/r/ask_transgender calls people who refuse to vote for Genocide Joe "anarcho-kiddies"
/r/ask_transgender calls people who refuse to vote for Genocide Joe "anarcho-kiddies"
As shitty as it is, this country 1. Isn't designed in such a way that would allow a third-party candidate a genuine chance of winning and 2. Has too many centrists that will vote for Biden regardless. Trump has repeatedly garnered heavy support in Republican polls, so they're pretty much almost all in on him. Splitting the blue vote between Biden and whoever else will only lead to a Trump victory after which we might not even be ABLE to vote in 2028.
I'm legitimately having a panic attack. These airheaded anarcho-kiddies are genuinely going to land us all in camps.
biden's doing literally nothing to stop states from criminalizing lgbt people's existence 
their fears about a trump presidency are valid but i wish these libs would stop putting their hopes in the DNC when its clear they have zero interest in running a candidate that isn't complete dogshit
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Funny cuz most of the anarchists on
are the ones screaming at you to vote for Joe.Gonna have to defend the honor of anarchists here - those aren't real anarchists.
I was on r/anarchism for a while, anyone serious left reddit long ago, that sub was fairly active over a year ago but is dead last I saw
As a former anarchist, the western anarchist movement had a bit of a weird liberal undercurrent for a while. I knew people who were pretty solid comrades in most regards, did really good local activism, but whenever discussion left the US borders things got... weird. There was always weird takes on AES states and US foreign policy. I never knew an anarchist back then who was straight up PRO-Iraq War but I knew a few who were gun-shy about coming out fully anti-war cuz they didn't want to come of as "Saddam apologists". Hence the rise of NATO-anrchists didn't really surprise me as much as some people.
You think if it originated more in the context of the Global South, that Anarchism would be less 'libby' and more better on political views
I mean, it's still prbly gonna ultra-left but come on....
I've only encountered a handful but yeah I would say non-western anarchists tend to have better perspectives on geopolitics.
The ones in the global south are more or less the same. Find leftists in AES countries doing CIA work and you’ll find Anarchists. Didn’t Pussy Riot claim to be Anarchists?
over a year ago
lol. lmao. reddit anarchists have always been shitty.
sincerely,
a former reddit anarchist who hasn't logged into the site in four years
those aren't real anarchists.
Hot take: I don't really like this whole "they aren't REAL [insert ideology]", it's a game anyone can play, and win, and feels like a bit of a cop out. The definition of a political ideology is malleable and changes all the time, anyone can come up with their own interpretation and the only thing really determining it's validity is it's popularity. If Vaush became as popular as Kropotkin was in his day and remained that way long enough his interpretation would be as valid.
I think it's better to attack them on more solid grounds than whether it's a real/not real interpretation, you can say it's ridiculous, contradictory, in contrast to pretty much every other earlier interpretation, but it's not really "fake", no more or less so than any idea floating in the human collective consciousness.
If Vaush became as popular as Kropotkin was in his day and remained that way long enough his interpretation would be as valid.
??? “If Racist Pedophile Marx became more popular than Regular Marx his interpretation would be as valid.” This doesn’t work, this isn’t some “no true Scotsman” fallacy, these people are genuinely just not anarchists by definition. Like, yeah, they call themselves as such, but I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m saying they’re wrong about anarchism
“If Racist Pedophile Marx became more popular than Regular Marx his interpretation would be as valid.”
Not "valid" in the moral sense, but it would be a "valid" in the sense that people would consider it an interpretation, a horrible, awful one, but it would exist. We don't really pull this with anyone to our Right politically, nobody really gives a fuck that modern MAGA doesn't seem to have anything to do with Thomas Sowell or William F Buckley Jr.
these people are genuinely just not anarchists by definition.
But who sets the definition? With Marxism you do have the fact the ideology is named after a specific guy so you can argue people who claim to be "Marxist" but who's conceptualization of Marxism is too far from Marx's original ideas are operating in error, but even early anarchism had a lot of internal divisions and wildly different interpretation.
Idk I’m
actually
you can say it’s ridiculous, contradictory, in contrast to pretty much every other earlier interpretation, but it’s not really “fake”
So if we have a concept defined by opposition to hierarchy, and then a group comes along and we let them redefine it as supporting hierarchy (e.g. ancaps), what happens to the concept? It can't be defended without reiterating its functional definition.
If I were a rich capitalist trying to erase threats to my power, I would very much push your opinion here: That anyone's interpretation of a well-defined concept is equally valid, that function is inconsequential.
But that's not true because we adopt certain words to describe functional concepts - concepts whose validity is not dependent on our ability to express them. Anarchy is one of those words.
I think it’s better to attack them on more solid grounds
It is perfectly solid ground to attack someone for supporting hierarchy while claiming to do the opposite. The definition of anarchy is literally built into the word itself.
Do just you turn the other cheek when people say that a social safety net is socialism? Would you be fine with socialism coming to mean capitalism? Would you also push back against those defending that socialism is defined by workers' relation to the means of production?
What if Musk comes out and says real communism is capitalism? Should economists and political scientists throw out their libraries?
Anarchy is a type of political organization like ice is a type of molecular organization. We can cede our ability to describe these concepts, but anarchy will remain anarchy and ice will remain ice. So let's not lose our ability to describe either, please.
So if we have a concept defined by opposition to hierarchy
Here's the thing, people have different conceptualizations of what a "hierarchy" is. Plus a lot of anarchists say they're only opposed to "unjustified hierarchy". I think how the AnCaps conceptualize it is that me declaring myself feudal baron over the parcel of land I acquired by being such a brilliant entrepreneur is a justified hierarchy, cuz I actually earned that unlike the evil guberment. That completely falls apart in practice, which is what we should be attacking them on.
With NATO-Anarchists I think their logic is "lesser-of-two-hierarchy-ism", they see NATO and the West as hierarchical, but Russian Nationalism and Chinese Dengism are WORSE hierarchies, so unless full anarchism is on the table you should support NATO in the short term.
See the thing is these bull-crap pseudo-left ideologies usually have a kernel of logic to them, unlike the far right which is just willfully incoherent mind palace shit. We should be attacking them on the logic of it, not having semantic debates about what is and isn't an actual anarchist.
Here’s the thing, people have different conceptualizations of what a “hierarchy” is
Anarchy does not support "justified hierarchy" because then you are in the field of supporting hierarchy. That's a great example of why it is important to defend definitions.
I think how the AnCaps conceptualize it is that me declaring myself feudal baron over the parcel of land
AnCaps are not anarchists because they are capitalist, and capitalism requires classes and inequality. It's as simple as that.
Also, private ownership over land fundamentally results in hierarchy, so this thought experiment should really be grounded before it ever takes off.
No one who has gone through the basic process of contemplating hierarchy is going to call a feudal baron an anarchist. Anyone who has not contemplated hierarchy doesn't get to speak for anarchists.
Do we take the Christian Nationalists who tolerate other religions and support abortion seriously when they say that they are proof that Christian Nationalists aren't fundamentally opposed to religious and reproductive freedom? Of course not, they're just bad Christian Nationalists. Their muddying the waters does not change the reality and foundations of the movement.
When people mis-identify their beliefs, what is a more efficient argument against them than spelling out which belief is what?
We need the lines to be more clear. We don't need rightists on the left, and we don't need leftists on the right.
That completely falls apart in practice, which is what we should be attacking them on.
I do. I point out that hierarchy produces inequality which is fundamentally unstable. Easy peasy.
Now, without citing hierarchy and inequality, how do you concisely and effectively communicate why such a project falls apart? Why play on hard mode?
With NATO-Anarchists I think their logic is “lesser-of-two-hierarchy-ism”, they see NATO and the West as hierarchical, but Russian Nationalism and Chinese Dengism are WORSE hierarchies, so unless full anarchism is on the table you should support NATO in the short term.
Meet them at their argument: Work together to spell out the impact of hierarchies on both sides, and show them how this is not true. They could only hold this opinion through lack of observation or, more likely, not having contemplated hierarchy before calling themselves an anarchist. Stick to definitions and this is an easy argument. Expose them as fundamentally pro-NATO, not anti-hierarchy, and prevent them from misleading other polisci newbs.
Personally, I'm not convinced this is even a sizeable or impactful population (most anarchists I know are powerless but happy to see the US overextend and burn itself out), and I'm not about to give up the power of language to a boogeyman. But I don't have to ignore them or give up the significance of anarchism, if I just stick to defending the definitions.
these bull-crap pseudo-left ideologies usually have a kernel of logic to them
and yet
We should be attacking them on the logic of it
That sounds like a real messy approach to me. Why not just point out their divergence from the consensus definition, and then address why the consensus definition exists as it does? . At the end of day, that's exactly where their logical fallacies reside and where they can be most concisely addressed. Take a lesson from pedagogy and illustrate the self-consistent framework, rather than fighting one-off battles.
Let's say we take out the foundation of the anarchist ideology - it's definitional opposition to hierarchy. In this case, where does the strength in our arguments even come from? By talking about everything except hierarchy?
But hey, you do you. I always say "it takes all tactics," and I'm not the kind of person that needs everyone to agree with me. I will continue to attack these most basic categorical errors, and I will trust you to do what you think is best as well.
We can push him left if we make him google Murray Bookchin. That's my only demand.