sniper

5y

· edited

@krishna_bound

This is my description and I mostly lean more towards "social anarchism"/libertarian socialism, which takes from the classical anti-state socialist traditions and Marx and stuff like that, but I still find some value in the more esoteric individualist (Max Stirner, egoism, anti-civ/post-civ/"post-left", etc.) stuff, and there are good lessons to be learned from both, even if I disagree with a good amount of the esoteric individualist stuff.

Anarchism is one of the misunderstood political ideologies in all of the politics sphere, by both the left and the right.

Anarchism, to me, is not a unified "static" ideology made up of only one system. I believe it is more a philosophy, than a political ideology IMO.

It is a broad set of intersecting movements, some which I will agree with more than others. The intersection (which makes these movements "anarchist"/"anarchistic") is usually anti-state, anti-capitalism, horizontal organization, opposition to all forms of hierarchy and employing an intersectional approach to taking down oppression/working in class struggle, and free association. We don't believe that anarchy is a "static" state that should be reached and everything is done, it is a constant process, there is no "endgame". It's actually a good thing (but it has its issues sometimes) that different anarchists have different ideas of what anarchism is to them. There is an absolute diversity of opinions, thus discouraging a groupthink "party" mentality, that has held back other movements. It causes you to self-reflect on what you believe in, and to decide for yourself, not to have a leader decide for you. Of course, there is internal struggle considering the diversity and people argue amongst each other all the time, but we all want similar goals of liberation, and this independence of thought is ultimately a good thing, it allows for amorphous decentralization, and people can find their own common niches.

"We are anarcho-syndicalists on the shop floor, green anarchists in the woods, social anarchists in our communities, individualists when you catch us alone, anarcho-communists when there’s something to share, insurrectionists when we strike a blow." - Putting the “Social” in Social War’, in, Rolling Thunder, No. 8, Fall 2009.

Some movements that aren't necessarily anarchist because they lack some core principles like for example, Rojava, which does have some hierarchy in their system, and that they follow Bookchin's Democratic Confederalism which was the ideology Apo learned about while imprisoned. It broke from anarchism for various reasons, but it does get critically supported because it is in the realm of general libertarian socialism, and has some anarchistic principles.

In general, Anarchism helps me answer the world-changing questions I want to answer, without turning to something that is bigger than us in a paternalistic sense (the nation-state, hierarchy, domination, etc.), because through the materialist a***ysis of history, we have found that these domineering authoritative principles have only held back humanity, and have led to numerous atrocities, as we all know.

I would like to expand on my contentions with some of my statist peeps but I feel like I've done it a lot recently, and I've tired myself out. But I will say that it gives me breathing room to have consistent ethics and I don't have to play defense for whatever nation-state I like, and when anarchists have done bad s***, I will acknowledge it, and I think we should learn from our mistakes, not valorize and repeat them.

And to answer this question real quick, "Anarcho-Capitalism" and the Mises/Rothbardian "right-libertarianism" is not anything close to anarchism, it's inherently hierarchical and statist and promotes domination.

krishna bound

5y

Thanks, the middle part about constant struggle with a non-static goal reminds me of Zizek's commentary in Day After The Revolution (or I guess could also qualify as Trotsky's Permanent Revolution to a degree).

I'm personally interested in Stirner, but less from an ideological basis. I'd say when I read Stirner i tend to think "damn this is a great explanation of how things ended up like they currently are" (especially the Union of Egoists stuff for example) rather than thinking of it as an ideology in and of itself.

I suppose my only contention that often comes up in Anarchist discourse is the idea of elimination of heirarchy and roles. I guess I just don't understand what the purpose is. I for sure understand wanting to get rid of falsified heirarchies or heirarchies at the behest of artificial norms (such as constructed states), but I guess when I hear getting rid of heirarchy altogether, it just kind of reads to me as something that doesn't have a strong reasoning behind it? I feel the same about roles - are all roles constructed or are some actually distinct or required? And if so roles are actually required, doesn't that mean that hierarchy can naturally occur?

Regarding the second part (read as I was typing this), what do you think distinguishes tribe-based society from nation-state society? Just the level of intrinsic shared culture and heritage/self-determination? Or is it the scope/scale?

sniper

5y

I suppose my only contention that often comes up in Anarchist discourse is the idea of elimination of hierarchy and roles. I guess I just don't understand what the purpose is. I for sure understand wanting to get rid of falsified hierarchies or hierarchies at the behest of artificial norms (such as constructed states), but I guess when I hear getting rid of hierarchy altogether, it just kind of reads to me as something that doesn't have a strong reasoning behind it? I feel the same about roles - are all roles constructed or are some actually distinct or required? And if so roles are actually required, doesn't that mean that hierarchy can naturally occur?

Good question, and this is something I like to think about myself.

"Hierarchy" in an anarchist sense basically means relationships/structures premised on domination and abusive power, and are maintained through violence and other forms of coercion. We are not against people being doctors because they are skilled people to have that knowledge, and they treat patients who don't know the medical knowledge, for example. This is what Engels gets wrong about anarchism in "On Authority" and has been refuted many times by many writers.

https://libcom.org/blog/authority-revisited-17052018

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/yuki-the-semantical-issue-behind-engels-on-authority-and-how-it-relates-to-modern-day-anarchism

krishna bound

5y

Thanks for the links, will read through those. Not trying to be a hard-ass, just genuinely curious about certain aspects of the belief. I guess the question I'd ask is who decides what qualifies as coercion or domination - is there an objective one size fits all, such as restriction of individual autonomy? Because if so, how does that square with general social society - say, a family (say parents, or even backwards, a child), a friend group, a significant other - where even an interpersonal relationship can become coercive due to social pressures rather than direct or authoritative coercion? Because much of society tends to become a chain of social coercion until they're disrupted by exterior forces (say, a corporation's disruption on a family, which then passes down to effect how a parent treats a child). I'm not sure at what level the abolition becomes arbitrarily essentially, even if I understand at it a wider fundamental level. Although I will note here for reference I will note that Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (which iirc is also where the Primitive Communism comments come from mostly) ive always found inconsistent in terms of conclusions drawn

sniper

5y

i mean it really depends on the person, but it's generally the majority opinion that when anarchists describe hierarchy, it is against coercion, domination, etc.

it's actually quite interesting you bring up the dynamic of society because there is big discourse within the anarchist movement about youth liberation and the familial hierarchy and how it may need to be abolished, which i am still kind of making my mind on, so i don't feel comfortable giving an definitive opinion, so i'm personally undecided.

i generally think we should carefully endow children with positive freedom, and you build this up with good communication so the kid feels comfortable in telling you about their lives and you solve problems together, and you teach them how to problem-solve themselves

this is a very open-ended question, but I think it's up to the individual (and the larger community) to decide this themselves

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/brenan-daniels-the-question-of-hierarchy-an-interview-with-colin-jenkins

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/colin-jenkins-deconstructing-hierarchies-on-the-paradox-of-contrived-leadership-and-arbitrary-p

these links are more about capitalist hierarchies, but i think they can help answer the question you're after

i like your questioning though, it does make me think a lot, but i feel bad that i can't provide a direct conclusive answer at this moment lol

krishna bound

5y

I'll read over those, thanks for the honest answers on stuff. Do you ever feel like lack of cohesion in these areas among anarchists is a problem for the ideology?

Cudderwalks

5y

Anarchists, what tf are you doing?

Cudderwalks

5y

Anarchists, what tf are you doing?

BlackOlympian

5y

Anarchism is another thing I have to brush up on.

I seem to be cool with a lot of ANCAPS.

sniper

5y

AnCaps are not anarchists

BlackOlympian

5y

Then what are they?

Womanpuncher69

5y

its due to anarchism and capitalism being contradictory, capitalism is built on hierarchy, you have a boss that you cant elect, whoever has the most money will have the most power in society, while anarchism is the abolition of hierarchy.

this is more of a practical question that I tend to have for Ancaps is how do they even gonna get to that point, they dont tend to advocate for revolution like anarchist do and we seen the germs of a more equalitarian world within their revolutions , then what voting which will be useless as you cant vote away the state. I guess theres technological innovation like crypto but thats prob gonna develop to centralisation as well like the internet.

Then theres more things like what do they solve within capitalism that make it better for more people. Centralisation of capital is gonna be even faster, how will you break monopolies? Whats preventing the big capitalist from creating their own private army and basically making their own laws and acting as a state thats has even less oversight. Theres the NAP but thats a meme how will you get any of the capitalist to even follow through on it ? Then theres also market failures what then ? your gonna let all these working people lose their livelihood, there means of living cause then ur system isn't gonna stay for long.

If ancaps want to be serious and stop living in their idealised world with no connection to reality, they'll just be neoliberals have the government only intervene when its needed, but at end of the day thats boring and s*** like the political compass has just made politics another identity that you can have fun around with for folks.

Womanpuncher69

5y

its due to anarchism and capitalism being contradictory, capitalism is built on hierarchy, you have a boss that you cant elect, whoever has the most money will have the most power in society, while anarchism is the abolition of hierarchy.

this is more of a practical question that I tend to have for Ancaps is how do they even gonna get to that point, they dont tend to advocate for revolution like anarchist do and we seen the germs of a more equalitarian world within their revolutions , then what voting which will be useless as you cant vote away the state. I guess theres technological innovation like crypto but thats prob gonna develop to centralisation as well like the internet.

Then theres more things like what do they solve within capitalism that make it better for more people. Centralisation of capital is gonna be even faster, how will you break monopolies? Whats preventing the big capitalist from creating their own private army and basically making their own laws and acting as a state thats has even less oversight. Theres the NAP but thats a meme how will you get any of the capitalist to even follow through on it ? Then theres also market failures what then ? your gonna let all these working people lose their livelihood, there means of living cause then ur system isn't gonna stay for long.

If ancaps want to be serious and stop living in their idealised world with no connection to reality, they'll just be neoliberals have the government only intervene when its needed, but at end of the day thats boring and s*** like the political compass has just made politics another identity that you can have fun around with for folks.

viscera

5y

out now