Non-anarchism is the revolutionary idea that you should band together as a society to protect the weak from the strong so the weak are able to decide what their life will be
That implies that people are fundementally incapable of working together without coercion and violence. Furthermore the implication that government somehow acts in the best interests of society and understands how other people can live their lives better then themselves is absurd.
It also implies that people are divided into strong and weak. That there is some inherent qualities in people that are inferior to other people who don’t have those qualities. No-one is better than anyone else, a human beings is far too diverse for that. We’re all just different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.
Agreed, once you’re in the mindset of dividing society by labels and treating them differently you’re on the path to fascism.
You just had to phrase it like that didn’t you?
Rant incoming. (if you like this for some weird reason there’s more on my profile)
Preface that non of the following arguments are against you or your ideas. You just said something in a way that got me thinking. Any reference to “you” is a straw-man. I don’t want to make any assumptions about your ideas but will inevitably use a fictional person to talk to because it’s easier to structure a rant that way.
There is nothing wrong with “dividing people into labels and treating them differently”. It is wrong to try and derive any absolute value (good/bad, strong/weak, smart/dumb) out of people since humans are far too complex to fit on a single point on a spectrum. Sometimes you act smart sometimes dumb. In some situations you are strong in others you nope out as soon as possible. But that’s not all labels are.
Labels are primarily a tool for self-identification. “Anarchist” is a label. One that I’ve attached unto myself quite firmly. It’s the label I use as my primary identity and view the world through an anarchist lens because of that. Labels are a way to categorize and understand ourselves and those around us.
Even if you haven’t labelled yourself you can have one be attached to you, and that’s not necessarily bad. When categorizing you will reach a point where you need a label for “the rest”. This means that a group of people creates a label for you (some examples include cis, strait/hetero, gender-conforming, neurotypical). These labels get created and attached to you whether you want it or not and there is nothing wrong with that. The world is filled with different people and in order for that difference to be understood by both yourself and others you need words to describe things.
The problems begin when you add extra value to those labels. Fascist slogans work well here since fascism is built on this othering. By saying that there is some intrinsic or natural value in a label you are encouraging the behaviour associated with that label. And same vice-versa. This is how cultural control works. Through shaping a common concept of a type of person and then laughing at it, or showing respect to it, depending on the desired outcome. This phenomena exists everywhere, because it is a useful tool for managing groups. It’s a lot easier to call someone a statist to ignore their arguments than actually engage with them.
But this isn’t bad. some people are different and in a certain space you don’t want some people so labelling them to make sure they know they aren’t welcome. This community uses it in it’s about section:
Yes, if you’re an obnoxious (–>)neo-lib(<–) you’re going to get banned.
To sum it up, it’s not that simple. Everyone labels people. It’s how we understand the world around us. We treat others differently due to their labels so we can keep a culture we cherish alive. And I believe cultural control is a societal tactic, not just fascist one, ingrained into human social interaction and by extension society just as much as culture. It’s how we maintain long-term control over the world, over the future.
At the end of the day you should try and understand and get along with everyone. But to say everyone needs to be treated the same is to ignore the fact that we’re all different. We can’t be treated the same.
NonAnarchism is the revolutionary idea that you should band together as a society to protect the weak from the strong so the weak are able to decide what their life will beFixed it for you.
But then you just have government and laws with different names, don’t you?
Anarchism is not anti-government. Anarchism is anti-hierarchy. Government is very possible without hierarchy, which is why most anarchists see direct democracy on the level of individual communities as the only valid system of government. One of the most popular forms of anarchism right now is anarcho-communism. One of the core ideas of anarcho-communism is that people need to band together as a
free-association of producerssocietycommune. It’s based on the ideas put forth by Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread where his opening argument for anarchism is that everything that has ever been built has only been possible because of people cooperating and building off of each other.It can sound a bit ridiculous at first because a lot of people spend their whole lives hearing nothing but anti-anarchist propaganda created by states that are inherently threatened by anarchism. If you’ve been told your whole life that anarchists are just weird people who hate the government then you’re probably going to end up believing it. Most anarchists I’ve met have held a negative view of anarchism at some point in their life because of it!
You should dig around the wikipedia page for anarchism a little bit. It might not convince you, but it does a decent job of presenting anarchist ideas as anarchists would describe them and you might get an idea of what anarchists are actually fighting for.
I’ve saved this post for a whole while because I didn’t have the time to really read and think about this. I’m still in the state that I don’t really want to spend very much time reading Wikipedia pages or reading books on the topic or similar.
I’m certainly not in any predetermined camp regarding pro- or anti-anarchism. I have some general thoughts from the basic understanding that I possess about the world in general.
I may ask some questions here in this community to get some more easily to digest and specific info from you people :)
Yeah anarchism is a lot of theory and at this point, someone calling themselves an anarchist in good faith would be referring to it as a kind of ideology or faith rather than some end goal in their lifetime. At best anarchist thought right now can guide you like a religion to make you more pragmatic and participate in pro-social programs in your community.
It’s funny because unfortunately, as far as I understand it, this meme uses anarchism in the incorrect meme-y way that people understand it. I.e. as an angsty “no rules, mom!” way. Anarchism as written by people who actually sat down and thought about the practicality of it would probably see someone or a group of people who sit down all day and make it their “job” to come up with agreed upon rules. Not as a leadership or a hierarchy, but just because division of labor is necessary for a flourishing society and because “no murder or we kick you out” is not a rule you should be letting people who live with you make for themselves.
