persuade people to use anarchist communism (or whatever) as the framework to make better choices
The presumption that other people’s choices are subject to your approval is the exact foundation upon which authoritarianism is built.
It’s just a simple step from “you should convinced to do this” to “you should be compelled to do this.”
Not to mention, it’s incredibly arrogant, dismissive and disrespectful.
All forms of anarchism organize on the basis of free association.
No - not really. Anarchism does (or as I’ve come to refer to it - anarcho-anarchism), but the various ideological subdivisions actually don’t.
Again, dissatisfied parties can freely disassociate and go do their own thing.
In the first place, your conception of disassociation (and the conception common to ideological proto-anarchisms) only goes one way. You treat your collective as an entity unto itself, and cover the “free association” requirement by essentially stating that those who don’t wish to submit to the dictates of your ideology would be free to leave.
Which is a freedom the majority of the world already possesses, so rather obviously it doesn’t ensure or even imply anarchism.
And beyond that, more pointedly but less obviously, ideological collectives (as yours does) always carry with them an unstated presumption that the entity from which people would be free to disassociate would rightfully hold some property. That’s always there, lurking inder the surface, and generally comes out in little slips like saying that people would be free to “leave” or to “go.”
So you’re actually, already, envisioning an entity that would nominally rightfully govern a particular piece of property and would establish the norms that are expected of those who live there.
And to go all the way back that’s a lot of why I say ideological proto-anarchism is a masturbatory fantasy at best Dream all you want, but there is no way that such a thing could actually be implemented without empowering somebody to decree what specific norms will be in place, designating some particular borders within which those norms would be the only accepted ones, and most likely empowering someone to see to it that the norms are not violated, and that those who do violate them “freely” go somewhere else.
The first requirement for successful anarchism is people taking control of and responsibility for their own decisions and ceding the exact same control and responsibility to everyone else. As long as people continue to believe that they can and should have some say over other people’s decisions, anarchism will fail.
Anarchy is individual and collective. Individuals are free to associate. Collectives of individuals work together because “apes strong together”. Hierarchies are horizontal. Violence is decentralized.
If you got “no true Scotsman” out of that, then you missed my point.
My only interest in a claim to anarchism is whether or not it’s practical, which is to say, whether ir not it includes ideas or positions that are innately authoritarian and will inevitably lead to the reestablishment of an institutionalized hierarchy.
And the simple reality is that most do. Authoritarian habits and presumptions, whether conscious or not, are just too widespread and deeply engrained.
And you left out “No rulers doesn’t mean no rules.”
It’s just a simple step from “you should convinced to do this” to “you should be compelled to do this.”
It’s actually a huge step, actually. It’s like… the whole thing. It’s “here’s why it would be neat if you consented to this, but you can do something else if you like” versus “do it lol”.
Which is a freedom the majority of the world already possesses, so rather obviously it doesn’t ensure or even imply anarchism.
Privilege spotted. The majority of the world absolutely does NOT have freedom of association, even de jure.
And beyond that, more pointedly but less obviously, ideological collectives (as yours does) always carry with them an unstated presumption that the entity from which people would be free to disassociate would rightfully hold some property.
No they don’t, you’re imagining that. E.g., you can have multiple distinct anarchist collectives in the same area.
So you’re actually, already, envisioning an entity that would … establish the norms that are expected of those who live there.
1000% yes. If you join a chess club started by me, you can’t shit on the chessboards. You are free to start a chess club where shitting on the chessboards is allowed/encouraged. Establishing norms is not necessarily a system of domination or hierarchy.
As long as people continue to believe that they can and should have some say over other people’s decisions, anarchism will fail.
If someone decides to rape me, I am wrecking their shit. That’s a bad decision and I’m not gonna respect it at all. It’s not authoritarian to make and act on that judgment call. Obviously, this is perfectly in line with anarchist theory and praxis.
There are plenty of less extreme examples where someone’s decisions will harm someone else, e.g. insert an example from almost any undergraduate ethics textbook.
I gotta be so real with you: you seem like you want to do anarchism with the seriousness and care it deserves, but I suspect you’re trying to do a “clean room design” of anarchist principles. Please just do the reading. Anarchist literature is informed by generations of praxis and mistakes that you have no way of accumulating in a “clean room” within a single lifetime. There are even anarchists who make your arguments a lot more convincingly than you’re doing.
The huge step is the presumption that other people cannot simply be allowed to freely make their own decisions, and everything beyond that is simply a matter of how little or how much compulsion should be employed to get them to “choose” as one prefers instead.
As for the bulk of you response, I can very simply explain my view.
My position is that you should be seen to be entirely free to make your own choices, even if the choice you make is to rape me.
And of course, I too should be seen to be entirely free to make my own choices, including responding to the choice you’ve made in whatever way I see fit.
If each and all, or close enough as makes no meaningful difference, choose generally rationally, then the society will succeed. If not, then it will fail. It really is just that simple.
If, for whatever reason, that freedom is not ceded to each and all by each and all (or, again, close enough as makes no meaningful difference), then the society will inevitably follow the path back to institutionalized, hierarchical authoritarianism. It doesn’t matter how many well-meaning people work to see it limited - institutionalized authority rewards and thus effectively selects for those who are least constrained by morals, ethics, principles and empathy, and thus most willing and able to do whatever it takes to gain, hold and expand authority and the privilege it inherently grants, and even the tiniest opening will provide them with an opportunity they can and will exploit.
And as for the last bit, I’d simply rather invest my finite time and attention into reasoning through ideas on my own than into consuming the reasoning of others, particularly when it’s the case, as it all too often is, that I end up discovering that their reasoning has been tainted by their own authoritarian habits, presumptions or even ambitions.
My position is that you should be seen to be entirely free to make your own choices, even if the choice you make is to rape me.
I literally cannot conjure up a better example for what kinds of mistakes you can internalize by doing a clean-room design of anarchism.
I end up discovering that their reasoning has been tainted by their own authoritarian habits, presumptions or even ambitions.
That’s magical thinking. Yeah there’s no such thing as a pure anarchist text and we are all shaped by the oppressions we are subject to, but the reasonable response is not to retreat into your own head, since you are certainly just as “tainted” as anyone else. Instead, the reasonable response is to read all textscritically, i.e. assume a perfect text does not exist.
And frankly, I don’t even want to read solely anarchist books. There are lots of people who make excellent contributions to various fields of endeavor who are not necessarily anarchists. E.g., I loved Omar El-Akkad’s book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This on the Gaza genocide, and I recommend every anarchist read it even though El-Akkad is not an anarchist to the best of my knowledge. It’s up to us to approach literature with a critical assessment.
The presumption that other people’s choices are subject to your approval is the exact foundation upon which authoritarianism is built.
It’s just a simple step from “you should convinced to do this” to “you should be compelled to do this.”
Not to mention, it’s incredibly arrogant, dismissive and disrespectful.
No - not really. Anarchism does (or as I’ve come to refer to it - anarcho-anarchism), but the various ideological subdivisions actually don’t.
In the first place, your conception of disassociation (and the conception common to ideological proto-anarchisms) only goes one way. You treat your collective as an entity unto itself, and cover the “free association” requirement by essentially stating that those who don’t wish to submit to the dictates of your ideology would be free to leave.
Which is a freedom the majority of the world already possesses, so rather obviously it doesn’t ensure or even imply anarchism.
And beyond that, more pointedly but less obviously, ideological collectives (as yours does) always carry with them an unstated presumption that the entity from which people would be free to disassociate would rightfully hold some property. That’s always there, lurking inder the surface, and generally comes out in little slips like saying that people would be free to “leave” or to “go.”
So you’re actually, already, envisioning an entity that would nominally rightfully govern a particular piece of property and would establish the norms that are expected of those who live there.
And to go all the way back that’s a lot of why I say ideological proto-anarchism is a masturbatory fantasy at best Dream all you want, but there is no way that such a thing could actually be implemented without empowering somebody to decree what specific norms will be in place, designating some particular borders within which those norms would be the only accepted ones, and most likely empowering someone to see to it that the norms are not violated, and that those who do violate them “freely” go somewhere else.
The first requirement for successful anarchism is people taking control of and responsibility for their own decisions and ceding the exact same control and responsibility to everyone else. As long as people continue to believe that they can and should have some say over other people’s decisions, anarchism will fail.
Never met a “no true Scotsman” anarchist.
Anarchy is individual and collective. Individuals are free to associate. Collectives of individuals work together because “apes strong together”. Hierarchies are horizontal. Violence is decentralized.
If you got “no true Scotsman” out of that, then you missed my point.
My only interest in a claim to anarchism is whether or not it’s practical, which is to say, whether ir not it includes ideas or positions that are innately authoritarian and will inevitably lead to the reestablishment of an institutionalized hierarchy.
And the simple reality is that most do. Authoritarian habits and presumptions, whether conscious or not, are just too widespread and deeply engrained.
And you left out “No rulers doesn’t mean no rules.”
It’s actually a huge step, actually. It’s like… the whole thing. It’s “here’s why it would be neat if you consented to this, but you can do something else if you like” versus “do it lol”.
Privilege spotted. The majority of the world absolutely does NOT have freedom of association, even de jure.
No they don’t, you’re imagining that. E.g., you can have multiple distinct anarchist collectives in the same area.
1000% yes. If you join a chess club started by me, you can’t shit on the chessboards. You are free to start a chess club where shitting on the chessboards is allowed/encouraged. Establishing norms is not necessarily a system of domination or hierarchy.
If someone decides to rape me, I am wrecking their shit. That’s a bad decision and I’m not gonna respect it at all. It’s not authoritarian to make and act on that judgment call. Obviously, this is perfectly in line with anarchist theory and praxis.
There are plenty of less extreme examples where someone’s decisions will harm someone else, e.g. insert an example from almost any undergraduate ethics textbook.
I gotta be so real with you: you seem like you want to do anarchism with the seriousness and care it deserves, but I suspect you’re trying to do a “clean room design” of anarchist principles. Please just do the reading. Anarchist literature is informed by generations of praxis and mistakes that you have no way of accumulating in a “clean room” within a single lifetime. There are even anarchists who make your arguments a lot more convincingly than you’re doing.
No it’s really not.
The huge step is the presumption that other people cannot simply be allowed to freely make their own decisions, and everything beyond that is simply a matter of how little or how much compulsion should be employed to get them to “choose” as one prefers instead.
As for the bulk of you response, I can very simply explain my view.
My position is that you should be seen to be entirely free to make your own choices, even if the choice you make is to rape me.
And of course, I too should be seen to be entirely free to make my own choices, including responding to the choice you’ve made in whatever way I see fit.
If each and all, or close enough as makes no meaningful difference, choose generally rationally, then the society will succeed. If not, then it will fail. It really is just that simple.
If, for whatever reason, that freedom is not ceded to each and all by each and all (or, again, close enough as makes no meaningful difference), then the society will inevitably follow the path back to institutionalized, hierarchical authoritarianism. It doesn’t matter how many well-meaning people work to see it limited - institutionalized authority rewards and thus effectively selects for those who are least constrained by morals, ethics, principles and empathy, and thus most willing and able to do whatever it takes to gain, hold and expand authority and the privilege it inherently grants, and even the tiniest opening will provide them with an opportunity they can and will exploit.
And as for the last bit, I’d simply rather invest my finite time and attention into reasoning through ideas on my own than into consuming the reasoning of others, particularly when it’s the case, as it all too often is, that I end up discovering that their reasoning has been tainted by their own authoritarian habits, presumptions or even ambitions.
Thanks for the response.
I literally cannot conjure up a better example for what kinds of mistakes you can internalize by doing a clean-room design of anarchism.
That’s magical thinking. Yeah there’s no such thing as a pure anarchist text and we are all shaped by the oppressions we are subject to, but the reasonable response is not to retreat into your own head, since you are certainly just as “tainted” as anyone else. Instead, the reasonable response is to read all texts critically, i.e. assume a perfect text does not exist.
And frankly, I don’t even want to read solely anarchist books. There are lots of people who make excellent contributions to various fields of endeavor who are not necessarily anarchists. E.g., I loved Omar El-Akkad’s book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This on the Gaza genocide, and I recommend every anarchist read it even though El-Akkad is not an anarchist to the best of my knowledge. It’s up to us to approach literature with a critical assessment.