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Majrelende wrote

I am not at all sure what it means, but I do feel sorrow about all of the people trapped forever in the past as slaves.

Maybe anarchists in general have been trying too much or in the wrong way.

I suppose that maybe utopias are more resonant than anti-dystopias, yet any conception of anarchy is inherently rather non-utopian.

We neither know nor are able to know.

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exvegan wrote

yet any conception of anarchy is inherently rather non-utopian

How so? Anarchism is peak utopianism. Its failure is rooted in its inability to be practical.

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blackbearder wrote

The 'failure' to create a top down system that forces everyone to live a certain way is by no means a knock against anarchism. It's an advantage. Every hierarchical system is automatically a failure since it denies people freedom and autonomy from the system that forcibly governs them.

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celebratedrecluse wrote

Well, that's not the only kind of failure that anarchists engage in. For example, there are countless times where anarchist groups have split, stated their goals and then not met them on their own terms, and/or simply not shared labour equitably and reified horrible hierarchies within their cliquish in-groups. More specifically to the point raised here, I can think of at least three different major instances from my personal life where specific anarchists' idealism and unwillingness to put in backend labour resulted in the destruction of shared projects and communal spaces. There are many forms of anarchist failure, and it is notable that some of us have decided to regard every form of failure as either positive or not worth discussing.

In this vein it seems, rather concerningly, that you have construed this critique (which is actually very poignant, unfortunately) in a way where you can automatically win the argument by disregarding any possible validity it could have. While I hardly agree with their strain of politics, this is not useful and should invite reflection. I know that my experience with anarchist failures is far from unique, it is grounded over decades of experience and repetition.

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Majrelende wrote

Utopia is to strive towards artificial perfection of society, which is an authoritarian goal.

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