u/QWieke

Liberalism has a suspiciously specific conception of freedom. A conception anarchist disagree with. A conception that prioritises the freedom of some over the freedom of others. A conception that sees no problem with sacrificing the freedom of some in order to increase the "freedom" of the powerful. And when it comes to things like the economy and the state liberalism does have a specific goal in mind, namely a capitalist liberal democracy. Assuming it has no goal (I think it does) it clearly doesn't have a direction towards freedom either.

No that isn't what always happens. But you probably wouldn't even notice the ones that successfully adapt their use of language. Besides trying to counter the mainstreams redefinition of certain words is also a necessary and valid strategy.

And this sub isn't intended to teach people a base level understanding of terms as used by anarchists. That's what /r/anarchy101 is for.

And that last paragraphs is arrogant as fuck. You don't even see the ways the mainstream ideology redefines and appropriates words in order to protect itself from outside critique. But it's dissenters who try to protect their "ideological sanctity"?

That comment doesn't really describe a world of perpetual freedom. Rather it describes how anarchist care about more than just their personal freedom. It uses a couple of anarchist slogans that you're probably reading into too much.

Besides it's entirely possible to describe a continuous process using an unreachable goal. The goal then exists to provide a direction, and is possibly part of a conceptual framework used to think about your actions, but it does not describe an endpoint.

That's just how language and politics works. It's annoying when people instead of arguing why a thing is good or bad try to redefine a word instead but you can't change that. It's also utterly inevitable because the moment you have a word for an obviously bad thing those who benefit from or are associated with that bad thing have a vested interest in changing the definition. It's easier to convince people that "capitalism' just means free market (especially if you exert great influence over the media) than it is to convince people that the thing it originally referred to is good actually.

And I wouldn't say those words are "pre weighted". Words for bad things exist and that is fine and inevitable. It would be rather inconvenient if we had to build up from some ethical axiom using completely neutral language every time we wanted to refer to a bad thing. It is important to ensure we're all working from the same definition, and some parts of academics/activists have a tendency to forget that. But other times it is quite reasonable to assume everybody involved in a conversation are aware of the existence of alternative definitions, even if they don't know those exact definitions. Like if you're in a subreddit dedicated to the discussion of a specific ideology.

There is no endgame, no time when we can all just sit on our laurels and forget about abolishing hierarchies and expanding freedom. This goes for every kind of social structure, why would anarchism be different? Anarchism isn't a goal, it's a continuos process.

You should check out The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto by Kevin Carson, either the shorter paper or the much longer book (though I haven't taken the time to read that one myself). In it he argues that without state intervention protecting/enabling centralised production it would actually be more efficient for a modern industry to be decentralised.

He basically updated the old idea of workshop socialism to fit the modern information age. That by using open source designs, computer controlled tools and online learning resources it would be possible to drastically reduce the skill barrier to small scale manufacturing. And that the actual cost of small scale manufacturing has been going down as well. He even includes a lot of examples of these kinds of things working in capitalist economies. (A rather current example would centralised production failing due to the pandemic cutting supply lines and people instead making their own masks using instructions found online and common household items. Or that time in Italy when folks with 3d printers stepped in and made parts a hospital needed.)

EDIT: The hard sci-fi novel Walkaway by Cory Doctorow is also recommended. It's a story about people building an anarchist society in the ruins of a capitalist climate apocalypse. They use an industrial model rather similar to what Carson describes. (Locally manufactured goods using open source designs, 3d printers and other computer driven tools.) Of course it's about more than just that but it does a good job of showing a world with a decentralised alternative to modern manufacturing.

Ik vermoed dat die gasten zich letterlijk geen andere wereld voor kunnen stellen.

We hebben honderd duizenden jaren lang samen geleefd en virussen overwonnen en dat kunnen we nu ook.

We hadden die tijd wel geen sterk geglobaliseerde samenleving die het veel makkelijker maakt voor een epidemie om in een pandemie te veranderen.

Want ook bij bijvoorbeeld een socialistisch of communistisch systeem moeten mensen in voedsel, kleding, medicijnen, goederen en diensten voorzien worden en daar heb je nou eenmaal mensen voor nodig.

Echter zou een socialistisch systeem de economie tijdelijk kunnen terug schalen naar enkel het essentiële zonder dat direct een hoop mensen de huur, eten en dergelijke niet meer kunnen betalen. En dat is wel degelijk het gevolg van het kapitalisme dat zoveel mogelijk arbeiders in financieel precaire situaties pusht.

So hierarchies will still exist in an anarchist "endgame"?

Most of us don't believe in an "endgame". Rather we believe it is a continuos process that will never stop.

I keep hearing such vehement hatred of hierarchies on subs like this or Politics that the impression i get is that anarchism seeks the destruction of all hierarchies

We do, but we're not going to be using hierarchies to achieve it. But just because we will always oppose hierarchies in principle doesn't mean there's no theoretical possibility of a stable world where anarchistic and somewhat hierarchical societies coexist. There would be quite a difference between how an anarchist society would treat a neighbouring fascist society vs a neighbouring federation of democratic socialist communities.

before another anarchist flames them about how it's only the destruction of "unjust" hierarchies that matters and i end up getting really confused.

Yeah I really don't like the whole "just hierarchy" thing. Anybody advocating for a hierarchy probably thinks it's just so then everybody be an anarchist somehow? It makes no sense.

I think part of the problem is people disagreeing on what a hierarchy is, and those using the "unjust" thing using a broader definition of hierarchy. The only examples of "just hierarchies" I've seen are things I wouldn't even consider to be hierarchies. (Like listening to an expert cause they know more, or physically intervening to prevent an accident without explicit consent of the person who's butt is being saved cause there ain't enough time.) And they probably think that "unjust" makes anarchy sound less scary/extreme to liberals, which it probably does, but it also makes it really confusing.

What might help is to think of anarchists as not just wanting to abolish hierarchies but also as wanting to maximize the number of reasonable and meaningful choices people have (aka freedom). The latter implies the minimization of hierarchy, because those on top of a hierarchy can dictate or limit the actions of those below them. Some attitudes of anarchists make more sense if you keep these two sides of the same coin in mind. (Like how most anarchist are in favour of welfare systems in the short term even though they're ran by the government, it's because they would greatly increase the number of reasonable and meaningful options of poor people.)

I suspect that a lot of these attitudes are the result of the society we currently live in and a different society would result in different attitudes. That without a capitalist owned media, a state, etc who all benefit from the prevalence of such attitudes and have the means to influence people at large scales they probably wouldn't be quite as common. But that wasn't your question.

When we are confronted with a group with values we deem immoral, who also act according to those values, we have to do what anyone in such a situation would have to do. Namely to decide which of the two options available is more morally acceptable to us: letting these immoral acts continue or trying to stop them (and how). There's not necessarily going to be a nice and easy answer (the concept of moral dilemmas exists for a reason) and our reaction would depend on the exact circumstances.

It's important to keep in mind that anarchists don't put any stock in this "democratic" notion that the will of "The People" itself can be used to justify immoral acts or suppress the freedom of minorities. If the mob wants to torture people then the mob can fuck off. (Whether we have the means to stop the mob is another question.) We don't place "The People" (pretty sure it doesn't even represent the actual desires of the people, especially when capitalized, and is not just some projection of those advocating for it) above actual people because that would just be another unacceptable hierarchy and just limits actual people's freedom.

We anarchists actually believe that hierarchies suck so bad that given enough time most people will realize this. The "mechanism" if you will would be: convincing others, by example* or just by talking to them, and them helping them achieve it. Not some top-down imposition of anarchism since that goes against everything we believe in.

Besides we don't need everybody to become anarchists. If some people want to have some hierarchies we're not going to stop them (as long as they're not imposing it on anybody against their will).

This idea of a globally enforced order is a rather non-anarchistic thought. I see non-anarchists assume we want something like that more often, as if they can't imagine not wanting to total ideological domination of the world.

EDIT: *: By which I mean showing them by example that anarchist ways of organizing are better.

Nou, rechts heeft zich aangesloten bij het nogal Amerikaanse idee dat vrijheid het hoogste goed is.

Tenzij je een transvrouw bent die naar de wc moet. Een homo koppel bent dat wil trouwen. Iemand met een leven lang aan studie of medische schuld bent. Een minderheid die graag wil stemmen. Geen oliepijplijn door je gemeenschap wil hebben gaan. Je een arbeider bent die collectief voor de belangen van zichzelf en z'n mede arbeiders op wil komen. Je een zuid Amerikaans land bent dat een iets te linkse regering verkiest. Etc. Ik zie dat idee dat vrijheid het hoogste goed is zelden tot nooit terug komen uit de acties van rechts en al helemaal niet uit de acties van rechts in de VS.

De enige vrijheid die ze altijd beschermen is de vrijheid van de top om de rest van de samenleving uit te buiten en daarmee ook de vrijheid van de rest in te perken. Als je de "vrijheid" van de top beschermt ten koste van de vrijheid van iedereen geloof je niet dat vrijheid zelf het hoogste goed is, dan geloof je dat de top zelf het hoogste goed is.

Helaas betekent die vrijheid voor hen altijd economische regelluwte,

Dat valt ook wel mee. Als het om regels gaan die de marktpositie van grote bedrijven beschermen, en praktisch monopolies creëren, dan vinden ze de regels helemaal niet erg.

1. You said everybody already adopted anarchism so nobody needs to be forced into anything.
2. Wtf is a "ruleset".
3. Anarchism requires the absence of hierarchies, not the implementation of a single specific set of rules. There are a near infinite number of possible ways to organize an anarchist society. We don't all have to be organized in the same way. No enforced homogenization of rules in necessary.

I have it working with microG but I'm pretty sure it still rely on google servers for notifications.

Please can someone explain how I'm supposed to be wrong?

I don't think so, nothing what you say actually makes enough sense to even be wrong. If anarchism is adopted universally it defeats itself? Wtf.

Control group doesn't mean doing nothing. Not that it makes any sense to talk about control groups here. A proper control group isn't supposed to know it's in the control group, which sure as hell isn't the case here.

De filosofie achter rechts daar vind ik namelijk wel een aantal goede punten in zitten, maar in de praktijk hoe het beleid gevormd wordt en hoe zich dat uitpakt is een stuk anders.

Je zou je haast af gaan vragen of de filosofie die ze in publiek uitdragen wel echt de filosofie is waar ze naar handelen.

Idealiter zou namelijk iedereen het zo ver schoppen als hun eigen kunde toelaat, zonder te veel tegengehouden te worden door de samenleving. Een ideaal waar ik het idee achter wel snap.

Een ideaal dat eigenlijk niet in strijd is met veel van het links gedachtegoed. Echter vind links ook dat ook al schop je het niet ver je nog steeds een waardig bestaan zou moeten hebben. Dat de huidige economische en politieke systemen systematisch enorm veel voordeel geven aan bepaalde groepen. En dat ongeacht hoe ver je het ook schopt jouw succes niet ten koste mag gaan van de vrijheid en zelfbeschikking van anderen.

Niemand zal zich presenteren als een dergelijke karikatuur. Maar ik heb het niet over individuen maar over een politieke stroming die effectief op die manier handelt. Het is de rode draad die door rechts beleid en handelen loopt. Dat ze dat gedrag op allerlei manieren proberen te rationaliseren doet daar niet aan af.

Niet op dat er een klasse aan horigen dient te zijn die de koetsen van de elite poetsen omdat ze immers niet van adel zijn.

Vervang "adel" met "laag opgeleid" en je krijgt iets dat behoorlijk dicht in de buurt komt van de retoriek rondom minimum loon en andere compensatie voor werk. Veel van de rechtse retoriek rondom economie is gebaseerd op rangordes van wie het "goed" doet of is en wie daarom meer "verdient", rangordes die vaak irrelevant zijn, vaak overdreven en praktisch altijd systematische oorzaken verhullen. Zie de retoriek rondom de corona bonds voor een recent voorbeeld, of hoe essentiële (en nu risico vollere) beroepen nog steeds als minderwaardig gezien worden (en zeker geen hoger minimum loon zouden mogen verdienen) omdat ze geen hoge opleiding vereisen. (Waarin ze vervolgens alle onderliggende sociale, historische en economische oorzaken negeren.)

EDIT: Oh en die rechtse "zelfredzaamheid" is nergens te vinden als het om bailouts en andere voordeeltjes voor de rijken en grote bedrijfsleven gaat. Zelfredzaamheid voor de armen, overheidssteun voor de rijke is het gevestigde patroon.

Sinds wanneer is rechts voor het investeren in normale mensen (ook al wordt het dik terug verdient)? Daar lijken ze echt nooit naar te handelen.

Het hele doel van rechts is om de macht aan de top te beschermen en uit te breiden. Private scholen dragen daar aan bij omdat het rijke mensen aan onderwijs laat verdienen en ook de egaliserende werking van onderwijs ondermijnt.

I didn't see the original version but the edited version looks pretty bad to me as well. Just adding a short sentence recognizing that barbaric treatment of animals is something that happens in the west as well would've made a big difference.

adds anything to the discussion

Actually given that there is a lot of racism based on foreign culture's eating habits making sure you don't exclusively condemn a foreign culture for barbarism your own culture is also guilty of does add something important.

But that's more of a group activity.

Alphanumerically?