A lot of my friends are "anarchists"- including myself- but we can never agree on anything. Which is pretty funny, seeing as how a true anarchist state would need almost a consensus on everything. (There's a statement that could cause conversation already..)
I'm going to apologize if my following thoughts are a bit all-over-the-place, so I'm going to number each thought as different issues I have with my "fellow" anarchists.
1) I personally look at anarchy as a tool that will better our civilization, and not so much a political state after the revolution, and a lot of people think that that isn't a true anarchist. But my main issue with anarchy being a political state that would actually work better then what we have now is no one can come up with any better ideas! Everyone is good at complaining about what they DON'T like in our society, but they rarely come up with realistic ways to make it better.
2) My issues with revolution: I feel that we -this is terrible, but I mean "we" as in the rich, western world for the most part- have worked on OUR democracy- which is very different then a TRUE democracy- for over 300 years, and it HAS slowly been getting better throughout that period of time (i.e people aren't killed for believing a slightly different version of the popular religion, religion is no longer shoved down our throat as a way to keep people in line). SO, keeping all that in mind, ENTIRELY changing everything seems really stupid! If people had plans on how to make the transition of societal changes not fuck over just about everyone else, then I would understand, but NONE of the anarchists I've talked to seem to have any fucking idea! They just want something else, that they haven't even worked out what it is! The grass is always greener on the other side, I guess. It seems that people just want to take the easy route (total revolution, hoping it works out), as supposed to the maybe more effective route (protesting, lobbying, and all that other "direct action" that never seems to do anything, but actually does over a long period of time). Give me some thoughts on that, because if anyone has thought it through on how a revolution would work, I would love to hear them.
3) This is also an issue I have with a revolution. Different kinds of anarchism. This is something that's always made me laugh, because the different sects of anarchism are as different as the left-wing parties and the right-wing parties we vote for now! I'm just imagining these people having to figure out how they were going to work together to make everyone happy! I suppose everyone could survive in small knit tribes, just avoiding those with other beliefs, but that seems like there is a lot of room for corruption.
4) MY philosophy on anarchy. I think that anarchy is a mind set for thinking outside-the-political-box, it's removing yourself from the conventional way of thinking to better solve problems. I think its EXTREMELY important for people in this society to consider themselves "anarchists". It always gives them a critical view on issues that the government, or corporations, or police may have fucked up on. And by people addressing the issues, the issues slowly get solved, whether it's a bill being passed to change the problem right away, a cop being fired for abuse of power, or a longer- but equally as important- moral-shift in society. Consider the 60's, no one respected the hippies until probably 20 years later, when people were like "Hey! Peace isn't so bad of an idea, maybe I SHOULD look at the war my government is waging overseas instead of blindly, patriotically agreeing with it!" And this WAS an issue, up until Vietnam, people usually got excited about going to war! The hippies DID change things, you just wouldn't know it until you look at the 20 years it took them to do it. Am I too off-topic? I think that you guys understand what I'm trying to say here. Basically, anarchy is the modern-day "peace" revolution of the 60s.
5) Anarcho-communism. I think this is something worth looking at, because the similarities these anarchists have to the Russian revolution is scary. I've gotten really into anarcho-communism for very not-anarchist ideals. I just like the idea of fighting police on the streets, it is a guilty pleasure I try to separate from my anarchist beliefs as much as possible. But if these people ACTUALLY overthrew the government, I think it would turn to fascism before you could finish a 40. These people fascinate me as much as the terrify me. Anyone here consider themselves an anarcho-communist who would care to ease my fears?
So yeah, just a couple topics I think are interesting to discuss, and there were a couple questions there I'd like to hear answers to.
Rant away!
I'm going to apologize if my following thoughts are a bit all-over-the-place, so I'm going to number each thought as different issues I have with my "fellow" anarchists.
1) I personally look at anarchy as a tool that will better our civilization, and not so much a political state after the revolution, and a lot of people think that that isn't a true anarchist. But my main issue with anarchy being a political state that would actually work better then what we have now is no one can come up with any better ideas! Everyone is good at complaining about what they DON'T like in our society, but they rarely come up with realistic ways to make it better.
2) My issues with revolution: I feel that we -this is terrible, but I mean "we" as in the rich, western world for the most part- have worked on OUR democracy- which is very different then a TRUE democracy- for over 300 years, and it HAS slowly been getting better throughout that period of time (i.e people aren't killed for believing a slightly different version of the popular religion, religion is no longer shoved down our throat as a way to keep people in line). SO, keeping all that in mind, ENTIRELY changing everything seems really stupid! If people had plans on how to make the transition of societal changes not fuck over just about everyone else, then I would understand, but NONE of the anarchists I've talked to seem to have any fucking idea! They just want something else, that they haven't even worked out what it is! The grass is always greener on the other side, I guess. It seems that people just want to take the easy route (total revolution, hoping it works out), as supposed to the maybe more effective route (protesting, lobbying, and all that other "direct action" that never seems to do anything, but actually does over a long period of time). Give me some thoughts on that, because if anyone has thought it through on how a revolution would work, I would love to hear them.
3) This is also an issue I have with a revolution. Different kinds of anarchism. This is something that's always made me laugh, because the different sects of anarchism are as different as the left-wing parties and the right-wing parties we vote for now! I'm just imagining these people having to figure out how they were going to work together to make everyone happy! I suppose everyone could survive in small knit tribes, just avoiding those with other beliefs, but that seems like there is a lot of room for corruption.
4) MY philosophy on anarchy. I think that anarchy is a mind set for thinking outside-the-political-box, it's removing yourself from the conventional way of thinking to better solve problems. I think its EXTREMELY important for people in this society to consider themselves "anarchists". It always gives them a critical view on issues that the government, or corporations, or police may have fucked up on. And by people addressing the issues, the issues slowly get solved, whether it's a bill being passed to change the problem right away, a cop being fired for abuse of power, or a longer- but equally as important- moral-shift in society. Consider the 60's, no one respected the hippies until probably 20 years later, when people were like "Hey! Peace isn't so bad of an idea, maybe I SHOULD look at the war my government is waging overseas instead of blindly, patriotically agreeing with it!" And this WAS an issue, up until Vietnam, people usually got excited about going to war! The hippies DID change things, you just wouldn't know it until you look at the 20 years it took them to do it. Am I too off-topic? I think that you guys understand what I'm trying to say here. Basically, anarchy is the modern-day "peace" revolution of the 60s.
5) Anarcho-communism. I think this is something worth looking at, because the similarities these anarchists have to the Russian revolution is scary. I've gotten really into anarcho-communism for very not-anarchist ideals. I just like the idea of fighting police on the streets, it is a guilty pleasure I try to separate from my anarchist beliefs as much as possible. But if these people ACTUALLY overthrew the government, I think it would turn to fascism before you could finish a 40. These people fascinate me as much as the terrify me. Anyone here consider themselves an anarcho-communist who would care to ease my fears?
So yeah, just a couple topics I think are interesting to discuss, and there were a couple questions there I'd like to hear answers to.
Rant away!
