see themselves as a god. If I were an actual egoist I wouldn’t be asking others for advice.
I see. Well that’s good.
Make them wear a scarlet letter that is sewn onto all their clothes.
Do you want lucifer’s baby? Because that’s how you get Lucifer’s baby.
My opinion is kick them out.
And if you’re not already working with other groups, you should start and then you should let them know
