this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
272 points (94.2% liked)
Comic Strips
21164 readers
2453 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yep, I do agree. So maybe we need to define things.
According to Foucault, the police is not about law enforcement. Magistrate interprets laws to make the police actions legals afterward. I would not gave example, but you could read his work on power and punishments. He describes how the use of violence structure the society as a whole, and how it does absolutely not even try to prevent violence in doing so.
It's of course more complex, but to summary : the police as not the same social function before and after the modernisation. For example, miliciens keeping cities safe before that are people with another work, that have to bee miliciens. Everyone that could do so, have to do that work from time to time (the corvée). And they have to protect people. So they would requisitions empty places for people without housings.
The modernization militarize this forces, centralize how they work and shift their mission and recrutements. Cops are now specialize forces, with military training, and a strict hierarchy. Colonization, brutalization of war ("Free company"), enclosures, ...
A lot of anarchists do refers to police with a compatible definition of Foucault and weber : the "monopoly of legitimate violence" This violence could not be broken or diminish if the force got social legitimacy and monopoly. In my previous example, I described the use of violence that is legitimate by default, and could be judge by everyone. Others gave example when this use is not specialize, so diminish this monopoly.
Some could says we want reforms police, and use a different word. We do not. Institution reproduce themselves through the people in it. Even the most social advance organization for "law enforcement" with former cops in it will go wrong. It took time to change one habits
Forgive me but I do have some difficulty with your English, but if this is the point you are making:
Then I will say, just because we are likely to make the same mistakes over and over is not an excuse to stop doing a thing if it helps, and I cannot subscribe to the belief that just because a thing CAN go wrong that it necessarily MUST go wrong. We can manage our world better with better policies and social structures, to abandon something just because it's been misused is like not using dinner knives anymore because they're used for stabbings.
Either we abandon modernity or we overhaul our system for maintaining and preserving it. I would respect the anarchist position more if it said that we need to return to a more primitive lifestyle. I would still think it's dumb, but I would respect it more.
We hate our police, but we would hate the alternative more. Those two facts can exist side-by-side without conflict, it's called nuance. I want a shining, gleaming future where people leave their doors unlocked, but we don't get there with police, and we also don't get there without police. We need new structures for dealing with evil, and we need to do a lot better in admitting and recognizing that evil is real and it WILL take advantage of whatever utopian visions you have. It just will.
Yep. And to make better policies and social structure, we need to understand why it goes wrong. Modern police has been made with mercenaries, soldiers (18/19e centuries), slave hunters (19/20e centuries), gang members paid to terrorize union members, and nazis. Those people were fired for their skills, and taught others cops to do like them. Because it was need by the ruling class to keep the inequality that favor them : to keep slave in slavery, workers wish small wages, or keep away racialize and colonized people from the infrastructure build with loot of other countries.
I'm not saying that cops are evil people. Some cops know that kind of issues and want to be "a lesser evil", others want to be good but will believe in some stuff that give sense to the violence they are making (racial inequity, nationalism, ... ). In the end, a white collar triggering war, or funding war crime would have a better treatment than a hobo stealing.
My point is : the social structure are stronger than individual will. And the police is a social structure. Again, police as an institution with people, a hierarchy, and an history that produce it. The social function "protect everyone against violence" is important, and is not the police we are talking about.