Ty for "the Critique of Marxism", I think it's making me a better anarchist! Are there ideas you think anarchists can take from other positions (like Marxism etc)?
The thing I like about anarchism is that I think you can take a lot from anything. There are so many branches of anarchism all with their own strengths and weaknesses. The selfish detachment vs internal betterment and anti-puritinism of branches like egoism or nihilism. The rank-and-file blindness vs care for the collective of syndicalism and anarco-communism. There's anti-civ, there's primitivism. Then there's green. There's the anarchists who swear by marx or kropotkin or baukinin, and there's those who rarely read theory but practice anarchist prinicples better than a lot of theorists. there's indigenous anarchists who had theory before anarchism had a word and those who have intertwined anarchist theory with non-european models of system critique.
you've got anarcho-feminism and Black anarchism and queer anarchism and tranarchists with different priorities and strategies but with uniting principles. you've got hope and doomerism and all of it comingles really well.
So yes, of course I take inspiration from positions that aren't explicitly or necessarily anarchist. Bookchin was very heavily influenced by marxism. I find it very easy to find kindship with and celebrate the struggles of those who fight under marxist banners. The Black Panthers come to mind. The YPJ. The EZLN purposefully do not assign a european leftist label to their movement because it would dilute them. A number of Lebanese and Palestinian freedom fighter groups are explicitly marxist.
For anyone considering anarchism, I really recommend Alexander Berkman because of his dual influence from marxism and his rejection of the Bolshevik party. He is a fairly conversational writer, and he gets in the weeds a bit about what can and cannot be adopted from marx--and what marxist parties themselves cherry-picked or honored from marx.
I take a lot of inspiration and caution from the various flavors of resistance (and subsequent betrayals) of those fighting against Franco.
I read a lot of theory from the perspective of political prisoners. Many are not my exact ideological flavor but were criminalized under the same systems that attack me. I think of how Red Scare movements spoke about communists, but was part of the biggest crackdowns of Anarchists in US. We have differences and overlap but at the end of the day, all the little sub-flavors of anything left of liberal is attacked in one swoop.
I don't think it's as simple as saying "we will sort out our differences after the revolution" because there are undoubtedly branches that are a threat to us now and also then, but to dismiss variation of leftist labels is also a mistake.
I have plenty of communist friends, even some rare Marxist-Lenininists, whose label choice does not make us opposed on damn near any issue--at least not any that are important.
So...yes. Read everything! Listen to everything. Search specific concepts instead of ideologies, or pick someone to read from a specific ideology. ESPECIALLY if it makes you mad.
"This sucks" is an informative process. Reading something that challenges you, changing your mind and growing is imo an equally important process to being challenged and going "here is why you are wrong."
Take what fits and leave what doesn't. I don't envy the mental gymnastics of a lot of communists who swear by their chosen theorist and have to turn him (it's only ever the men) into a Jesus figure who is above critique. All my favorite theorists were wrong about something. They had bigoted blindspots. They didn't care enough about certain issues. They were too reckless or too cautious or too concerned with themselves or too ready to be a needless martyr. Yet their own wisdoms form a collective conclusion that is the betterment of the world and the care for ourselves and those around us.
Demsoc medics patched me up, communists got me back on my feet, socialists gave me my first theory, and countless people who don't call themselves any of these words became kin with their shared experiences, cautionary tales, and inspiration for a better future.
Take everything out there!
