Submitted by subrosa in Anarchism

Some unorganized thoughts.

My experience with anarchism is similar to my experience with psychedelic drugs, in that it unplugs you from your 'reality tunnel' and forces you to question the most fundamental beliefs and concepts. Those who speak of 'justified hierarchy' are probably trying to find a way to incorporate newly gained perspectives with some old beliefs, it takes a while to re-adjust your positions. Without the proper framework and vocabulary, the new perspectives can be difficult to express.

Exploring anarchism, it constantly adds to that list of things that people cling to for some reason, a whole buncha ideas that keep the destructive human-made world very stable: Authority, government, state, civilization, church, capitalism, elections, money, work, careers, property, police, prisons, legal order, rights, beauty standards, gender roles, progress, etc., etc., etc.

And then you live in a world mesmerized by ideas that we inherited, and none of them make much sense anymore. That can feel very disorienting and alienating. Like, why can't we snap out of that dream and do things differently? Why do we take that shit seriously? What am I missing here, what the hell is going on? You can't ask me to go back to believing in these things the way I used to. In a way, that's like asking a teenager to believe in Santa Claus again. What do you mean "what's my alternative to Santa Claus"?

Anarchism seems to primarily be about creating the language and the frameworks that allow us to talk about what we mean by 'anarchy', which is actually a rather simple idea most anarchists understand intuitively. It's just kinda 'out there' and it doesn't fit in.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I like some of the directions this goes, but just want to say that what you've talked about in your last paragraph are only semiotic/conceptual. Concepts and language.

Anarchism is definitely about creating specific sets of material conditions also. The way that our concepts and language co-constitute with the world we live in, and influence each other. The concerns we deal with are structural in our societies, they're also about physical relations between people, about flows of resources, about who physically has access to what, arrangements of things in space.

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subrosa OP wrote

I probably don't disagree with that, I'm just not great with language.

In an attempt to maybe clarify my point: Of course, the broader 'anarchism' includes all kinds of ideas on how to structure and arrange society, but I feel like even when anarchism's focus is on material conditions and social structures, it's an expression of what we mean by 'anarchy', or an exploration of how we might do things differently to create anarchy. It is always gonna be the 'why' behind these ideas, it's what seperates them from socialism, communism, communalism. It's not a system we implement or an 'ultimate goal' we can reach, and there's no one true way to do it.

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a_perfect_map wrote

Hey, this can be intense and alienating, like going through postmodernism, you're left with a pile of broken pieces and a ton of questions. You're not alone in this though, other people feel the same!

Like, why can't we snap out of that dream and do things differently? Why do we take that shit seriously? What am I missing here, what the hell is going on?

This is what I ask myself all the time, why the fuck do people just do what they're told?

This is my opinon but I blame nationization of language and the resulting education industrial complex. National languages, and certainly global languages, are a new thing. They are encouraged by the state to make mass education possible. This machinery is a big way cultural genocide is done. From a young, vulnerable age you are in school. The rudiments of authority are pushed on you and you are prepared for work by being held to schedule and deadline.

Today schools are like prisons, students are under heavy surveillance and the 'learning' that goes on in them is regurgitation of memorized information, a simulation of understanding. A legitimate test could not be cheated on because it would involve some kind of demonstration of genuine resynthesis and understanding.

I can teach you something, but I can't understand it for you.

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kore wrote

oh man i have so much to say about this i really just should write a longer work by now.

a few aphoristic things:

an-archy. interpreted by many negatively as "without order", among self professed anarchists as "without hierarchy" but still other options surface, "without beginning" or "without principle". consider John 1:1, " in the beginning (arche) there was Word/Deed/Power" (logos). then loop back into hier-archy and you find a sacred order or sacred principle.

think of the old master who said that The Way begets the one, and the one begets the two, and the two begets the myriad things but also says "i do not know how it is called, so i style it the way"

there is a rich language found in buddhism to describe some sorts of things related to this piercing of a constructed reality, and the mental difficulties arising from it.

ultimately i believe it is a so-called "spiritual" problem, this disintegration of fixed terms and reality. as much as ive tried to forget about it once youre on the path theres no getting off, you just have to move forward. meditation helps.

I'd recommend reading something like "zen mind beginner mind" by shunryu suzuki and then reading Max Cafard's "Zen Anarchy". D.T. Suzuki is also a good author, i believe a book is " Zen or the Doctrine of No-Mind", though if i remember that is significantly more academic and dense than shunryu suzukis book. id look at that first.

then theres also primary texts, which can be a real treat.

this disintegration of any fixed principle is how i understand anarchy-as-theory. /u/Tequila_Wolf said some very perceptive things about practice. but really the two are inseparable. i believe a buddhist metaphor is the "wagon making two ruts in the road"

a big concept (especially in daoism) is that when someone sees things for what they really are, they "do nothing, but accomplish everything" and theres no debate about what is the "right" thing to do.

its been a long strange trip for me so far.

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