#anarchy 101

[sulery-mar]

Hello people

Dtiys from @anarchy101comic @redmaycare !!!

I really love anarchy 101 and syndicate's dynamic in it, it helps me stay in this fandom a little bit longer 💔

Okay now bye people

[anarchistmemedistro]

I noticed you have tagged posts ableist language on posts which I haven’t noticed the ableist language in. Sometimes in further reflection I can see why you have added that tag, and sometimes not. If you’ve ever got the time/inclination, could you explain some of the more nuanced ableist language usages?

sure thing! (and obviously, trigger warning for ableist language to follow)

I know many may feel I take a pretty radical stance, but i've studied enough linguistics to know how powerful the words we use can be, even when we don't intend it in that way. so I use the ableist language tag for when people are not being ableist but are using language which reinforces ableism. this can get a bit tricky as the people who are the subjects of ableist terms may often identify with or reclaim those terms, like calling someone a cripple is ableist, but many people self-identify as cripples, like the cripple punk movement.

I think they generally fall in three categories:

intelligence: stupid, idiot, moron, etc. intelligence and iq are not real, they're eugenicist myths and insulting people's intelligence only feeds these myths and serves the ruling class. build solidarity by seeing everyone as your equal. there is no moral value to having received a better or worse education than someone else. also many of these terms come directly from eugenics, such as their classifications of types or degrees of autism.

diagnoses: psycho, dumb, schizo, bipolar etc. these are real health conditions and i shouldn't have to explain why using them as insults is deeply offensive.

saneism: insane, crazy, mad, etc. the sane/insane dichotomy, if it was ever helpful, which I doubt, has been outdated for generations. there is no medical diagnosis of 'insane', there are hundreds of mental health conditions and an infinite number of combinations which we are barely beginning to understand. but none of them have or convey a moral value. using them as insults only stigmatizes those of us who have them, to the benefit of the ruling class and detriment of solidarity.

even if you are skeptical or attached to this language I'd challenge you to try not using it. you'll find it improves your vocabulary and your speaking and writing skills. not just that but it will deepen how you think about your fellow humans.

[shifgrethors]

anarchists, i have a question for you!

i would typically describe myself as a socialist, but i’ve been reading basic anarchist theory and am wondering, for you, what made you convinced of anarchy as your primary political ideology?

i’m particularly interested in answers from disabled people, as i am disabled and am not totally convinced that disabled people would be fully and safely cared for and treated for their disabilities in a full anarchistic society.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Cheering on war between states is an anarchy 101 no no. States don't represent people, war only ever benefits the state.

It's not selt defense, it's self preservation. Self defense is non-state affiliated people defending themselves. It's guerilla forces & international volunteers.

You're cheering on an oppressive regime attacking another oppressive regime. You're a campist.

Statement from the Anarchist Front of Iran andAfghanistan Condemning State-Led Wars

We, the Anarchist Front of Iran and Afghanistan, once again reaffirm our unwavering and principled stance:Every war—at any scale and under a

No to the Imperialism of the West and the East, No to the Lesser Islamic Imperialism in the Middle East

Anarchist Union of Afghanistan and Iran No to the Imperialism of the West and the East, No to the Lesser Islamic Imperialism in the Middle E

[chapst1ckmcdyke]

hey, just wondering what is an anarchist? Sorry if I’m sounding so stupid lol. Also is your account still active? It would be cool to chat sometime, I’m also 20. (:

not stupid at all! it's a great question that I’ve been excited to answer :D

So anarchism is often portrayed as young white boys with liberty spikes throwing Molotov cocktails at cars and wrecking shit. being “2 edgy 4 u” and wanting total chaos and disorder to rival the wastelands of Mad Max, which isn't true at all. 

Anarchism is simply the belief that arbitrary power structures should be abolished. 

An example of an arbitrary power structure (imma hop right into this) would be the American Police. US police have the ability to wave a gun in civilians’ faces, wrongfully arrest, brutalize and kill average citizens without consequences as we have seen over and over again. there is no need for any person to have this much power over another. it serves no purpose other than to uphold oppression and send people to private prisons in order to make certain old capitalists very very rich. it's at its core arbitrary which means its easy to corrupt. however, a non-arbitrary power structure would be the fire department. they are paid volunteers who go through rigorous training in order to prevent fires and protect citizens and have the power to tell you what to do and how to do it or physically wrangle you in order to get you safe and out of a burning building. Which at its core is a meaningful and important power imbalance to save your ass from dying of smoke inhalation.

these are two extremes so let's take it down to a smaller level. You're at work, you’re job is at the service desk where you resolve order problems and you’re paid abt $9.00 an hour. however, about 30 steps up the ladder in corporate a CEO is making $200k a year. If I were to film both of your day’s and line them up minute by minute next to each other chances are that you as a service desk person would be multitasking more, doing a wider range of tasks and certainly dealing with more stress from it because of the daunting emotional labor of putting on a smile while angry old rich people yell at you for things out of your control. both of you would be working, both of you have been trained for the position you are in and are doing something productive. so why is it that the CEO is paid more than you? hierarchy. arbitrary positions of power that allow a person to say their work is more important or harder than someone else’s. this is why people say that janitorial work should be paid slave wages, despite the fact that if sanitation workers vanished the human race would die out of disease. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a classroom is a necessary hierarchy. An English teacher’s know what's going on, they know their topic and how to write an essay and how to teach you to write an essay and can take up a whole hour just running their mouth, when in a normal social exchange that would be pretentious and rude. 

these can be extended culturally for certain. racism, sexism, and homophobia are the result of arbitrary social class structures that bar people from success in order to be used as step ladders for privileged groups to go higher. 

NOW, that I went on my tangent and finished. Anarchists are people that think arbitrary power is garbage and should be done away with. not that there should be a gap in necessary services like with law enforcement. but that these services should be devoid of pecking orders both internal and external. a violent and corrupt police force could be replaced with a rigorously trained group of paid volunteers who only have critically necessary power over other citizens such as firefighters do. 

anarchists come in all shapes and sizes. we usually don't look punk or metal or anything that the media has tried to paint us as, although some of us certainly do! I look like I popped out of cabbage patch in the 70′s and the other anarchists I know look like your average tired college student. 

there's also different branches of anarchism. you’re talking to an anarchist-communist or anarcho-communist for short, which heavily paints my views on how I answered this question. there’s also anarcho-capitalists (yuck), anarcho-primitivists, anarcho-feminists and much much more and they’d answer this question a little differently than me. 

TL;DR: anarchists are advocates for the downfall of arbitrary hierarchy and authority. there are different kinds of anarchists who implement this differently but we believe in freedom from suppression and control. 

[intherainyseason]

The other evening over drinks one of my friends basically asked me to give my best pitch in favor of anarchism. We talk a lot about politics and I feel like I’ve at least made some interesting points and raised ideas that exist in anarchyland and other radical movements, but I found myself sputtering this time. I’ve never placed a very high priority on the task of actually “converting” people to my ideology; I’d rather see anarchist concepts percolate out and be useful for people, and then they can call themselves what they want. Besides, isn’t the real way to make anarchists through action and struggle, not abstract discussion and self-identification?

But, when someone comes to you and is like, “Look, I’m unconvinced by anarchism, but I’m not hostile. In fact, I would actually like to be converted because the world’s going to shit and I want to believe that we can overcome all this, that a just society is possible,” you gotta be ready to come correct, and I was not. Part of it is that I’m of the school of thought that views anarchy as a process, a vector, a way of approaching human relationships and not a stage of history we might sometime achieve or draw blueprints for. I’m much more comfortable talking about direct action, mutual aid, relationships of trust, autonomous action, freedom of association, etc as tools for organizing an egalitarian society whose emergent organizational forms are probably difficult to predict from where we sit right now than I am going on about, “Well the workers at one site of production will be a syndicate and they’ll send delegates to the steering committee for that industry, and that body will send recallable delegates to the regional all-industry associations, meanwhile neighborhood assemblies will meet fortnightly with members of the association taking it in turn to act as a sort of executive officer...” blah blah blah. Exacerbating things is this friend is an economist so they are pretty well versed in the problems of collective action, use of common and public goods, and all that.

So, I’m ruminating. They suggested I write an op-ed style pitch for anarchy, or anarchy 101 sorta thing, but I feel like so many people - including a lot of the most famous anarchists and people much smarter than me - have written exactly that, maybe it’s just a matter of finding one that works. Not for the first time I’m thinking I should really be using this tumblr as a tumblr, a place to leave quotations and stray thoughts and the like while I’m thinking about how to quickly and effectively advocate for anarchism when people ask. Because now is a time when people ask. All sorts of ideas and movements that would’ve been completely ignored as fringe by most people back when I was younger are suddenly of interest to way more people. I think I should be more ready.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[anarchistmemedistro]

hi!! over the past year or so, i’ve been radicalizing leftwards (does that make sense?), and while i do like to say that i have a pretty good understanding of things like socialism and communism and such, one thing i haven’t really been able to figure out is what anarchism is and how it works. like, i get the basic idea, but what with google being google and most people on breadtube not being anarchist, it’s definitely not as easy to research as socialism.

anyways, tl;dr: what defines anarchism and how does it work?

thanks in advance! have a cookie 🍪

"Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,—the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all."

leftward ho! thanks for writing. these questions are always difficult to answer because i don’t know where you’re coming from on your personal journey. but i’ll try to answer some of the basics and recommend some good resources to start with.

first of all, there are many anarchisms and if you ask three anarchists you’ll get five opinions. but probably the most prevalent form of anarchism is anarcho-communism, so while i’ll try to talk broadly from a general anarchist position, much of it be from an anarchocommunist perspective for simplicity’s sake.

at it’s most basic, anarchism is an opposition to hierarchy, to one person having control over another. it is a radical commitment to compassion and absolute freedom. like communists, anarchists want a moneyless, stateless, and classless society. unlike leninists, who falsely claim to be communists, we know that there has never been a good state, and never can be. they are by their very nature oppressive, and cannot be used as a means to an end to achieve communism. no group or individual can wield that much power over others and not become corrupted by it. absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc. so while we are committed to the fight against capitalism, we are also committed to the fight against the state. they are intertwined and must be defeated simultaneously. so we believe in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion, and the abolition of money and private property, as the best way to ensure the basic and higher needs of everyone are met.

if you haven’t read it yet, the wikipedia article for anarchism is actually a pretty good place to start:

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions they claim maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessarily limited to, the state[1] and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies or other forms of free associations. As a historically left-wing movement, usually placed on the farthest left of the political spectrum, it is usually described alongside communalism and libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing (libertarian socialism) of the socialist movement.

Humans lived in societies without formal hierarchies long before the establishment of formal states, realms, or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, scepticism toward authority also rose. Although traces of anarchist thought are found throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more.

Anarchism employs a diversity of tactics in order to meet its ideal ends which can be broadly separated into revolutionary and evolutionary tactics; there is significant overlap between the two, which are merely descriptive. Revolutionary tactics aim to bring down authority and state, having taken a violent turn in the past, while evolutionary tactics aim to prefigure what an anarchist society would be like. Anarchist thought, criticism, and praxis have played a part in diverse areas of human society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

Anarchism - Wikipedia

i don’t know how much original theory you’ve read before, but i’ll give some reading recs. personally i’m a big fan of peter kropotkin, and found the conquest of bread to be a breath of fresh air after studying marx for years. others have recommended starting with errico malatesta’s anarchy or peter gelderloos’ anarchy works. and zoe baker (anarchopac) is excellent if videos or tweets are more your speed.

The Conquest of Bread

Pëtr Kropotkin The Conquest of Bread 1906

Mutual Aid

Pëtr Kropotkin Mutual Aid A Factor of Evolution 1902

Anarchy

Errico Malatesta Anarchy 1891 Freedom Press 1974, 1994. ISBN 0 900384 74 3. L’Anarchia was written in 1891, appeared in English translation

Anarchy Works

Peter Gelderloos Anarchy Works 2010 Anarchy Works was originally published by Little Black Cart and can be found in book form here.

Popular texts

Popular texts

https://enoughisenough14.org/2019/06/10/anarchism-a-very-short-introduction-by-colin-ward/

Zoe Baker

Radical Theory and History

Zoe Baker

I'm a trans woman (she/her), who talks about the theory and history of anarchism, feminism and marxism. I have a PhD in the history of anarc

getting involved masterpost

hopefully that’s enough to get you started but please feel free to ask questions, and there are many more knowledgable people here who can help as well.