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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by tuesday in OK Bookchin by ziq

it's real. i just searched https://redditsearchtool.com/ for 'lifestylist' with anarchism as the subreddit

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tuesday wrote

I mean I believe this is a real screen shot, but I think I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how free stores are lifestlyist?

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

When Bookchin coined the term he was talking about people who live together in communes or alone in the woods, grow/forage their own food, get in touch with the land and don't participate / organize in the workforce and the government.

So I guess free stores are an extension of that since they don't require employment, organization or participation in society or government. In their mind, it doesn't aim to overthrow capitalism, but simply co-exists with it.

'Lifestylism' really just means anyone who isn't professionally 'organizing' against capitalism via unions, councils, committees, activist organizations, municipalities (electoralism), etc.

I've seen it most often used by leftists to attack squatters, van dwellers, witches / pagans, primitivists, drug users, homesteaders and hippies: all people who distance or even remove themselves from 'society', because their lifestyle choices are seen as 'selfish', 'individualist' and 'self-indulgent' by leftist activists who believe we should be wholly concerned with organizing mass revolutionary action (typically meaning unions, political parties, marches and protests).

It's also used to denigrate vegans, goths, punks and bikepunks for making lifestyle choices that, to anti-lifestylists, aren't revolutionary because they don't do enough to upset capitalism, and are instead absorbed into it (corporations profiting from punk music and vegan microwaved dinners).

It's also used interchangeably with 'idpol' in some (brocialist) circles, to attack people for centering their identity (queer, poc, trans, etc), which they see as 'lifestyle choices' that again, instead of fighting capitalism, fuse with it. Socialists especially have a long, long history of being hostile to diversity, banning 'alternative' lifestyles for being 'bourgeois'. It's still happening today in China, Rojava, Cuba, etc. The lifestylism smear is really just the latest version of that 'bourgeois degeneracy' claim Mao and Stalin used to murder anyone who didn't conform to their conservative values.

Lastly, it's sometimes used by non-violent activists to belittle people who engage in certain types of direct action involving violent acts (usually destruction of property or street fights or even assassination of fascists) because, to them, violence 'hurts the cause', is 'bad optics' and is 'unproductive' as it functions as an outlet for 'angry, poorly-educated' people to mindless express their rage without a larger revolutionary goal, which will risk 'turning normal people against the left' and 'sabotage the revolution'.

Anti-capitalist productivity is basically the key to not being branded a lifestylist. Organizing against capitalism in a way that doesn't offend the Bookchinite's sensibilities or risk alienating the working class in any way.

So taking it to its natural conclusions, as many leftists clearly do, you end up with people turning their noses up at vegan potlucks, community gardens and free stores because those things aren't organizing or educating 'the masses' against capitalism sufficiently enough for them....

So you get this person projecting wildly by accusing 'lifestylists' of being 'joyless martyrs' when it's always the opposite - If you're not endlessly sacrificing yourself and all your joy to organized labor and political committes, if you're making lifestyle choices that aren't wholly dedicated to stoking revolution in the workplace and in the streets, you're a useless lifestylist.

Emma Goldman said it best: "If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Anti-lifestylists don't want anyone to dance until the revolution is won, and they'll never declare it's been won as long as people are dancing when there's work to be done.

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