As someone who is fiercely argumentative myself (and stubborn, foul-mouthed, and irritable to boot), I totally get getting into scraps with fellow leftists. I am by no means telling you to asspat anyone! People only change when regularly and vigorously challenged, and often not even then - but certainly an unchallenged view is an unexamined one for most.
But ultimately, please try to remember that we are all capable of being comrades here - or at least most of us. We have broad agreement in what needs to go - we can support each other, both ideologically and practically, in the many ways to go about it, even if they may not be the way we ourselves would prefer.
You don’t have to fluff everyone no matter how far-fetched their idea, in a “We couldn’t win this fight without you trying to project your consciousness into the Astral Realm to awaken the Primordial Leftist Gestalt! 😭🙏” way, but when someone says to you “I’m an anarchist, I organize to alleviate suffering at the grassroots level”, the correct response is “Right on, comrade”, even if you think state institutions are the optimal solution. Even in simply engaging in the fight, we raise its visibility; in raising visibility, we weaken the powers that be and widen the embrace for our comrades to join us.
None of us will win this fight alone. The leviathan will drag its carcass onwards as long as we refuse solidarity with each other. Maybe not everyone is an ally - but don’t operate from the presupposition that disagreement is automatic cause for division.
There are many futures yet possible which are better than our present (though that may be damnation by faint praise), and the chance of any one of us having our ideology implemented 100% in any of them is very fucking slim. If you operate with the mindset of “Only my way is valid,” not only do you offload the burden of achieving success onto people who are willing to engage in solidarity with their comrades, but when the future comes, no matter how hard you fought for it… you will be disappointed.
The world doesn’t end with ourselves. We exist, and will continue to exist, with many other ways of thinking and doing things. The important thing is to prioritize disagreements, both in action and in sentiment. As long as a comrade is working towards the goal of a better world in SOME way that is not utterly futile, like begging for scraps at a fascist table, they are infinitely more your comrade than anyone who is… well, not working towards that cause.
I totally get getting into scraps with fellow leftists. I am by no means telling you to asspat anyone! People only change when regularly and vigorously challenged, and often not even then - but certainly an unchallenged view is an unexamined one for most.
I’m fine with this, only exception is nazis no solidarity with them only bullets. Anarchy is fine, even if I have my issues with it.
Well, Nazis aren’t leftists. This is only about people who are working towards a better world, even if you disagree with the exact end goal.
If you can live with their result, however imperfectly, consider them an ally as long as most of the world is… well, under this current fucked system.
I don’t see how I could answer either way. Anarchism is a direct undermine of my own views which is a democracy that has a core structure like a constitution that is agreed upon by consensus and provides an agreed upon frame work for a central government to provide a stable set of rules that collects taxes in a progressive way to limit wealth disparity and utilize for social wealfare and common defense. I prefer a democratic system of law where the society actually obeys its own laws but the laws are not allowed to violate human rights.
And as an anarchist I disagree with you, but on most struggles we’re actually facing we’re probably on the same side.
If you’re polite and don’t force me to operate within a hierarchical structure we can probably work together in a lot of real-world situations.
Hm. This is my first comment on Lemmy. Woo hoo!
I’m middle-aged and recently had what I consider to be a quasi-psychotic break: I realized that society is built on institutions–whether explicitly like the government, or implicitly like white supremacy–and pretty much to get ahead in any organization, you are judged primarily by how you serve the institution or those inside of the institution.
What really blew my mind is realizing the social work–the field I was in–was actively supporting whtie supremacy even as everyone in the field would deny any such thing. People serve these systems unknowingly, like the coppertops in the Matrix…
As a result, I’m pretty pessimistic both for society and for my future job prospects.
Does anarchy have any intersection with this collection of beliefs?
In general, it does.
The general basis of anarchist philosophy is a rejection of all hierarchies. These can be explicit hierarchies, like governments or private companies, but also things like white supremacy or transphobia that aren’t always formally organized (even if they’re often enforced by more formal organization).
Social workers often have to deal with that sort of tension, because their work almost always exists within a hierarchical way of doing things. Even the most well-meaning social workers have to operate under the logic of government. That way, it’s unavoidable that they place themselves in a hierarchical relationship with their clients. Anarchists would prefer more cooperative models, primarily based on mutual aid.
As anarchists, we similarly can’t avoid those hierarchies. Part of the anarchist critique of governments or capitalism isn’t just that they oppress us, but also that they force us to oppress others. Most anarchists have to come to terms with this in order to find a job that they find bearable.
Yeah, my old and quasi-semi-current carreer is in social work, and I can’t get a job because I keep talking about wanting to remove barriers between me and the people I work with and not wanting to be “the expert” talking down to them. Job search poison.
There’s a wonderful dissertation written about social work and education are actually the domain primarily of white women, granted that privilege by the white patriarchy in exchange for servicing the white patriarchy. Love and Treason: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/124/ I wouldn’t let social work off the morally compromised hook merely on the basis of the existence of hiearchy.
In my own currernt work, I see how the governing board primarily reflects the desires of privileged white funders, and I see how everyone’s position is based on kissing ass, at the expense of the people we putatively serve but are functionally just excuses by which we maintain our position and status. I’ve brought up at least one regular and flagrant ethical violation with absolutely nothing done because it serves the interests of the institution to continue.
There is a position in social for peer advocacy, recognized in my state, that I’m training for. But it’s a step down in every way from what my training is, it’s a dead-end job, and, again, I’m probably never going to get hired because I’m overqualified and I’m going to have authority by my education and training beyond the low-totem pole position of a peer advocate.
Anyway. What are you doing for work?
Resources for connecting with other anarchists and learning more about anarchist philosophy without Gramsci-levels of linguistic abstraction?
don’t see how I will force you to operate with hierarchical structures but I work within them and support them and you likely find yourself needing to given its how we are setup as a society. I mean im not part of law enforcement. That being said I believe in limited hierarchical structures and limited wealth disparities so having work in one should just be typical wages. Like congressmen should have enough to support a family decently but that should be average and it should be the same as most any other government job like janitor or firefighter but they would in addition have a budget to run two offices and including staff ans such just because that is necessary for the job but they should face consequences if they try and use that to enrich themselves an such. The hierarchy be out of necessity and not be confused with the equal value of human life.
I don’t even mean in the hypothetical future in which you (or those you champion) would have power. I was talking about our current-day organizing.
Some Marxist organizations insist that everything they’re a part of is organized in their preferred way. For example.
this is more lower level though I think. Its more about if there should be organization or not or at least the extent of it. Honestly one thing that annoys me about marxist and some other philosophies is there tends to be an org outlay like everyone is just going to agree and respect a away of doing things without specificying how this is going to happen being that people just don’t agree or respect others often. Law is basically an agreement of the rules and its enforced because people won’t respect it without it. You get the everything I think is good for everyone and everything I don’t is harm to everyone. I mean trump talks like this all the time. Never sure how much he believes his own bulltrump.
You may want to look into what most anarchists actually advocate for. It’s generally not the colloquial meaning of anarchy as ‘no rules’.
im not saying its the colloquial. im saying many people here say its does not allow for a structured national government system with authority over its members. I never hear anyone saying it just needs to be limited to some issues like miliatry defense or socail wealfare. I do see a lot of explanations on how tempory federations or such would come together. to handle bigger things and everything is opt in or out not across the board laws everyone has to follow except for non agression which is often times really vague. oh its only someones body. well what if they pollutes then some stuff on well clans or temproray bodies that prevent that but you are immediately into property and boarders and such when you get to that which me laws and hierarchy and national government and such. I mean if anarchy is what im talking about then we have it now it just needs to be tweaked.
I believe this framework could fit in with an anarchist society. Like, nothing you said in your example explicitly goes against anarchism. That central govt might have to be looked at :p but really anarchy is against unjust hierarchies. The plan you’ve laid out can deffo fit that definition, at least for the most part.
well this is news to me. Anarchy has been explained to me as local groups that temporarilly group together for purposes at most but otherwise leave things to individuals or small groups. long term structure with laws and where what is allowed is determine democratically but when agreed to is followed by all in an enforced system of law seemed to be anethma. I mean I would like a very flat type of organization but someone can’t just make a club and be like we don’t have to folow whatever laws we don’t want to. Granted I would very much like some things to be regional and local with the federal government concering itslef mostly with social safety nets and maintaning the highest possbile minimum level of quality of life for its citizens along with protecting their rights which would include invasion and diplomacy and such. So anarchy is very different if they are ok with authority levels like that. I mean the us has a pretty good theoretical framework once you get passed some of the initial bs due to humanities general nature and get to the system meant to deal with day to day but recognizing and allow for power to come from and be authorized by the people. Its a system where theoretically power is given up from the bottom up for each level up to server those below but unfortunately it easily falls out of that. I was under the impression the founding fathers expected the constitution to only last 20 years or so hand have to be redone or at least updated and changed. It kinda has as we have had 17 amendments in 250 years which comes out to about a every 12 years but they are very front loaded and we have really failed in the last 30 or so years with no tweaks done at all. This sent me down a rabbit hole because if you line up the times where the constitution has not changed much the longest is pre civil war and the second is the gilded age and the third is now. So its kinda like if we don’t do an improvement within a 20 years of the last we are likely stagnating. I mean we all know we need to get rid of the slavery clause. That is glaring.
I feel like I could argue with an anarchist about organizing
My issue is that there’s not enough action from leftist. I can’t criticize people’s plans because it’s hard to evaluate both the means and the goals as well as the effectiveness, but I will give advice on how I think it can be improved, how it went down for me when I attempted something similar, or potential flaws.
I could listen to other people’s plan
I feel like I could argue with an anarchist about organizing
Hey, arguments are fine - just remember that they’re comrades and not enemies in the end.
