STer

TimS, I've learned that unfortunately whenever you question any of the arguments or data on the subject of nature vs. nurture regarding children and the problems they develop here, you will mostly have several people ignore your factual arguments and act as if you just endorsed abusing children. The idea that all of the ills of the world stem from child abuse and none of them come from any innate traits in any people is dogma to many here and is not up for reasoned discussion. This forum is great at reasoned discussion of many topics, but this one, I find, is as ideologically driven here as religion is to many religious people.

Since this sentiment exists in humanity, there will always be a State. I disagree. In my experience most statists are actually moralists who have been convinced that the state is a moral good. I would argue that the morality used to justify statism is little more than a thin veil over the will to power (whereas the morality of objectivism is a social anesthetic to make inferiors less of a burden on superiors). "Inferiors" and "superiors" in what way though? The free market tends to favor those who are superior at making money. What about those who are superior at other important things, such as nurturing or offering emotional support to family, which are often unpaid positions? Just as an example. The point is that "inferior" and "superior" are pretty broad judgments of an entire human being, especially when they may only refer to one's ability to create a lucrative product or service in a market economy. Also, why can't we aim for a balance in which there can be some room for competitive people to seek some advantage if they work for it and play by the rules while also offering some baseline of safety from complete exploitation?

If you have all these skills to deal with such situations, I don't have specific questions but rather I'd like to see you just share whatever you can. Sounds like you could write up a nice survival guide or at least top tips.

Game theory might lend some insight. If you look at the prisoner's dilemma, which deals with when one should cooperate vs. retaliate to attain the optimal outcome, the best strategy is usually "tit for tat." This strategy involves a mixture of cooperation and retaliation. Neither all one nor all the other is a wise strategy at all times. So you are right to sense that just blindly cooperating with everyone allows you to be exploited. You are also right to sense that just exploiting everyone all the time will soon backfire. A complex and wise mixture of cooperating and retaliating so as to stand up for and protect yourself is often best.

I have a problem with what you said because you based it on almost no facts yet you still put it forth very strongly as if it was based on facts and we're on a board supposedly dedicated to promoting empiricism and reason as its highest mission - even higher than promoting any particular views on childrearing. I think that's important to point out. If someone did the same thing to support something you disagree with you'd call it out that they had little evidence to back up their opinion. Day after day if people here see someone promoting religion without facts to base it on, they jump all over it as irrational. It's only when the same standard is applied on issues usually agreed upon here that you think it's unwarranted. This isn't a professional website for psychologists, correct. It's a website for philosophical discussion based on empiricism, that was my understanding. So when you put forth an opinion not based on empiricism, I pointed it out. That would be expected and appropriate given the forum and its stated purpose. I agree the best option would have been to suggest the foster parents stop spanking the other kids. And I wonder if the foster parents considered that or if social services made that suggestion and tried to work that out before taking the kid away. That would seem to me an ideal outcome. You want to talk about suggest? What the hell kind of freedom is that, anyways? So they suggest the parents don't spank? What then? If the parent's say, no, it's my family and I'll raise them the way MY morals and reasoning tells me to, then what? Should some "people" who don't agree FORCE the parents to stop spanking, or force a little guy out of the family that doesn't mind it? What the fuck, man? That's really contradictory for the NAP. So the parents spank their kids, and other people get to decide that: 1. Spankings are force, so we get to take your children by force 2. My reasoning is dead solid proof that spankings are terrible for children no matter how "YOU" define it, so I can tell you you are morally and logically less worthy of your freedoms. Being puritans about morals can be really fucked up, especially when it comes to breaking families apart. I "suggest" that anarchists practice what they preach and not start scare movements that infringe on peoples desires. For one thing, morals are a group of concepts that come about as a result of society. Without society people just do what they want to do. Morals are the idea introduced to people to put them in a certain state of mind to align a community so things run smooth, but morals don't exist outside of communities, states, nations, countries, clubs, groups, churches, and the workplace, all which are objects of States, and in which are shaped by the States people, who are shaped by the State itself over many years of conditioning, or sudden mass trauma. So somebody preaching that spankings make for bad parental methods is no different to me than forcing will on me by a disagreeing party whether right or wrong, which matters fuck all not... Confusing since I was offering a suggestion to AVOID breaking a family apart. Instead they DID break the family apart. I was offering an alternative that I hope would have led to a better outcome. Also yes spankings are force, that's a physical fact. The NAP says you should not initiate force. Using force to prevent someone else who is already using force is not initiation so it is allowed under the NAP as I understand it. The NAP doesn't disallow force, it disallows aggression - the initiation of force on someone who is not themselves using force. This is why I sometimes wish FDR would just come out explicitly as having an agenda rather than say it's just philosophy. Most people here oppose spanking. I do too though I'm a little less militant about it than some of the people here. I see this as a rare case where, due to some pretty strange circumstances, there was something non-physically-violent yet possibly even worse than spanking which took place and even spanking would have probably been less damaging.

I meant you made a judgment on the case with hardly any facts about this case. You may have lots of knowledge about the field in general, but with hardly any information about this particular case you don't know which lessons from other cases apply here or do not. I didn't disagree that the kid had abandonment/neglect issues. That was made clear in the story. He said that explicitly. What I found odd was you seemed to jump to the conclusion that the foster family did something wrong, rather than that his abandonment issues came from being orphaned in the first place and this very loving foster family did all they could to help him when they surfaced in their presence precisely because he finally felt safe enough to open up. I think that's just as likely and I don't see how you'd distinguish between the two. If you think the fact that they spank their other two kids automatically means they're terrible parents and were the cause of this child's abandonment issues, I think that's jumping to conclusions more than is merited. Wanting to fit in is perfectly normal and healthy at 12-13 years of age when identity is being formed. Nothing the least bit abnormal about that. Evolutionarily it makes perfect sense too. And he didn't want to fit in "by being hit." He wanted to fit in in every way, whatever those were, and being spanked seems to be the only way he felt he wasn't fitting in. Perhaps they were such good parents that they made sure he fit in 99.9% and this was the last thing and he wanted 100%. The fact they didn't originally jump in to spank him too is a point in their favor as better parents, not against. I didn't say anything about people "seeking to relive past traumas." I simply said often the symptoms of trauma only really surface when the person is in a place safe enough to allow it. PTSD symptoms often don't happen while the person is at war. They happen when they are out of that situation, no longer trying to survive every minute, finally in a place of some security, and now all the repressed symptoms have the time and space to surface. You're correct that what happens sometimes is that something in the immediate environment triggers the memories of the past. But that doesn't mean the trigger is anything in itself unhealthy. That's the whole problem. The past events sensitize the person to things that, on their own, would be perfectly fine. The person who was surrounded by gunfire now freaks out when they hear a harmless firecracker miles away. So yes the foster family offered a situation where this child's past traumas arose. But that doesn't tell us a single thing about whether the foster family was healthy for him or not. It is just as likely a child like that has their traumas surface in an environment precisely because it's finally safe enough to do so as it is the opposite. Just as someone earlier in the thread mentioned about their dog. Once in a safe environment, not an unhealthy one, the dog's traumas surfaced. This happens all the time when wounded people or other creatures finally find a loving home. The new family often has a hard time working through the past traumas, even in the most loving circumstances. There are so many triggers, often based on very superficial similarities, that it's almost impossible not to trigger things at first. So my main point here is that I think it's unmerited to judge this foster family. We don't know whether they were healthy and loving or not from the story. To jump to the conclusion that they weren't is prejudiced in my view.

I have a problem with what you said because you based it on almost no facts yet you still put it forth very strongly as if it was based on facts and we're on a board supposedly dedicated to promoting empiricism and reason as its highest mission - even higher than promoting any particular views on childrearing. I think that's important to point out. If someone did the same thing to support something you disagree with you'd call it out that they had little evidence to back up their opinion. Day after day if people here see someone promoting religion without facts to base it on, they jump all over it as irrational. It's only when the same standard is applied on issues usually agreed upon here that you think it's unwarranted. This isn't a professional website for psychologists, correct. It's a website for philosophical discussion based on empiricism, that was my understanding. So when you put forth an opinion not based on empiricism, I pointed it out. That would be expected and appropriate given the forum and its stated purpose. I agree the best option would have been to suggest the foster parents stop spanking the other kids. And I wonder if the foster parents considered that or if social services made that suggestion and tried to work that out before taking the kid away. That would seem to me an ideal outcome.

Very misleading to say "beaten" first of all as that implies a certain level of ferocity. We don't know the degree involved and that does matter. If your girlfriend said she wanted to be "spanked", I don't think we'd talk about it the same way as if she wanted to be "beaten." More importantly, this isn't a question of "Is it good to want to be spanked." The question is whether being spanked is always the worst option. Was it not possibly worse to take the kid away from this family? Did that not possibly do more damage than a spanking could have? If the option is stay and be spanked to a minor degree by his own request or be taken away, are you sure the first option isn't better? Which one is actually more violating of the child? Furthermore, the question arises of whether it's really up to you to decide what someone should want. If the hallmark of this "freedom" movement is that people should be allowed to have their preferences, as long as they aren't aggressing against others, then what difference does it make if you like what their preferences are? If some people enjoy being spanked, that's really their business. But that isn't even the case here. It's not that the kid enjoyed being spanked, per se. He simply enjoyed being treated the same as his siblings, regardless of what that entailed. If that is his value system and you believe in freedom, then why do you refuse to respect his preference?

Because I call mine a guess. You don't call yours a guess or admit it's a guess. I go out of my way to proactively stress the "we don't know" part. You seem to go out of your way to ignore it. If you gave your best guess while making it clear that you realize you could very well be wrong and that there is very little hard data to go on in this case, I wouldn't have a problem.

Did we read the same story? Where did it say this guy was crazy or had a sense of failure or is "fucked up"? I didn't even see anything about how successful he now is in life. I also am confused because he was an orphan and then this couple added him to their family. He was then taken away and his pain seems to mostly be focused on that separation. If there was authoritarian or neglectful parenting, it would seem that came before he was orphaned. I didn't read a thing about these foster parents doing anything like that. In fact, they resisted spanking him when asked, which would be a healthy sign. I'm not saying I know if they were great foster parents or not. None of us do. But it's strange how people are projecting all these things onto this story that I didn't see anywhere in the story. My reasoning goes like this: wanting to be hit -> sadomasochism -> somebody done fucked this guy up.Sure they resisted hitting him, but what about their other kids? No one's curious what their experiences might have been like? Or the effect that witnessing those acts might have had on this guy? I fail to see much difference between this case and those of women who are constantly dating abusive men (or vice versa). Seeking out abuse = not right in the head, imo. I don't disagree that the state meddling in this family's affairs may have exacerbated things, but concluding the story there shows a serious lack of awareness and self-knowledge. Masochism means when someone enjoys pain, per se. It doesn't sound to me like this person, as a kid, enoyed pain for its own sake. He just didn't care about the physical pain because the emotional pain of feeling left out was far stronger. So I don't think this has anything to do with masochism at all. His only "fucked up-edness" (more like understandable reaction for an abandoned child) sounds like it was a sense of being left out that probably came from being orphaned. The foster family is where it surfaced, but I doubt the foster family is where it originated. Often past traumas show their face later in non-traumatic situations precisely because that's when one finally feels safe to open up. It can be very misleading to think that the place an issue surfaces tells you what provoked it or whether that situation is healthy or unhealthy. It's like looking at stars. You're often seeing the past, not the present. I think you're really displaying one of the points I'm making. There is a tendency on this board - rightfully so - to be very upset by physical violence of any kind in any situation with children. But there are situations where minor physical aggression is not nearly as painful or traumatic as emotional pain, neglect or feelings of abandonment. I guess the point is that context matters. For some kids in some situations, another trauma, like being pulled away from a family one really likes after being orphaned, could be way more damaging than a spanking. I wonder honestly if even the social workers who worked on this case might grant now that, in the end, this may not have been the best decision. Of course we don't know the whole story so maybe there are other factors involved. But the point is, I guess, that dogmatic views are often problematic. Even a view that I share with most people here that violence should not be used with children can have some rare, odd, exceptions, or at least cases where some other concern takes precedence. It's not very commmon. But when the emotional wounds of abandonment are that strong, you have to consider whether the damage from re-triggering that is even worse than the damage of minor spanking. And degree does matter. If they were going to beat the kid mercilessly of course that would be absolutely unacceptable. But if it's a very minor spanking here or there vs. sending an orphan back to feelings of abandoment, it can be a tough call. There aren't any easy answers in some of these cases.

I don't have a specific claim of what happened. I try to remain as unbiased as I can until I have enough information to make a judgment and this story didn't offer that. That's something I wish happened more on this board. I wish people looked to Socrates more often and said "I don't know" a little more often. I didn't say there was no underlying motivation though. I said my best guess would be that the motivation was that his need to belong was far stronger than his need to avoid some possibly minor physical pain. This is understandable having been an orphan until that point. And as for him honing in on the spanking as the symbol of belonging, you seem to assume that the parents pushed this idea somehow. It could well be that he just saw that as the only difference and so it became a focus. If something else was the only difference, perhaps that would have become a focus. The content didn't seem to matter, it was what it represented. What I find odd is that when I read the story I thought he must have had a lot of trauma from being orphaned. The foster family sounded like a great improvement for him. So much so that being taken away from them probably damaged him even more than any spanking would have, especially under those kinds of circumstances. To me it seemed an example of how sometimes a spanking isn't the worst thing in the world. Depending on someone's particular vulnerabilities, something else could be much more damaging to them than a spanking. But right away two people start zeroing in on the foster family as if they did something wrong. But I didn't see anything in the story about them doing anything wrong with him. If I was going to look anywhere for the source of his pains, I'd look back to how he was orphaned and how that affected him. You say "You posted a link to a story on a discussion forum that is very well known for the study and discussion of childrearing practices." I'll say this yet again. This board promotes itself, above all, as a philosophy discussion, a search for truth. If this is the case, empiricism and remaining unbiased should be far more important than any particular view on any topic. If a particular viewpoint on childrearing takes precedence over an unbiased empirical search for truth, then it is false advertising. If so, FDR should be promoted as an organization that above all has a particular agenda and not under the guise of a philosophical search for truth. Which is it? Which takes precedence? The interesting paradox here, is if he wanted to be spanked, but wasn't, were his foster parents neglecting him? It's easy to claim some moral high ground on what is healthy behavior or not, but I mean the kid wanted spankings. Does that make him crazy or mentally ill? I'd say that it's not really anybody's business but his, and for him to be removed from his foster parents was "weird". Should they have spanked him? Probably not, because if he wanted to get spanked it wouldn't really be a punishment, but still that doesn't give anybody the moral superiority to say that somebody who asks for a beating is somehow less moral. After all, did he hit anybody else? Is it somebody's moral authority to claim who is sane and who is insane? Who is immoral, who is moral? Who is better, who is worse? I don't think so. I think every man has the personal authority to rule his reality the best way he sees fit, and either succeed or fail based on his own actions. Sanity is irrelevent. Yeah I think this is why the story really seemed interesting. It raises the question of what happens when two values, both held strongly in this community, conflict. One is the strong value for non-violence in dealing with children. The other is respect, to the greatest extent that is reasonable and healthy, for children's preferences.

I don't have a specific claim of what happened. I try to remain as unbiased as I can until I have enough information to make a judgment and this story didn't offer that. That's something I wish happened more on this board. I wish people looked to Socrates more often and said "I don't know" a little more often. I didn't say there was no underlying motivation though. I said my best guess would be that the motivation was that his need to belong was far stronger than his need to avoid some possibly minor physical pain. This is understandable having been an orphan until that point. And as for him honing in on the spanking as the symbol of belonging, you seem to assume that the parents pushed this idea somehow. It could well be that he just saw that as the only difference and so it became a focus. If something else was the only difference, perhaps that would have become a focus. The content didn't seem to matter, it was what it represented. What I find odd is that when I read the story I thought he must have had a lot of trauma from being orphaned. The foster family sounded like a great improvement for him. So much so that being taken away from them probably damaged him even more than any spanking would have, especially under those kinds of circumstances. To me it seemed an example of how sometimes a spanking isn't the worst thing in the world. Depending on someone's particular vulnerabilities, something else could be much more damaging to them than a spanking. But right away two people start zeroing in on the foster family as if they did something wrong. But I didn't see anything in the story about them doing anything wrong with him. If I was going to look anywhere for the source of his pains, I'd look back to how he was orphaned and how that affected him. You say "You posted a link to a story on a discussion forum that is very well known for the study and discussion of childrearing practices."[/font] I'll say this yet again. This board promotes itself, above all, as a philosophy discussion, a search for truth. If this is the case, empiricism and remaining unbiased should be far more important than any particular view on any topic. If a particular viewpoint on childrearing takes precedence over an unbiased empirical search for truth, then it is false advertising. If so, FDR should be promoted as an organization that above all has a particular agenda and not under the guise of a philosophical search for truth. Which is it? Which takes precedence?

Did we read the same story? Where did it say this guy was crazy or had a sense of failure or is "fucked up"? I didn't even see anything about how successful he now is in life. I also am confused because he was an orphan and then this couple added him to their family. He was then taken away and his pain seems to mostly be focused on that separation. If there was authoritarian or neglectful parenting, it would seem that came before he was orphaned. I didn't read a thing about these foster parents doing anything like that. In fact, they resisted spanking him when asked, which would be a healthy sign. I'm not saying I know if they were great foster parents or not. None of us do. But it's strange how people are projecting all these things onto this story that I didn't see anywhere in the story.

It's flabbergasting that in all your speculation, based on no evidence (and not even bothering to read the story) the only possibility you leave out is that he simply felt left out in that one area and wanted to fit in. I think that shows quite a bit of bias. You admit you don't have empirical evidence and, in fact, argue that it could not be obtained in any way. And yet you then go on to draw conclusions. Perhaps in other places I wouldn't harp on this but this is a website dedicated explicitly to empiricism so it's sort of frustrating seeing this kind of biased premature conclusion-drawing here of all places. But it just once again shows the point that when it comes to one of a couple of the hot button issues on this site, empiricism goes out the window and it's just ideology for some.

A validated child wouldn't observe his siblings being spanked and conclude that a spanking was the thing missing from his life; to give him a sense of belonging, of worth, and of knowing that he mattered. I suspect that he desired a spanking because he thought that he was missing out on the attention that his siblings were getting. I concur. What a lot of people don't realize is that children who behave badly are more often than not doing so in order to get attention, because when they aren't acting out, they're ignored. In this case, the child is looking for attention in the only way he sees any being given. I didn't see a single thing in the story or from him indicating he got any less attention than the other kids. So this is total speculation. It's frustrating being on a board dedicated to empiricism and having people thrust their ideology onto situations without evidence. Maybe he was being neglected so badly by the foster parents that he would have taken a spanking just to have any attention at all. I certainly did not hear anything that led me to think that. It sounded like he had a great time with his siblings, felt very loved and desperately wanted to stay there. But the spanking vs. non-spanking always made him remember he was "different." And he simply didn't want to feel different. In fact, he may have zeroed in on the spanking because it was the only real difference, which would mean in the other ways he was getting similar attention just like the other kids and couldn't understand why it didn't translate into that one area. I don't know the truth, but neither do you and so much jumping to conclusions goes on with this topic here. Where do you have anything to back up that this situation was similar to your dog in a kennel? Did you see a single thing in the story that pointed to that?

A validated child wouldn't observe his siblings being spanked and conclude that a spanking was the thing missing from his life; to give him a sense of belonging, of worth, and of knowing that he mattered. I suspect that he desired a spanking because he thought that he was missing out on the attention that his siblings were getting. What he was looking for was to be viewed "the same" way as the other siblings. The spankings were symbolic, as they were apparently the only thing where he was not treated the same. Symbolism can be huge. And for a foster kid, who already has a sense of not being part of a family, the pain of feeling different is probably much stronger than the pain of a spanking. I would think his feeling of not being part of something stemmed from before the foster family got him. These foster parents may have validated his every feeling and need. In fact, by not spanking him, many on this board would say he was in some ways treated even better than the siblings. But he didn't want to be treated better. He wanted to belong.

But he was validated by them. So much so that they eventually considered actually doing the spankings because he kept requesting them. It's interesting that the spankings are what he honed in on as symbolic of being part of the family. But I didn't read anything to imply that assessment came from anywhere but the kid himself. Also I think this is an important example that sometimes the meaning is more important than the action. This seems to be an odd case where "fitting in" was far more important to this child than anything else. And it seems like the damage done by taking him away from the family was worse than any spanking could have been, especially since the family, even if they had agreed to spank him, would have been doing so probably in the most minor way only at his own request. Obviously it would have been ideal to have him stay happily with the family without this spanking issue. But sometimes spanking is made out to be the worst possible thing that can happen to a kid. It seems like in this case, it may well have been far worse in the long run to have taken him away than to have even allowed him to be spanked in a minor way now and then. Just a really strange case. How often have you ever heard of a child in any situation wanting to be spanked? I don't think I ever have.

Well, at least in terms of the family dynamics, this is probably the weirdest story dealing with spanking of children I've ever read. Just read this article After years of separation, 32-year-old man to be adopted "I wanted to be treated like a real son," Griffin told CNN affiliate KSWB. "Their sons got spanked and I didn't." So he told a social worker that was what was going to happen. "I told her they were going to be spanking me. She told her superiors and her superiors told her I had to be taken out," he told KSWB. One day, foster care officials took Griffin away, saying he could not live with Godbold's family anymore."You can't spank foster children. Maurice very much wanted that," Godbold said. "We wanted him to feel like the rest of our kids. And there was a difference of opinion with some of the (child welfare) supervisors."

Daisy, It may seem odd posting this video here, but your story of how you were raised really brought it to mind. Both the lyrics and video. I have a feeling it applies to many people here actually.

I found Stefan's review of this film very interesting Black Swan Movie Review

Obviously you're committed to stretching the definition of the state far beyond what you surely know people here are discussing regardless how much evidence is shown to you to the contrary. Even Stefan, when he says "rulers" I doubt means something as informal as "any guy in a group who happens to have a little more power or influence." He can clarify that if he wishes. There is really nothing more to be said. If you want to stretch the definition of the state that way, you can say whatever you wish. It will have little if any relevance to the discussions people here have an interest in. So I'm moving on now.

And if you look at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism the first sentence is: Anarchism is often defined as a political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful. And "the state" links to the page I was showing you before. So if you think I'm "changing the meaning of anarchy" then I would have to disagree and say you are the one changing the meaning of it. I think you're mixing up the etymology of the word from what it means. Lots of words, if you go back to the Greek or Latin roots, come from certain meanings but that's no longer their meaning now. It may be that anarchism comes from root words that in their original languages meant 'without rulers." But that is not what the word means in modern English. Anarchism now refers to the belief in not having a state. Perhaps you've been misunderstanding that and it explains the confusion.

I gave you the definition of a state and I am referring to anarchism as the belief that humans can and should live without a state as I defined it. Not without "rulers" as you broadly define them as anyone who has more power than anyone else. If you are saying that you believe there will always be some people with some degree of power more than others, that's fine. You may be right. What is being discussed in this thread is whether we can live without a state, not whether we can live without someone with some power which you call a "ruler". If you disagree with that definition of anarchy then we are just discussing two different things. What I and others here are talking about is whether we can live without a formal, organized state. Do you think we can or not? Not "rulers" of any kind however you define it. Do you think humans can live without a formal, organized, centralized government?

You're going to have to take a real and honest stand, because you're faultering on anarchy's concepts. Anarchy is society without rulers. There is no evidence in natural science of a time when humans were equal, and when there wasn't a dominant member of the tribe that set the conditions for the rest to follow. No evidence. So when has Anarchy existed? It's a faith based concept that requires a belief in "some" future ability to do what science itself has never shown to exist in nature of humans, or any other life form for that matter. Competition is the method of all evolution, and all biologic subjects. We can't escape that. Competition admits to winners and losers, OBVIOUSLY, so the more consistent, or dominantly the winner wins, the more he will become " The State ". It doesn't matter thay you want to now call it some kind of vaguely decided "organized" State. That's disingenous. I showed you the dictionary definition of a state. Simply having someone in a tribe who is more or less dominant does not constitute a state. You would not find anyone of any credibility who would claim humans had states before the rise of civilization 10,000 years ago. You are continuing to twist the definition of state that we are using here to try to make it far more broad than it is. Tribes are absolutely not considered states. You can have an extended family of 30 or 40 or 50 people that live in close vicinity (which is basically what a tribe is up to maybe 200 people). If they have one or two people who are dominant in the group, does that family become a state? If you say yes then you have lost all credibility on this issue. A state is more complex than just having some people naturally be dominant within a group of people. As the definitions I showed you make clear, states are "organized." They are not casual or loose situations where someone just happens to have more influence. States are organized intentionally for the express purpose of governing. I don't know if this will sway you one bit (or if you can be swayed since you may just be playing around here) but this is so much the case that Wikipedia's page on this definition of a state has an entire section expressly confirming this. Look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)#Pre-historic_stateless_societies "For most of human history, people have lived in stateless societies, characterized by a lack of concentrated authority, and the absence of large inequalities in economic and political power." And... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)#History "The first known states were created in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, the Americas (e.g. Aztec civilization, Inca civilization) and others, but it is only in relatively modern times that states have almost completely displaced alternative "stateless" forms of political organization of societies all over the planet" This is such basic information that it's hard to imagine you don't know it. If not, then hopefully this clarifies for you. If you already know this and are continuing to argue then there is little left to say about it. And if you are going to try to claim Wikipedia is not a solid reference, just know that first of all some of these things have other references linked from wikipedia, but more importantly this is anthropology and political science 101 and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone of even the least credibility that would question it because these are definitional issues. Tribes are by definition NOT states. Clans are by definition NOT states. States are defined specifically to require formal, organized, centralized power precisely to distinguish them from these other models. It's truly hard to believe you're even arguing these points. For you to try and suggest that States only "could" be recognized as organized because of matching costumes, or metal badges, than you're WAY conditioned by The State. For all biologic, scientific, history that is documented BY scientists, there has never been a species that didn't act in accord with competition. The winners ALWAYS dominated/dominate, and who ELSE do you suggest becomes the STATE, but those most dominant. THIS IS SCIENCE. You can get rid of the white house, but you can not get rid of the winners, the most influencial, powerful, THEREFOR they will still be the STATE. Maybe not organized as you would deem appropriate, but they would still form and create the condition of all the people in it's reach. That is still, going to be the STATE. You'll still hate that element no matter what society happens. They will be the thorn in any proposed "moral" way that others want to live. There's complete evidence of that, and none of any period where people didn't win or lose, and didn't have the biggest winners create the biggest impact on the people. That is STILL the state. And those dicks will always be THE STATE, because their power comes from the ability to not bog themselves down with morals when gaining influence. Look at the government. It's funny because Stef and I agree that when you try and alter The State it doesn't work because the same dicks will find a way to rule in the new State. He fails to take the next appropriate step and observation. That is that you can remove the State all together, and those same dickheads will still find a way to rule in that environment as well. Why he can't accept this fact is beyyyyyyyond me.... So, Anarchy just isn't reality. Oh, how I wanted it to be, but facts are facts, and we grow and move on. The best we can be to ourselves is completely honest and ready to throw out failed concepts, and adopt more accurate philosophies. You seem to be under a couple illusions: 1) You seem to think that anarchists are not only saying we can live without a state, but that nobody will ever have more power than anyone else. This is false. Anarchists are defined as people who believe we can live without a state, period. There can be differences in power. That doesn't make it a state. Maybe some people have the idea that there can be total perfect equality, but they would be called something like Egalitarians. Anarchists do not have to believe any such thing. 2) You seem to think that because differences in power have, in recent years, sometimes eventually led to states that having differences in power is the same as having a state. It is not. Once again, stateless societies did not always have perfect equality. That did not make them states or equivalent to states. You can have differences of power within a state, as well as without a state. If you think that the existence of differences in power is the same as having a state then you have made up your own definition of what a state is and there is no basis for communication.

You're going to have to take a real and honest stand, because you're faultering on anarchy's concepts. Anarchy is society without rulers. There is no evidence in natural science of a time when humans were equal, and when there wasn't a dominant member of the tribe that set the conditions for the rest to follow. No evidence. So when has Anarchy existed? It's a faith based concept that requires a belief in "some" future ability to do what science itself has never shown to exist in nature of humans, or any other life form for that matter. Competition is the method of all evolution, and all biologic subjects. We can't escape that. Competition admits to winners and losers, OBVIOUSLY, so the more consistent, or dominantly the winner wins, the more he will become " The State ". It doesn't matter thay you want to now call it some kind of vaguely decided "organized" State. That's disingenous. I showed you the dictionary definition of a state. Simply having someone in a tribe who is more or less dominant does not constitute a state. You would not find anyone of any credibility who would claim humans had states before the rise of civilization 10,000 years ago. You are continuing to twist the definition of state that we are using here to try to make it far more broad than it is. Tribes are absolutely not considered states. You can have an extended family of 30 or 40 or 50 people that live in close vicinity (which is basically what a tribe is up to maybe 200 people). If they have one or two people who are dominant in the group, does that family become a state? If you say yes then you have lost all credibility on this issue. A state is more complex than just having some people naturally be dominant within a group of people. As the definitions I showed you make clear, states are "organized." They are not casual or loose situations where someone just happens to have more influence. States are organized intentionally for the express purpose of governing. I don't know if this will sway you one bit (or if you can be swayed since you may just be playing around here) but this is so much the case that Wikipedia's page on this definition of a state has an entire section expressly confirming this. Look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)#Pre-historic_stateless_societies "For most of human history, people have lived in stateless societies, characterized by a lack of concentrated authority, and the absence of large inequalities in economic and political power." And... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)#History "The first known states were created in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, the Americas (e.g. Aztec civilization, Inca civilization) and others, but it is only in relatively modern times that states have almost completely displaced alternative "stateless" forms of political organization of societies all over the planet" This is such basic information that it's hard to imagine you don't know it. If not, then hopefully this clarifies for you. If you already know this and are continuing to argue then there is little left to say about it. And if you are going to try to claim Wikipedia is not a solid reference, just know that first of all some of these things have other references linked from wikipedia, but more importantly this is anthropology and political science 101 and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone of even the least credibility that would question it because these are definitional issues. Tribes are by definition NOT states. Clans are by definition NOT states. States are defined specifically to require formal, organized, centralized power precisely to distinguish them from these other models. It's truly hard to believe you're even arguing these points.