Don’t worry I’m here for every delicious bit of drama.
Something something that’s not the definition of a political anarchist.
When I was an edgy teen, I claimed to be an anarchist because chaos was cool.
As an adult I discovered my political ideaologies literally are anarchistic.
Mfw, right? I remember being a young adult, asking my parent what the Seattle riots were about, and they said, “they’re crazy.” When the Internet was invented and I got around to looking it up, I thought, “those people are the sanest people in the country.”
What Seattle riots? :o
Nihiled it.
Sorry, you’re all getting techno-feudalism.
I want to argue but… I’m currently arguing with a company that won’t cancel a fraudulent order despite me having every single piece of information needed to do so. So they will get a chargeback after my card is replaced. Really trying to help them but they want that money lol
And then they’ll try to charge you to send it back even though it’s their fault.
As an anarchist this is me on a good day. I more often find myself in the middle getting shit on from both directions.
Probably because there are more CCP pretending to be anarchists than actual anarchists on Lemmy.
Care to elaborate on that?
cArE TO eLABoRaTE oN That?
Sure, which part confuses you?
I wish for once I could just have a civil conversation about my views without people immediately jumping down my throat and accusing me of being a CCP or Russian shill, or a dirty liberal, or a filthy communist. This is what I’m talking about when I say I just end up getting shit on from all sides. Every unsavory label in the book gets stuck to me before I even get a chance to clarify my views.
If we gave equal time to each and every shill, conscious or otherwise, then we would literally never talk about anything else except an infinite debate about whether or not a government office who hired an Operation Paperclip employee 70 years ago is capable of being a force of good.
We just don’t have time for bullshit from people like you, keep searching.
I believe there are a lot of government orgs that could be forces for good if they weren’t completely at the mercy of powerful corporations.
I might enjoy this, but I’d have a requirement: Every participant join via webcam, not text posting.
Yes, that gives away much of your identity and makes you vulnerable. That’s the shared price we’d all pay to have a little bit of trust in each other. It would make it much harder for one person to be a bot posting from multiple accounts.
Do anarchists still exist anymore? I know it’s a fun name tag to wear, but I’m finding very few actual “practicing” anarchist organizations.
We do! In my area there are quite a few of us and we operate a number of collectives providing things like:
- Free meals
- Free groceries
- Bike repair workshops
- Theory reading groups
- Clothing
- Social activities
Of course there’s also a lot of direct action going on for various causes.
Hell yeah, this is a principled anarchist.
What is “theory reading”?
Like Bible study but with more books
And based on observations of reality
If not always necessarily based on reality
Leftist groups of all stripes have a long history, and with that history comes books, essays, and pamphlets on strategy, analysis, philosophy, and outlook.
So many fucking essays
Having never done it as part of one such group, I don’t know exactly what goes on, but essentially there’s a large body of literature on leftist political concepts, covering the ideas of why anarchy rather than archy, how to practice it, how to organise etc. I’m definitely the wrong person to explain it, generally socialists (at least here) are the ones doing all the reading, I’m a lot more interested in praxis tbh.
Some classic anarchist writers include Kropotkin, Bakunin and Proudhon, but the communist and socialist literature often applies too.
The anarchist library has lots to browse and the anarchist faq is a great starting place despite its huge volume of content, I highly recommend casually browsing it.
Pleasently surprised to see Bakunins name dropped! Since there seems to be some misconceptions in this thread about what Anarchy actually is, I thought I’d share one of his quotes that has stuck with me through the years:
Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality
The only problem with all the facts Bakunin spits is that sometimes he’ll follow it with “and that’s why we must exterminate the Jews.”
19th century Russians, man.
anarchist organizations
Real Anarchism is when you just run around in a big circle waving your hands and shouting “This is Anarchy”
We should organize to disorganize.
yeah those exist. Anarchists oppose hierarchies, not meet ups
Depends on what you mean by anarchists. Average Americans think anarchism is lawless violence. It isn’t, and there are plenty of anarchists today.
If you listen to David Graeber everyone is an anarchist
YMMV depending on country. In the US you can find at least a handful of named anarchist organizations in any given state. Many anarchist or libertarian organizations keep it on the DL for a multitude of reasons. You may have better luck finding groups under the monikers of communalist, x or y federation, social ecologist, or just plain ole socialist. Mutual aid networks, food not bombs chapters, and IWW chapters are other spaces a lot of anarchists occupy. Many anarchists still stick to affinity groups and the like as well so, while they may be out there and active, it’s likely you’ll never hear about them. Further muddying the waters there’s also the concept of social insertion where anarchists support local movements and encourage (but don’t attempt to force) the popular movement to develop in a more libertarian fashion. Some big names in the libertarian milieu in the US are the symbiosis network and moneyless society. The black rose anarchist federation is another one I’ve seen around.
That said, it’s still hard to find other anarchists in a lot of areas. I’ve been on the hunt for a while and haven’t had any luck in my area. The closest I have is a food not bombs chapter in my city but they’re all a bunch of zionist soc-dems. 🤷 They do good work but I don’t want to be the only anarchist in the group haha. I’ll be handing out zines and fliers at the pride parade in a few weeks in the hopes of starting a reading group and hopefully an explicitly anarchist org in my city
food not bombs chapter in my city but they’re all a bunch of zionist soc-dems.
That’s news to me.
I may have worded that weird. Just to be clear, food not bombs in general isn’t a social democrat org. The chapter in my town just so happens to be run by them. More often than not, you’ll find at least a handful of anarchists in the mix at a food not bombs group
That would make sense, all things considered. My Houston chapter is constantly butting heads with the police, because the city doesn’t want them distributing food to anyone in town.
Honestly! We need more Mutualists and Syndicalists!
in my country its mostly MLs. i think it tends to be that way in the 3rd world.
I vibe with both anarchists (cool, helpful) and communists (smart, boring). Liberals drive me crazier everyday.
It depends for me. The labels aren’t really useful if I don’t know the person. One kid I interacted with over a few months said enough in line with fascism that I call him that. Someone just telling me they’re communist, anarchist, liberal isn’t enough to really get their actual beliefs, given how much overlap and misuse of the terms there is. I will generally vibe with a more left leaning person, of course, so if any of those labels are used I’m like, cool, we’ll probably have good conversations. Even conservatives I’m opening up to. Republicans? My God. I blame my mental illnesses on that brain rot.
Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A room filled with Liberals. Liberals drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once.
You have to learn to distinguish cool liberals, who are for individual freedom, democracy, progressive society; from the bad liberals who always side with private property against those things. The people in the first category are just confused; the people in the second category are actual class enemies. I acknowledge that these aren’t discreet categories and there will be some overlap, but winning people to your ideas slowly, over time – because these ideas are based in their material reality, which they need to test against their existing views – is the only way to get through to people. Sometimes the process is quicker, sometimes its slow, but its the only way to help people see the world for what it really is, and that together we can actually bring the fight to the ruling class.
I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. I still get frustrated sometimes though!
It is frustrating in almost every way! I can summon a lot of optimism for the project of socialism and the historic role of the working class; but when it comes to the day to day its too easy to get disillusioned. Its supposed to be disillusioning! The tragic reality in the west is that in our alienation, our exploitation appears to us as comfort. Hang in there and take care of yourself!
Thanks, friendo! You too :)
Liberalism is such a Boogeyman term on “the left.” Classical liberalism is very compatible with lib left ideals, and in many ways informs that philosophical lineage. Everyone gets wrapped up in the idea of private property being a core value, when it is really a corollary hanging off the core value of rights for the individual. Property or no property, the core idea is scarcity harm reduction. There are many ways to get there, and the best ones agree that licking some authoritarian boot is a terrible way to liberate people.
I’m not talking about “Liberalism”, I’m talking about “liberals”. They aren’t driving me crazy because of some obscure philosophical tenets, though “scarcity harm reduction” might do it.
Oh I’m sorry have a offended you by being PRO LIBERTY? No, you know what? Stop posting then since you hate liberty so much
I genuinely don’t know how to take this comment. Is it serious? Is it ironic? I’ve dealt with a lot of angry liberals today, so I feel it could be serious. On the other hand it’s giving ::Randy Marsh in handcuffs:: and so I think it might be a bit.
No what’s ironic is you taking that liberty to reply
Ew, eat with your mouth closed!
If you too want to get out of the liberal vs communist showdown and smoke weed on the side come to slrpnk.net where only our memes community has liberals and communists fighting in the comments.
lemmy.world mods look at reddit for inspiration.
I enjoy it too but not for political reasons but just for the sake of drama
More like:
Westerner < Westerner
CCP Instigator
There is no real Liberal and Communist strife or violence. Only bad actors attempting to create political divisions in places they don’t belong.
Not just CCP, Russians too.
I’m sure our conservatives would join in if their grandkids would help them get their facesbook working on the TV again.
The CCP trolls are laughably untalented compared to Russians. You just have to ask a CCP troll to say one bad thing about China and watch them short circuit.
Russians are dangerous because they can criticize Russia. Their goal is to make you think EVERYONE is shit, and therefore don’t bother voting. It’s a much more subtle and effective form of propaganda.
Removed by mod
Liberal here: I propose a temporary truce with the tankies and nazis so we can all laugh at the anarchists trying to unite
Always trying to truce with the tankies and nazis, but the tankies end up executing you and the nazis always send you to the camps. Who could have predicted this?
points and laughs
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, colorized
Me just standing in the corner with my semi-syndicalist semi-reconciliationist model of parliamentary democracy based around a Multi-Seat District version of STAR Voting.
I’m not a regular at parties…
I vibe with that as a Mutualist that advocates for Ranked Choice Voting and Multi Member Proportional voting.
Me, having actually read some political science in the past 100 years realizing that all scarcity politics is different forms of harm reduction anyway:
Tbf most scarcity in this production era is artificial scarcity.
Housing crisis for example. There’s more unoccupied units than unhoused people total, not even unhoused family units, unhoused people.
A property tax structure which disincentivizes holding unoccupied property would cause housing prices to plummet.
Call yourself whatever you want, at the end of the day we’re all utopianists who’re overly self-assured that our favorite pet-theory-system will eventually remove all suffering.
“If my vision for society were adopted, the world would be perfect!”
Keep dreaming. We’re fucked.
Literally Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
Maybe I am missing something with this but anarchists are hated both by communists and liberals. If they see the anarchists, they’d also gang up on the latter lol.
Which is dumb as Mutualism is just better.
From my view the entire problem with .ml is that the anarchists there don’t realize that MLs are not allies.
