Submitted by tuesday in Anarchism

I wonder if someone who knows more about historical anarchism and anarchists might know how anarchists of yore dealt with these types of questions.

It seems to me a lot of theory is centered on the question of Why Anarchy? and not How to Anarchy.

I personally find the questions of How to Anarchy tedious distractions, but I also understand that people are anxious and scared and that anarchism can be scary and that we've had a lot of a human's natural inclination to exploration and adventure beaten out of us by the demands of capitalism. So I get the want for reassurance, but I'd rather encourage people to be bold and creative, not moving from one authority to another.

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

This isn't history, just something that has been on my mind for a while.

Much of the people's anarchism, so to speak, is based around how-to-anarchy: ideologies like primitivism (by looking to how our anarchic ancestors lived), communism (by abolishing market relations and returning to a gift economy), syndicalism (by organising democratically to overthrow the society), and so on. Some people worship these ideologies; others react to the worship, and reject them completely. I think that by looking at them as adverbs and not nouns (i.e. primitively, communally, syndically?) it is more anarchically seen.

Anarchy is a skill, not a single method or formula-- like pottery isn't just making 20cm by 10cm cylindrical mugs with uniform thickness. The domesticated mind has absolutely no creativity of any kind.

Here is the closest I can think of to an anarchist method, also from more of a daoist lineage (via Fukuoka):

  1. Live in a gentle* and respectful manner towards other people and the entire universe, humble and unassuming.
  2. Do not worry; have hope in what is simple and apparent, the solutions that appear before you.
  3. Be content. Do not let others convince you that you need this or that to be happy; trust that all that you need lies with your community,** in the human sense and the wider one too. In other words, trust what is before you.

*gentle as in the mannerism, not as in gentry
**also in the wider sense, non-coercive relations such as friendship

I think that every theorist of these supposed sub-branches of anarchism is simply responding creatively to their local conditions. If we all aspire to this, and view others' ways of anarchy not as mandates or eternal truths but as approaches to anarchy based on perceived conditions, we can 1. learn to better tolerate and communicate with other people (anarchist and otherwise) who don't agree with us and 2. create an infinitely more effective path to anarchy.

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Classicide2Announced wrote

What are we supposed to say?

"We can't answer every hypothetical question, so we'll just have to let the vast majority of the human population work demeaning and alienating jobs until they die for shit pay."

Fuck that!

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lettuceLeafer wrote

I think engaging with and understanding taoism philosophy somewhat solved this problem for me. For most of my life I've been deeply involved in the settler mindset of controling property and being rigid about the future. I think that's where this question comes from. While taoism comes from a culture devoid of that western thought so it helps you release this colonial baggage from your thinking.

I think anarchy is best done according to this taoist idea in the art of war. Something about how it's important to have a strong defense and just react. Anarchism is great because it's adaptable and decentralized. Trying to have a goal or a plan is not playing to it's strength. Have skills, essential items, social relationship, values and ways of resistance and live life moment to moment.

Trying to control life to get a set goal is not gonna work in such a highly decentralized philosopy. I think if you like this line of reasoning Bruce Lee wrote about taoism in a really approachable way that still keeps the fundamentals. It's on archive.org.

Its still something I'm learning and thinking about so I still know quite little but I think such a line of thinking solves so many problems and worse with anarchy way better materially and helps with shedding social domestication in your brain a lot too.

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subrosa wrote

I think anarchy presented and encountered outside of larger conversations (seeking to answer "the social question") is a somewhat new development. Anarchists sort of didn't have to answer to those committed to the status quo, the conflicts usually arose between various reformers and revolutionaries. Even democrats and liberals, strongly committed to progress, saw their projects as social sciences (with plenty room for experimentation, improvement and perfection), philosophical in nature, rather than a set of simple policies within established frameworks.

In some parts of anarchist history it was much more common to speak of natural government and self-government, with 'governing' more of a synonym to 'organizing' social/daily life. And in times when communes popped up everywhere, when railway and postal services and media was managed more locally and saw plenty competition and conflict, it was probably easier to imagine society without the all-encompassing state government 'taking care' of it.

That all said, the how part was tiring even in the 1880s, I remember Benjamin Tucker complaining about it in Liberty Vol I. And I can probably find something in Proudhon too.

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Fool wrote

I did want to start writing detailed set of answers to common Anarchy101 questions, and get feedback.

But then I lost interest in words having meanings and I scrapped that.

I think there's a process of

  1. Start with a solid structure

  2. Show that the structure is not real

  3. Show that nothing is real

  4. Show that everything is real

Meow!

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moonlune wrote (edited )

iirc historically many anarchists were nihilists too and used the terms interchangeably for a while. This would explain the absence of how questions/answers, as nihilists aren't that interested in how either.

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marigold wrote

This is untrue. I wish it were true but it's not.

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moonlune wrote

I'm thinking of early 1900s anarchism was born from the 1880s russian nihilist movement, which was itself born from the 1850s german anarchists.

although I'm not interested in history so I might be wrong.

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ruinsociety wrote

That is correct. I'm not interested in the how right now. We can figure that out as we explore later.

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Classicide2Announced wrote

I agree with you.

We can easily look at the MANY examples of stateless, classless, communal societies in the past and see how they solved things. But the answer varies based on so many things. (Even under feudalism, the peasants enjoyed a lesser degree of alienation and could manage more of their own local affairs than we can.)

I think anarchism should be seen more as a struggle against the ruling order and less as a perfect map of how run a new society. Also, drawing up this map risks bringing the values of the old society with us into the future.

But at the same time, communism is NOT a new idea no matter what people who subscribe to the faux-futurist brand of Marxism tell you. Communism has been done so many times it's crazy, and those people had to harvest their crops with primitive sythes while we have tractors guided by satellites!

The bourgeoisie can always ask us exactly how we'll run things with a sly smile because they know the mere exposure effect is enough to make people fear changing things. But I don't know anyone who doesn't think they could run their own neighborhood better than a pathetically inept government.

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