Anarchism is not anti-government. Anarchism is anti-hierarchy. Government is very possible without hierarchy, which is why most anarchists see direct democracy on the level of individual communities as the only valid system of government. One of the most popular forms of anarchism right now is anarcho-communism. One of the core ideas of anarcho-communism is that people need to band together as a free-association of producerssociety commune. It’s based on the ideas put forth by Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread where his opening argument for anarchism is that everything that has ever been built has only been possible because of people cooperating and building off of each other.
It can sound a bit ridiculous at first because a lot of people spend their whole lives hearing nothing but anti-anarchist propaganda created by states that are inherently threatened by anarchism. If you’ve been told your whole life that anarchists are just weird people who hate the government then you’re probably going to end up believing it. Most anarchists I’ve met have held a negative view of anarchism at some point in their life because of it!
You should dig around the wikipedia page for anarchism a little bit. It might not convince you, but it does a decent job of presenting anarchist ideas as anarchists would describe them and you might get an idea of what anarchists are actually fighting for.
I’ve saved this post for a whole while because I didn’t have the time to really read and think about this. I’m still in the state that I don’t really want to spend very much time reading Wikipedia pages or reading books on the topic or similar.
I’m certainly not in any predetermined camp regarding pro- or anti-anarchism. I have some general thoughts from the basic understanding that I possess about the world in general.
I may ask some questions here in this community to get some more easily to digest and specific info from you people :)
Yeah anarchism is a lot of theory and at this point, someone calling themselves an anarchist in good faith would be referring to it as a kind of ideology or faith rather than some end goal in their lifetime. At best anarchist thought right now can guide you like a religion to make you more pragmatic and participate in pro-social programs in your community.
It’s funny because unfortunately, as far as I understand it, this meme uses anarchism in the incorrect meme-y way that people understand it. I.e. as an angsty “no rules, mom!” way. Anarchism as written by people who actually sat down and thought about the practicality of it would probably see someone or a group of people who sit down all day and make it their “job” to come up with agreed upon rules. Not as a leadership or a hierarchy, but just because division of labor is necessary for a flourishing society and because “no murder or we kick you out” is not a rule you should be letting people who live with you make for themselves.
But then you just have government and laws with different names, don’t you?
Anarchism is not anti-government. Anarchism is anti-hierarchy. Government is very possible without hierarchy, which is why most anarchists see direct democracy on the level of individual communities as the only valid system of government. One of the most popular forms of anarchism right now is anarcho-communism. One of the core ideas of anarcho-communism is that people need to band together as a
free-association of producerssocietycommune. It’s based on the ideas put forth by Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread where his opening argument for anarchism is that everything that has ever been built has only been possible because of people cooperating and building off of each other.It can sound a bit ridiculous at first because a lot of people spend their whole lives hearing nothing but anti-anarchist propaganda created by states that are inherently threatened by anarchism. If you’ve been told your whole life that anarchists are just weird people who hate the government then you’re probably going to end up believing it. Most anarchists I’ve met have held a negative view of anarchism at some point in their life because of it!
You should dig around the wikipedia page for anarchism a little bit. It might not convince you, but it does a decent job of presenting anarchist ideas as anarchists would describe them and you might get an idea of what anarchists are actually fighting for.
I’ve saved this post for a whole while because I didn’t have the time to really read and think about this. I’m still in the state that I don’t really want to spend very much time reading Wikipedia pages or reading books on the topic or similar.
I’m certainly not in any predetermined camp regarding pro- or anti-anarchism. I have some general thoughts from the basic understanding that I possess about the world in general.
I may ask some questions here in this community to get some more easily to digest and specific info from you people :)
Yeah anarchism is a lot of theory and at this point, someone calling themselves an anarchist in good faith would be referring to it as a kind of ideology or faith rather than some end goal in their lifetime. At best anarchist thought right now can guide you like a religion to make you more pragmatic and participate in pro-social programs in your community.
It’s funny because unfortunately, as far as I understand it, this meme uses anarchism in the incorrect meme-y way that people understand it. I.e. as an angsty “no rules, mom!” way. Anarchism as written by people who actually sat down and thought about the practicality of it would probably see someone or a group of people who sit down all day and make it their “job” to come up with agreed upon rules. Not as a leadership or a hierarchy, but just because division of labor is necessary for a flourishing society and because “no murder or we kick you out” is not a rule you should be letting people who live with you make for themselves.