1. Mod of !anarchism@slrpnk.net posts a great Greta Thunberg quote, but then tries to use it to justify not voting in the upcoming US election
  2. Multiple people point out that’s very clearly not what she meant
  3. Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod

Using your mod powers to decide who is allowed and not allowed to speak is not very anarchist of you, @mambabasa@slrpnk.net

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It’s not a problem with anarchists in general, I think, but that the kind of anarchists who put themselves into positions of power are generally… not the ones you want in power. Regardless of ideology, power, even the smallest, pettiest kind, tends to attract a certain kind of person more often, on average.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        There are always positions of power. Anarchists are interested in minimizing the institutionalization of power and individual offices. And also, that even anarchists don’t live in a currently-anarchist society/structure, and have to work within that. Don’t believe Lemmy has implemented

        Taking turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs…

        • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 hours ago

          Just to add on to your mention of there always being positions of power, I believe there is a difference between someone having power/authority in a specific moment or in a limited capacity versus a hierarchy.

          A hierarchy enforces compliance from the top down, while individuals are capable of ceding to limited authority in specific situations; see every Anarchist military unit like the CNT, RIAU, BOAK, YPG and YPJ. Any individual member has the right to disobey, to leave. It’s not a contract enforced by the UCMJ, with codes criminalizing dissent and desertion, like in the US military.

          I think the difference between positions inherently having power and hierarchical power have been explained much better in other comments, but I just wanted to add that there are real world examples of Anarchists consenting to power/leadership, and it resulting in effective small unit combat effectiveness, outside of thought experiments or generalities.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            It’s not a contract enforced by the UCMJ, with codes criminalizing dissent and desertion, like in the US military.

            I mean, I feel the need to point out that dissent, refusal of orders, and desertion were all punishable in CNT militias.

            Any wartime unit is necessarily going to be stricter on such things, as coordination, timing, and accurate estimations are all vital in military operations.

            The anarchist militias were very effective in the Spanish Civil War, though, you are correct about that.

    • PhilipTheBucketOPA
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      2 days ago

      Yeah, but if your system is anarchist, those are exactly the kind of people who are going to wind up running things.

      There’s a lot of overlap between anarchism and good sense. I’m not trying to be snarky about it. But it does seem that it has a couple of fatal flaws, and that is one. You could say that the early anarchists and the American founding fathers both identified the same types of failure modes in government and societal hierarchy, and where the founding fathers came up with a flawed system that nonetheless made a sincere effort to design a society of free individuals who could each live their lives in a pretty anarchist-friendly fashion, while still taking account of the realities of power and how to mitigate the problems of it… the anarchists just decided, “If we don’t pay attention to these problems then they won’t exist, much easier.”

      • cacheson 🏴🔁🍊@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        Just picking a random point in this giant thread to chime in. I am an anarchist who is sometimes capable of being serious. So if you want to pick my brain, as PugJesus suggested, feel free.

        One thing that I feel I should point out in regards to this particular comment is that anarchists do not advocate for creating power vacuums. Generally speaking, we advocate for people to self-govern in a much more direct way than representative democracy allows for. We urge the creation of voluntary institutions for managing social coordination, shaped by the needs of their members. We want to get rid of positions of power in ways that don’t result in a power vacuum, because people have their needs met and are no longer looking for guidance from a strongman.

        We also (usually) recognize that our ideal isn’t going to be perfectly achievable, but we instead seek to get closer to that ideal as we discover new ways to practically do so.

        I see that you read a summary of Kropotkin’s ideas, which is cool. He was an anarcho-communist specifically, which is probably the most popular anarchist tendency. I tend to advocate for mutualism, in part because I think it’s easier to understand for people that are accustomed to how capitalist societies function. The short, very oversimplified version is: abolish absentee ownership, create an economy of cooperatives, and gradually replace government institutions with more co-ops.

        There’s sometimes tension between the different strains of anarchism, but usually we recognize that we’re all working towards roughly the same thing. Any future anarchist society is likely to be a patchwork of various frameworks serving different groups of people who have different preferences.

        • PhilipTheBucketOPA
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          1 day ago

          It all sounds very good. I don’t, honestly, feel like I have any questions at this point, but it sounds really good, thank you for your message.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s… more complex than that. You should pick a more serious anarchist’s brain. They do consider these problems.

        Personally, I think the term ‘anarchy’ works against them because of its literal meaning and its connotations. I always mentally replace it with the synonym of libertarian socialism, and find it works wonders in reducing preconceptions.

        • cacheson 🏴🔁🍊@piefed.social
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          2 days ago

          Personally, I think the term ‘anarchy’ works against them because of its literal meaning and its connotations.

          It does, but there isn’t much we can do about it. Its literal meaning (an-archos, no rulers) is exactly what we want, so we have to die on that hill.

          The “bad” meaning of anarchy comes from what most people think would happen without some kind of ruler in charge of society. So if we were to largely switch to some other term, people would start to view that more negatively the more it caught on. Even “libertarian socialism” is pretty awkward, given the connotations of “socialism” in the mainstream.

        • PhilipTheBucketOPA
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          2 days ago

          Is there someone I should read? I read some of the Wikipedia article to try to educate myself but I didn’t get all that far.

          Edit: I think the fact that I made someone so salty they felt the need to downvote this comment means I’m doing something right.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Discussing the matter with actual anarchists is preferable. There are fewer central agreed-upon texts to anarchism (appropriately enough, lmao), and many of those that remain influential are… quite thick. Kropotkin is available if you are the patient sort.

            • PhilipTheBucketOPA
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              2 days ago

              I read the abridged version of the abridged version of Kropotkin just now. I like it quite a lot. I more or less stand by my assessment of the flaws in it, as compared with an approach like the founders of the US, but it sounds like good stuff. I think like a lot of things the devil is in the details.

              I am mostly being snarky about the laughable brand of faux-anarchism that got me banned and deleted in this instance, not trying to throw too much shade at real anarchism.