ziq OP wrote (edited )
Reply to comment by An_Old_Big_Tree in [OC] No, meritocracy is NOT anarchy by ziq
no unjustified hierarchies
It's also widely accepted by ancoms who refuse to stop clinging to it no matter how many times it's demonstrated to them that its ridiculously authority-forming. If they believe in justified authority, idk why they wouldn't believe in meritocracy also. The entire concept of justified authority IS meritocracy to a key. It's an authority that's been granted to them because its "merited".
NeoliberalismKills wrote
I always took hierarchy here to mean competency or mastery of subject and people willingly deferred, a la Bakunin's cobbler analogy. Do I misunderstand what they're saying or are you disagreeing with Bakunin?
kore wrote (edited )
Not to speak for them, but I've read what they wrote and it seems to me it's more about distinguishing between the idea of "expertise" and "authority." It's definitely along the right track, I think, but it's a little confusing, because the semantic range of "authority" to most people is pretty wide, which is why "authority" got used in this way by people like Chomsky and Bakunin in the first place.
the way i think about it is when authority as in "power over others" and authority as in "we should let this woman lead the 3-month project to build the community kitchen because she's successfully built 5 of them before" are are referred to by the same word it's easily to conflate them and say that that woman has "power over others".
ziq OP wrote (edited )
This is what the vast majority of ancoms say anarchism is, parroting Chomsky's ideas:
Thats a bit of an oversimplification of anarchism tbh, its much closer to ‘all hierarchies must be destroyed unless they can prove they are necessary’. Most real anarchists I know(myself included, anarcho syndicalist) do not want abolishment of all hierarchy, just most. Id say the average anarchist is more similar to an anarcho syndicalist which inherently has a hierarchy even if the hierarchy is shared throughout. This could just be personal anecdotes though but I do rarely see anyone on the complete anarchy end.
This is my response to this rhetoric, including to Bakunin's cobbler analogy:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-anarchy-vs-archy-no-justified-authority
lori wrote
the average anarchist is more similar to an anarcho syndicalist which inherently has a hierarchy
What the fuck kind of anarcho-syndicalism is that? Do Reddit anarchists just make shit up as they go?
ziq OP wrote (edited )
The most popular youtube videos that explain anarchism all parrot chomsky in saying anarchism means we have to examine all authority / hierarchy and choose which ones to justify and which ones to reject. All the anarchist forums except this one overwhelmingly define anarchism the same way. It's not surprising that this is now the popular narrative.
If you keep telling people that anarchism means justifying hierarchy, of course an entire generation of anarchists are going to think that's what anarchism is. And trying to break that misconception is near impossible. I've tried so many times.
lori wrote (edited )
Amazing. It feels like media published on corporate platforms have done the impossible and finally coopted anarchism itself into a harmless, commodified form. Crowdsourced propaganda.
"Anarchism" now includes clauses that allow rulers to continue a moderated rule, and praxis can be as simple as campaigning for Bernie Sanders. What's the point of it beyond being a quirky label you can use to describe yourself, at this rate? Is it just a way for people to avoid the dirty reputation of MLs whilst pursuing the same goal?
ziq OP wrote (edited )
Yeah, I think so. I think a lot of these people don't want to be associated with Stalinism because it's so offensive to liberals (appeasing liberals is very important to them), but they really want a polite, more democratic and inclusive (e.g. queer-friendly) version of Stalinism that strikes words like 'state', 'party', 'prison' and 'police' out and renames them to something nicer-sounding.
They don't really want to be embrace anarchy because it scares the shit out of them not having a state and a police-force to protect them from bad guys. I think especially white middle class people have a hard time embracing a world where they have to take responsibility for themselves and their community rather than have an external body acting as a security blanket. Obviously a security blanket isn't going to protect you from being murdered, but it makes them feel warm and safe for some reason.
I think a lot of them (especially the ones on breadtube and completeanarchy) are just social democrats or demsocs at best.
North Americans and Europeans are incredibly sheltered by their states. Their states will ransack the rest of the world to give them special privileges and luxuries, and so when they choose their 'radical' ideology, they'll always gravitate to something that will maintain that privilege. They don't want to hear that they'll have to make sacrifices in the name of egalitarianism, self-sufficiency and equality, they want to hear that they'll get to keep everything the state hands them on a platter now but with extra sprinkles.
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