My personal philosophies are a good mix,I believe.

From Paganism:An it harm none, do as you will.
I don't care who a person loves as long as it's a consentual(and legal) relationship.And I sure as hell believe in doing any kinky thing you get off to in your own bedroom!If it's not harming anyone.

Buddhism:Believe nothing that does not appeal to your own common sense.
I question anything that doesn't seem right to me and some things that do.

Taoism:Balance, there can be no light without shadow,no good without evil.
Without the evil in the world how would we measure the good?How would we measure one thing if we didn't have it's opposite to measure it by?How could we describe the sparkle of the stars if we didn't have the black sky to see them against?

And I also believe very thoroughly in karma!You do something bad,it's gonna bite you in the ass!

There's something wrong with the old 'Do unto others as you would have them do to you.'...

What if ur a masochist? That would imply that you should hurt other people too. Not everyone likes the same things to happen to them or to be treated in the same way.

It should be something more like: 'Treat others as you honestly judge that they would like best to be treated'.

But then you'd have problems with people who can't empathise or relate to other people... this rule wouldn't mean much to them. But then in practice, neither does the old version...

This is a pretty fundamental and good social philosophy to live your life by.

I guess some other good things to realise are that everything is relative - eg; if everything was good, you wouldn't be able to appreciate it, so you need bad. You can't have good without the bad to compare it to. If everything was the same, it would be boring. Like in Vanilla Sky: 'without the bad, the sweet ain't as sweet'... or something...

And something that needs remembering: everyone wants to be in control, but no-one wants responsibility, yet you can't have one without the other. Only take control if you can take responsibility. I guess Spiderman's uncle ben summed that up better: 'with great power comes great responsibility'.

And also, doing good for everyone is much more satisfying and rewarding than doing good just for urself.

I have my own 10 commandments I live by.

First and foremost, do no harm.
Second, be respectful.
Third, be charitable. Excess wealth serves no purpose when kept to self, escept for making greedy merchants happy.
Fourth, be cautious and think things through
Fifth, learn how to preserve oneself.
Sixth, never add unneeded burdens on your life
Seventh, try to learn as much as possible in your life
Eighth, do not try to force your ideas on others
Ninth, do not show infidelity in your relationships or business dealings.
Tenth, do not be legalistic with these rules or other rules that are in your life.

"Drink Sprite. Kill your Thirst"

Same as ColdRedRain's, only I wouldn't call them "The 10 Commandments". Too Catholic-Christian-sounding. Speaking of religious beliefs, I'm agnostic. I HAVE NONE. Also: "There is no authority but yourself"--Crass. And my personal philosophy AND political affiliation: Anarchy [advocating the creation of a world based on mutual aid, cooperation and autonomy free of government control, capitalism and divisions based on prejudice--NOT chaos, terror and reckless destruction like the media says it is].

Chaos, terror and reckless destruction is how it is in practice when the inevitable multitude of dickheads spoil it for the rest of us. Yours is very idealistic and sounds very much like communism really. Only once people are able to be their own authority can things be the way you want it. And until then you're just gonna have to drink sprite and kill your thirst...

Hey don't try to push your beliefs on others!

Just kidding!

:b

Yeah, but that's not a philosophy. That's just a slogan. It hardly counts. Doesn't even really make sense if you really break it down, even as a slogan.

Personal philosophy of mine: Try to learn or create something every day. And don't be a douche.

erm...

you did notice that Pathogen mentioned a society being based on "mutual aid, cooperation and autonomy free of government control, capitalism and divisions based on prejudice"...

i fail to see how the above-mentioned is "chaos, terror, and reckless destruction" in practice =7 the description Pathogen just gave inherently makes society hostile to the selfish actions of "dickheads" who "spoil it for the rest of us."

Anarchism is a form of communism, technically - just, not the form which people typically think of (ie: Russia, China, Lenin, Marx, etc). Anarchists were actually calling themselves "communists" *before* the Bolsheviks of Russia even existed (though, admittedly, not before Marx was using the term, i think). Anarchism is essentially the form of communism (or socialism or whichever) which is specifically anti-statist, and generally anti-hierarchical. Due to this ideal, Anarchists have developed a rather complex praxis and theory in order to outline how society could be ruled in a non-statist, non-capitalist, non-hierarchical, socialist fashion (rather than just dropping the ball and saying "we're against this" but not saying "we're for that").

That's what Anarchism is, that's the Anarchy they want - to consider "Anarchy" as meaning a situation of reckless and irresponsible egoism with no regard for your fellow person, without free, cooperative and egalitarian organization... is something which makes absolutely no sense to Anarchists.

And, finally... how do you suppose people will be able to be their own authority in the future? Dont you think it will involve some hard work *today*, challenging the current system/s, creating alternatives, and convincing others to try this way and help with the challenging and creating? A society is what you make of it - if you dont put work into changing it for the better, or preserving the good within it, you'll get nowhere (even with one's efforts, you could still get nowhere, but at least you tried). As a result... i'm not going to put off being an Anarchist until Anarchy is created (if it ever is) - if people act like that, it'll never get done. ... perhaps you could consider that one of my "philosophies" (which i only partly satisfy for myself today -_-; ).

... sorry to anyone for kind of sidetracking this - i just cant easily leave such a challenge unanswered, when it comes to an ideal which i feel so strongly about. I doubt i'll convince many people to become Anarchists, but i detest seeing people not even know what it is, at the core.

/rant now -_-;

-Undecided

Undecided - the problem with stating one is an Anarchist is that there are a hell of a lot of people who, as I'm sure you have seen, don't actually know what it is really, yet claim they are one anyway. Thus, you're always going to run into people who immediately imagine the dumbasses who just like to spraypaint an A with a circle 'round it on things and think Johnny Rotten was God. Detest it all you like, but so long as you identify with something that is largely misunderstood (such as the Gothic subculture, for instance) there's really little use in getting agitated over it.



Edited By Lunamoth on 1113265474

lunamoth: yes, i know... and i do apologize for being somewhat hot-headed over it... and, hell, i know that a few years ago i was certainly no better! I would've made just about the same argument...

but, i suppose that's one reason why i get such a feeling of urgency to explain it... i honestly believe it's one of the major ideologies of the modern time (er... i'm loosely using the term "modern," including basically from the US and French Revolutions and on), and it has a rather unique way of looking at the world, analyzing political, economic, and social issues - and whether someone believes in Anarchism or not, there seems to me to be a gaping hole in much discussion about these political/economic/social issues without the problems Anarchists will typically unveil (i mean, hell - Anarchists were able to accurately predict what Marx's authoritarian socialist ideas would lead to back when Marx was still formulating his ideas, and they were always fervent opponents of Fascism and were certainly never surprised when Hitler and Mussolini became the "official" enemy, among other things... that's really got to count for something!), not to mention the alternatives they'll try to argue for. .... well, probably among other reasons.

anyway, sorry for sidetracking this further - i promise that i'll clam up about this on this thread (if anyone wants to say something specifically to me, i'll just pm a reply back or something).

and, Silhouette - sorry if i came on a bit too strong -_-;

-Undecided

My philosophy is live in your little world without harm to others. And don't insult the freaks when in reality you are one too.

Yeah that was a joke... :S See Vashti's earlier post:


Its not my own personal philosophy - I've written about mine earlier in the thread...

I don't claim to be an anarchist. If anything, I'm some kind of Neo-Taoist. But the best classification of me is that I am me. I don't claim to know the whole history of anarchy and everything about it, but I do know something about it and I would like to find out more about it. I know that Anarchism isn't just rebeliousness and graffiti thanks. But from what I do know I am very skeptical.

Sure anarchy sounds nice, but there's a reason that its called an 'ideal'. And that *is* because it is not yet realistic. There are too many people around who would abuse it if it was actually widely practiced in society. Some people are too greedy or mentally ill or whatever and without rules and regulations they would cause chaos, terror and reckless destruction. Every society is opposed to the sorts of people who oppose it, but every society has a problem with dealing with them. Anarchism wouldn't be any different. There are a lot of them. This *is* down to human nature. And human nature will stay the same on the whole until we collectively evolve as a species to a different level of human nature that is compatible with anarchism. No matter how well you refine the theory or how many people you can to unite in your beliefs, you cannot defy nature. It rules you and it will defy all and any attempts to defy it with unstoppable force.

This is the Neo-Taoist part of me speaking here. I am a strong believer in hard determinism too. If nature wills it, you may have the desire to favour anarchy, but it will only let you go so far whilst the human species is not ready for it. Knowing this will only stop you trying if it has endowed you with enough apathy - if it has endowed you with enough strength of will, this will not phase you. Either way you can only be yourself with nature's tao and you can act however you like - and you will make a difference whatever you do, but only the difference that nature will let you make.

Why do you think Anarchy suffers from so much resistance? a lot of people, whether they understand it properly or not just simply don't like the idea of it or think its unrealistic. Some people like order, some people like a bit of order, very few can cope with none. At the moment, nature favours the political systems that are currently used.

And anyway, I believe nature favours balance. It also favours a limited amount of diversity either side of this balance, but the more extreme things get, the more those things are in the minority. And anarchy is extreme: just like Fascism, but on the other side of the balance. Sometimes the extremes can break through, but nature quashes them before long. You have to wait for the balance to shift towards anarchy before you can enjoy any real long term success with more than the minority. Sure put in hard work if nature has made you a hard worker - you will make a difference - but you can't force nature. You have to be patient.

Equality is nature's balance, but it likes its diversity, so no people will ever be the same in ability or situation, hence why class and hierarchy exists and why communism is so unnatural and therefore didn't work. People have a balance between egoism and altruism, and there is large diversity either side of this balance. It would be great if people helped each other mutually and only took what they needed, but that not realistic at the moment. This would defy our egoist part, and if that unnatural for you, you will suffer mentally for it.

Anyway, I could go on forever. I don't understand anarchy as much as some people here do - I'm not ashamed to admit that, but I'm not stupid or uninformed in general about how things work. I will understand what you mean if you explain it well and I want to understand it. And be as hostile or not as you like about it, it won't phase me.

Yeah, I was joking around too. Sorry if it didn't come out that way. (I mean, who would seriously consider whether the Sprite commercial was a philosophy?)

I'm inclined to agree. Experience has shown me much the same. I also noticed when you endure hardship, sometimes, you appreciate what you have and/or things you've worked for more.

As for other personal philosophies, I think many of the problems people have with one another could be avoided if they'd learn to mind their own business.