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- cross-posted to:
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Ah… I wish I’d written this - it says so many things that I’ve been trying to get into words for years now, and it does it so clearly.
I’d add - only part of the problem is the algorithms. Or more precisely, the algorithms are a problem because of a more fundamental problem, and one that has been a problem all along - the fact that all too many people are unwilling or unable to even take the first step of forming their own ideas about anarchism, and instead just look for some authority to tell them what is required and what is prohibited. And then they turn around and insist to other people that this is required and that is prohibited, because this authority said so.
So it’s not as if the algorithms and the influencers they promote are somehow hijacking people on their way to understanding anarchism. Rather, it’s simply that a great many of the people who are interested in it haven’t even taken the first necessary step toward understanding it, so are essentially looking for exactly what the algorithm supplies.
Which illustrates why one of my basic ideas about anarchism is that it is, first and foremost, a way of thinking. The system will never be able to come into being until enough people can and do think in ways that facilitate it.
But once enough people do think in those ways, it will not only be possible, but inevitable.
Good point. The advent of AI takes this even further, now people won’t even be looking to real people to tell them what anarchy is, they’ll just ask chat gpt, which will just regurgitate youtube and reddit comments reacting to Breadtubers telling them what anarchy is. It’s really a problem of childhood education - people aren’t really taught to do independent study, to learn critical thinking or to even think for themselves. Just to memorise what they’re told. I explored this somewhat here.
Ah… yes. As if it wasn’t already enough of a problem with some influencer’s take on some designated authority’s ideas, we can now look foward to AI slop pieced together out of influencers’ takes.
And the phrase “anarchy means no rulers, not no rules” is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, so I’m looking forward to that essay.
Re: the rules essay -
Again, you neatly assembled a whole bunch of things I’ve been saying piecemeal and often unsatisfyingly for years, and I find myself equal parts pleased and jealous…
Rules without a mechanism of enforcement are not rules - they’re merely suggestions. And any mechanism of enforcement is an archy.
Have you read Ursula le Guin’s The Dispossessed? She neatly makes that exact point (and it amazes me how many self-proclaimed anarchists miss it) - the “anarchism” depicted there is nothing of the sort. It’s overtly a hierarchy with established laws the violation of which is punished by designated people invested with the required authority. That it all hides behind anarchistic rhetoric makes that no less a fact.
On another note - one of my pet peeves is when newcomers show up on an anarchist forum and ask “How would X work in anarchism?” and then somebody launches into a detailed account of all of the specific procedures that would purportedly be followed.
I sometimes respond to try to make the point that nobody knows how anything would be done and that’s part of the beauty of anarchism, but I find that generally confuses people, angers them, or both.
But it really is.
To me, one of the most appealing things about anarchism is that nobody can possibly know in advance how anything will be done, because whoever’s involved will have to reach an agreement right there on the spot as to how to do it. But we can know that it will be done in the way that is best for all concerned, simply because nobody will have the authority to force anyone else to settle for anything less. What more could I want?
And you touch on a thing I refer to as “authoritarian reflexes” - the tendency, as with newcomers to anarchism, to just unconsciously assume laws and authority, even when they’re nominally considering anarchism.
And your rant on natural law reminded me of another of my pet peeves - the NAP. I have no particular problem with it in and of itself, as a standard against which to measure ones own actions, but that’s not the way it’s generally treated by its devotees. They almost invariably use it as a direct substitute for a system of laws, and so vividly that one could almost see them pulling out their trusty sidearm and shouting, "Halt! You’ve violated the NAP!
And so on… there’s so much there, and it’s so rare to run into somebody who already understands the things I see…
Yeah it’s endlessly frustrating to me that people are so quick to give confused newcomers exact instruction on procedures to world build. Non-compete did that too by laying out his concepts for anarcho-cops, anarcho-prisons and anarcho-government and people still parrot that bullshit on reddit everyday. Anarchy should never be a program for world building imo.
I haven’t read The Dispossessed but I’ve always meant to. Don’t really have the attention span for a novel.
anarcho-cops, anarcho-prisons and anarcho-government
Is Non-compete an an-cap?
I used to spend time trying to debate the an-caps on Reddit (partly because even with their faults, they tended to be closer to actual anarchism than the r/anarchism totalitarians, and partly because I got banned from r/anarchism the first day I was there).
I never saw any of them refer to their proposed systems of laws and police and courts and prisons that way, but I often did.
program for world building
To their partial credit, I think a lot of people try to frame anarchism as a defined system to be implemented mostly just because they’re impatient. Right on the heels of the understanding that anarchism is a societal structure that can only come to be when enough people are ready, willing and able to make and bear responsibility for their own decisions and cede to all others the right to do the same comes the realization that human society is nowhere even close to that yet, and that can be pretty discouraging. So I understand to some degree the desire to speed the process up.
But then there are also the ones who frame it that way because they just reflexively presume, like all other authoritarians, that whatever they believe is so obviously right that anyone who disagrees can and should be forced to submit.