Anarchism is a political ideology and philosophy of action which advocates self management of communities and economies. It seeks to identify coercive power structures where they are found and break them down, replacing them with equitable distributions of power.
This has long been true in the Anarchist tradition. It is a huge task, to be sure. I do not expect to see the project looking anything like complete in my lifetime.
But I often wonder what my comrades are thinking. Given that Anarchism seeks to be a mass movement and there are probably many-fold more people in bridge clubs than Anarchist organizations, you might think the movement would be concerned.
Do you ever watch South Park? have you ever seen the one about underpants gnomes? The Gnomes have a plan for profit.
I don’t know if the creators of South Park were thinking of anarchists when they wrote this show. I doubt it since we are pretty marginal and not many people think of us ever except with regards to black bloc and punk rock. Sometimes is seems to me like the broad Anarchist streatgy is something like this:
Phase 1: “Resist capitalism” by fighting any battle we are certain to loose.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 2: The free society.
Really? OK the plan is actually a bit more detailed than that. It also involves:
- Wearing weird clothes to demonstrate being anti consumerist.
- Being vegan.
- Putting up pictures of scary, vicious cops absolutely fucking everywhere.
- Creating anarchist community so we can have friends like us.
Here is a secret about me: I only say this shit because I hope someone can prove me wrong.
I’m no expert on Anarchism, but I have a couple comments…
I think you’re conflating goals, strategy, and tactics. Goals are what one wants to achieve, strategy is how one wants to achieve it, and tactics are the tools used in that strategy.
Three of your four points at the end are tactics, and the last is a strategy.
“Wearing weird clothes to demonstrate being anti consumerist.”
The reason they’re ‘weird’ could be because most, if not all, ‘normal’ clothes are made by large corporations. Furthermore, ‘weird’ clothes could be seen as a non-conformist ‘uniform’, used to identify oneself to other members of the community. This might not even be so much a tactic as a by-product of being an Anarchist.
Me, I wear ‘normal’ clothes because doing so makes me feel good.
“Being vegan.”
Frankly, being vegan is good for your health, good for the environment, good for the poor and starving children in Costa Rica, and good for animals (although soy production can also be bad for the rain forests and Costa Ricans). I suggest the book “The Food Revolution” by John Robbins to get a better understanding of the impacts of eating meat.
Me, I eat meat because it tastes good.
“Putting up pictures of scary, vicious cops absolutely fucking everywhere.”
I’m sure most hardcore anarchists get harassed enough by cops that they see vicious cops all the time. They just want the rest of us to know what it’s like.
“Creating anarchist community so we can have friends like us.”
Community is necessary for healthy social living. It only makes sense that anarchists would want to hang out with similar people. By creating an atmosphere that is built upon your goals, you are better able to realize and understand what your goals look like and mean.
In my view, Anarchism is about sovereignty over oneself. One theme I heard was that Anarchism doesn’t mean there are no rules, only that there are no rulers.
In a democracy, nine people can vote to knock a tenth person’s house down and pave a highway through it whether that person likes it or not. To me, that simply isn’t fair.
Ottawa’s municipal politics have plenty of examples of this happening, where rural and suburban councillors outnumber urban ones about three or four to one, so even though it’s the urban councillors who are affected by drugs, the suburban councillors kill the crack pipe program. Even though some rural wards’ residents don’t even pay into the Urban Transit Area, their councillors can still make decisions on OC Transpo. Et cetera.
And that’s only at the municipal level–which is often described as being the level of government closest to the people.
There is certainly a need for some of the principles of Anarchism to be applied in our society. Does our entire system need to be scrapped? I don’t believe so, but Democracy certainly isn’t living up to all the values we tell our kids that it has. Something, then, needs to be done.
- RG>
I get the difference between goals, tactics and strategy. I think those three things are immensely important and generally overlooked by anarchos.
I think wearing weird clothes while organizing is a good way to marginalize yourself so that lots of people won’t talk to you. I think if an organizer values their politics more than their clothes, they will wear whatever is acceptable to the folks they are working with. I just read Rules for Radicals by Alinsky, he put it quite well:
You know me in real life so you probably know I have been found wearing all sorts of things. However I value my organizational work over my aesthetics and when I am in a situation with people who don’t dress that way and whom I may want to organize with I tone it down a lot.
I have not read The Food Revolution but I do have a grasp of how terrible industrial agriculture is. I don’t think veganism is the solution though. In the US they make so much pork every year it can’t all be eaten, the industry is heavily subsidized by the government. So not eating the pork doesn’t make a different. Like all consumer action-action based lifestyle choices it assumes that supply drives demand, which simply isn’t the case.
Re: “hardcore anarchists” getting harassed by cops, I guess it depends what you mean by “hardcore”…
Community is nice but movements are better. Community will get us no where if there is not a plan to change it into a movement. Safe spaces are nice and relaxing and probably necessary but they are not nearly enough to call ourselves successful and useful and growing. I am concerned because there seems to be a feeling like they are enough.
Hope that clarifies a bit more?
Wait, I thought your original post was that you were unclear? Maybe that was unclear.
Essentially, you’re saying that you’re only a nonconformist when it isn’t threatening to be one. What if conforming directly conflicts with your core values? Like an Orthodox Jew dinner guest being served a pork dish? (or switch Orthodox Jew with vegetarian). What if the host is the guest’s boss?
As for your last point about community, whenever you make progress to fix a problem, there will always be some people who stop fighting further because they feel satisfied (e.g. some people are satisfied with gay civil unions, while others insist on full marriage rights/rites). But there will also be others who had previously stayed out of it but see the example that was set and work to fight further.
I’d re-read your last paragraph if I were you. Especially between the lines. It seems you are saying that people should not create community. Even if it is only a band-aid solution, you have to stop the bleeding before you heal the wound.
- RG>