important notice: ziq, the nation state of anarchists are coming to de-platform youunneeded_junes wrote
Is anyone able to give me a tl;dr of the situation? I read the Reddit post and I'm reading the comments here on Raddle and I literally have no idea of what's going on.
What take does ziq have that has Redditors upset?
And what’s with all the hate for Bookchin and AnComs on this thread?
veuzi wrote
Ziq likes to post links to their work on r/anarchism from time to time. Usually it doesn't get any attention, but this time around, a Bookchin stan (with a recent post history of strawmanning post-left and anti-civ perspectives, no less) noticed it and posted a rant of their own in response. The OP of said rant went on to insinuate that all individualists, post-lefties and anti-civ anarchists are far-right infiltrators, and subsequently called for their deplatforming.
Predictably, shit hit the fan in the comments and the OP got roasted several times over while desperately trying to defend their assumptions. I was myself asked if I was a "rightist" for saying that not all anarchists want to LARP as leftist revolutionaries.
Don't know if you've been lurking on this site much, but the userbase here is mostly of the post-left, individualist, nihilist or anti-civ varieties of anarchism who have never really gotten along with the more dogmatic personalities of the social anarchists, as exemplified by the stereotype of a recent ancom convert who have only ever read Kropotkin and a few other authors with similar views at most.
The schism with Bookchin specifically goes back to his quarrels with Bob Black in the 90s, namely Bookchin's Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism and Black's response Anarchy After Leftism (where he coined the term "post-left anarchy"). Bookchin abandoned anarchism entirely as a result and came up with communalism, a sort of compromise ideology between Marxism and anarchism that emphasizes direct democracy, federalism and social ecology.
anarchyfrog wrote
Bookchin also started out as a Stalinist in his youth. And now federalism has been adopted by tankies (lemmy.ml), bringing things truly full circle.
zoom_zip OP wrote
the person who made the post is going through the motions of a) promoting hierarchy on an anarchist subreddit b) comparing individualists to nazis in the same breath as saying they should be silenced c) acting like anyone who holds a different opinion to their “correct” opinion is dangerous.
i don’t think ziq’s essay has redditors upset. it’s just this one poster.
i don’t know who bookchin is. is he a dead white guy with a beard?
i didn’t make this post with any hate for ancoms. i would probably identify as ancom if i wasn’t so weirded out by the idea of pinning my beliefs to a single label, or feeling like people would misunderstand my beliefs if they weren’t 100% in line with the label; and also the whole weird shows of identity that i mentioned in one of my other comments, like wearing ancom flags and calling each other “comrade” that just weirds me out.
train wrote
Bookchin is actually a pretty recent political theorist. He tried squaring differences between communism and anarchism to create a political philosphy he called communalism. His work heavily influenced the politics of the PKK in northern Syria which ended up founding Rojava.
The relative success of Rojava, which uses a system they call Democratic confederalism, has definitely generated enthusiam for Bookchin and his ideas abroad.
allatseaa wrote
His work heavily influenced the politics of the PKK in northern Syria which ended up founding Rojava.
This is an exagerration if not at outright fabrication (not by you, but by the people you heard it from). The PKK - who are a political party - started name dropping Bookchin to appeal to Western anarchists. They did this when their supply of Western marxists ran dry. Their Great Leader's correspondence with Old Man Murray was nothing more than a very politically experienced leftist manipulating a very naive one.
train wrote
I think you're right in someways but wrong in others. For one I really don't know that the PKK and subsequently the YPG have ever really had a meaningful international unit. It's entirely possible they aimed to expand those ranks even if they were not very successful in doing so. Although to be fair I don't actually know what the numbers are.
This of course doesn't mean playing up Bookchin isn't part of the PKK's and now Rojava's external propoganda. It certainly is. They clearly want to inspire sympathies from westerners as their claim to legitimacy was in part due to the US backing them in a war against ISIS. However, this strategy is limited and has done little to protect Rojava from Turkey.
Lastly, this isn't just part of Rojava's external propoganda. It's clearly internal too. I legitimately don't think they would have had much buy in from people in norntheastern Syria had Öcalan and the PKK not embraced some form of municipalism.
That doesn't mean Rojava is actually communalist. It also doesn't prove that communalism or democratic confederalism are worthwhile political philosophies. Hower, as I said, I do think the relative success of Rojava has actually drawn more people toward Bookchin and communalism. I think that's true even if, as you say, the intention was to draw communalists to the PKK and Rojava.
train wrote
Its a conflict between egoist and communalist anarchists as far as I'm aware. They both call themselves anarchists but have a different understanding of what defines hierarchy. Many of the former seem to consider themselves "post left" and will heavily critique concepts like democracy. The latter might see such views as harmful because they can be interpretted to be cynical and fatalistic.
Ziq and a number of users here are very much of the individualist/egoist camp. I don't think they represent everyone on this site but judging by the number of Max Stirner memes it's definitely a thing here.
anarchyfrog wrote
Communalists don't consider themselves anarchists unless they haven't actually read Bookchin. Bookchin strongly opposed anarchism.
train wrote
That's not how I understand it. Bookchin opposed individualist anarchism which is not what all self described anarchists believe is anarchism. His break from using the term anarchist to describe himself I believe is more about creating a distinction between his own philosophy and individualist anarchists. That's not a distinction all self descrilbed anarchists care to make.
anarchyfrog wrote (edited )
train wrote (edited )
I get what you mean but this seems more like an argument to define the term anarchism to exclude certain self described anarchists. I don't think they describe themselves as such in bad faith. With that said, idk how useful it is to argue about whether or not they are anarchists. I think that detracts from the ideological argument which is far more substantive.
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