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ziq OP wrote

Preventing authority from below = ensuring domination

I'm a little confused by your reasoning here. Anarchists oppose authority in all forms, we don't believe in a "dictatorship of the proletariat" like Marxists. How does preventing authority ensure domination?

In many "self-organized" communities, some nefarious people will completely bypass the consensus-established rules, because « that's how it works » or « there's no chief here

If you don't agree with the consensus-established rules then how is there a consensus? Doesn't a consensus require that everyone come to an understanding? Why would you stay in a voluntary community if you don't agree with its organization?

I wrote about the problems with democracy in more detail here: w/democracy.

Nobody can be a master of their own life 100% disconnected from their surroundings.

Destroying power doesn't mean you're disconnected from your surroundings. I'd argue the opposite - enabling power is what disconnects us from our surroundings and causes us to see our world as something to be tamed and dominated. The propagation of power hierarchy is what creates the systems of domination that has humans asserting authority on everything on the planet.

Without institutional systems of power, the harm an individual can do becomes extremely limited and they won't be able to avoid accountability like they can do when they gain authority within an organization. It's only in systems of authority that people can become rulers.

Anarchism is fighting domination and privileges (freedom and equality for all).

This domination we fight includes the domination of groups, not just individuals.

Anomie (the absence of stuctures/ethics = rule of the strongest).

Rejecting authority doesn't create rule of the strongest. Upholding authority does that.

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[deleted] 0 wrote (edited )

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ziq OP wrote

The entire civilized world has been indoctrinated into archy, into thinking everyone needs authority asserted on them to keep them in line. Everyone you know upholds authority everyday, including me and you.

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southerntofu wrote

Precisely. Wishful thinking like "we are a self-organized collective" is not nearly enough to fight domination within a collective. Anarchism is a constant questioning of power structures even within anarchist circles.

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shanc wrote

Wishful thinking like "we are a self-organized collective" is not nearly enough to fight domination within a collective

I'm reminded here that every 'collective' I've ever been involved with has without exception always been dominated by a handful of people. Once it was so obvious that the group used our 'right of recall' to expel one of the domineering people and... replace them with another domineering person.

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ziq OP wrote

For some reason even anarvhists are obsessed with personality cults, a I've never understood it.

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websterff wrote

It will always be, such is the nature of man. Anarchy is no exception).

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southerntofu wrote

How does preventing authority ensure domination?

Well, maybe i misinterpreted the original quote by Martucci, but it sounded like anti-social nihilistic prose. When i read "authority from below", i don't understand "dictatorship of the proletariat" because state capitalism still rules from above.

To me, it sounded like a criticism of collective/community organizing in favor of an idealized egoist self. To be clear, i'm an autonomous anarchist myself, but in my view collective organizing doesn't have to establish or reproduce power structures (i.e. autonomous organizing).

Doesn't a consensus require that everyone come to an understanding? Why would you stay in a voluntary community if you don't agree with its organization?

Usually, everyone agrees on the principles at first. But then some people figure out they can game the community to take privilege. Fighting these abuses of power from within is just as delicate as facing an outer enemy such as the cops.

Also, many people don't get to choose to live in such communities, and it can be complicated to leave them. Take the squats for example: lots of people are far from anarchist ideas and practices but we have to try and make it work because we're all on the same boat of misery. Still, sometimes we have to kick some people out because they are harming the community and we cannot find a way to stop it.

they won't be able to avoid accountability

We agree. This accountability process is precisely what i understood to be the "authority from below" that the quote author denounced.

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