Thanks for the splitted answer, it is a very nice choice. So here we go on the meta-discussion, cuz i think we still have disagreements on the nature of what we both said.

A - The circular reasoning

We indeed agree on the fact that human history shows that states have won out over their alternatives during the last 5 000 years, approximatively.

You seem to pretend that i dismiss the causes of this. As i said two comments ago in the summary, i simply hold a different explanation : you think states dominate because they’re efficcient for stability, i think states dominate because they prey on other forms of organization. If you really think i dismiss this, i just give another explanation.

I maintain the circular reasoning part : to sum up how you turned it in your last answer, you say 1) states are the norm because states are necessary, and 2) states are necessary because they have advantages. But why do they have advantages that the other forms of governement do not have ? Your proof before that was “there is only states that succeed, the other forms disappear”. So you just add one step, but in the end it’s the same thing : on one hand, you explain the dominance of state by their necessity, on the other you explain their necessity by their advantages, which are prooved by their dominance. Either i misunderstand some part of your position, either it is circular.

B - The pride & the pride of being part of something greater

I owe you an apology here, as my last comment taken as is was indeed focusing on pure pride. I should have added that not only did i claim only some people lack it and not humanity as a collective, but more than that, i did not talk about pure pride, but “pride of being part of something greater”, which we both agree is less common than pride itself. I don’t know why i didnt, probably just skipped to another part. This makes my strawmaning complaint stronger though.

C - Practice and theory

I dont say that practice and theory are entirely separate categories. They are different level of debate though, and you cannot answer one with the other. You can support one with the other, but not answer one with the other. To explain better, in your example of anarchy being a failure, there should be an actual problem (misorganization, miscommunication, etc) that leads to anarchy failure, and this problem could be linked to theory. Exactly as you said in your islamists example, the actual problems of islamists systems can be linked to qoran theory.

Funnily enough, the point i criticize you for is exactly what you criticize islamists for : when you give an answer on the practical side, they jump to the theoric side, and vice-versa. It’s strange that you can see that for them, but not for you.

D - Strawmaning

There is a misunderstanding here. My accusation of strawmaning is on the pride part, not on the arbitrary distinction of how to classify violence.

E - On historical matters

Thanks for acknowledging the historical examples. We indeed have a very different definition of stability and order (especially on political unstability, and internal fighting), but it’s not the only explanation to our difference of explanation here.

One of them is the way you attribute the causes of events. When you say “Anarchists were crushed by Franco’s fascist troops”, it seems that you take it as a proof that anarchy leads to unstability. But to my eyes, the people responsible for unstability here are the state troops. I guess the first one is true on a broader sense, and the second one on this specific situation.

Another one is on the knowledge we have of it : i’m not sure what you mean by A lot of people tried to enforce their own justice and take governance into their own hands and thousands of people died because of this.. If it’s about war, yes, anarchist armies are as other armies, they cause a lot of useless death. If it’s about something else, i’d be glad to learn about it !

Last one is a bit of nuance, especially on the Ukrainian part : there was indeed a system of governement backed by an active military, and this leads to a form of monopolization of violence. But i would not call it a full monopolization of violence, as the military government did not take every decision, and let the regional committees take a lot of decisions, and the local soviets organize freely. Also, all of those systems (both military and governement) were organized along anarchist principles : direct election of delegates, immediate recall, autodiscipline (this one specific to army). To be clear, what i challenge precisely is : the extent of centralization of power (it existed, but it was quite diminished compared to actual state), the extent of monopolization of violence (it existed, but as there were fewer decision to enforce, the monopolization was less important), the non-anarchist aspect of the movement (it is clearly an anarchist movement using partially non-anarchist methods (but not only non-anarchist methods)).

Lastly, and i’m sorry to bring the language part again, but here you’re giving good examples that the examples i gave were far from perfect. But the point you made before was that you never get stability or order at any point. I claim that you did, during a few months in the Commune, a few years in some regions of Spain, and by short intermittences during the Ukrainian revolution. Sure, it’s not much. And the reason why it’s such little is another topic we discussed. But not much is not the same as nothing. This is, i think, the main explanation of our disagreement here, beyond slight adjustments (causes, knowledge, nuances). In the end, we are saying the same thing : i say “there is a little bit of stability and order”, you say “there is not much stability and order”.