Comments
fortmis wrote (edited )
That providing an alternative to the thing you are criticizing is not important, the criticism can be valid regardless of hypothetical alternatives. I.e. anarchists do not need to provide an alternate way of restructuring society while criticizing hierarchy.
Ahhhh I'm torn. I mean I agree that not having a ready alternative doesn't mean you can't and shouldn't criticize hierarchy etc but I disagree that having an alternative isn't important.
We were just having a whole convo about this. I'll edit the comment with a link in a moment.
Link: https://raddle.me/f/discussion/150678/continuing-the-convo-is-absence-of-a-negative-thing-enough
There are definitely situations where the criticism can end with "no ____" for example, a critique of domestic violence doesn't require providing an alternative .. it can just be "no hitting your wife."
But when I'm in a conversation where I'm saying yo we don't need the government, I find it really important to explain how I think it could work.
I think the problem with anarchists being called to explain how they would x y z, is that the questions are all wrong. The defund the police movement faced a lot of this. We don't need to answer the question "but what would you do if someone was gunna stab you." But I think it's helpful to answer questions like "how would we deal with violence."
ukuleleclass wrote
i think you made a really good point. at least how i understood your sentiment is that it’s all a matter of scale— we’re under no obligation to try and administer some national strategy for anarchy (in fact that would be fascist) but it can often be liberating to try new ways of accomplishing things in our hyper local ecologies.
subrosa wrote
Anarchy is chaos, but chaos isn't the same thing as a war of all against all.
I probably don't agree with anarchy is chaos any more than I agree with anarchy is order. Either position can be argued elegantly, in consistently anarchistic ways.
One commonality between radicals I enjoy reading the most, is the presence of a 'language of war'.
So, like, how about...
Anarchy does not preclude order, but every call for order is a declaration of war.
ukuleleclass wrote
on the topic of chaos i guess it just depends on how you view chaos. to me it’s the nature of constant change and transformations that are beyond our human understanding but can be felt and embodied. i view it almost in an ontological way in which even the patterns that arise throughout evolution are partially attributes of a larger condition of spontaneity. embracing this change as a function of material reality is often grounding for myself, especially in the face of extreme dissociation and alienation that capitalism and civilization requires.
subrosa wrote
allow me to riff on this
beyond our human understanding
Some external and beyond comprehension, approximately eternal, bigger-than-all-of-us nature that pumps out spontaneity, patterns, causes for larger conditions of whatever. Chaos as a post-left leftover god, barely capable of antagonizing the gods of natural order... I'm not sure what to do with it.
Hakim Bey was probably the first and last anarchist to do something interesting with "chaos", and even then it was really just the era of 80s hippies incorporating then-new and exciting pop-science and science fiction themes in their writings. Capturing a certain anxiety about the "end of history", about entering a new millennium without the old basis of left vs. right politics on the world scene. Also capturing a certain optimism about possible futures imagined then, of the sort that fed transhumanism into existence. Chaos-talk lent itself to conflicts between lifestylists and anarcho-leninists, and between other caricatures of anarchists.
When I read about "chaos" in anarchist forums, that's what I'm thinking of. A term charged with meaning in now fading contexts; no more immune to nostalgia, conservatism, impotence and relative fixity as "progress" and "change" turned out not to be a century earlier. When it comes to ontological speculation, I'll say Proudhon's "certainty and its criterion " dance was the more elegant one so far.
ukuleleclass wrote
very interesting ! i’ve heard of Hakim Bey but haven’t read any of their stuff. it sounds like there’s maybe specific contexts for how chaos has been used that i’m not really aware of to be honest. i'm mostly coming from a performative new materialist, transcorporeal and maaaaybr Deleuzian sense but i’m rusty on all of my ontology readings.
is the certainty and it’s criterion an essay by proudhon or a part of a larger project ?
byro1234512345 OP wrote (edited )
- So kinda a “fifth position”?
2 i mean quite a few anarchists argue that anarchism is anathema to politics it self so yeah
3 I do think we should come up with alternatives but our main priority (at least in the short term) is criticising systems
4 Hmm have some big reservations about that but I have no problem as long as you don’t pull the “Christianity wants to keep us in poverty” thing in response to Christian socialism/anarchism
5 fair
6 yep I have noticed this website is into more esoteric and exotic forms of anarchism that’s for sure
veuzi wrote
Hmm have some big reservations about that but I have no problem as long as you don’t pull the “Christianity wants to keep us in poverty” thing in response to Christian socialism/anarchism
Not sure how that relates to what I said. But as you mentioned you being a christian anarchist in another comment, may as well give you my 2 cents on that.
For the most part, I have no particular beef with christianity, or at least not to any more degree than any other religion or even ideology. I do frequently criticize religious thinking in other ideologies and other anarchisms, specifically spooks/phantasms or fixed ideas such as "greater good", "lesser evil", Community with a capital C and so on. Often just to make the case, like Stirner did, that Enlightenment values, humanism and liberalism by extension can be considered as religious in their thinking as any "proper" religion despite presenting itself as secular and nonreligious. If you replace God with Man then have you really replaced God?
I of course criticize religious authority like any other anarchist, I would expect a christian anarchist to agree to that point too. As for christian anarchism specifically, I think it is a weird curiosity but not something I would treat with outright hostility despite my nihilism and rejection of heightened, fixed ideas. It's still anarchism all the same. Not a fan of the pacifism that usually comes with it, though.
I have a T-shirt depicting a burning church (it's a band shirt and no it's not a black metal band) that I sometimes like to wear in public, and it gets some worried looks but also plenty of laughs.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
You know what those are pretty good points but the reason I brought it up is that your initial point was suggesting we should live more frugally, which is what Christianity also encourages, but many socialists and anarchists accuse Christianity of wanting to keep people in poverty so yeah...
dropdead161 wrote
Overpopulation is not a myth.
ziq wrote
Anarchists should be for anarchy.
byro1234512345 OP wrote (edited )
i mean I'm pretty sure that's in the name so...
fortmis wrote
You'd think that would be enough.... But alas
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Fair
Bezotcovschina wrote
this whole site is pretty much a harbor for unpopular to general anarchists and especially leftists opinions
byro1234512345 OP wrote
true although i have notice when even compared to anarchists elsewhere this site can lean on the extreme side.
fortmis wrote
I would argue instead that a lot of anarchists elsewhere (need I say Reddit) spend a lot of their time trying to find ways to drag anarchy closer to "safer," more mainstream left ideas, trying to bring it into accordance with systems of oppression. I think they do this because they want less work to do. they want to be able to call themselves an anarchist but they want to hold on to their old ideas.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Also fair although I would put myself in the “mainstream libsoc” camp and don’t find anything wrong with that but still I can understand why some would think we’re too “soft” even if I do disagree with it at the end of the day
Bezotcovschina wrote
"Soft" is a wrong term, I think. It implies that those who think that consider themselves "hard", which isn't usually a case.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
By “soft”I just mean not being as radical
fortmis wrote
So what's your answer to this question?
byro1234512345 OP wrote (edited )
As in an unpopular opinion? Well i have a few but I think this is definitely the most unpopular one, especially here...
I don’t like anti theism, granted that’s probably because I’m christian which now that I think about is also kinda unpopular here but still, I think they are ironically pretty dogmatic and zealous and I think even when it comes to anarchists it can quickly lead to tyranny and violence (on reddit there was a “anarchist” who deadass said there should be a “don’t say god” bill), now don’t get wrong I do agree with some of their points and I also understand that many become anti theists (especially if they’re lgbt etc) because they have been wronged by Christianity and or other religions but still, bigotry should not be answered by bigotry and hatred should not be the answer for hatred
moonlune wrote
You're right, that is unpopular haha
byro1234512345 OP wrote (edited )
yeah, i thought so although this sub reacted better then i thought it would. btw what are your thoughts on Christian anarchism??
moonlune wrote (edited )
an anarchis approach to life make sense theologically : it's pretty close to Jesus' preaching. But I don't think being christian brings anything different in a good way over regular anarchism, while locking away some of the fun.
Maybe we should call christian anarchism, anarchist christianism, to show better where their priorities lie.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Tbf we see the Christian part as more of a motivation then a goal and even the more conservative members tend to take a “live and let live” approach when it comes ‘fun stuff’ and we frown on stuff like coerced or manipulated conversions
Also I think anarcho-Christianity is a better name
moonlune wrote
Oh no by fun stuff I meant embracing eternal damnation because fuck god even if he exists, instead of accepting the one hierarchy of the divine over the mortal.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Me a gnostic universalist: I Am Four Parallel Universes Ahead Of You
ziq wrote
yea it's almost like we're barely social democrats at all
moonlune wrote
U can't be a serious anarchist or leftist (even the authoritarian ones) in 2023 and not be vegan (or at least freegan)
& it's ok for stuff to be ephemeral
fortmis wrote
Oooooooofff. * hides behind a curtain*
veuzi wrote
Is there any more room behind that curtain?
fortmis wrote (edited )
Yes, just move that pile of cheese off the chair there and take a seat!
moonlune wrote
I hope it's stolen cheese at least!
Bezotcovschina wrote
dumpster dived, I think
fortmis wrote
There's no other way!!! Haha
Bezotcovschina wrote
not be vegan (or at least freegan)
At least? I always perceived freegans as higher beings myself.
ziq wrote (edited )
I think that's just a cop out. An animal's body isn't being wasted because you're not consuming it. Living beings aren't for your consumption. Just treating captivity, death and suffering as a product, whether you pay for it or not, is gross
Ishkah wrote (edited )
For me putting the time into dumpster diving bread with whey in it is absolutely me better achieving a goal I decided I wanted to take on with veganism, that of wanting to relate to the world with more compassion.
Seeing animal material from farms always brings the sadness closer to mind of the cruel lives animals live on farms. But, I just would feel that I'd be treating the animal with less dignity letting any of their final remains rot in dumpsters when the material has been used in items like bread similar to the vegan bread that I would otherwise go out and buy.
Eating that animal material for me is about treating the animals’ final remains more similar to the way the animals’ wild ancestors would have been treated after death. So, with more dignity than the way we bred infantile traits into them and with more dignity than the toxic relationship we would be perpetuating by anthropomorphically infantilising them as infant humans who could have grown up to be people who could suffer a worse quality of life worrying about how other people might intend to treat their body after their death.
Further reading on my position:
ziq wrote (edited )
but why consume something as empty of nutrients and destructive to the ecosystem as bread when there are wild mallows and mustards growing right next to that dumpster? doesn't your body deserve better than stale death?
Ishkah wrote
I'm 6ft 3 and cycle everywhere, a sandwich with wholemeal bread as a snack is a cheap tasty way of getting my carbs in. It might be that I should stop buying it for ecological reasons and crop deaths, but that's not an argument against dumpster diving it.
ziq wrote (edited )
It is when you can choose different free food that's just as readily available and far more nutritious. It's not like you're starving.
Ishkah wrote (edited )
So the mere sadness I feel about crop deaths that happen in the production of bread should prevent me from dumpster diving bread otherwise I'm not truly relating to wildlife with dignity?
Me dumpster diving lots of edible material is fast and means money saved on buying food, which means I don't have to work to earn as much money, which means I have more time I can put into projects I care about like environmental ones. If I was growing a food forest and dumpster diving it would mean I could give away more food I've grown or leave more to wildlife. So, for me, all of that is relating to the wildlife that died in crop deaths with more dignity than I would be if I was leaving perfectly edible material in triple wrapped plastic in the trash.
Bezotcovschina wrote
good point
kore wrote
Living beings aren't for your consumption
Interesting to me that you say "living beings" and not "animals" here. Was this intentional to include plants, fungi etc.? If so, how do you integrate this mindset into the will to live? I've struggled with it a lot recently, how do I treat plant foods in a non-commodified way. The best I've come up with so far is that it's mutual aid, we help propagate the plants in exchange for some of their bodies and/or yield.
256 wrote
The more animals you let kill, exploit and consume, the more plants are consumed.
Plants don't feel pain.
rattledlove1139 wrote
But that still is something under study if plants feel pain, i thought
Would not be something we understand with our flesh and blood and nervous systems different from plants, that's why still under study, but I don't think entirely impossible. Plants send distress signals and move and communicate too, also complex little beings.
I rather remember and be grateful for all beings that give up time energy or life to produce my food, human workers too, than worry about what life forms can or can't feel pain and try live with that. Because we don't know for certain, and some day could prove very very wrong.
Right now not much food comes without harm someone or something somewhere on the way... workers or plants or animals or land herself. It is very much worth and in need to change but not worth to hurt and berate yourself over if someday something you thought true turns out wrong
moonlune wrote
Plants don't feel pain any more than a computer feels pain.
Because we don't know for certain, and some day could prove very very wrong.
We do know for certain that animals do feel pain though.
rattledlove1139 wrote
Not saying not just my point is if someone is vegan specifically because animals feel pain but plants do not, some day understanding of that might change and then what? Eat nothing? even animal studies on pain and emotion still relatively new let alone plant life. Nothing against people choose to cut out any category product just i think reason should be more than about cutting out who can feel pain. Human workers feel pain too, and they're involved no matter what you eat
256 wrote
The more animals you let kill, exploit and consume, the more plants are consumed.
rattledlove1139 wrote
Disagree some people have disabilities with diet limitations. There is lots i physically can not eat at the moment so if i choose eggs then that is good because my other choice is going hungry. I want to try get better in future so less rely (can probably still never remove) but not everyone can.
256 wrote
Care to elaborate?
'Diet limitations' is quite broad and can have a myriad of reasons.
For example, after injuries, people sometimes need very high-protein diets - this is not impossible with plant-based diets.
I know someone that has a nut allergy and also is vegan.
There are more severe cases, but I don't think it is a good idea to gloss over the fact of animal exploitation too, since people who are absolutely able to follow plant-based diets have some explanations to do when they call themselves anarchist.
rattledlove1139 wrote
Eating disorders, especially ARFID which i deal with (almost all food make incredibly nauseous and can not "JUST" try things new it is very mentally and physically stressful)
Medication and food interactions, like compounds in soy or some vegetables can cancel out meds for some conditions
Side effects from supplements that would be dangerous if already have problems (more constipation on top of existing bowel problems for example)
Generally intolerances and allergies, yes people can manage if just one but more than one gets hard especially if (for example) gluten AND nuts
This would be less relevant in world without so much pressure but people with not enough money and time to just buy and cook fresh, who kind of rely on fast food and cheap meat cuts to feed self
But also people in rural places without much shop or very cold places without ability to grow, hunting animals good or maybe even best way to eat
i do not gloss over there is problems but not everyone can just change and still eat enough to be alive let alone healthy. People should be allow to eat what suits environment and medical needs and sometimes that means animal product. I think there is line of excess people should not cross and support anyone who CAN go without and stay healthy but important always to remember not everyone in that position
256 wrote
I wonder if therapists who do CBT-AR could be convinced to include the knowledge about vegan nutrition, that has been produced so far. I hope you can get better if that's what you want.
Soy
Plant-based diets are unfortunately often seen as an additional product, I suspect this is class-based. There are definitly ways to have plant-based diets without soy, but it seems difficult when comparably expensive vegan soy products are flooding supermarkets and vegan discourses.
More than one disability
Yes. People with more than disability often have to rely on people around them (carnist 'society'), but the problems of carnism will increase the prevalence of those disabilities, I assume. Therefore, similar to measures against the excessive spread of pandemics, I'd argue that those who are absolutely able to be vegan, should be(come) vegan, decrasing carnism.
rattledlove1139 wrote
Of course i want but access is hard. i also don't know if good idea to introduce veganism in ED recovery (in general) unless patient ask for because already very tough to recover and be healthy, especially if safe foods already mostly include animal product. Priority 1 in ED recovery should be keep living whatever food that takes
None of things i live with are caused by animal product or could be fixed without I really do not understand.
existential1 wrote
I'm OK with people not caring.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Fair Trying to get people care can even have the effect of making them care even less or even make them antipathetic
fortmis wrote
Pacifism
byro1234512345 OP wrote
“Based”- Tolstoy
rattledlove1139 wrote
Some people refuse put thoughts in simple language because "everyone should understand" and if they can't that makes them bad. That's ableism and cruel
it takes me lot of work to understand some things i see and still sometimes can't. Simple language and stories or scenarios key to connect with people like me and probably also help average person with no exposure understand positions better if that's important to someone. But people say nope bad to simplify bad to give help because good people should just understand.
Society without big structure and rules should not continue overlook people like me with our messed up broken brains. i am not capable of same things even if I stare and try for hours.
fortmis wrote (edited )
Unnecessarily complex writing is so yesterday
Fool wrote
A simple explanation is often more accurate and useful.
Many people often don't realise that they're over complicating things, and making it harder for themselves as a result.
You shouldn't feel bad about not understanding, a especially in regards to social norms, people very often don't understand that the reason they can't explain why to do something, is because there's no reason to do it, and all their rules just get in the way of enjoyment.
TLDR; the first rule of Nihilism club is that everything is just made up.
Note: There's more rules but we can make them up later.
kore wrote
I've felt the same way. If it makes you feel any better, I think the refusal to simplify is sometimes because they don't truly understand what they are trying to explain. I've become quite fond of asking "dumb" questions, I think it can really equalize the conversation.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Yeah sometimes anarchist ideas and thoughts do go over my head sometimes
Sid_Knee wrote
saying anarchists shouldn't support government coerced and mandated covid vaccines and vaccine passports got me in a whole heap of trouble
Fool wrote
Embrace the Void.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Simple yet impressionable on the psyche I like it
roanoke9 wrote
Anarchy= abolish all hierarchy. Abolish means to make something not exist. All means systems, structures, mindsets, supporting infrustructure, etc, Hierarchy means authority over others (whether obtained by threat, trickery, exploiting existing ignorance, whatever means).
mima wrote
Old (i.e. 90s and older) cars are pretty cool
another_i wrote (edited )
I embraced pre emission-regulatory diesel engines.
They can run on biodiesel and I can fix them myself, because how simple they are.
I also am not a commuter, or daily driver.
PointNemo wrote
Can you explain further? What happened that made it so they cars could not run biodiesel?
another_i wrote
In 2007 in the US, regulatory emissions added a part called DPF - diesel particulate filter, which is negatively impacted by non petroleum based diesels. The DPF is essentially a special catalyatic coverter. It has rare earth minerals that captures particulates and then does a "regen", where it burns off the captured materials every ~15k miles or something like that.
You can make new diesels run on biodiesel, but you have to illegally delete the DPF.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Based
ziq wrote
why do zoomers keep saying that
ukuleleclass wrote
poggers
mjem wrote (edited )
too many non-anarchist who said nothing outrightly against existent invasion of the civilized but philosophical garbage or called themselves as "socialists" (to me a word refered to capitalist reformers, adherers to Marxist scriptures or not, from the very begining of its usage) or claimed their grand solidarity with the state are counted as "proto-anarchists", "individualist anarchists" or "anarcho-communists" in attempts to compose a history of anarchism by either academic reds or ziq
or simply, the notion that someone with trace of socialist / left / techno-positivistic or civilized trait can be an anarchist
mjem wrote
is doubtful enough for me
when_you_sleep wrote
i hate collectives, organizations and every type of social anarchist
AnarcheAmor wrote
Anarchism isn't necessarily liberatory or even good. In fact, it could very well be a product and preserver of authoritarian thinking.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
This one of my main gripes with anti theist anarchists is that they can be authoritarian when it comes to religion Although now that I think about it it’s also one of the main gripes anti theist anarchists have with Christian anarchism is that they can also be authoritarian Obviously it’s not universal or even common for both but still
Majrelende wrote (edited )
Would you mind elaborating? I'm quite interested.
AnarcheAmor wrote
In short, anarchism doesn't have anything inherent to it that prevents the birth of hierarchical thinking and there's an argument that can be made that hierarchy is a natural product of anarchism but that requires a more involved explanation.
0fux wrote
anarchists spend too much time on silly abstract arguments, and dividing ourselves into infinite subniches does nothing to actually establish anarchy, things like the 'social' vs 'lifestylist' debate, both the bookchinites and the post-leftists are incredibly annoying dogmatists.
Anarchists should try not being anti-dogmatic and accept that 1. words can mean multiple things based on context and 2. conflicting ideas are good and we can respectfully disagree...
but anarchists are more motivated by their own ego and playing revolutionaries and being special little boys and girls ( i can already hear the pedantic ass retort 'wow what are you anti-egoism wow spooky' and refuse to even comprehend what i'm saying )
houdini wrote
Some people are better than others. Or, conversely, some people are worse than others.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
I mean I think that’s popular when it comes to personality It’s when it comes to mental or physical stuff where that statement gets... problematic
fortmis wrote (edited )
Hmmmmmmmmm is this really an opinion worth hanging on to?
Feels like it would cause a lot of hassle n strifes
Fool wrote
But you never can know which is which, which is why you have undertaken the great quest to prove the existence of the previously undiscoverd essence of human betterness. You will prove to the Anarchist rabble that there is a hierarchy.
d4rk wrote
Socialist Society exists and we must conserve it.
byro1234512345 OP wrote
Damn that is unpopular
veuzi wrote (edited )
That anarchism maybe doesn't belong on the left.
That anarchistic action maybe don't even belong in the world of politics.
That providing an alternative to the thing you are criticizing is not important, the criticism can be valid regardless of hypothetical alternatives. I.e. anarchists do not need to provide an alternate way of restructuring society while criticizing hierarchy.
Work should not be reformed, organized or otherwise reimagined to an "after the revolution" context. Work should be abolished. It may even be preferable to significantly cut down on industrial production and the economies of scale it requires if it means no more work as in coerced labor.
Anarchy is chaos, but chaos isn't the same thing as a war of all against all. There is no innate human nature or any need for a social contract. Unpredictability and spontaneity are worthy of embrace.
These are all opinions which should not be unpopular on this particular site. But if I say any of these on anarchist reddit, I have to expect being dragged into a thread defending my opinions from confused leftists and anarcho-democrats, and repeatedly assert that I am not an ancap nor an anprim.