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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Leftist Infighting: A community dedicated to allowing leftists to vent their frustrations
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The purpose of this community is sort of a "work out your frustrations by letting it all out" where different leftist tendencies can vent their frustrations with one another and more assertively and directly challenge one another. Hostility is allowed, but any racist, fascist, or reactionary crap wont be tolerated, nor will explicit threats.
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I will paste this old comment of mine to see what real anarchists like yourself think about it, I may have conflated anarchists with anti-authoritarians, so correct me if I'm wrong:
Anti-authoritarians have no future, one either supports an existing authority or tries to become a new authority. Everyone can have a say in a democracy, but when it comes down to decision, whether through majority vote or expert opinion or other methods, the decision then becomes authority.
Even if someone claims to hate all forms of authority, this person will become the authority on “hating authority” if a following is gained. That’s how anarchists are doomed for failure.
this is not what anarchists claim
read theory, then come back with a coherent comment
It actually is what a lot of anarchists claim, those who have not read theory at least. I will make no generalizations about all anarchists especially without reading the specific theory, but there is a certain type of the online “anarkiddie” which I’ve seen many times.
this is like judging MLs by random fascist youtube commenters who think stalin killed 100 bajillion people and that was based
More like judging all USian MLs by patsocs who are sadly way too common. Settlers don’t want to lose the land they stole even if it’s necessary like anarkiddies don’t want to give up their petty bourgeois lifestyle to do praxis. Also, similarly as these anarchists don’t question the anti-communism programmed into them, patsocs don’t question myths about “American greatness” or that fast food workers and natives are worthless.
I will gladly comment on this.
Anarchist are anti-hierarchy. Authority is usually hierarchically designed and implemented. And thus we as anarchists condem it.
This statement ignores other forms of power. Like non-hierarchical power structures. Mutual aid groups and community self defense. These and many other forms of direct action do not require authority or hierarchy to be powerful.
We can be powerful, productive and non-hierarchical. We can have groups of people working together solving problems without bosses, masters, cops etc.
Are rules required for anarchism to function, and if they are, can these rules be viewed as an abstract authority commanding the anarchist community?
How does commumity self defense not require authority? They're certainly imposing their authority on whatever they're defending themselves from.
Someone who is attacking you is attempting to enforce a hierarchy/authority on you. Defending yourself is rejecting that hierarchy/authority. If you were to attack back, then I would say you were trying to impose your authority on another. But self defense alone only brings one back to equal footing, where neither party has authority over the other.
That is a good point. I wouldn't be surprised if someone here links On Authority to try and debunk you, but (and this is an unpopular opinion on this instance) it's a garbage argument that projects the fallacy Engles is making onto the anti authoritarians, namely using a definition of authority different from the one anyone actually cares about. It is Engles who "...think[s] that when [he has] changed the names of things [he has] changed the things themselves".
Jo Freeman - The Tyranny of Structurelessness