Bloodhandism is a fictional ideology created by Dr. Occo for his Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Radinia Project.
It is essentially a mix of the "Might makes Right" Philosophy with the structure of an Anarchist commune, where every member has the same rights and most farmsteads and workshops are communally owned.
Components
A Union of the Mighty
The founder and tenous leader of the Bloodhand Band, Rufus Strell, believes in the Right of "Strong and Capable" people to take everything they want to own using their strength and capability. However, he rejects the idea of a natural hierarchy of strenght, instead believing that society can be broadly divided into a big group of weak and incapable people and a smaller group of strong and capable people. If someone can prove himself to be part of the group of capables, he thinks, they should be as free to exercise their strenght on the weaker group as possible. This results in the band itself welcoming new members only after they have "proven their worth" in cage fights and have managed to appear reasonably intelligent in a personal conversation with one of the older gang members. After that, though, the members are generally being treated as equals, with no hierarchy emerging in the gang, due to Strell's "two groups" belief.
Collective Ownership
Now, you would think that an ideology that is focused on giving the mighty a right to exercise their own will, without consideration of the consequences of ones actions for others, would not lend itself well to an Anarcho-Communist structure, but this specific kind of ideology does. As society is divided into a strong ingroup and a weak outgroup, the "consequences for others" mentioned before are understood as "consequences for the weak". As long as someone is understood by the strong ingroup to be part of said ingroup, they are being shielded from the consequences of the actions that other members take.
Strell believed that the small ingroup has to be internally stable, as to not be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the weak outgroup[1]. So, he argued that the Union of the Mighty needs a strong internal support network, not only to give every mighty individual the means to achieve his goals, but also as a defensive strategy to make sure the community of strong individuals is united against weak invaders in battle. This resulted in the band establishing socialist systems of community-run farms and workshops whereever they settled, where every bandit had to work to keep the whole group afloat. This worked reasonably well, since the bandits knew that without strong internal connections and without the supplies they made, they would be crushed by their enemies, and most would likely be killed due to their unwillingness to cooperate with the enemy.
The Penal Code
The Penal Code of the Bloodhand Band, thought up by gang member Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Johann Keil, is fairly simplistic. It is based on the concept of Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Platformism, and, loosely, mirrors the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Harm Principle, though obviously only applied to gang members, not members of "the weak". First of all, most property crimes do not exist in the gang, since almost all property is collectively owned. Second, if any band member brings bodily harm onto any other band member, they are investigated, and if found guilty, the same harm is to be done to their body. Essentially, it's the "eye for an eye" principle. Betraying the band in any way, for example by defecting or collaborating with the enemy, always results in a death sentence. Beheadings are being done in the open, as an example and as a deterrent, but before that, the crimes of the soon-to-be-beheaded are read out aloud in front of the entire crowd, which is supposed to show that the terror of the band is not random.
If a gang member continually shows disagreement with core tenants of the ideology of Bloodhandism, they are expelled, to prevent subordination, but are given some resources by the gang as a symbolic peace deal. Should they, however, be revealed to betray the band after that, they are made a top priority target.
Hedonism
National Views
Treatment of Non-Gang members
History
Relations
Friends
Frenemies
Enemies
- ↑ It is important to note that the Bloodhand Band has little to no allies and that multiple groups are actively trying to exterminate them, so this philosophical position might be motivated more by pragmatism then by sincere belief.