Conscience doesn’t exist, it is a creation and product of social upbringing. The free man has no conscience for he has not ben taught right or wrong. He has no need for it. For the true individual would never be in the situation where right and wrong would apply.
I don’t think he understands what he’s saying, but there’s some insight to it: conscience is absolutely a product of social upbringing.
Watch young children playing. Why do they play sports? Because they each want to do well, and be recognized as doing well. It’s a natural instinct. Why do they play on teams? Because they’ve realized that an all-out competition can only lead to one winner. They’ve realized that, to have a significant chance of winning and receiving recognition, they need to form teams that function as one. The teams’ best interests are their own. That’s conscience.
It becomes more complicated than that. People form relationships with each other. What are relationships about? They’re about doing well and receiving recognition. Think about conversation. A person in conversation is trying to do something: to be funny, to prove a point, or so on. That’s why small talk is unsatisfying, unless it leads to something more: no one is trying to do more than repeat a few cliches correctly. Why do people try to be funny or prove points? Because they receive recognition. It’s completely unsatisfying to say something funny and have no one laugh, or prove a point and have no one acknowledge your proof. People just want to do well and be recognized for it.
Why do people have conscience? People gradually become aware that everyone wants recognition for what they do. The best way to ensure recognition for oneself is to form a society where people mutually agree to recognize things that are done well. The conscience is a developed awareness of that societal situation; it’s what enables society to function. It’s absolutely a product of social upbringing.
Besides, the original anarchist movement was a sustenance agreement between farmers in order to pool their resources together in order to have a better life. Between them there would be no laws to regulate that relationship as they would agree mostly on everything.
I’ve got some notes of my own when we studied the birth of the leftist movements, we also covered anarchy a bit, so…just need to find them is all.
What exactly is he trying to say? I read through a few of his posts and he contradicted himself a lot.
Opinions on some of the things that were said:
No. I am saying the conscience is right and wrong. You do not have a consciece if you don’t think as things as right and wrong.
I don’t believe conscience is what he says. That would be your sense of morals. Conscience deals more with that feeling of guilt you get after you do something wrong. Actually that statement is confusing, it’s stated wrong.
Then what would you think them as? Right and wrong always exist. Just like good and evil. Black and white. One can’t exist without the other, and when both are abolished, you have nothing. There is no such thing as having no right and no wrong. Not having a conscience is not listening to your “inner voice”. it’s not, not having any common sense.
This is more of an assumption. This isn’t really proven to be true. It’s just a belief.
Oh, on actually reading his posts, he actually never said the following (which you calimed he said):
There is no conflict of interest of opinion in the absense of social order.
That is, well, the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of and the only point which I saw as incorrect. Everything else he says seems to be, in fact, right. Conscience is actually a result of social conditioning. Notice how the dictionary says <i>moral</i> and <i>ethical</i> aspects, both of which are directly linked to societal influence.
Edit: He was mistaken, IMO, on one more point.
He probably learned in his psych class about negative consequences discouraging actions that are regarded as the cause of the consequence. However, B.F. Skinner, during his experiments, also observed that reward was also an effective way to encourage actions, so punishment is not the <i>only</i> way of giving an individual ideas along this line.
Oh, on actually reading his posts, he actually never said the following (which you calimed he said):
Most of it was implied, at least to my interpretation. I went off on wild tangents on one or two sentences which he said. he did point out that an anarchist system could work with order, and without government dictating to us, that we could be “free” as individuals without any sense of higher order. This tied in with the whole conscience thing, and we could be without morals if we all were taught the same good things in childhood which are, according to him, unteachable later on in life.
I hope it cheers you up 