bears

Bear is LGBT slang for those in the bear communities, a subculture in the gay/bisexual male communities and an emerging subset of LGBT communities with events, codes and culture-specific identity. It also describes a physical type.

Bears tend to have hairy bodies and facial hair; some are heavy-set; some project an image of working-class masculinity in their grooming and appearance, though none of these are requirements or unique indicators. Some bears place importance on presenting a hypermasculine image and may shun interaction with, and even disdain, men who exhibit effeminacy. The bear concept can function as an identity, an affiliation, and an ideal to live up to, and there is ongoing debate in bear communities about what constitutes a bear, however a consensus exists that inclusion is an important part of the Bear Community . Bear culture helps in the eroticisation of obesity - something very necessary given modern physiques. There is also, anecdotally, more acceptance of tattoos and body piercing in the bear community.

Bears are almost always gay or bisexual men, although increasingly transgender men (transmen) and those who shun labels for gender and sexuality are also included within bear communities.

origins

Bear in LGBT communities is a metaphorical reference to the animal of the same name with similar notable features. These features include the animal's hairiness, its solid proportions, and its physical power. The bear is both fat and powerful, and the reconciliation of these two qualities is at the heart of the Bear concept's appeal. Bears are typically very similar in appearance to the ideal of the North American lumberjack. A romantic conflation of the bear and the lumberjack image provides the Bear trope its metaphorical appeal.

Lumberjacks were romanticised and fetishised in gay culture long before the arrival of the Bear concept, and the Bear concept retains strong traces of this older ideal. Lumberjacks appealed to gay men at aesthetic levels but also for reason of their homosociality, the fact that they were working class, and for the fact that their isolation from urban society (and hence from mainstream gay culture) opened up a fantasy of both secrecy and liberation, within an idyllic, rural, North American setting. These metaphors also lends themselves to the idealization of natural physical appearance and preferences over a more glamorized ones despite the convenience many bears may find living in urban settings.

The self-identification of gay men as Bears originated in San Francisco in the 1980s as an outgrowth of gay biker clubs like the Rainbow Motorcycle Club, and then later the leather and "girth and mirth" communities. It was created by men who felt that mainstream gay culture was unwelcoming to men who did not fit a particular "twink" body norm (hairless and young).Also, many gay men in rural America never identified with the stereotypical urban gay lifestyle, and went searching for an alternative which more closely resembled the idealised blue collar American male image.

a) early pioneers

-Bear Magazine

Richard Bulger, publisher, and his partner, Chris Nelson, started Bear Magazine—originally a photocopied flyer—from their apartment in San Francisco in 1987. Over a 5-year period, the magazine grew to an internationally distributed high-gloss format, but still intentionally kept the stark look of Chris' black and white photography. Their company, Brush Creek Media Inc., obtained a trademark on the name "Bear" for a men's magazine in 1992. Bearded, blue-collar, rural, and working-class men were idolized in the magazine.

-Lone Star Saloon

Richard's friend Rick Redewill, who had founded San Francisco's "Lone Star Saloon" in 1989, bought full-page ads in every issue of Bear; they soon found themselves with a huge success nationally, especially among rural gay Americans, who would travel to San Francisco just to find a unique "blue collar" gay bar, filled with a masculine-identified crowd who were radically different than the stereotypical gay bar image. The Lone Star became "ground zero" for the incubation of the Bear Community between 1990 and 1993. Unlike other gay clubs where dance music was the norm, the Lone Star played rock music for the appreciation of a more masculine-identifying customer base. Much of the Lone Star staff, including its owner Redewill, were overwhelmed by the AIDS pandemic which enveloped San Francisco's LGBT communities. The bar was turned over to new owners in 1993.

b) online

The Bear subculture preceded mainstream usage of the Internet and online social networking. Gay men who felt they were not welcome at their local gay meeting places or had no place found easy access to and acceptance from similar people online. Gay men became early adopters of the online Bear communities. Bear codes were developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s and were used in email and on Usenet boards.

The Natural Bears Classification System or "Bear codes" are sometimes used in e-mail (often as part of a signature block), web postings, and online profiles to identify Bear-related attributes of the author or poster. See, e.g., "The Bear Codes" on the Resources for Bears Web site. A sample Bear code is:

B4 s- m g++ w d+c t+ f+ k+ r e+(+?)

Bear Code may be the earliest example (1989) of Internet self-classification codes. Familiarity with this classification system is concentrated in the subcommunity of Bears who were early adopters of Internet communications, and is not widespread within the general community.

events and activities

At the onset of the Bear movement, some Bears separated from the gay community at large, forming "bear clubs" to create social and sexual opportunities for their own. Many clubs are loosely organized social groups; others are modeled on leather biker-patch clubs, with a strict set of bylaws, membership requirements, and charities. Bear clubs often sponsor large yearly events—"Bear runs" or "Bear gatherings" like the annual events such as International Bear Rendezvous, Bear Pride, TBRU, BearBust, drawing regional, national and international visitors. Many LGBT events attract a significant bear following, such as Southern Decadence in New Orleans. A feature at many Bear events is a "Bear contest," a sort of masculine beauty pageant awarding titles and sashes (often made of leather) to winners.

One of the largest and most notable contests, International Mr. Bear, is held each February at the International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. It attracts contestants, often with local titles, from all over the world. The first International Mr. Bear was held in 1992. The contest includes Bear, Daddy, Cub, and Grizzly titles with the contestant who receives the highest score winning the bear title, regardless of what type he is. Example: "Mr. Washington, D.C. Bear, 2006."

Gay "leather-bears" have competed in leather contests, and "muscle-bears" are another subculture noted by their muscular, often very large muscle body mass.

The Bear community has spread all over the world, with Bear clubs in many countries. Bear clubs often serve as social and sexual networks for older, hairier, sometimes heavier gay and bisexual men, and members often contribute to their local gay communities through fundraising and other functions. Bear events are common in heavily-gay communities.

The gay Bear community constitutes a specialty niche in the commercial market. It offers T-shirts and other accessories as well as calendars and porn movies and magazines featuring Bear icons, e.g., Jack Radcliffe. Catalina Video has a bear-themed line: the "Furry Features Series." Other adult studios who feature Bear-type men are Bear Magazine, 100% BEEF Magazine, BearFilms, Bear, Butch Bear, Raging Stallion, and Titan Media.

As more gay men have identified themselves as Bears, more bars, especially leather or western bars, have become Bear-friendly. Some bars cater specifically to Bear patrons. As Bears have become more common in the larger gay culture, and as more gay and bisexual men identify themselves as Bears, Bears have not segregated themselves as much as they once did. Gay Bears are now a mainstream element of the gay community at large because of the community.

characteristics

As the Bear Culture has matured, it has subdivided itself, and many claim that discrimination has increased within the Bear community as some men who self-identify as "Bears" or "Musclebears" do not welcome higher-bodyfat men at their events. A common criticism of the Bear community is that some self-described Bears tend to exclude men who do not fit their standards of what a "real Bear" is. Fat (or lack of it) is a political issue among Bears, some of whom see their overweight condition as a form of self-acceptance. Some also note a lack of racial diversity in the Bear community, perceiving hirsuteness to be a standard of physical attractiveness which genetically favors white men aesthetically, socially, and sexually among Bears. However what appears as racial discrimination to some may be a result of the fact that in the Bear context in which hairiness is prized, Native Americans, African peoples, East Asians, and Pacific Islanders, among others, tend to display less facial and body hair than men of Caucasian descent.

The AIDS devastation in San Francisco accelerated the generation gap between older and younger Bear-identified men, peaking in the early 1990s, with few connections that survived between the two. Some older survivors claim that the current Bear culture has become "shallow and catty," which is also their common criticism of mainstream gay culture. The allegation is that the younger Bear community no longer reflects the culture's original function as a social alternative for primarily rural and blue-collar, traditionally masculine gay men. Moreover, the proliferation of Bear pageants and their title winners ("sash bears") runs contrary to the early Bear community's identification with and admiration for raw, unself-conscious masculinity.

references in pop culture

Though not generally widely known outside of the gay community, the "Bear" concept has surfaced in pop culture.

a) live events

* On September 1, 2007, in a live interview called "The TrekTrak Show" with Star Trek: The Next Generation actors Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Brent Spiner (Data) and Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) at Dragon*Con, host Eric L. Watts (who self-identifies as a Bear) asked Frakes if he was aware that he was "something of an icon in the Bear community."

b) television

* In 2008, Logo aired Bear Run, a documentary about the bear community.
* The short-lived television sitcom Normal, Ohio starred John Goodman as a bearish gay man.
* On the September 25, 2007 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, director Kevin Smith revealed that he will be on the cover of the next issue of A Bear's Life magazine, and gives the audience a quick introduction to Bears in general.
* On the July 25, 2007 episode of Top Chef, the host reads a question from a viewer directed towards Tom Colicchio asking, "Do you realize that you are an icon of the Bear community?"
* On the American cartoon "Family Guy," a television show that Peter is watching called "The life and times of Grizzly Adams" portrays Grizzly Adams and his bear pal "Ben" as a feuding gay couple. Ben has a high voice and is washing dishes, a clear allusion to gay bears, as Ben is a very large grizzly bear in the real series and the cartoon.
* On the American television show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a stocky and hairy man receiving a makeover was informed by one of the hosts that, "In our community, you would be called a Cub!"
* The Kids in the Hall Season 5 episode 2 1994, a skit called Grizzly showed Kevin McDonald being "attacked by a bear" in a gay bar and surviving by flashing back to his Boy Scout training, eventually "playing dead."
* In The L Word, season three's episode 2 (Lost Weekend), characters Jenny and Moira enter a club's "Bear Night" and dance among large, bearded men.
* On the reality show Can't Get a Date, singer/actor James Bradford identifies as a Bear (but is shown actively trying to lose weight)
* On the June 19, 2006 episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert listed Bears as the top threat to his continued heterosexuality, a play on his previously stated fear of the animal of the same name.
* On the 11 August 2006 episode of Big Brother's Big Mouth, Russell Brand spoke to a member of the studio audience and asked them "You're what is known in the gay community as a Bear, aren't you?"
* On an episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson leaves his wife and while looking for a place to live, ends up apartment searching in Springfield's gay village. While standing with the closeted Waylon Smithers, a group of Smithers' friends drive by with one of them yelling "Hey Waylon! Who's the Bear? Woof!" (referring to Simpson.)
* In another episode of The Simpsons in which a Brown Bear wanders into Springfield, Homer stirs up the government to provide a "bear patrol" to rid the town of bears. On their protest march to the town hall Homer chants "We're here, we're queer, we don't want anymore bears" when Lenny asks if Homer came up with it Homer claims "Oh, I heard it at the mustache parade they have every year."
* In the animated TV series Freak Show, one of Freak Squad's members is Log Cabin Republican, a thin, effeminate homosexual whose superhuman ability is to turn into the "Burly Bear," a taller, more muscular man dressed in biker gear.
* On an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the actor David Duchovny claimed that his daughter nearly stumbled upon a web site dedicated to gay Bears, while researching a project on the animals. He then went on to awkwardly describe the Bear community, as well as claiming that O'Brien's former sidekick Andy Richter was considered a "cub" by members of the community.
* In an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia entitled "The Gang Sells Out," the gang, in trying to sell their bar to a representative of a national chain, discusses at length the differences between bears and twinks, when the representative informs the gang that he is gay.
* "Round Table" regular Guy Branum of the late night talk show Chelsea Lately has made many references to his homosexuality, including mentioning that he's a bear at least once.
* In the episode American Dream Factory of American Dad!, Stan Smith makes reference saying 'Did you know that a bear in the gay community refers to a hairy man?'

c) music

* Bearapalooza is a touring group of musicians identified as Bears, that was founded by musician Freddy Freeman in New York City in 2002. The event is co-produced by Nashville singer/songwriter Michael West.
* Bears On The Run is a tour of four solo Bear musician artists featuring Elijah Black, Matthew Temple, Shannon Grady and Kendall, and hosted by comedian Bobaloo. The tour has travelled to twenty major US cities.
* Bear Radio Network is a 24/7 radio webcast based in Rochester, New York for the Bear Community. The program features a mix of bear-identified indie artists.
* The BEARatones are a Seattle based Bear singing group who sing about the Bear community.
* Bearforce1 is a Bear pop-group in the Netherlands.
* The song "Oh Word?" by The Beastie Boys contain the lyrics "I swear it wasn't me in Bear magazine / Because I'm not that hairy oh contrary".
* The song "Walcott" by Vampire Weekend contains the lyric "Fuck the bears out in Provincetown," a reference to the gay community in the Cape Cod city of Provincetown.
* Singer Troy Rusnack often performs at Bear and LGBT events.

d) books

* Chris Nelson's original San Francisco Bear Magazine photograph collection, which first depicted bearish men from Bear Magazine are collected in The Bear Cult: Photographs by Chris Nelson (1992, ISBN 0-85449-161-9) from Gay Men's Press, London.
* Les K. Wright edited two nonfiction anthologies, The Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture (1997, ISBN 1-56023-890-9), and The Bear Book 2 (2001, ISBN 1-56023-165-3), both from Haworth Press.
* Ray Kampf authored The Bear Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Those Who Are Husky, Hairy and Homosexual, and Those Who Love 'Em (2000, ISBN 1-56023-997-2). The Bear Handbook website
* Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions (2009 edition: 1-59021-244-4), by Ron Suresha, contains 30 dialogues with 62 bear-identified men and bear-lovers from around the world, including interviews with comedian Bruce Vilanch, porn model Jack Radcliffe, and Survivor star Richard Hatch, as well as Eric Rofes, Michael Bronski, David Bergman, Jack Fritscher, Rev. Troy Perry, and many other gay and bisexual male authors.
* Jonathan Cohen authored a 2003 novel Bear Like Me (ISBN 1-56023-418-0), Southern Tier Editions
* In the book I'm a Believer by Jessica Adams (ISBN 0-312-32107-4), one of the central characters is a bear.
* PJ Gray authored a 2005 cookbook, More Bear Cookin': Bigger and Better (ISBN 1-56023-326-5), illustrated by Terry J; a revision of the 2003 book, Bear Cookin': The Original Guide to Bear Comfort Foods by PJ Gray and Stanley Hunter: both published by Harrington Park Press
* In Wayne Hoffman's 2006 novel, Hard, the central character is a Bear.

e) periodicals

* In her April 2002 Village Voice column, sexuality advocate and author Tristan Taormino unpacked some aspects of the subculture.
* In August 2003, weblogger Andrew Sullivan acknowledged himself a Bear in an article on the bear community for Salon.com.
* In the December 2007 issue of Instinct magazine, film actor, writer and producer Kevin Smith wrote "The Last Word" page, the last page of the magazine each month that is written by a celebrity. Smith writes about his gay brother Don, him being on the cover of A Bear's Life magazine and the related cover story, and his feelings about being a "Bear icon" in the gay community.

f) films

* American Pie 3, When Stifler goes into the gay bar he meets a girl who introduces him to her friend a big, hairy gay man who's called Bear.
* Cachorro (Bear Cub), dir. Miguel Albaladejo, Spain, 2004—a drama about an urban Bear who parents his nephew when the boy's mother goes to jail. IMDb page
* A Dirty Shame, dir. John Waters, U.S., 2004—a satirical film that includes a bear family: "Papa Bear," "Mama Bear," and "Baby Bear."
* In the film Another Gay Movie, reality show star Richard Hatch was referred to as a Million-Dollar Bear.
* In the 1996 film The Associate the character Laurel Ayres (Whoopi Goldberg) creates a male alter-ego and ultimately poses as him in extensive make-up. When a male competitor co-opts said alter-ego she appears in male drag to discredit him, and in so doing passionately kisses him in front of hundreds of business associates. She then turns to them and proclaims "Woof!".

Many short films about Bears can be seen in film festivals (gay/queer film festivals as well as local/international film festivals), including:

* Men on Fur on Men, dirs. Martin Borden and Clark Niklolai, Canada, 2003, miniDV, 8 mins.
* A Bear’s Story, dir. Vincent Mtzlpick, US, 2003, video, 21 mins.
* Porn Proof, dir. Chris Street, Canada, 2003, miniDV, 3 mins.
* More Than Hair Care Products, dir. Pendra Wilson, Canada, 2003, miniDV, 5 mins.
* Hard Fat, dir. Frederic Moffet, Canada, 2001, video, 23 mins.
* Lazy Bear 2002, dir. Greg Garcia, US, 2002, DVD, 18 mins.
* Making of “A Bear’s Story”, dir. Village TV, US, 2003, video, 7 mins.
* My Heart the Cook, dirs. Jerry McCadden and Clark Nikolai, Canada, 2001, miniDV, 2 mins.
* 30 Bears in a Bathtub, filmed by Jonathan Robinson, and features the Manbears group in Manchester. 12 minutes.

Bear adult movie actors of note include Hank Hightower, Buster, Mickey Squires, Jack Radcliffe, Dean Peters, and Steve Hurley. Musclebear actors appear in films issued by COLT Studio Group and Raging Stallion. Catalina Video has issued films in its "Furry Features Series" such as "Bear Country" (with Steve Hurley), "Bear Chested" (with Barry Barrett), and "Bear Bust" (with Paul Gator); a tie-in with its "Generation Gap Series" includes "Junior Meets the Bear Patrol" (with Damien).

g) other media

* Steve Carlisi from The Opie and Anthony Show is said to look like a Bear that 'enjoys a deep man kiss' from time to time. A popular sound clip on the show is Steve saying "grrr." Jim Norton is credited with originating this persona.
* Perhaps the earliest reference to Beardom in pop culture may be in a fake commercial on The Firesign Theatre's Everything You Know Is Wrong album: "See that bear, lapping up that good ol' country water? Kinda makes a big, hairy guy like me thirsty. That's why I like to wrap my lips around the tall, sweaty, head of a bottle of good ol' country Bear Whiz Beer! Like my daddy said, 'Son, it's in the water! That's why it's yellow!' "
* On An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder, Kevin Smith asked a fan who resembled a bear if he was gay. The fan said that he was not, and Kevin replied, "You would have more opportunities if you were gay," then gave a brief overview of the Bear community, and said that his close friend Malcolm Ingram was a bear himself. Malcolm told Smith he would be the Marilyn Monroe of the Bear community if he was gay.
* The Internet comic strip Bear With Me centers around the life of the bear Andy McCubbin, a rich entrepreneur and heir to the Howell/McCubbin fortune, and his friends and family. A vast majority of the other characters are also bears. The comics are created by Tim Vanderburg under the pen name Bruin.
* The Playstation 2 game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 features a closeted gay character named Kanji Tatsumi who at one point in the game remarks that he thinks Bears are "cute"
* Bara, a Japanese term, includes homoerotic media and art (mostly manga known as gei-comi) created by gay men for gay men and typically includes characters analogous to bears, though they usually don't identify as such.

terminology

Some terminology relating to the Bear community includes:

* Admirer - a term that refers to someone who is sexually or romantically attracted to Bears (this term is often used in various communities to describe an outsider who has sexual attraction to people within that community). Also often referred to as a Chaser. Admirers/Chasers can be of any weight, hairy or hairless and any age.
* Bear - a hairy man with a stocky or heavy-set build and facial hair. Can be clean shaven and of any age.
* Bear run - a gathering or circuit party for Bear/Cub types and their Admirers.
* Chub - a heavy set gay man. May or may not be a bear (Chubby bear is a common term)
* Cub - a younger (or younger looking) version of a Bear, typically but not always with a smaller frame. The term is sometimes used to imply the passive partner in a relationship. Can be hairy or hairless.
* Daddy bear - is an older guy sometimes looking for a daddy/son relationship with either a younger Bear, Cub, Otter, Wolf or Chaser.
* Ewok - A short bear.
* Goldilocks - a female, often heterosexual, who is often in the company of bears (a bear's fag hag).
* Leather bear - a bear with a leather fetish.
* Muscle bear - a muscular version of a Bear. A muscle cub is a younger or smaller, yet muscular, version.
* Otter - a man who is hairy, but is not large or stocky - typically thinner, swimmier's build, or with lean muscle.
* Panda bear - a bear of Asian descent
* Pocket bear - a short Bear.
* Polar bear - a silver- or white-haired Bear.
* Red bear - a red-haired bear. Also known as a Ginger Bear.
* Red Panda - A straight bear.
* Wolf - similar to an otter, though more aggressive. Tendency to be used for salt and pepper lean bears.
* Wolfman - an FTM (transgendered man) bear.
* Woof - a greeting used when a Bear sees another Bear in public and wants to express physical attraction.

flies

True flies are insects of the order Diptera (di = two, and pteron = wing), possessing a single pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax.

The presence of a single pair of wings distinguishes true flies from other insects with "fly" in their name, such as mayflies, dragonflies, damselflies, stoneflies, whiteflies, fireflies, alderflies, dobsonflies, snakeflies, sawflies, caddisflies, butterflies or scorpionflies. Some true flies have become secondarily wingless, especially in the superfamily Hippoboscoidea, or among those that are inquilines in social insect colonies.

Diptera is a large order, containing an estimated 240,000 species of mosquitos, gnats, midges and others, although under half of these (about 120,000 species) have been described. It is one of the major insect orders both in terms of ecological and human (medical and economic) importance. The Diptera, in particular the mosquitoes (Culicidae), are of great importance as disease transmitters, acting as vectors for malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, yellow fever, encephalitis and other infectious diseases.

anatomy and biology

Flies are well adapted for aerial movement, and typically have short and streamlined bodies. The second segment of the thorax, which bears the wings and contains the flight muscles, is greatly enlarged, with the other two segments being reduced to mere collar-like structures. The third segment bears the halteres, which help to balance the insect during flight. A further adaptation for flight is the reduction in number of the neural ganglia, and concentration of nerve tissue in the thorax, a feature that is most extreme in the highly dervied Muscomorpha infraorder.

Flies have a mobile head with eyes, and, in most cases, have large compound eyes on the sides of the head, with three small ocelli on the top. The antennae take a variety of forms, but are often short, to reduce drag while flying.

Flies consume only liquid food, and their mouthparts and digestive tract show various modifications for this diet. The most apparently primitive flies have piercing blade-like mandibles and fleshy palps, but these have become adapted into numerous different forms in different groups. These include both the fine stilleto-like sucking mouthparts of mosquitos, and the fleshy proboscis of houseflies. The gut typically includes large diverticulae, allowing the insect to store large quantities of liquid after a meal.

a) reproduction and development

The genitalia of male flies are rotated to a varying degree from the position found in other insects. In some flies this is a temporary rotation during mating, but in others, it is a permanent torsion of the organs that occurs during the pupal stage. This torsion may lead to the anus being located below the genitals, or, in the case of 360° torsion, to the sperm duct being wrapped around the gut, despite the external organs being in their usual position. When flies mate, the male initially lies on top of the female, facing in the same direction, but then turns round to face in the opposite direction. In some species, this forces the male to lie on its back in order for its genitalia to remain engaged with those of the female, but in most cases, the torsion of the male genitals allows the male to mate while remaining upright.

The female lays her eggs as close to the food source as possible, and development is generally rapid, allowing the larva to consume as much food as possible in a short period of time before transforming into the adult. In extreme cases, the eggs hatch immediately after being laid, while a few flies are ovoviviparous, with the larva hatching inside the mother.

Larval flies, or maggots, have no true legs, and often little demarcation between the thorax and abdomen; in the more derived species, even the head is not clearly distinguishable from the rest of the body. In some species, there are small prolegs on some segments, but maggots are more commonly entirely limbless. The eyes and antennae are reduced, or even absent, and the abdomen also lacks appendages such as cerci. This general lack of features is an adaptation to the extremely food rich environment, such as within rotting organic matter, or as an endoparasite.

The pupae take various forms, and in some cases develop inside a silk cocoon. After emerging from the pupa, the adult fly rarely lives more than a few days, and serves mainly to reproduce and to disperse in search of new food sources.

classification

There are two generally accepted suborders of Diptera. The Nematocera are usually recognized by their elongated bodies and feathery antennae as represented by mosquitoes and crane flies. The Brachycera tend to have a more roundly proportioned body and very short antennae. A more recent classification has been proposed in which the Nematocera is split into two suborders, the Archidiptera and the Eudiptera, but this has not yet gained widespread acceptance among dipterists.

1. Suborder Nematocera (77 families, 35 of them extinct) – long antennae, pronotum distinct from mesonotum. In Nematocera, larvae are either eucephalic or hemicephalic and often aquatic.
2. Suborder Brachycera (141 families, 8 of them extinct) – short antennae, the pupa is inside a puparium formed from the last larval skin. Brachycera are generally robust flies with larvae having reduced mouthparts.
1. Infraorders Tabanomorpha and Asilomorpha – these comprise the majority of what was the Orthorrhapha under older classification schemes. The antennae are short, but differ in structure from those of the Muscomorpha.
2. Infraorder Muscomorpha – (largely the Cyclorrhapha of older schemes). Muscomorpha have 3-segmented, aristate (with a bristle) antennae and larvae with three instars that are acephalic (maggots).

Most of the Muscomorpha are further subdivided into the Acalyptratae and Calyptratae based on whether or not they have a calypter (a wing flap that extends over the halteres).

Beyond that, considerable revision in the taxonomy of the flies has taken place since the introduction of modern cladistic techniques, and much remains uncertain. The secondary ranks between the suborders and the families are more out of practical or historical considerations than out of any strict respect for phylogenetic classifications (some modern cladists tend to spurn the use of Linnaean rank names). Nearly all classifications in use now, including this article, contain some paraphyletic groupings; this is emphasized where the numerous alternative systems are most greatly at odds. See list of families of Diptera.

Dipterans belong to the taxon Mecopterida, that also contains Mecoptera, Siphonaptera, Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and Trichoptera. Inside it, they are sometimes classified closely together with Mecoptera and Siphonaptera in the superorder Antliophora.

evolution

Diptera are usually thought to derive from Mecoptera or a strictly related group. First true dipterans are known from the Middle Triassic, becoming widespread during the Middle and Late Triassic.

flies in culture

Flies have often been used in mythology and literature to represent agents of death and decay, such as the Biblical fourth plague of Egypt, or portrayed as nuisances (e.g., in Greek mythology, Myiagros was a god who chased away flies during the sacrifices to Zeus and Athena, and Zeus sent a fly to bite the horse Pegasus causing Bellerophon to fall back to Earth when he attempted to ride to Mount Olympus), though in a few cultures the connotation is not so negative (e.g., in the traditional Navajo religion, Big Fly is an important spirit being). Emily Dickinson's poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died" also makes reference to flies in the context of death. In fact, many flies, such as the genus Hydrotaea are used in forensic cases to determine time of death for many corpses. In William Goldings lord of the flies, the fly is a symbol of the children involved.

Not surprisingly, in art and entertainment, flies are also used primarily to introduce elements of horror or the simply mundane; an example of the former is the 1958 science fiction film The Fly (remade in 1986), in which a scientist accidentally exchanges parts of his body with those of a fly. Examples of the latter include trompe l'oeil paintings of the fifteenth century such as Portrait of a Carthusian by Petrus Christus, showing a fly sitting on a fake frame , a 2001 art project by Garnet Hertz in which a complete web server was implanted into a dead fly , and various musical works (such as Yoko Ono's album Fly, U2's song "The Fly," Dave Matthews' song "The Fly" and Béla Bartók's "From the Diary of a Fly"). Damien Hirst's famous work titled A Thousand Years featured a severed cow's head contained in a box with thousands of flies and a bug zapper, creating an entire life cycle within a glass box.The ability of flies to cling to almost any surface has also inspired the title of Human Fly for stunt performers whose stunts involve climbing buildings, including both real life and fictional individuals.

Aside from the fictional and conceptual role flies play in culture, there are practical roles that flies can play (e.g., flies are reared in large numbers in Japan to serve as pollinators of sunflowers in greenhouses), especially the maggots of various species.

a) maggots

Some types of maggots found on corpses can be of great use to forensic scientists. By their stage of development, these maggots can be used to give an indication of the time elapsed since death, as well as the place the organism died. The lack of maggot presence is also telling in an investigation.

Maggot species can be identified using their DNA. The size of the house fly maggot is 10–20 mm (⅜–¾ in). At the height of the summer season, a generation of flies (egg to adult) may be produced in 12–14 days. Some other families of Insecta, such as Histeridae, feed on maggots. Thus, the lack of maggots would increase the estimated time of death.

Other types of maggots are bred commercially, as a popular bait in angling, and a food for carnivorous pets such as reptiles or birds.

Maggots have been used in medicine to clean out necrotic wounds, and in food production, particularly of cheeses.

persians

The Persian people are defined by the use of the Persian language as their mother tongue. However, the term Persian has also a supra-ethnic significance and has been historically referred to a part of Iranian peoples. The origin of the Persian people is traced to the ancient Indo-Europeans (Aryans), who arrived in parts of Greater Iran circa 2000-1500 BCE. Starting around 550 BCE, from the region of Persis in southern Iran, encompassing the present Fars province, the ancient Persians spread their language and culture to other parts of the Iranian plateau through conquest and assimilated local Iranic and non-Iranic groups over time. This process of assimilation continued in the face of Greek, Arab, Mongol and Turkic invasions and continued right up to Islamic times.

Numerous dialects and regional identities emerged over time, while a Persian orientation fully manifested itself in Iran and Afghanistan by the 20th century, mirroring developments in post-Ottoman Turkey, Europe, the Caucasus and the Arab world. With the disintegration of the final Persian Empires of the Afsharid and Qajar dynasties,territories in the Caucasus, and Central Asia either became independent from Iran or incorporated into the Russian Empire.

The Persian peoples emerged as an eclectic collection of groups with the Persian language being the main shared legacy. Diverse populations in Central Asia, such as the Hazaras show traces of Mongol ancestry. As Persian was the lingua franca of the Iranian plateau (the highlands between Iraq and the Indus) it has come to be used by numerous groups as a second language including Turkic and Arab groups. While most Persians in Iran adhere to Shia Islam, those to the east remain followers of Sunni Islam. Small groups of Persians continue to follow the pre-Islamic faiths of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism and the post-Islamic Bahá'í Faith.

While a categorization of a 'Persian' ethnic group persists in the West, Persians have generally been a pan-national group often comprising regional peoples who rarely refer to themselves as 'Persians' and sometimes use the term 'Iranian' instead. The synonymous usage of Iranian and Persian persisted over the centuries despite the varied meanings of Iranian, which includes different but related languages and ethnic groups. As a pan-national group, defining Persians as an ethnic group, at least in terms used in the West, is problematic since Persians are a varied group.

terminology

The term Persia was adopted by all western languages through the Greeks and was used as an official name for Iran by the West until 1935. Due to that label, all Iranians were considered Persian. Also, many others who embraced the Persian language and culture are also often referred to as Persian as a part of Persian civilization (culturally and/or linguistically).

a) ancient

The first known written record of the term Persian is from Assyrian inscriptions of the 9th century BCE, which mention both Parsuash and Parsua . These cognate words were taken from old Iranian Parsava and presumably meant border, borderland and were geographical designations for Iranian populations (who referred to themselves as Aryans as an ethnic designation or showing the nobility). Nonetheless, Parsua and Parsuash, were two different geographical locations, the latter referring to southwestern Iran, known in Old Persian as Pârsa (Modern Fars). The Greeks (who tended earlier to use names related to "Median") began in the fifth century to use adjectives such as Perses, Persica or Persis for Cyrus the Great's empire, which is where the word Persian in English comes from. In the later parts of the Bible, where this kingdom is frequently mentioned (Books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya), it is called "Paras" (Hebrew פרס), or sometimes "Paras ve Madai" (פרס ומדי) i.e. "Persia and Media".

One of the roots of creative stimulations during the Parthian Empire was the Achaemenid Empire. Courtiers spoke Persian and used the Pahlavi script. During the Sassanid Empire the intermingling of Persians, Medes, Parthians and indigeneous people of Iran, including the Elamites gained more ground and a homogeneous Iranian identity was created to the extent that all were just called Iranians/Persians irrespective of clannish affiliations and regional linguistic or dialectical alterities. The Elamite language may have survived as late as the early Islamic period. Ibn al-Nadim among other medieval historians, for instance, wrote that "The Iranian languages are Fahlavi (Pahlavi), Dari, Khuzi, Persian and Suryani", and Ibn Moqaffa noted that Khuzi was the unofficial language of the royalty of Persia, "Khuz" being the corrupted name for Elam. However the Elamite identity might have vanished already. As to Strabo, the Cyrtians who were plausibly the ancestors of the modern Kurds were called one of the Persian tribes. Cyrtians, the generally accepted progenitors of the Kurds and Lurs might already have been significantly scattered in the Zagros from Persis into Media.

b) islamic era

The term Persian continued to refer to various Iranic people including speakers of Chorasmian Language, old Tabari language, Old Azari language , Laki and Kurdish speakers.

The Persian historian Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Al-Masudi (896-956) also refers to various Persian dialects and the speakers of these various Persian dialects as Persian. While considering modern Persian (Dari) to be one of these dialects, he also mentions Pahlavi and Old Azari, as well as other Persian languages. Al-Masudi states:

The Persians are a people whose borders are the Mahat Mountains and Azarbaijan up to Armenia and Arran, and Bayleqan and Darband, and Ray and Tabaristan and Masqat and Shabaran and Jorjan and Abarshahr, and that is Nishabur, and Herat and Marv and other places in land of Khorasan, and Sejistan and Kerman and Fars and Ahvaz...All these lands were once one kingdom with one sovereign and one language...although the language differed slightly. The language, however, is one, in that its letters are written the same way and used the same way in composition. There are, then, different languages such as Pahlavi, Dari, Azari, as well as other Persian languages.

c) modern era

The name "Persia" was the "official" name of Iran in the Western world before 1935, but Persian people inside their country since the Sassanid period (226–651 A.D.) have called it "Iran". Accordingly the term "Persian" was used in the Western world as the people inhabiting Iran; for instance, Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), the Prime-Minister of the United Kingdom, and the British ambassador in Iran, Percy Loraine, used Persian and Persian people to talk about the Iranian people and government. On 21 March 1935, the ruler of the country, Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking foreign delegates to use the term Iran in formal correspondence. From then on "Iranian" and "Persian" was applied interchangeably to the population of Iran. It is still historically being used to designate some Iranian people living in Greater Iran.

sub-groups

Persians can be found in Iran, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Northern Pakistan. Like the Persians of Iran (Western Persians), the Tajiks (Eastern Persians) are descendants of various Iranian peoples, including Persians from Iran, as well as numerous invaders. Tajiks and Farsiwan have a particular affinity with Persians in neighboring Khorasan due to historical interaction some stemming from the Islamic period.

Other smaller groups include the Qizilbash of Afghanistan and Pakistan who are related to the Farsiwan and Azerbaijanis. In the Caucasus, the Tats are concentrated in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russian Dagestan and their origins are traced to Sassanid merchants who settled in the region. Parsis, a Zoroastrian sect of western India centered around Gujarat and Mumbai and also found in southern Pakistan, while the Parsees, are also largely descended from Persian Zoroastrians. The Iranis, another small community in western South Asia, are descended from more recent Persian Zoroastrian immigrants. In addition, the Hazara and Aimaq of Afghanistan are ethnic groups of partial Persianized Mongol and Turkic origin.

history

The Persians are believed to be descendents of the Aryan (Indo-Europeans) tribes that began migrating from Central Asia into what is now Iran in the second millennium BCE. The Persian language and other Iranian tongues emerged as these Aryan tribes split up into two major groups, the Persians and the Medes, and intermarried with minority peoples indigenous to the Iranian plateau such as the Elamites. The first mention of the Persians dates to the 9th century BCE, when they appear as the Parsu in Assyrian sources, as a people living at the southeastern shores of Lake Urmia.

The ancient Persians from the province of Pars became the rulers of a large empire under the Achaemenid dynasty (Hakhamaneshiyan) in the sixth century BCE, reuniting with the tribes and other provinces of the ancient Iranian plateau and forming the Persian Empire. Over the centuries Persia was ruled by various dynasties; some of them were ethnic Iranians including the Achaemenids, Parthians (Ashkanian), Sassanids (Sassanian), Buwayhids and Samanids, and some of them were not, such as the Seleucids, Ummayyads, Abbasids, and Seljuk Turks.

The founding dynasty of the empire, the Achaemenids, and later the Sassanids, were from the southern region of Iran, Pars. The latter Parthian dynasty arose from the north. However, according to archaeological evidence found in modern day Iran in the form of cuneiforms that go back to the Achaemenid era, it is evident that the native name of Parsa (Persia) had been applied to Iran from its birth.

language

The Persian language is one of the world's oldest languages still in use today, and is known to have one of the most powerful literary traditions, with formidable Persian poets like Ferdowsi, Hafez, Khayyam, Attar, Saadi, Nezami, Roudaki, Rumi and Sanai. By native speakers as well as in Urdu, Bengali, Turkish, Arabic and other neighboring languages, it is called Fārsī, and additionally Dari or Tajiki in the eastern parts of Greater Iran.

"Persian" has historically referred to some Iranian languages, however what today is referred to as the Persian language is part of the Western group of the Iranian languages branch of the Indo-European language family. Today, speakers of the western dialect of Persian form the majority in Iran. The Eastern dialect, also called Dari or Tajiki, forms majorities in Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, and a large minority in Uzbekistan. Smaller groups of Persian-speakers are found in Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Pakistan, western China (Xinjiang), as well as in the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Azerbaijan.

religion

The Persian civilization spawned three major religions: Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, which heavily influenced Saint Augustine before he turned to Christianity, and the Bahá'í Faith. Another religion that arose from ancient Iran is Mazdakism, which has been dubbed the first communistic ideology. Both Mazdakism and Manichaeism were sub-branches of Zoroastrianism that is said to be the first monotheistic religion. Persian’s also comprised the second largest ethnic group of the non-Arab companions of Muhammad, the Islamic Prophet.

Sunni was the dominant form of Islam in most of Iran until rise of Safavid Empire. There were however some exceptions to this general domination of the Sunni creed which emerged in the form of the Zaydīs of Tabaristan, the Buwayhid, the rule of Sultan Muhammad Khudabandah (r. Shawwal 703-Shawwal 716/1304-1316CE), the Hashashin and the Sarbedaran. Nevertheless, apart from this domination there existed, firstly, throughout these nine centuries, Shia inclinations among many Sunnis of this land and, secondly, all three surviving branches of Shi'a Islam, Twelver, Ismaili, as well as Zaidi had prevalence in some parts of Iran. During this period, Shia in Iran were nourished from Kufah, Baghdad and later from Najaf and Hillah. Shiism were dominant sect in Tabaristan, Qom, Kashan, Avaj and Sabzevar. In many other areas the population of Shia and Sunni was mixed. In recent centuries Ismailis have also largely been an Indo-Iranian community,

Many scholars and scientists in Persia who lived before the Safavid era, such as Avicenna, Geber, Salman the Persian,Al-Farabi and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, were Shi'a Muslims, as was most of Iran's elite, while other greatest Sunni Muslim scientists, scholars and personaliries were Persian or had Persian descent, including Abu Dawood, Hakim al-Nishaburi, Al-Tabarani, Ghazali, Imam Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa'i and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, amongst many others. Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Sunni Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence is also widely accepted of Persian ancestry.

The first Shia regime, the Safavid dynasty in Iran, propagated the Twelver faith, made Twelver law the law of the land, and patronized Twelver scholarship. For this, Twelver ulama "crafted a new theory of government" which held that while "not truly legitimate", the Safavid monarchy would be "blessed as the most desirable form of government during the period of waiting" for the twelfth imam.

Today, most Persians are Twelver Shia succeeded by Hanafi Sunni Muslims. There is also a sizeable number of Shafi`i Sunni Muslims in southern Iran and amongst Kurds. Small Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets. Some communities practice Shi'a Sufism. There are also smaller communities of Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, and Bahá'ís. Bahá'ís are the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran. There exists Persians who are atheist and agnostic.

culture

Persian culture can be defined through its films, as Persian cinema has attained a substantial amount of international and critical acclaim through such films as Children of Heaven and Taste of Cherry, which give both insights into the current state of Persian culture and profound depictions of the general human condition.

a) arts

The artistic heritage of Persia is eclectic and includes major contributions from both east and west. Persian art borrowed heavily from the indigenous Elamite civilization and Mesopotamia and later from Hellenism (as can be seen with statues from the Greek period). In addition, due to Persia's somewhat central location, it has served as a fusion point between eastern and western arts and architecture as Greco-Roman influence was often fused with ideas and techniques from India and China. When talking of the creative Persian arts one has to include a geographic area that actually extends into Central Asia, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Iraq as well as modern Iran. This vast geographic region has been pivotal in the development of the Persian arts as a whole.

b) statues

Persians' artistic expression can be seen as far back as the Achaemenid period as numerous statues depicting various important figures, usually of political significance as well as religious, such as the Immortals (elite troops of the emperor) are indicative of the influence of Mesopotamia and ancient Babylon. What is perhaps most representative of a more indigenous artistic expression are Persian miniatures. Although the influence of Chinese art is apparent, local Persian artists used the art form in various ways including portraits that could be seen from the Ottoman Empire to the courts of the Safavids and Mughals.

c) music

The music of Persia goes back to the days of Barbad in the royal Sassanid courts, and even earlier. As it evolved, a distinct eastern Mediterranean style emerged as Persian folk music is often quite similar to the music of modern Iran's neighbors. In modern times, musical tradition has seen setbacks due to the religious government's policies in Iran, but has survived in the form of Iranian exiles and dissidents who have turned to Western rock music with a distinctive Iranian style as well as Persian rap.

d) architecture

Architecture is one of the areas where Persians have made outstanding contributions. Ancient examples can be seen in the ruins at Persepolis, while in modern times monuments such as the Tomb of Omar Khayyam are displays of the varied tradition in Persia. Various cities in Iran are historical displays of a distinctive Persian style that can be seen in the Kharaghan twin towers of Qazvin province and the Shah Mosque found in Isfahan. Persian architecture streams over the borders of Iran and is clearly seen throughout Central Asia as with the Bibi Khanum Mosque in Samarkand as well as Samanids mausoleum in Bukhara and the Minaret of Jam in western Afghanistan. Islamic architecture was founded on the base established by the Persians. Persian techniques can also be clearly seen in the structures of the Taj Mahal at Agra and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

e) rugs

Gottfried Semper called rugs "the original means of separating space". Rug weaving was thus developed by ancient civilizations as a basis of architecture. Persian rugs are said to be the most detailed hand-made works of art. Also known as the starus Rugs very important in the culture. Interworking of fibers to produce cloth was known in Iran as early as the 5th millennium BCE. When the famous Greek commander Themistocles was asking for asylum from Persia , the “Persian carpet” was mentioned in his speech:

he [Artaxerxes I of Persia] commanded him to speak freely what he would concerning the affairs of Greece. Themistocles replied, that a man’s discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost; and, therefore, he desired time.
—Plutarch (Plutarch’s Lives, Chpter 49, Themistocles)

f) gardens

The Persian gardens were designed to reflect paradise on earth; The English word paradise is thought to come from the Persian word Pardis, which refers to these gardens.

Although having existed since ancient times, the Persian garden gained greater prominence during the Islamic period as Arab rulers cultivated Persian techniques to create gardens of Persian design from Al-Andalus to Kashgar. Persian gardens are immortalized in the One Thousand and One Nights and the works of Omar Khayyam.

women

Persian women have played an important role throughout history. Scheherazade, though fictional, is an important figure of female wit and intelligence, while the beauty of Mumtaz Mahal inspired the building of the Taj Mahal itself. While in ancient times, aristocratic females possessed numerous rights sometimes on par with men, generally Persian women did not attain greater parity until the 20th century. However, Táhirih, the poet, had a great influence on modern women's movements throughout the Middle East. The Táhirih Justice Center is named after her.

Persian women today serve an active role in society. Persian women can be seen working in a variety of areas such as politics, law enforcement, transportation industries, etc. Universities still tend to be dominated by women in Iran and one may find a large number of female legislators in the Iranian Majlis (parliament), even by western standards. Former Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, noted for her eloquence in dealing with western media, set a new standard for aspiring Iranian female politicians while serving under President Khatami.

anarchy

Anarchy (from Greek: ἀναρχία anarchía, "without ruler") may refer to any of the following:

* "No rulership or enforced authority."
* "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."
* "A social state in which there is no governing person or group of people, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)."
* "Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere."

anarchy after the collapse of a state

a) english civil war

The tumult of the English Civil War (1641–1651) led to the term to be taken up in political philosophy. Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647:

Thomas Rainsborough: I shall now be a little more free and open with you than I was before. I wish we were all true-hearted, and that we did all carry ourselves with integrity. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it doth go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men are inclining to anarchy, but you would make all men believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property -- this is to forget the Law of God. That there’s a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them -- I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy.

Oliver Cromwell: I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom; but really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit , that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore I am confident on 't, we should not be so hot one with another.

As people began to theorise about the English Civil War, "anarchy" came to be more sharply defined, albeit from differing political perspectives:

* 1651 – Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) describes the Natural Condition of Mankind as a war of all against all, where man lives a brutish existence. "For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner." Hobbes finds three basic causes of the conflict in this state of nature: competition, diffidence and glory, "The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation". His first law of nature is that "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war". In the state of nature, "every man has a right to every thing, even to then go for one another's body" but the second law is that, in order to secure the advantages of peace, "that a man be willing, when others are so too… to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself". This is the beginning of contracts/covenants; performing of which is the third law of nature. "Injustice," therefore, is failure to perform in a covenant; all else is just.

* 1656 – James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana) uses the term to describe a situation where the people use force to impose a government on an economic base composed of either solitary land ownership (absolute Monarchy), or land in the ownership of a few (mixed Monarchy). He distinguishes it from Commonwealth, the situation when both land ownership and governance shared by the population at large, seeing it as a temporary situation arising from an imbalance between the form of government and the form of property relations.

b) early pennsylvania

Anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard wrote in his work on early American history Conceived in Liberty that Pennsylvania was in a condition of anarchy after William Penn's original government collapsed.

c) french revolution

Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist of the Victorian era known foremost for his widely influential work of history, The French Revolution, wrote that the French Revolution was a war against both aristocracy and anarchy:

Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,-- the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!-- It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends.

Armand II, duke of Aiguillon came before the National Assembly (French Revolution) in 1789 and shared his views on the anarchy:

I may be permitted here to express my personal opinion. I shall no doubt not be accused of not loving liberty, but I know that not all movements of peoples lead to liberty. But I know that great anarchy quickly leads to great exhaustion and that despotism, which is a kind of rest, has almost always been the necessary result of great anarchy. It is therefore much more important than we think to end the disorder under which we suffer. If we can achieve this only through the use of force by authorities, then it would be thoughtless to keep refraining from using such force.

Armand II was later exiled because he was viewed as being opposed to the revolution's violent tactics.

Professor Chris Bossche commented on the role of anarchy in the revolution:

In The French Revolution, the narrative of increasing anarchy undermined the narrative in which the revolutionaries were striving to create a new social order by writing a constitution.

d) jamaica 1720

Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, wrote to John Robinson, the Bishop of London, in 1720:

"As to those Englishmen that came as mechanics hither, very young and have now acquired good estates in Sugar Plantations and Indigo& co., of course they know no better than what maxims they learn in the Country. To be now short & plain Your Lordship will see that they have no maxims of Church and State but what are absolutely anarchical."

In the letter Lawes goes on to complain that these "estated men now are like Jonah's gourd" and details the humble origins of the "creolians" largely lacking an education and flouting the rules of church and state. In particular, he cites their refusal to abide by the Deficiency Act, which required slave owners to procure from England one white person for every 40 enslaved Africans, thereby hoping to expand their own estates and inhibit further English/Irish immigration. Lawes describes the government as being "anarchical, but nearest to any form of Aristocracy". "Must the King's good subjects at home who are as capable to begin plantations, as their Fathers, and themselves were, be excluded from their Liberty of settling Plantations in this noble Island, for ever and the King and Nation at home be deprived of so much riches, to make a few upstart Gentlemen Princes?"

e) spain 1936

After General Francisco Franco declared war on the Spanish government in 1936 (Spanish Civil War) the government lost control over much of Spain. Resistance to the rebels was often organized through the confederation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). The Spanish Revolution occurred almost immediately after the failed coup of Franco, leading to the formation of worker's collectives all over Republican Spain. This has been hailed as the best example of a functioning anarchist system. Anarchists were instrumental in keeping the country running and holding back the Francoists, until they were attacked by the Republican government and their Communist allies. The government was subsequently defeated by Franco, leading to 40 years of Francoist dictatorship in Spain.

f) somalia

Before the Islamic Courts Union took control, large parts of southern Somalia were effectively functioning without a central government. However, an economic survey by the World Bank found that distribution of wealth in the country was more equitable, and the extent of extreme poverty was lower than that found in nominally more stable West African nations. According to the same paper, although southern Somalia was effectively operating without a federal government before the rise to prominence of the Islamic Courts Union, it was not an anarchist society in the sense that society was more or less chaotic than organized non-coercively. Despite this, a libertarian think tank reported that living standards in Somalia increased – in absolute terms, relative to the pre-Somali Civil War era, and relative to other nations in Africa – during this period. Economist Peter Leeson attributes the rather astounding increase in economic activity since the rise of statelessness to the security in life, liberty and property provided by Somali customary law — the Xeer — in most parts of Somalia, which insures for a relative free market.

The Transitional Federal Government, internationally recognized as the government of Somalia, is allied with the Islamic Courts Union and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, and backed by the United Nations, the African Union and the United States. It is currently battling various insurgent groups to regain control of the southern half of the country and restore national institutions.

anarchist communities

* Icelandic Commonwealth
* Gaelic Ireland
* Libertatia (late 1600s)
* The Free Territory (January 1919 - August 1921)
* Shinmin Free Province (1929 - 1931)
* Anarchist Catalonia, Spain, (July 21, 1936 - June 14, 1937)
* Anarchist Aragon (October 6, 1936 - August 10, 1937)
* Freetown Christiania, Denmark, (September 26, 1971 - Present)

political philosophy

a) liberalism

Bertrand Russell wrote on how liberalism aims for a golden mean between despotism and anarchy:

Every Neilien community is faced with two dangers, anarchy and despotism. The Puritans, especially the Independents, were most impressed by the danger of despotism. Hobbes, on the contrary, was obsessed by the fear of anarchy. The liberal philosophers who arose after the Restoration and acquired control after 1688, realized both dangers; they disliked both Strafford and the Anabaptists. This led Locke to the doctrine of division of powers and of checks and balances.

b) anarchism

Anarchists are those who advocate the absence of the state, arguing that common sense would allow people to come together in agreement to form a functional society allowing for the participants to freely develop their own sense of morality, ethics or principled behaviour. The rise of anarchism as a philosophical movement occurred in the mid 19th century, with its idea of freedom as being based upon political and economic self-rule. This occurred alongside the rise of the nation-state and large-scale industrial state capitalism or state-sponsored corporatism, and the political corruption that came with their successes.

Although anarchists share a rejection of the state, they differ about economic arrangements and possible rules that would prevail in a stateless society, ranging from no ownership, to complete common ownership, to supporters of private property and free market competition. For example, most forms of anarchism, such as that of anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism not only seek rejection of the state, but also other systems which they perceive as authoritarian, which includes capitalism, markets, and private property. In opposition, a political philosophy known as free-market anarchism, contemporary individualist anarchism or anarcho-capitalism, argues that a society without a state is a free market capitalist system that is voluntarist in nature.

The word "anarchy" is often used by non-anarchists as a pejorative term, intended to connote a lack of control and a negatively chaotic environment. However, anarchists still argue that anarchy does not imply nihilism, anomie, or the total absence of rules, but rather an anti-statist society that is based on the spontaneous order of free individuals in autonomous communities.

anthropology

Some anarchist anthropologists, such as David Graeber and Pierre Clastres, consider societies such as those of the Bushmen, Tiv and the Piaroa to be anarchies in the sense that they explicitly reject the idea of centralized political authority. However, others argue that some tribal societies of the past have often been more violent than modern technological societies, on average.

Some more recent anthropologists, such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard Borshay Lee, have defied the notion of hunter-gatherer societies as being a source of scarcity and brutalization; describing them as, in the words of Sahlins, "affluent societies".

The evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker writes:

Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law. ..The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic climate.

Some authors, such as Montague David Eder, question this vision of evolution, where humanity was able to reinvent itself in the last ten thousand years, to better fulfill its needs (see Myth of Progress). Anarcho-primitivists, such as Ran Prieur, believe that this concept represents a way that current culture justifies the values of modern industrial society and as a manner in which civilization was able to move individuals further from their natural necessities. Besides the consideration of authors, such as John Zerzan, of the existence of tribal societies having less violence altogether, he and other authors such as Theodore Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber) talk about other forms of violence against the individual in advanced countries, generally expressed by the term "social anomie", that results from the system of monopolized security. These authors do not dismiss the fact that humanity is changing while adapting to its different social realities, but consider them an anomaly nevertheless. The two end results are (1)that we either disappear or (2)become something very different, distant from what we have come to value in our nature. It has been suggested by experts that this shift towards civilization, through domestication, has caused an increase in diseases, labor and psychological disorders. On the other hand, concerning the necessity of violence in the primitive world, anthropologist Pierre Clastres expresses that violence in primitive societies is a natural way for each community to maintain its political independence, while dismissing the state as a natural outcome of the evolution of human societies.