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ziq wrote (edited )

In the 80s, 90s and early 00s. You could say something like "anarchy isn't about democracy" without instigating moral outrage from the room because a slew of permanently online middle class American youtubers hadn't yet decided anarchy means: "let's all vote for a justified authority like Biden and do harm reduction together wooh democracy!"

The internet has both collectivized and watered down discourse to the extent where ridiculous notions like "anarcho-capitalism", "justified authority" and "anarcho-Dengism" can gain traction and be amplified far and wide, while actual anarchist ideas are rejected by the collective for being too radical.

It's made liberal / fascist / tankie co-option of anarchy much easier by virtue of sheer numbers. People that will be willing to actually practice anarchy and reject authority are far outnumbered by those who just want to identify with a shallow 'radical' label to feel better about themselves without actually doing any work to shed the auth politics their culture has ingrained them with.

When presented with actual anarchist ideas that threaten their shitty half-baked politics, it's much easier for these posers to lash out and tarnish the anarchist ideas than question their own or even consider that their ideas might not be anarchist and they've mislabelled themselves.

So the meaning of anarchy is watered down more and more every year as more and more Vaush types are given international platforms with millions of eyeballs to spew their horseshit at.

Before the internet was mainstream, none of these people would have been accepted by other anarchists, and they would have responded by angrily abandoning the movement (see Bookchin). But thanks to the internet, the voices of youtube/reddit grifters are constantly amplified and their ideas are accepted and repeated by a litany of yes-man dipshits who seem unable to form their own thoughts.

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote

You don't need other people's ideas to be an anarchist. Either it's in your nature or it's not.

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