Looking for a compilation or work on different survival projects or mutual aid projects that have been around. Solidarity networks, that sort of thing.
I’ve been reading a lot of anarchist zines and literature and history, but as someone who grew up in a rural area with a very close “community”which had a pretty robust gift economy, i have to wonder if this will really produce the results we want.
Like… in the town I grew up in, it was widely known that an adult man had SA’s a teenage girl. Her family knew, her church knew, I knew despite being pretty young; basically everyone knew. The guy was “confronted” by her family (I never found out what that entailed, but it was brief and ineffective, whatever it was) and then they publicly “forgave him” and the adults all publicly moved on. Her friends didn’t, but what could they do besides continue talking about it? When he continued being involved inappropriately with teenage girls, adults still didn’t stop him. He was popular, you see; a good musician, a good speaker, a generous gift giver, an active and involved member of the community, friends with many people, an absolute gentleman to the parents. He didn’t have or need to exercise any kind of institutional power to continue preying on girls in broad daylight. He wasn’t a politician, church leader, or even particularly wealthy. He was just talented and charismatic. He had social power, and that turned out to be enough.
I guess what gets me is how this describes a lion’s share of the abusers Ive known. They cultivate social capital and can be charismatic, generous, highly intelligent and involved people to everyone who knows them in every public sphere - who then turn around and privately exploit someone vulnerable - young, or disabled, or socially isolated.
It’s not like institutional power has a good answer for this kind of abuse and exploitation either, so my point here isn’t some kind of “gotcha” it’s just an issue that keeps bugging me. I see a lot of arguments that take for granted that a collective of people would inflict consequences on someone they like to deliver justice for someone they don’t, and in my experience in a small tight-knit community, that was just not the case. How severely the offense was treated correlated pretty directly with how much everybody already liked you and/or disliked the victim.
Is there any anarchist literature or philosophy that addresses this?
I’ve noticed that when people hear the word anarchy, they immediately become defensive and avidly avoid the debate, as if the conversation is exhausting and the whole concept is irresponsible & guaranteed to end in disaster, no matter how it’s navigated.
Anarchy is rarely mentioned in media, but when it is, it has always been depicted as a scene of chaotic lawlessness … a group of self proclaimed “anarchists” randomly go wild one night, break the law, start fires, terrorize people. And the next day, it’s pretty much forgotten.
Why is anarchy never depicted as a community of cooperative individuals who have figured out their own alternative to capitalism(bartering, skill building)? The definition of anarchy has an aspect of duality, chaos and community would exist both individually and simultaneously.
The main question I have: has anarchy intentionally been demonized by media to prevent a movement ignited by curiosity in experiencing freedom through self accountability and independence from the 1%? And Perhaps as protection for currency’s value and the corporate agenda?
I’m aware that widespread anarchy would likely lead to increased natural selection, and access to convenience and necessities would become rare. It would be survival of the fittest, I’m sure.
I’m simply curious how this concept sounds to someone who is an advocate for our current democracy? Also curious to hear thoughts from advocates of anarchy and their predictions.
I’ve spent years studying anarchy for fun so I’m very open minded to different opinions.
**edit: I made it sound like I was saying that anarchy has been incorrectly portrayed by the media. It’s not incorrect necessarily, but it’s one-sided.
anarchy is absolutely going to have violence, but media never mentions the part about how a gritty lifestyle of discipline would transform intelligent, ethical individuals into unstoppable, fearless units with a keen sense of self awareness. their mere presence would command respect and cooperation from the erratic, violent individuals who are causing unrest.
I read “Civil Disodedience” in High School and its opening lines seemed pretty anti statist to me so I did research and that’s how I first learned of anarchism. And I recently read Emerson’s essays “Self-Reliance,” “History,” and “The Oversoul” and he seems pretty aligned with individualist anarchism as he seems to criticize statism and wage labor.
So yeah, I'm pretty much a self-identified anarchist who's fed up with the world and wants to enact change. And before you tell me to partake in Food Not Bombs, I would like to do something with my hands, something that's a bit less mechanized and more spontaneous. Please treat me seriously and not engage with what I have to say with irony. I see myself as an egoist and an anarcho-nihilist, especially after having read Fumiko's history, and want to find people in NYC who don't believe that charity and reading in bookstores with safely-curated rhetoric is enough. I'm tired of rhetoric. Too much talking. Too much saneism. Too much logic. Not enough doing. I'm in New York. I want to do something beyond the mundane field of rhetoric. Breadtube video essays are sure as hell not enough. I'm too angry to be satisfied with a shoddily-presented video essay knowing that I have to repeat the cycle after the video is over. Where are these underground networks? The insurrectionists? Those who don't think protesting or deliberating about the greatness of men like fucking Stalin or whatever is enough. Where the hell are yall? I know I sound like a fed but I, a black male in my 20s, am fucking desperate to find my union of egoists, to find fellow anarchists who want to cause some fucking damage.
I am relatively lacking in knowledge of syndicalism. I know that anarcho-syndicalism paves the way for an anarcho-communist society, but....can syndicalism function on its own as a long-term system? Anarcho-communism wouldn't be inevitable in a syndicalist society?
Yes this is just a whinny post about me being banned from the main anarchy sub, but it is a serious question. In an Anarchist society with a centralized posting system, would the main sub be moderated?
What has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be “a necessary evil,” and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.
Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that “freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license”; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man’s determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. - Voltairine de Cleyre
Something you see from the marxists is a very fierce opposition to idealism, & an accusation that Anarchists are idealists, but what’s wrong with that? Everything we do is influenced by certain ideas, they are the basis of human culture & influence every part of our perception, ideas/human will + random outside events drive history, if christian ideas never existed western civilization would be very different, 30% of India is vegetarian because vegetarian ethical ideas just got popular over there, the “reality” we experience is a construction of our brains/our consciousness, a bee or a squid experiences a very different “reality”
Are there any Anarchist writers who are influenced by Idealism?
Ancoms want to abolish the state because they think the state is against their communist ideal. Ancaps want to abolish the state because they think the state is against their capitalist ideal. It seems like both are using anarchy as a means for their own economic model, not an end. Is there any anarchist theory that focuses on the anarchy itself and refuses to be either left or right?
Hey everyone, sorry if this is a stupid question. As the title says, does it make sense to do mutual aid in a country with social democracy? I am mostly asking this because I live in Malta, and most of our needs, i.e., healthcare, education, social housing (sorta), are taken care of by the government. I'm not sure how effective mutual aid would be. I am not an anarchist personally (I am a Marxist), but I find mutual aid and dual power to be interesting.
Thanks!
I personally dont think it can be reduced to either being good or bad tbh
OCD is a heavy part of my disability justice and politics whether anarchist, socialist, mutualist, post left, egoist or feminist
I remember in my psychosis I wanted to construct a Deleuzean messy rhizome of Carers against the “too many cooks ruin(spoil) the broth,” method (or saying)
Any books that critique the DSM-5 for being colonial and about control
I realise talking that alot of my OCD is just childhood trauma and conditioning from being in an abstentionist private school (while being too stupid to know they had an abstentionist policy) and not knowing that I am 90% sure I’m autistic (even though they haven’t got a full diagnosis) I’m also not sure how much a diagnosis or a label would really clarify things and I suspect that a lot of my autism/OCD and mental health topics and interests overlapped(but this is a discussion for another day🏴🕵️).
I’ve covered the territory of a lost and uncertain (uncharted/mapped waters) in r/RadicalOCD and it’s quite fascinating
I’ve seen Paul feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism, I wonder if there is something similiar for the DSM-5?
Against toxic pathology and all pathologisations, political and scientific 🏴🧪⚛️
So I was reading Kevin Carson's Desktop Regulatory State, and I got to the part where he talked about networked currencies and time banks to organize barter networks.
It seems like a good idea, but I wanted to know if there were any anarchist (preferably mutualist) critiques of time banks? I know money is a controversial subject in anarchism in general, but are there any specific limitations of time banks or credit-based currency that I should know about?
in the modern world with complex networks of global communication, relations and trade where so many of the things we need and use in daily life are manufactured overseas, how would anarchism function in a huge, non homogeneous country like the US? how would global relations be facilitated? not to say i love politicians and diplomats but how would international trade and relations with non anarchist societies be handled? obviously the goal is a classless world without borders but if anarchy is able to gain a foothold in one place before others how would they keep things going?
Zaheer was an anarchist villain from the legend of korra (season 3). For those of you who have seen the show, how representive is he of anarchist beliefs?