Imagine you are a person fighting in an anarchist revolt. You have captured a sizeable chunk of land but the front line has grown too large and you can’t progress further. The state that you have been fighting approaches you with an offer: They recognise you as a sovereign (however that would look like) entity but you have to give away most of the land you’ve captured. They will leave you with the primary city and enough surrounding land to feed everyone.
What would be your position? Would you be willing to make a deal with the state?
I find it interesting that with just the description of “A state” you have immediately imagined a worst possible enemy for yourself.
Against a state like that I’m inclined to agree with you. If they truly have no intention of coexisting then obviously the deal would be a trap. However I would immediately ask how, in such hostile environment, did you manage to get a revolt started in the first place. My original scenario imagined a lot more liberal state that would not have enough power to stop the movement before it grew to open revolt, however with the monster you’ve imagined I don’t think it’s possible.
Do we? Is every person in the world capable of being an anarchist? What would you do with the people who don’t want to be? To say we pose an existential threat to states is to say that no person would voluntarily choose to live in the state if they have the option. I don’t know if that’s the case but I do think that states think that some people will always be loyal to them.
There is a crucial difference here they owned the land before. Our revolt is carving it out. Obviously being forced to a reservation by a colonial power is wrong. But I don’t see this like that. It’s closer to a revolt down-sizing in order to maintain cohesion.
They all are like that. There are no exceptions. I truly hope that the pretentious fakery of these (so-called) “liberal democracies” has not lulled you into seeing these entities as something which they are definitely not - place the ruling elites of the most “liberal” state in jeapordy, and it won’t take long for them to reveal what they truly are and always have been.
They don’t. Let’s give one of these “liberal democracies” the benefit of the doubt (rather unrealistic of us, so only for the sake of the argument) Let’s say you’re dealing with a regime that has a Bernie Sanders at it’s head - they offer the deal in good faith, you take it. In four year’s time, you are now dealing with a regime headed by a Ronald Reagen - voted in literally because of the “weakness” of the Bernie regime when it comes to dealing with the threat posed by these “anarchist terrorists” - and now suddenly you have well-funded armies of right-wing paramilitaries perpetrating genocide on your enclave while property developers are lining up to sell it’s land to the highest bidder. And that’s just the start.
Have you never wondered why liberalism is so much more effective at maintaining imperialism than fascism is? That’s why - the fascist is our weakest enemy.
That doesn’t matter - an anarchist society (or something close enough) doesn’t require anarchists. It only requires a society that has normalised said society being run from the bottom up - whether the people in such a society call themselves “anarchists” or not is irrelevant.
That, too, is immaterial because the capitalist status quo will see and treat your revolt no differently. If they can isolate you, they can destroy you. If they can dictate what you can do economically, they can destroy you. If they can control you industrially, they can destroy you. If they can hamper you socially and politically, they can destroy you.
I truly wish anarchists would read about warfare with the same enthusiasm they read political theory - for an anarchist, it comes with the territory… figuratively as well as literally.
For that to happen there needs to either be majority in the state that think that way or a powerful enough propaganda machine to sway the general public. Not all states have that. If you are dealing with a country that has a well-educated population tactics like that simply won’t work. This also outlines why it’s vital for every anarchist movement to involve themselves with the general population as much as possible. So large portions of the population will think “oh those are the people that organise that game-night/open kitchen/workshop thing”. At this point it becomes a lot more difficult to paint them as violent terrorists because people know them and have had direct interactions with them. It also becomes a lot more difficult to walk back your deal without spreading discontent.
Everyone in that society is by my definition anarchist. When you give up your dependency on authority you become an anarchist. I’m not using the term as they would I am using it as I would. So to specify: Do you think that every single person would be willing to give up their dependence to authority? Because if they won’t they will form a state, when they do you need to coexist with that state.
The one follows the other… and a gigantic propaganda machine is no hypothetical. It already exists. And as you can see happening right now in Gaza, they don’t actually even need that propaganda machine working very well to prosecute a war of extermination against you.
I hope you don’t mind me saying this… but that’s extremely naive. Being “involved” with the general populace didn’t help the anarchists that was so deeply rooted in immigrant populations of the US during WW1. It didn’t help the Black Panthers who were deeply rooted in US urban communities during the Civil Rights movement. The Ukrainians barely remember the Makhnovists - the memory of the Torch Brigade and the SECC has been completely wiped from South African’s minds. All of them were deeply “involved” in the general populace.
That’s no different than saying everyone in the USSR was a Marxist, or that everyone in the US is a liberal.
Consider this… when the Makhnovists decided to replace the civilian section of the Kontrrazvedska (the Makhnovist counter-intelligence network) with the KAD (Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activity) because the civilian section of the Kontrrazvedska was found to be too heavy-handed, they had to go look far and wide for people that actually understood anarchist political theory well-enough to make it a properly anarchist organ - the vast majority of the people working and bleeding under the Makhnovist flag actually knew very little about anarchism apart from a few slogans.
If your anarchist society relies on the ideologically pure, your society is screwed - in fact, if you rely on the ideologically pure it will nnever come into existence in the first place.
I don’t understand what this means… I don’t go to the doctor to tell them how to be a doctor.
Native reservations are political. They are designed to imprison and contain - and that is exactly what the capitalists are offering you in this hypothetical situation of yours.
No, you are not. If you were isolated, they wouldn’t be negotiating with you because they’d be too busy exterminating you and crushing your revolt. Isolation means inevitable destruction.
Those are states. Top-down civilisations that overwrite peoples wishes. They don’t need everyone to follow their framework to enforce it, that’s what the police is for. Anarchy isn’t like that. You cannot force a person to be anarchist. Any anarchist society that exist must by necessity be populated by people that don’t follow the statist framework. Who don’t follow authority. Who are Anarchist.
The example you gave is perfect. Normal people who did not understand anarchism were too heavy handed with their judgement and thus actual anarchists needed to be found to help manage that society. People who haven’t stop their dependence to authority are a problem to an anarchist society, they don’t conform to our framework, our culture, our decision making process and our way of life.
Anarchism isn’t just a label you put on yourself. It’s a culture you pick up. It is a way to look at situations and people around you. Decide things both internally externally. It’s a way of life. A way of life that opposes authority.
Anarchism is a way of looking at the world. And I cannot see an anarchist society function without most of the people most of the time acting and living anarcicly. Essentially when I say anarchist I mean someone living in a culture of anarchy. And that culture needs to exist for anarchic social structures to exist.
Why would I want to?
You mean… what people were doing for thousands of years before states were invented? None of those people thought of themselves as anarchists, you know.
Anarchists are not “abnormalities” - I’m going to assume you don’t have a third arm growing out of the top of your head or anything like that.
And you are not understanding why I used that example - I used it because it was an extraordinary thing for the Makhnovists to do. And, just FYI, the KAD turned out to be pretty heavy-handed too - anarchists are not “abnormalities.”
Anarchism consists of a critique of hierarchy… and not much else. It is not a way of “looking at the world,” it is a way of understanding hierarchy - it has absolutely nothing worthwhile to say about that which isn’t hierarchical. And it is absolutely not anything that can be called “cultural” - no matter how hard you squint.
That was an assertion that needed to be true for the following to work, and another way anarchism differs from “liberalism” and “marxism”. Because while you cannot force anyone to become those things too you can force them to be faked. You cannot fake being an anarchist.
And there is the fundamental disagreement between our "anarchy"s. For me it is a culture. and not much else. Everything else comes from this cultural root. The critique of hierarchy is just this anarchic culture applied to political science.
When I see the black flag it fills me with a sense of belonging. Seeing a Circled A on a street corner frequently makes me smile. Reading anarchist literature gives me a sense of being a part of something bigger and what word could there be for that other than culture? Shifting through the near incalculable amount of stickers in an anarchist space with all the ACABs, black cats and antifa. What is it if not culture?
Although now thinking about I imagine you could call cultural anarchism “punk”. I don’t think I can. punk is too different. It’s backed by the music genre which has a very specific sound and perhaps because I doesn’t gel with me I don’t consider it the anarchist sound. It’s punk. It is anarchic, but it’s only one side of it.
I wonder what it is that you consider culture, that it doesn’t contain the collective effort needed to build anarchic structures.
The current norm in almost every country is to be a worker in an industry and vote in elections, (even if they don’t matter). That’s quite far from anarchy.
When I use normal I mean the current mainstream. Or to give more examples: being an artist isn’t normal, being self-employed isn’t normal, not voting isn’t normal (or voting is normal if you remove the double negative). Not working isn’t normal. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Obviously anarchy is natural and exists in society but it certainly isn’t the norm. But I probably should have used “mainstream” because it seems “normal” seems to invoke concepts of “accepted”, “good”. not “average”
They weren’t. Anarchy is the conscious opposition to archy. If those societies didn’t have any interaction with archic structures then they didn’t know to oppose them therefore they weren’t anarchists, but they did live anarchicly and their culture was anarchic, and through that culture you could call them anarchists, because that culture probably had their own methods of dealing with archic structures that tried to impose themselves, which could be considered opposition, but it wouldn’t be conscious, or would it… And this is getting out of hand, isn’t it.
But that’s words. imperfect abstractions over infinitely complex ideas. Shame anarchy is one the most complex ones, since it’s entire concept defies singular meaning. The only one you can safely ascribe to it is “against authority”, and even that’s only if you have a specific meaning of “authority”.
You sure about that? Piggy manages it all the damn time. And if a pig - the worst of the working class - can do it, anyone can.
Counter-culture does not win wars. It sure as hell doesn’t win (or even start) revolutions, either - never mind building workable and sustainable societies afterward.
I see them, too - but it doesn’t make me smile, because I know the teen who made it doesn’t know what it even means.
I live in a country with a 40% unemployment rate - perhaps you should reconsider your conception of “normalcy.” There is a big difference between merely rebelling against “normality” and posing an existential threat to the status quo - the risk profile of the latter comes with real bullets, real torture and lots and lots of real death.
counter-culture there’s the word I was looking for when describing punk. That’s what I meant with “only one side of it”. Counter-culture is only one side of anarchist culture. The side called punk. But there are so many other facets to anarchy that punk doesn’t cover. I agree that counter-culture can’t build up social systems, which is why I don’t call anarchist culture counter-culture. It’s something different. Not simply about opposing what exists but also building and imagining what can.
Are you sure of that? They might not know the theory but just by drawing it they showcase a willingness to act against the established rules. That’s a good first step towards learning about anarchy, and while they could “grow out of it” they could also find actual anarchist movement and go deeper into it.
The person who drew it also doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change what I think when I see it. It doesn’t change how much it matters to me. The symbol lives it’s own life and even if the person who drew it didn’t know that, the people who see it might. Some more curious might find anarchism because of looking up what the deal with them is.
My “normalcy” is the direct result of the environment I was raised in and the people I interacted with. It is an idea that changes and evolves constantly as I interact more. I don’t only reconsider my conception of “normalcy” but of every word I use as I grow and learn. But in the context that I exist in normal people do not act anarchically.
Which is scary, which makes it unappealing, which makes it actively detrimental for outreach. There are many ways to fight battles, many ways to oppose the status quo and culturally is most certainly one of them. It’s not inferior to military action just because people don’t die doing it, but I also know it wont be enough on it’s own. Just like militancy won’t be enough.
One of the joys of anarchism is getting to choose where you belong. Being able to dictate what you do and how you do it. I am a pacifist. My aversion to violence is one of the foundations of my anarchism. I could never be on the front lines. It scares me. But I know I can do other things, help out in other ways, and that me being able to do that is foundational to anarchism.