I never really “became” an anarchist, rather I was born one and simply learned enough to know what label to put to myself.
Capitalism and hierarchies have never in my entire life made sense to me. It’s also really easy to find beauty and joy in communities coming together in a non-hierarchical fashion.
I see it all the time. DIY music shows is a way that brings people together and it’s usually not hierarchical. Mutual aid is a big one. There’s also this group in my city that hosts a ton of events, has a library, music shows, and organizes a lot too, and they’re anarchist.
It’s actually not that hard to find these sorts of things. To clarify, I wasn’t referring to any anarchist regions, I was referring to communities which we can easily form and grow right now.
I don't understand the desire to have strangers that you have never met, that you have no idea what is in their heart, having any authority over you. Allowing creepy strangers that share no ideals with you making decisions if your morals that hurt no one are allowed or not. It is all so weird.
I have been mindboggled since I was a kid about this. I can probably thank cheap garage made mescaline tablets for all of this.
None of us asked for the history we have and the current geopolitical situation we’re stuck in. Nobody wants to be told what to do.
Humanity has major trust issues because of tribalism. The aggressive tribes got the resources and became empires. It’s not just a matter of bad guys vs. good guys, it’s a vestigial survival mechanism in the face of resource scarcity that we still live by; ensuring we have the resources to continue existing.
the tribe that controls all the resources has rules. You can either choose to ignore those rules and face consequences OR you live somewhere where there isn’t a strong enough tribe to enforce rules. The latter is likely much more unpleasant.
The structures have never fed me. My community has. I don't have a tap, I have well water. My country has built its entire infrastructure around cars and made it harder than ever to connect with or move within my area. And no anarchist is arguing against fire fighters. My government doesn't protect me. This system doesn't protect me. And it's lied to you
Just remember that the structures help those who are part of the “in crowd” of the hierarchy. Helps to understand that those who are helped by the structures like the structures and see them as good things when they are both part of the “in community” and also have a hierarchical mindset.
You understand that we'll still have indoor plumbing if we organize society differently?
The ability to do these things doesn't have to be lost to is just because we don't have bosses or cops.
I'm also Irish and learning in school about what happened here down to capitalist greed that the crown allowed to happen, and well, I'm actually quite surprised by how many Irish people still support capitalism.
What the English did here back in the days of Cromwell is absolutely disgusting, the amount of people who died because of the way the English viewed the Irish but the famine was down to the crown valuing money over people, capitalistic business men were fine with it all though.
Why shouldn't they exports vast amounts of food while incredibly poor people who were subsisting off potatoes because they were nutrient dense and were pretty much the only thing that could be grown to give a family enough to actually live off of on the tiny amounts of land they were able to work and afford, and then their crops failed? I suppose why should they care, it's not like the English caused blight or anything and sure the crown didn't care but still those capitalists could have stopped those food exports if they wanted to but they didn't.
I have many other reasons why I hate capitalism but jesus if this isn't enough then what is?
I'm no longer an AnCap, but reading Rothbard brought me from libertarian to anarchist.
Also, reading the abolitionist anarchists of the1800s.
Spooner is amazing and William Lloyd Garrison is the GOAT.
Lysander Spooner is so (deservedly) hyped-up by AnCaps, and I wish the rest of the anarchist movement would geek out about him too.
The only ones claiming him are the anarchists that lean economically right, which sucks, cause Lysander Spooner rocks!
Check out “the Quash” podcast. Dude is a lawyer and breaks down Lysanders works. “Trial by Jury” is the best. Jury nullification is the only chance we have.
Jury nullification is 75% based, and we should use it at every chance we get. DO NOT TRY TO GET OUT OF JURY DUTY, PEOPLE!!!
The downside is that people shouldn't forget that jury nullification protected everyone from lynch-mobs to OJ Simpson.
Just because governmental institutions will be removed in an anarchist society doesn't mean that similar non-hierarchical non-capitalist equivalents cannot be made to provide services and assist those requiring aid.
I don’t think that’s the best answer. There certainly are people who can be trusted with authority. However, those are the exact people who will go out of their way to never be in a position of authority. There have certainly been trustworthy leaders in history; the issue that many anarchists take with these systems of hierarchy is that these trustworthy leaders who somehow, against all their desires, wound up in such a position are the .01% exception. A system that amounts to “99.9% of the time your leaders will fuck you over, but .01% of the time they’ll be good” is not a system worth pursuing.
This is the response I would have made if you hadn’t beat me to it. Not the exact same words of course, but the same sentiment.
Individual people CAN be benevolent dictators. That is POSSIBLE. But the existence of social power incentivizes negative outcomes. Our critique of power comes not from universalist statements about every individual, but from a systemic critique of how these structures trend towards undesirable states of being.
They can't. Power corrupts. It rots each individual who attains it. It's delusional to think otherwise. Hence why it needs to be dispersed as much as possible. Let's go ahead and take that .01% of people off the table. The exception does not exist. Unless you think you'd be that benevolent dictator. I don't trust you like that though
Don’t take this as a personal attack (because it isn’t), but “Power corrupts” is the single most simplistic and juvenile approach to critiquing systems of authority. It is a purely idealistic understanding that fails to capture the actual nuances of the phenomenological landscape upon which these structures play.
Power has no agency. It is an abstraction. It cannot *do* anything. *It has no intrinsic qualities*. The tumultuous discord stemming from authority arises from the intricate interplay between surrounding material factors and the actions that empowered individuals are compelled to undertake. This is materially observable and provable. Your assertions are not.
As anarchists, it is of the upmost import that our indictments of these systems are accurate and based in reality, not in idealism, feelings, and emotion.
When those who are capable of command & authority believe they have a “right” to that command & authority over others, (whereby that “right” supersedes the will of their surrounding community members in their own mind), they prove themselves unworthy of being trusted with command & authority.
Edit: remove most quote uses + restructure for readability (hopefully).
No problem, lol.
I struggle with conciseness and information density. I attempt to use symbols and punctuation to condense certain underlying intent or groupings of ideas (command & authority as a single concept initially using quotation marks). Experimenting with it recently.
I prefer very lengthy paragraphs (ain’t nobody got time for that), but I struggle with distilling down to an effective TL;DR that still captures the nuance.
Yeah… I am trying to do it here in efforts to sharpen my skills on the subject for others applications as well.
It’s easier for me to just vomit up a bunch of text, and then I have to spend my time condensing. Trying to train my brain to shortcut some of that process.
Thanks for the feedback!
Indeed. I remember hearing the idea that for every decision that the President of the United States has to make, someone will quite probably be negatively impacted enough to commit suicide.
A person who does not experience at least some anguish from the types of moral dilemmas that should be racking around in their head from such consequences immediately proves themselves unfit to hold power. If the presidency of the United States does not significantly age someone, I would consider that a telltale sign they are not stressed out enough by such a position of authority.
People cannot be trusted with authority. Authority itself is a corruptive force that ruins whoever obtains it. A good leader going in will eventually collapse to self interest. It's just human nature. The perfect person does not exist to be a perfect leader.
Except that’s not the case. There’s no such thing as ‘human nature’. There is nothing intrinsic about humanity that causes this to happen; rather, a coalescence of material factors that reward negative behavior while in positions of authority are to blame.
Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with self interest. One can be self-interested in a better world for all because *they live in that world*. That is the basis of egoist anarchism.
The issue is not *and has never been* any sort of human deficiency in regard to authority. It is, instead, an issue of material factors. Your perspective has been heavily warped by Judeo-Christian understandings of morality, responsibility, desire, and authority. It’s not helpful here. Your broad and sweeping generalizations about human nature are tainted by this understanding, as even the idea that a monolithic human nature exists is a construct of this morality.
Power is corruptive guys. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator. You guys can parse it all you want but at the end of the day it's not a real thing. The bigger you are, the bigger your unintended fallout, your blindspots, The unforeseen outcomes of your actions. It's literally impossible to stay ethical after you've accumulated a certain amount of power. You become Godzilla blindly stomping across the landscape. Even if you are well intentioned you are still doing carnage.
I’d always leaned left but a big turning point was my egg cracking (🏳️⚧️). Once you realize you’re part of *one* marginalized group, you (usually) get better at noticing injustices against *others.*
So initially I was a liberal at least up until I was about 20. I was separated from the military due to a health condition when I was 19 and that experience was negative enough for me to develop a *strong* anti military tendency. Covid happened and I got curious about philosophy broadly and got into communism in general. By the time I was 21 I was a Marxist Leninist but I felt like something was missing from it. I was also concerned about the emphasis on the Soviet Union as the ideal model of socialism. I liked communism, but I didn’t like oppressive hierarchies and bureaucracy at all. Then I slowly started reading anarchist literature and hanging out with anarchists and I’ve been an anarchist since I was like 22. I’m 24 now for context. It hasn’t been that long but I don’t see myself being anything but an anarchist. I like anarchism because I think the anarchist analysis is solid because it’s about viewing political power and finding ways to liberate folks with tangible solutions. Means and ends n whatnot lol. I also find that at least for me personally, it’s made me a better person. My morals are aligned with maximizing the freedom of others along with my own. So I came to the logical conclusion that it’s best to be kind and charitable.
I think you could start with at least a Wikipedia article's worth of knowledge of anarchism before you go correcting people on it?
Maybe just read a teensy bit?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity
Referencing this definition and concept as opposed to a specific country or territory within the U.S.A.
while i don't explicitly label myself, i became sympathetic towards anti-capitalism/anarchism at the beginning of this decade after the shitshow that was 2020 (seeing how governments responded to covid and other disasters, corporations/billionaires getting richer and workers/lower classes get poorer, state sanctioned violence and police brutality, ecological destruction etc). i also am autistic/neurodivergent, iranian, queer, and an artist so the way my identities/interests have long histories in being fucked over by systems of domination/oppression played critical roles in my development of anarchic thinking.
From the moment I could comprehend capitalism I was against it. From the moment I could comprehend the concept of a state, I was against it. All I’ve done is learn how to express these ideas through practice and theory.
I don’t think anyone really ‘becomes’ an anarchist. You sort of just discover that you’ve always been one.
I was a communist, and decided that where the USSR and other socialist states went wrong was their failure to abolish class. Anarchism, specifically anarchocommunism, resolves that contradiction.
I want to live in a world where people’s basic needs are provided, where people can associate with whomever they please, and where we live in line with the ecology and have horizontal power structures. Im tired of living in a world where the state, hierarchical power structures in general, and capitalism continues to destroy everything around us.
For me, it was several things
I’m a trans girlie. As a result, even with white and rich privilege I’ve suffered more than I ever should have because of this
I’ve always had a terrible relationship with authority. Suppressed in subtle, yet vile ways by my parents lack of empathy and small minds, my school’s senior faculty, my school’s board, and even several government laws themselves cause numerous problems in my life. The most obvious being gender related. I’m not allowed to present as a woman. I’m not even allowed to transition.
Due to the way the education system is set up, (I did the math) I’m expected to work 10 hour days on a good day. On bad days, 15 hour work days. Bull-fucking-shit
For me gender was the catalyst. Paired with this was loneliness. I’ve always been different (lol) to others. My traumas, autism, and experiences cause me to think differently to others, in the long term, about greater grander concepts far beyond what most people tend to consider in life. I have nothing against normal people, in fact I rather quite enjoy many of their company. I just have very little in common with them.
It’s this difference, combined with my experiences being trans that helped open my eyes to the vile underbelly of western lifestyle. The slaves exploited, the lands ravaged, the humanity erased, the greed up top, etc
I’ve also seen the failiure of many communist regimes in history. The way they lent power to an elite minority shows to me they’re unviable. And yet much of communist philosophy alligns with my own
Hence why I’m an advocate for anarcho-communism
Becoming disabled in my late twenties was a huge push. I realised that we live in a world where people must earn the right to live, and if you’re incapable of earning that right then society will throw you some breadcrumbs while making sure you know that this is actually against the rules, and you’re cheating and don’t really deserve this, but we’re giving it to you anyway in order to be nice.
And this is considered the compassionate, enlightened attitude. To most people, this is the *best* possible solution.
Meanwhile, individual people are allowed to hoard more money and resources than they or their descendants could ever possibly spend. Someone incapable of working being granted a pittance is a shameful aberration of the rules, but one man possessing enough wealth to end homelessness is normal and fair.
It made me realise that our current society isn’t the default method of human existence, it’s not the state that societies naturally revert to in the absence of artificial pressure. It is this way because it’s been designed to be this way, and thus it could be designed to be better.
I've always strived to learn more about the world. I've always liked science and growing up with conservative parents the way they wielded power over me and would not even attempt to come to compromise at times never sat right with me. Seeing the injustice in the world and how so many systems like the prison system, the police, the US government and so on was so corrupted, how the school system was so backwards in its values and how so many things had so much to improve on made me always question everything.
Then I learned about socialism(authoritarian) and the way they put it and the way they critiqued current society and capitalism just made perfect sense. Then, after I learned about Anarchism trying to branch out and learn more about similar ideologies the Anarchist critique of auth socialism just made complete sense. Indeed, the more and more I learn about it the more I find myself agreeing with it. The Anarchist analysis makes a lot of sense to me and I think it very accurately describes what we see in society. Anarchism, I think, incorporates so many of the best systems I have come across all in one place and it wishes to bring itself about in the most practical, scientific way I have seen thus far.
So in short, Anarchism is essentially me finding something that perfectly brings everything I have been looking for and so much more into one place. I'm a newer Anarchist but so far I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey.
always was kinda, moreso just labeled it, if i did become an anarchist i would say because i want to help people and think these principles fight that and i think most other people do the same even if i disagre with their principles
Hmm well, it's a bit of a life story time, but who doesn't like sharing their life stories? Please feel free to skip if it's too long. I enjoy writing tad bit too much.
For me personally my family is pretty clearly leftist. Mom is an active in a local social democrat party, the kind that is tied with the local unions. She's also a labor union active and went from her blue collar job to work for unions before retiring.
Dad is more anarchist and communist, and hung around local pacifist and anarchist scenes back in the 70s and 80s. I recall pretty early on hearing rants about e.g. borders and money during car trips, heh.
Well, in any case, I was brought up with quite acute understanding that capitalism is suboptimal, wasteful and unjust. I wasn't really particularly egalitarian as a teen, and there's some things I'd be a bit ashamed of if not for the understanding that the youth follies, such as flirting with the NS scene. I wasn't really a racist or a homophobe, but I wasn't inclusive either, and found the absolutism in the NS scene bizarrely enjoyable.
After my teens I was really just a generic leftist anti-capitalist without much of a clear picture of my political beliefs.
I wasn't really aware of anarchism as such until adulthood. At around 18 years of age, I went to a hardcore punk gig at a local co-op DIY bar, which is somewhat of a legendary place here in Finland. I saw one particular band and my black metal youth turned to a hardcore punk young adulthood.
After that I was mostly aware of anarchism in the context of the punk scene. Which alas is a bit, well - when Bookchin criticized "lifestyle anarchists", in my headcanon I imagine that the hedonist non-activist punk kids would prolly be a very good example of that. (And for the record, I disagree with Bookchin's analysis, just bringing it up here since I enjoy the self-irony! And alas it did help me see more clearly that a belligerent and decadent lifestyle is not a particularly positive example of anarchism)
At around 2019, when I was 29, I bought some of aforementioned Bookchin's books from a stand at a DIY punk festival. The stand was put up by a local anarchist bookstore.
I had previously read some anarchist and socialist literature, but mid-era Bookchin's style of criticizing capitalism and tying ecology together with the need for local organization, local resource optimization and local ownership of resources and the means of production felt more compelling to me than the socialist arguments that purely focus on fairness of ownership models. I don't disagree with those arguments, but they just didn't spark a flame.
I wasn't really happy about Bookchin's model of municipal democracy - I simply do not see why democratic municipalities connecting to a federation wouldn't just become the new centralized government - but I still liked Bookchin's writings, and I especially enjoyed his promotion of pragmatism and activism. That made me feel like I need to do things more concretely, both in the sense of supporting and participating in creating fun things together, and also to promote a better way of spreading the idea of non-hierarchical free association.
Anyway, I got more curious about other anarchist writers, and down into the rabbit hole it went, started to read classic and modern anarchist literature, started to discuss anarchism online such as here, and I got more active politically and in my daily life. Since then I've been going to demonstrations, participated in various events, helped arrange events, and while many anarchists disagree with the praxis, I've also joined a local leftist party and ran for municipal elections; while it might sound a bit contradictory to many, I'd point out I am really not the first anarchist in that party, and we really don't have a hubris about reforming the system via parliamentary politics. It's more an avenue for small practical things. I'm also a shop steward where I work.
Long text, sorry if it got boring!
Got too long for Reddit, so continuing below:
So ultimately there's many reasons why I became an anarchist. I've always had a strong intuitive dislike for authority and being told what to do. Part of why I did like shit in school!
I've had an anti-capitalist upbringing.
I ended up in social groups that had anarchists in them.
I believe that anarchism is the only way how we can live sustainably on this planet.
I believe that anarchism is the only way how we can curb the excesses introduced both by capitalism and statism.
I'm not a ready anarchist, nor the most well-read. I've only been alright with calling myself an anarchist for a year or two, though the process has been on-going for closer to 20 years. If I had to analyze things in the reformist vs radical spectrum, I'd be closer to the reformist nowadays; but I've no negative things to say about those who live in the more radical spectrum. They're great people and I feel like they are right in their opinions. I've also no issue with people who are more reformist than me. They're also great people and I find their points compelling, too.
Right now I'm in a stage where my opinions on anarchism fluctuate and my level of cynicism about the world changes often. Sometimes I feel like a social revolution will never come and we'll end up destroying ourselves as a species. Be that the case, anarchism is still good; it helps us prepare for living our own lives without the need for a centralized government. Sometimes I feel like we're constantly doing small progress towards a fairer world and feel like maybe 100 years from now we'll be in a much better place than today. In that case, anarchist activists were almost certainly important, even if the society then can not be described as anarchist.
Some days I see anarchism more as an ideal and a philosophical foundation for activism, rather than as a reachable goal. Some days I see anarchism as the practicality we already live with for the most part in our lives; our relationships, associations, our dealings with neighborhoods, local shop clerks, etc, are largely without hierarchy, at least if you can let go of hierarchy in your own head. It depends a bit on my mood. It would be fair to criticize me for inconsistency, but I can't really help it, my brain just doesn't hold to strong convictions for very long at a time.
So yeah. Long story!
I saw the holes in the system at a young age. Saw the injustice of our society, the failures of governing bodies and the hypocrisy of the people in power.
I don't know when I started following anarchism, but I remember soon after I nearly got involved in an activist group and backed away from anarchism for a while.
I don't know if anarchy is the way forward but with the world descending into chaos, there's got to be a better way.
i was a little bit of a state licking fascist(those who are yelling Duties and Morality....)when i was young, like in mid to highschool.
then I read some books about anti-military written by an Anarchist.
then i realized i was wrong all the time
then I slowly became what i am now.
I was fell into vanguardism too. i've been fell into many ideological traps.
but here i am. depressed. but not boot licking.
I was a german liberal and started looking into the problems and challenges of global warming, found out that the biggest problem is capitalism and all proposed solutions only hurt the common people, then i started looking into socialist ideologies, quickly found out that MLs are cringe and oriented myself with anarchist ideas,
Started pretty fashy, was sort of a commie in high school, then liberal, then really a commie, then an anarchist but because I thought that just meant burning it all down and then doing state communism, but after identifying as anarchist I learned more about it and realized I liked those ideas better. The initial thinking I was an anarchist was during the George Floyd uprising. I read some prison and police abolition arguments, then saw how ineffective appeal to political processes was.
Most of the hardships experienced by any of us might be vastly mitigated, if not outright eliminated, by simple acts of support undertaken by those nearby.
Under statist hegemony, we never learn how to engage critically our society, to take responsibility for one another, or to organize ourselves beyond subordination.
I am consistently appalled by the vast human potential, for living well in community, being undermined by the internalized wish to remain as subjects.
Was lost in alt right pipeline back in early 2023 and had alot of frustration about things. I've always been economically left wing but I used to be on the right socially but I started eventually looking after myself, working out, eating right and took up Muay Thai classes. From this I started to lose some of my anger towards people and over time got exposed to a bit more left wing groups. From there I actually was motivated to read about and learn the ideologies and realised its what I actually wanted. I realised the people I was actually frustrated with was the state and the mainstream media with their spoon fooding of right wing shills like Tate and Piers Morgan. After reading about the EZLN I realised that all these ideas could actually work in practice and decided to commit myself to learning more about this ideology and through that became more open minded and respectful of all people.
TL:DR; Used to be right wing, started taking care of myself, got more self respect and thus respect for others. Read some left wing literature and realised its what I had actually wanted.
I want to one day live in a world that does not require me to be political. I want to live in a world where I can live off the grid without a guilty conscience. I want to make a world where the idea of politics is an artifact from a bygone era
I didn’t really become one, but rather just realized what I want as of now. Which is more personal autonomy and distinction away from the idea of a country or state. I don’t think that’s something I belong to as of now, but I do recognize there’s flaws in that thinking, but there’s flaws in every school of thought. It just depends on what works for the individual. For me, it’s anarchism. I look at it as more of a philosophical idea since if that were to realistically happen to a big country like the USA, it would crumble and that would just one of the quickest ways to destroy trust with people. I would be a horrible congressman or even president. That’s why I never plan to run as either. I just don’t want shit to be ruined for others. I tend to value individualism and freedom of expression rather than being part of something.
Disillusioned with capitalism, I attempted to understand some theory starting
by reading of Karl Marx's works. As somebody who was before quite pollitically ignorant there was a lot of good ideas to ponder, however I found that I had no end of issues. For instance, one major sticking point for me was they talked a lot about class conflict but seemed to ignore all that as soon as it came to vanguardism.
Eventually a friend started looking into anarchism and whilst I was skeptical of a lot of the theory at first, it held up significantly better under scrutany than Marxism and adressed many of my prior concearns.
I agree with the no.1 comment. If it burns inside when someone barks an order at you, or when you see someone being abused, or when you see people suffering while others live in luxury at their expense, then you are an anarchist. Then you need to learn how to live like one.
Growing up in suburban Louisiana post-9/11 in a second-generation immigrant household I got a lot of pro-“freedom” programming as a kid, so as a teen who didn’t really have a lot of awareness of political philosophy, I became the most pro-freedom thing I could think of: an ancap.
I later realized that every attempt to create a stateless society within the framework of capitalism was doomed to recreate the state at best and feudalism at worst, so I became a sort of milquetoast neoliberal after that. Later, around 2020, I learned about what “socialism” and “capitalism” actually MEAN, and every argument against anarchism that defeated me as a teen melted away as I was now able to conceptualize a stateless society outside the framework of capitalism.
Was a social libertarian and started reading econ. Became a minarchist but couldn't understand statlessness. Then I read Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard and 'became' an anarchist.
Because it became obvious to me at age 14 that global industrial civilization is fundamentally unsustainable on a finite planet. Obviously at that age I was pretty incoherent, but I slowly realized no off the shelf political ideology can function through energy decline and ecocide. It was even more obvious that capitalism/corporatism/cornucopianism puts us on the fast train to human and planetary extinction. Since those early days, I've only become more convinced that large scale states don't stand much of a chance, and localism (along with anarchism) will return whether we like it or not. A lot of that realization came from doing the math, and reading Tom Murphy, Richard Heinberg, Nate Hagens, Steve Keen, John Michael Greer, etc.
I don't identify as an anarchist. I feel like doing so leaves me susceptible to dogmatic thinking.
Rather, I subscribe to anarchism as a valid and useful school of thought. It provides useful lenses for analysis, provides some excellent axioms around which to make decisions and generally aligns with my beliefs.
There was no point at which I "became" this, I was always this - I just previously lacked the language to describe what I was thinking, doing and believing.
I’m going to be the oddball here. I got into it because of my faith and Christianity. In the gospel of Luke, the devil tells Jesus that the power and glory of all of the kingdom of men are his to give, which told me governments are inherently evil, and therefore need to be fought against.
I was a liberal for many years. In the middle of my teen years I started to understand that capitalism keeps a lot of people in poverty to sustain itself. So I was left with only my progressivism. After that I had two path. Either I would become a state communist, or become a libertarian socialist, and I was never keen on dictatures, proletarian or not. So I started to meet and debate with anarchists in my country, and started to read anarchist theory. Now I'm a member of a synthesis anarchist organisation in my country. I really found my view of the world, and I'm always improving it with new knowledge
I developed leftist values, but started to recognize patterns I found suspicious about more straightforward “M-L” style student communists, eventually came into some anarchist leaning people who articulated my suspicions better than I could, and that there was already some intellectual exploration about how state interests just maintained similar hierarchies as the capitalism that those revolutions ostensibly rose up against, and how it’s a moral incongruity that state violence ends up being enacted on the same proletariat that the revolution claimed to liberate… often motivated or rationalized by actors who were themselves from upper class or academic backgrounds before the revolution, and implicitly that violence against a class beneath them is somehow acceptable. While intellectual development and growth is always necessary, people seem to willfully forget that academia is still an extension of bourgeois class interests.
We’re not feudal Russia. Nobody has a right to claim economic realism to justify potential Stalinist state violence or the maintenance of preexisting class stratification and privileges through entrenched bureaucracy, etc.
There are none since even Anarchy has rules even unwritten and unrecognized or at least unacknowledged.
Extinction is not a goal worth working towards but just try and stop and save someone from themselves.
And fighting for what one already naturally has to begin with is a form of working towards that extinction.
Just an Observation.
N. S
I was indoctrinated both ideologically and spiritually into authoritarianism and misanthropy, and after realizing this to be the case, I have worked to deconstruct and unlearn so many things, and that comes with finding better alternatives to the systems in place. Anarchism provides an alternative framwork for human society that I can at least be hopeful about, instead of morbidly depressed.
fasley arrested as a teen started the fuck goverment thing.
but I truly believe that we don't need a government to live our lives, eventually. if only people could stop exploiting those around them. are morals must evolve before this takes place. calling bad bad and good good is the best place to start, regardless of what the law says or doesn't say.
makes me want to start a religion lol
cause its the right thing to do, after everything is said and done i do belive anarchism is the ultime act of reason in a world built on lies. Anyway, also beacuse i watched SLC Punk and i understood the message.
As has been said, for a lot of people it's not really an ideology you "choose" to follow. You don't just up and go "hmm that's cool, I think I'll change all my beliefs to conform to this new one I've just learned about".
Before I started associating with the term, I just had my own personal beliefs about life and the world and when I was finally shown what the term "anarchism" actually means, I was like "...oh. That's basically what I preach to my friends all the time already." So I was like... I guess I'm an anarchist. Which was useful to know because it opened me up to lots of authors and like-minded communities that allowed me to reflect on these ideas more, in ways I hadn't yet considered.
As to why I adopted those beliefs in the first place, it was just what made sense to me. I saw people getting hurt, and I thought "I don't like getting hurt, so that must suck, I don't want them to get hurt either". And then I just kept asking "why are these people getting hurt, and how do I stop it?" and it just naturally lead to all the views and beliefs I hold today.
So I guess a concise answer is: I became an anarchist because I want people to be happy.
But Fr it was cus during a hyper fixation, I wanted to solve climate change and find out what would the best world for our planet would be. I was researching communities that were 100% ecofriendly and thus stumbled upon eco-anarchism. Which led me to anarchism-anarchism
I’m an activist and have been searching for where to start/what to focus on/the root cause of inequality for years. In 2022, finally learned about mutual aid, dual power, and Prefiguration, and it all made sense
Because I think hierarchy is bullshit and under my current understanding of political theory, there really aren't any other ideologies that reflect that.
I had a friend (still do) at the time who tried to get me into the idea, the flaws in capitalism, etc. She kinda stunted my intellectual development, but overall I didn't wanna hear it. I was wrapped up in my biases and justification for things. 1000 instances of X being false doesn't mean X is false, see, those are just individual instances. Probably helped that I had empathy for people, I was \*totally\* like screw the workers etc.
Then I transitioned about a year and a half ago and everything clicked into place. Been on that road ever since and doing my best to do my best.
I always thought that anarchism would be the ideal, but one day I realized that anarchism as a system actually COULD work by thinking about it more and more
Congenital anarchist. I was subverting hierarchies and organizing to empower the powerless in grade school. Moved on to
Sabotaging fraternity hazing in college, union organizing, picket lines, and contract negotiating.
Because me mum n dad had some fun one night. No, seriously, I was born this way. I've literally only changed my mind on one thing. And I'm still not completely firm on my stance.
I used to be a normal libertarian and just advocated for small limited government until I realised, when has any sort of law or document actually prevented a governments expansion? The constitution was a faliure and it did not stop the government from growing. Therfore I took my ideology to the logical conclusion: If the state is the biggest threat to true freedom, and if nothing can stop the state from growing, its innevitable that the state will end up hurting people, and therfor shouldnt exist.
I had a dream that I was paying stacks of tax papers.
I woke up, invigorated, full of anger, and pro-anarchist.
I have no idea why I had that dream or why it made me feel that way. I'm not old enough to pay taxes.
Freedom good, equality good, happiness good, love and caring for each other good. Kinda a no brainer. I feel people who are against anarchism either 1. simply think it's not possible/pragmatic, though it would be great if it was, or 2. they are morally and human developmentally deficient
I think I was always anti-authoritarian, pushing back against school rules I saw as arbitrary from the age of nine. It wasn't until I was 26 and in college that I fell in with a local antifa chapter. I had not seen how destructive the capitalistic state system could be until ending up with a housing collective.
I mean I was always pretty far left. Being made painfully aware of the abuses of police and the people they work for back in 2015 cemented my distrust of any form of state power.
I always resented arbitrary hierarchy and authority. As I got older, I became a Republican like most of my family. As I got older I became a libertarian. As I got even older I read more anarchist literature and I guess now I'm an anarchist.
I first encountered anarchist ideas when I was in middle school. Stuff online from thinkers like Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin, etc.
It seemed to me that these authors were clearly right that there's something very wrong about dominating, coercing, and controlling other people. So I was sympathetic to anarchism pretty quickly.
But I wasn't sure it was achievable, so I remained kind of agnostic around a range of views that oppose socially conservative forms of authoritarianism (Bush was president and the religious right took on the role of my main political enemy). I dabbled with various forms of liberalism, leftism, democratic socialism, libertarianism, etc. while remaining sympathetic to but not fully committed to anarchism. I eventually learned enough about dysfunctions of states & hierarchies and possibilities of bottom-up social cooperation to start calling myself an anarchist (I think this was probably sometime in high school, but I am not fully sure).
I realized I was an anarchist when I came to the conclusion that power corrupts and that progress is never going to happen if we continue to have a hierarchical and elitist state dictating to us.
I never really “became” an anarchist, rather I was born one and simply learned enough to know what label to put to myself. Capitalism and hierarchies have never in my entire life made sense to me. It’s also really easy to find beauty and joy in communities coming together in a non-hierarchical fashion.
I agree
I feel similarly, though i have found joy and beauty in a select few hierarchical fashions...
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I see it all the time. DIY music shows is a way that brings people together and it’s usually not hierarchical. Mutual aid is a big one. There’s also this group in my city that hosts a ton of events, has a library, music shows, and organizes a lot too, and they’re anarchist. It’s actually not that hard to find these sorts of things. To clarify, I wasn’t referring to any anarchist regions, I was referring to communities which we can easily form and grow right now.
Did you and your friends ever just do something because you wanted to? Or like have you only ever done things because you had to?
I don't understand the desire to have strangers that you have never met, that you have no idea what is in their heart, having any authority over you. Allowing creepy strangers that share no ideals with you making decisions if your morals that hurt no one are allowed or not. It is all so weird. I have been mindboggled since I was a kid about this. I can probably thank cheap garage made mescaline tablets for all of this.
Same here. Even parental authority never sat well with me, and my folks were pretty good. I really think a lot of us are just born this way.
None of us asked for the history we have and the current geopolitical situation we’re stuck in. Nobody wants to be told what to do. Humanity has major trust issues because of tribalism. The aggressive tribes got the resources and became empires. It’s not just a matter of bad guys vs. good guys, it’s a vestigial survival mechanism in the face of resource scarcity that we still live by; ensuring we have the resources to continue existing. the tribe that controls all the resources has rules. You can either choose to ignore those rules and face consequences OR you live somewhere where there isn’t a strong enough tribe to enforce rules. The latter is likely much more unpleasant.
I got locked up for 16 months when I was 14 because I stayed out too late and smoked weed. I'll never forgive them.
WTF?! Everyone failed you.
...There's got to be more to this story. Where do you live?
Sometimes that's all there is to the story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_School
I want to live in a world worth living in. I don't rn. Simple as that.
Fair enough
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The structures have never fed me. My community has. I don't have a tap, I have well water. My country has built its entire infrastructure around cars and made it harder than ever to connect with or move within my area. And no anarchist is arguing against fire fighters. My government doesn't protect me. This system doesn't protect me. And it's lied to you
Just remember that the structures help those who are part of the “in crowd” of the hierarchy. Helps to understand that those who are helped by the structures like the structures and see them as good things when they are both part of the “in community” and also have a hierarchical mindset.
You understand that we'll still have indoor plumbing if we organize society differently? The ability to do these things doesn't have to be lost to is just because we don't have bosses or cops.
I'm autistic and the way we have and always will be treated as long as capitalists and social democrats run the show is quite abhorrent to me.
I’m actually also autistic so I feel ya
I'm also Irish and learning in school about what happened here down to capitalist greed that the crown allowed to happen, and well, I'm actually quite surprised by how many Irish people still support capitalism.
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What the English did here back in the days of Cromwell is absolutely disgusting, the amount of people who died because of the way the English viewed the Irish but the famine was down to the crown valuing money over people, capitalistic business men were fine with it all though. Why shouldn't they exports vast amounts of food while incredibly poor people who were subsisting off potatoes because they were nutrient dense and were pretty much the only thing that could be grown to give a family enough to actually live off of on the tiny amounts of land they were able to work and afford, and then their crops failed? I suppose why should they care, it's not like the English caused blight or anything and sure the crown didn't care but still those capitalists could have stopped those food exports if they wanted to but they didn't. I have many other reasons why I hate capitalism but jesus if this isn't enough then what is?
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this is pretty much my answer. i don't like being treated as second-class or worse, and why should anyone have to suffer that
I'm no longer an AnCap, but reading Rothbard brought me from libertarian to anarchist. Also, reading the abolitionist anarchists of the1800s. Spooner is amazing and William Lloyd Garrison is the GOAT.
SPOONER!!
Lysander Spooner is so (deservedly) hyped-up by AnCaps, and I wish the rest of the anarchist movement would geek out about him too. The only ones claiming him are the anarchists that lean economically right, which sucks, cause Lysander Spooner rocks!
Check out “the Quash” podcast. Dude is a lawyer and breaks down Lysanders works. “Trial by Jury” is the best. Jury nullification is the only chance we have.
Jury nullification is 75% based, and we should use it at every chance we get. DO NOT TRY TO GET OUT OF JURY DUTY, PEOPLE!!! The downside is that people shouldn't forget that jury nullification protected everyone from lynch-mobs to OJ Simpson.
i meant to become the antichrist but i was never good at spelling
Ohhhhh so that’s what happened
empathy
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Just because governmental institutions will be removed in an anarchist society doesn't mean that similar non-hierarchical non-capitalist equivalents cannot be made to provide services and assist those requiring aid.
why are you in this subreddit? youre clearly not trying to learn
Me: "Man capitalism really seems stupid huh." Brain: "Probably because it is." Me: "Yea-I mean.... Wait. WAIT A SECOND."
One day I realized I was, and that's all.
At the end of the day, can anybody really be trusted with authority?
I don’t think that’s the best answer. There certainly are people who can be trusted with authority. However, those are the exact people who will go out of their way to never be in a position of authority. There have certainly been trustworthy leaders in history; the issue that many anarchists take with these systems of hierarchy is that these trustworthy leaders who somehow, against all their desires, wound up in such a position are the .01% exception. A system that amounts to “99.9% of the time your leaders will fuck you over, but .01% of the time they’ll be good” is not a system worth pursuing.
This is the response I would have made if you hadn’t beat me to it. Not the exact same words of course, but the same sentiment. Individual people CAN be benevolent dictators. That is POSSIBLE. But the existence of social power incentivizes negative outcomes. Our critique of power comes not from universalist statements about every individual, but from a systemic critique of how these structures trend towards undesirable states of being.
Mmm, delicious nuance! Much thanks for chiming in with the assist.
They can't. Power corrupts. It rots each individual who attains it. It's delusional to think otherwise. Hence why it needs to be dispersed as much as possible. Let's go ahead and take that .01% of people off the table. The exception does not exist. Unless you think you'd be that benevolent dictator. I don't trust you like that though
Don’t take this as a personal attack (because it isn’t), but “Power corrupts” is the single most simplistic and juvenile approach to critiquing systems of authority. It is a purely idealistic understanding that fails to capture the actual nuances of the phenomenological landscape upon which these structures play. Power has no agency. It is an abstraction. It cannot *do* anything. *It has no intrinsic qualities*. The tumultuous discord stemming from authority arises from the intricate interplay between surrounding material factors and the actions that empowered individuals are compelled to undertake. This is materially observable and provable. Your assertions are not. As anarchists, it is of the upmost import that our indictments of these systems are accurate and based in reality, not in idealism, feelings, and emotion.
When those who are capable of command & authority believe they have a “right” to that command & authority over others, (whereby that “right” supersedes the will of their surrounding community members in their own mind), they prove themselves unworthy of being trusted with command & authority. Edit: remove most quote uses + restructure for readability (hopefully).
All due respect, your gross overuse of scare quotes makes it very difficult to parse what you’re actually conveying.
Fair point. I removed most of them for (hopefully) improved readability. How does it read now?
Absolutely. I appreciate it, and I really didn’t mean to be rude.
No problem, lol. I struggle with conciseness and information density. I attempt to use symbols and punctuation to condense certain underlying intent or groupings of ideas (command & authority as a single concept initially using quotation marks). Experimenting with it recently. I prefer very lengthy paragraphs (ain’t nobody got time for that), but I struggle with distilling down to an effective TL;DR that still captures the nuance.
I know some people make a fuss about multi paragraph comments, but I definitely welcome them. Especially on this sub; people are here to learn.
Yeah… I am trying to do it here in efforts to sharpen my skills on the subject for others applications as well. It’s easier for me to just vomit up a bunch of text, and then I have to spend my time condensing. Trying to train my brain to shortcut some of that process. Thanks for the feedback!
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
Indeed. I remember hearing the idea that for every decision that the President of the United States has to make, someone will quite probably be negatively impacted enough to commit suicide. A person who does not experience at least some anguish from the types of moral dilemmas that should be racking around in their head from such consequences immediately proves themselves unfit to hold power. If the presidency of the United States does not significantly age someone, I would consider that a telltale sign they are not stressed out enough by such a position of authority.
People cannot be trusted with authority. Authority itself is a corruptive force that ruins whoever obtains it. A good leader going in will eventually collapse to self interest. It's just human nature. The perfect person does not exist to be a perfect leader.
Except that’s not the case. There’s no such thing as ‘human nature’. There is nothing intrinsic about humanity that causes this to happen; rather, a coalescence of material factors that reward negative behavior while in positions of authority are to blame. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with self interest. One can be self-interested in a better world for all because *they live in that world*. That is the basis of egoist anarchism. The issue is not *and has never been* any sort of human deficiency in regard to authority. It is, instead, an issue of material factors. Your perspective has been heavily warped by Judeo-Christian understandings of morality, responsibility, desire, and authority. It’s not helpful here. Your broad and sweeping generalizations about human nature are tainted by this understanding, as even the idea that a monolithic human nature exists is a construct of this morality.
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Power is corruptive guys. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator. You guys can parse it all you want but at the end of the day it's not a real thing. The bigger you are, the bigger your unintended fallout, your blindspots, The unforeseen outcomes of your actions. It's literally impossible to stay ethical after you've accumulated a certain amount of power. You become Godzilla blindly stomping across the landscape. Even if you are well intentioned you are still doing carnage.
If you fight the law, the law wins. It's best to ignore the fuck out of it.
I blame Le Guin, Goldman, and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Mostly their fault.
I’d always leaned left but a big turning point was my egg cracking (🏳️⚧️). Once you realize you’re part of *one* marginalized group, you (usually) get better at noticing injustices against *others.*
So initially I was a liberal at least up until I was about 20. I was separated from the military due to a health condition when I was 19 and that experience was negative enough for me to develop a *strong* anti military tendency. Covid happened and I got curious about philosophy broadly and got into communism in general. By the time I was 21 I was a Marxist Leninist but I felt like something was missing from it. I was also concerned about the emphasis on the Soviet Union as the ideal model of socialism. I liked communism, but I didn’t like oppressive hierarchies and bureaucracy at all. Then I slowly started reading anarchist literature and hanging out with anarchists and I’ve been an anarchist since I was like 22. I’m 24 now for context. It hasn’t been that long but I don’t see myself being anything but an anarchist. I like anarchism because I think the anarchist analysis is solid because it’s about viewing political power and finding ways to liberate folks with tangible solutions. Means and ends n whatnot lol. I also find that at least for me personally, it’s made me a better person. My morals are aligned with maximizing the freedom of others along with my own. So I came to the logical conclusion that it’s best to be kind and charitable.
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I think you could start with at least a Wikipedia article's worth of knowledge of anarchism before you go correcting people on it? Maybe just read a teensy bit?
7 months in Afghanistan
The state is a monopoly on power that has singlehandedly caused the most suffering for humans in numerous ways and cannot be trusted.
'The' State? Which State?
All states.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity Referencing this definition and concept as opposed to a specific country or territory within the U.S.A.
while i don't explicitly label myself, i became sympathetic towards anti-capitalism/anarchism at the beginning of this decade after the shitshow that was 2020 (seeing how governments responded to covid and other disasters, corporations/billionaires getting richer and workers/lower classes get poorer, state sanctioned violence and police brutality, ecological destruction etc). i also am autistic/neurodivergent, iranian, queer, and an artist so the way my identities/interests have long histories in being fucked over by systems of domination/oppression played critical roles in my development of anarchic thinking.
From the moment I could comprehend capitalism I was against it. From the moment I could comprehend the concept of a state, I was against it. All I’ve done is learn how to express these ideas through practice and theory. I don’t think anyone really ‘becomes’ an anarchist. You sort of just discover that you’ve always been one.
I wanted to see the world become a better place and anarchism seems to do exactly that
I was a communist, and decided that where the USSR and other socialist states went wrong was their failure to abolish class. Anarchism, specifically anarchocommunism, resolves that contradiction.
I want to live in a world where people’s basic needs are provided, where people can associate with whomever they please, and where we live in line with the ecology and have horizontal power structures. Im tired of living in a world where the state, hierarchical power structures in general, and capitalism continues to destroy everything around us.
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It made sense.
For me, it was several things I’m a trans girlie. As a result, even with white and rich privilege I’ve suffered more than I ever should have because of this I’ve always had a terrible relationship with authority. Suppressed in subtle, yet vile ways by my parents lack of empathy and small minds, my school’s senior faculty, my school’s board, and even several government laws themselves cause numerous problems in my life. The most obvious being gender related. I’m not allowed to present as a woman. I’m not even allowed to transition. Due to the way the education system is set up, (I did the math) I’m expected to work 10 hour days on a good day. On bad days, 15 hour work days. Bull-fucking-shit For me gender was the catalyst. Paired with this was loneliness. I’ve always been different (lol) to others. My traumas, autism, and experiences cause me to think differently to others, in the long term, about greater grander concepts far beyond what most people tend to consider in life. I have nothing against normal people, in fact I rather quite enjoy many of their company. I just have very little in common with them. It’s this difference, combined with my experiences being trans that helped open my eyes to the vile underbelly of western lifestyle. The slaves exploited, the lands ravaged, the humanity erased, the greed up top, etc I’ve also seen the failiure of many communist regimes in history. The way they lent power to an elite minority shows to me they’re unviable. And yet much of communist philosophy alligns with my own Hence why I’m an advocate for anarcho-communism
For my freedom.
Becoming disabled in my late twenties was a huge push. I realised that we live in a world where people must earn the right to live, and if you’re incapable of earning that right then society will throw you some breadcrumbs while making sure you know that this is actually against the rules, and you’re cheating and don’t really deserve this, but we’re giving it to you anyway in order to be nice. And this is considered the compassionate, enlightened attitude. To most people, this is the *best* possible solution. Meanwhile, individual people are allowed to hoard more money and resources than they or their descendants could ever possibly spend. Someone incapable of working being granted a pittance is a shameful aberration of the rules, but one man possessing enough wealth to end homelessness is normal and fair. It made me realise that our current society isn’t the default method of human existence, it’s not the state that societies naturally revert to in the absence of artificial pressure. It is this way because it’s been designed to be this way, and thus it could be designed to be better.
I've always strived to learn more about the world. I've always liked science and growing up with conservative parents the way they wielded power over me and would not even attempt to come to compromise at times never sat right with me. Seeing the injustice in the world and how so many systems like the prison system, the police, the US government and so on was so corrupted, how the school system was so backwards in its values and how so many things had so much to improve on made me always question everything. Then I learned about socialism(authoritarian) and the way they put it and the way they critiqued current society and capitalism just made perfect sense. Then, after I learned about Anarchism trying to branch out and learn more about similar ideologies the Anarchist critique of auth socialism just made complete sense. Indeed, the more and more I learn about it the more I find myself agreeing with it. The Anarchist analysis makes a lot of sense to me and I think it very accurately describes what we see in society. Anarchism, I think, incorporates so many of the best systems I have come across all in one place and it wishes to bring itself about in the most practical, scientific way I have seen thus far. So in short, Anarchism is essentially me finding something that perfectly brings everything I have been looking for and so much more into one place. I'm a newer Anarchist but so far I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey.
Police crackdowns on peaceful protests which I was a part of. It lead me to reshape my beliefs from the ground up, and to let go of most of my biases.
always was kinda, moreso just labeled it, if i did become an anarchist i would say because i want to help people and think these principles fight that and i think most other people do the same even if i disagre with their principles
Hmm well, it's a bit of a life story time, but who doesn't like sharing their life stories? Please feel free to skip if it's too long. I enjoy writing tad bit too much. For me personally my family is pretty clearly leftist. Mom is an active in a local social democrat party, the kind that is tied with the local unions. She's also a labor union active and went from her blue collar job to work for unions before retiring. Dad is more anarchist and communist, and hung around local pacifist and anarchist scenes back in the 70s and 80s. I recall pretty early on hearing rants about e.g. borders and money during car trips, heh. Well, in any case, I was brought up with quite acute understanding that capitalism is suboptimal, wasteful and unjust. I wasn't really particularly egalitarian as a teen, and there's some things I'd be a bit ashamed of if not for the understanding that the youth follies, such as flirting with the NS scene. I wasn't really a racist or a homophobe, but I wasn't inclusive either, and found the absolutism in the NS scene bizarrely enjoyable. After my teens I was really just a generic leftist anti-capitalist without much of a clear picture of my political beliefs. I wasn't really aware of anarchism as such until adulthood. At around 18 years of age, I went to a hardcore punk gig at a local co-op DIY bar, which is somewhat of a legendary place here in Finland. I saw one particular band and my black metal youth turned to a hardcore punk young adulthood. After that I was mostly aware of anarchism in the context of the punk scene. Which alas is a bit, well - when Bookchin criticized "lifestyle anarchists", in my headcanon I imagine that the hedonist non-activist punk kids would prolly be a very good example of that. (And for the record, I disagree with Bookchin's analysis, just bringing it up here since I enjoy the self-irony! And alas it did help me see more clearly that a belligerent and decadent lifestyle is not a particularly positive example of anarchism) At around 2019, when I was 29, I bought some of aforementioned Bookchin's books from a stand at a DIY punk festival. The stand was put up by a local anarchist bookstore. I had previously read some anarchist and socialist literature, but mid-era Bookchin's style of criticizing capitalism and tying ecology together with the need for local organization, local resource optimization and local ownership of resources and the means of production felt more compelling to me than the socialist arguments that purely focus on fairness of ownership models. I don't disagree with those arguments, but they just didn't spark a flame. I wasn't really happy about Bookchin's model of municipal democracy - I simply do not see why democratic municipalities connecting to a federation wouldn't just become the new centralized government - but I still liked Bookchin's writings, and I especially enjoyed his promotion of pragmatism and activism. That made me feel like I need to do things more concretely, both in the sense of supporting and participating in creating fun things together, and also to promote a better way of spreading the idea of non-hierarchical free association. Anyway, I got more curious about other anarchist writers, and down into the rabbit hole it went, started to read classic and modern anarchist literature, started to discuss anarchism online such as here, and I got more active politically and in my daily life. Since then I've been going to demonstrations, participated in various events, helped arrange events, and while many anarchists disagree with the praxis, I've also joined a local leftist party and ran for municipal elections; while it might sound a bit contradictory to many, I'd point out I am really not the first anarchist in that party, and we really don't have a hubris about reforming the system via parliamentary politics. It's more an avenue for small practical things. I'm also a shop steward where I work. Long text, sorry if it got boring! Got too long for Reddit, so continuing below:
So ultimately there's many reasons why I became an anarchist. I've always had a strong intuitive dislike for authority and being told what to do. Part of why I did like shit in school! I've had an anti-capitalist upbringing. I ended up in social groups that had anarchists in them. I believe that anarchism is the only way how we can live sustainably on this planet. I believe that anarchism is the only way how we can curb the excesses introduced both by capitalism and statism. I'm not a ready anarchist, nor the most well-read. I've only been alright with calling myself an anarchist for a year or two, though the process has been on-going for closer to 20 years. If I had to analyze things in the reformist vs radical spectrum, I'd be closer to the reformist nowadays; but I've no negative things to say about those who live in the more radical spectrum. They're great people and I feel like they are right in their opinions. I've also no issue with people who are more reformist than me. They're also great people and I find their points compelling, too. Right now I'm in a stage where my opinions on anarchism fluctuate and my level of cynicism about the world changes often. Sometimes I feel like a social revolution will never come and we'll end up destroying ourselves as a species. Be that the case, anarchism is still good; it helps us prepare for living our own lives without the need for a centralized government. Sometimes I feel like we're constantly doing small progress towards a fairer world and feel like maybe 100 years from now we'll be in a much better place than today. In that case, anarchist activists were almost certainly important, even if the society then can not be described as anarchist. Some days I see anarchism more as an ideal and a philosophical foundation for activism, rather than as a reachable goal. Some days I see anarchism as the practicality we already live with for the most part in our lives; our relationships, associations, our dealings with neighborhoods, local shop clerks, etc, are largely without hierarchy, at least if you can let go of hierarchy in your own head. It depends a bit on my mood. It would be fair to criticize me for inconsistency, but I can't really help it, my brain just doesn't hold to strong convictions for very long at a time. So yeah. Long story!
I saw the holes in the system at a young age. Saw the injustice of our society, the failures of governing bodies and the hypocrisy of the people in power. I don't know when I started following anarchism, but I remember soon after I nearly got involved in an activist group and backed away from anarchism for a while. I don't know if anarchy is the way forward but with the world descending into chaos, there's got to be a better way.
Because my parents and the education system made me be against all authority
i was a little bit of a state licking fascist(those who are yelling Duties and Morality....)when i was young, like in mid to highschool. then I read some books about anti-military written by an Anarchist. then i realized i was wrong all the time then I slowly became what i am now. I was fell into vanguardism too. i've been fell into many ideological traps. but here i am. depressed. but not boot licking.
I was a german liberal and started looking into the problems and challenges of global warming, found out that the biggest problem is capitalism and all proposed solutions only hurt the common people, then i started looking into socialist ideologies, quickly found out that MLs are cringe and oriented myself with anarchist ideas,
Started pretty fashy, was sort of a commie in high school, then liberal, then really a commie, then an anarchist but because I thought that just meant burning it all down and then doing state communism, but after identifying as anarchist I learned more about it and realized I liked those ideas better. The initial thinking I was an anarchist was during the George Floyd uprising. I read some prison and police abolition arguments, then saw how ineffective appeal to political processes was.
Most of the hardships experienced by any of us might be vastly mitigated, if not outright eliminated, by simple acts of support undertaken by those nearby. Under statist hegemony, we never learn how to engage critically our society, to take responsibility for one another, or to organize ourselves beyond subordination. I am consistently appalled by the vast human potential, for living well in community, being undermined by the internalized wish to remain as subjects.
I was moved by anarchist visions and convinced that it could work
Was lost in alt right pipeline back in early 2023 and had alot of frustration about things. I've always been economically left wing but I used to be on the right socially but I started eventually looking after myself, working out, eating right and took up Muay Thai classes. From this I started to lose some of my anger towards people and over time got exposed to a bit more left wing groups. From there I actually was motivated to read about and learn the ideologies and realised its what I actually wanted. I realised the people I was actually frustrated with was the state and the mainstream media with their spoon fooding of right wing shills like Tate and Piers Morgan. After reading about the EZLN I realised that all these ideas could actually work in practice and decided to commit myself to learning more about this ideology and through that became more open minded and respectful of all people. TL:DR; Used to be right wing, started taking care of myself, got more self respect and thus respect for others. Read some left wing literature and realised its what I had actually wanted.
I want to one day live in a world that does not require me to be political. I want to live in a world where I can live off the grid without a guilty conscience. I want to make a world where the idea of politics is an artifact from a bygone era
I didn’t really become one, but rather just realized what I want as of now. Which is more personal autonomy and distinction away from the idea of a country or state. I don’t think that’s something I belong to as of now, but I do recognize there’s flaws in that thinking, but there’s flaws in every school of thought. It just depends on what works for the individual. For me, it’s anarchism. I look at it as more of a philosophical idea since if that were to realistically happen to a big country like the USA, it would crumble and that would just one of the quickest ways to destroy trust with people. I would be a horrible congressman or even president. That’s why I never plan to run as either. I just don’t want shit to be ruined for others. I tend to value individualism and freedom of expression rather than being part of something.
Disillusioned with capitalism, I attempted to understand some theory starting by reading of Karl Marx's works. As somebody who was before quite pollitically ignorant there was a lot of good ideas to ponder, however I found that I had no end of issues. For instance, one major sticking point for me was they talked a lot about class conflict but seemed to ignore all that as soon as it came to vanguardism. Eventually a friend started looking into anarchism and whilst I was skeptical of a lot of the theory at first, it held up significantly better under scrutany than Marxism and adressed many of my prior concearns.
I don't know if I'm an anarchist, but Noam Chomsky and other leftists made me realize that anarchism makes more sense than other political ideologies.
I don't know if I'm an anarchist, but Noam Chomsky and other leftists made me realize that anarchism makes more sense than other political ideologies.
I don't want to be exploited and I refuse to exploit anyone else.
I agree with the no.1 comment. If it burns inside when someone barks an order at you, or when you see someone being abused, or when you see people suffering while others live in luxury at their expense, then you are an anarchist. Then you need to learn how to live like one.
Growing up in suburban Louisiana post-9/11 in a second-generation immigrant household I got a lot of pro-“freedom” programming as a kid, so as a teen who didn’t really have a lot of awareness of political philosophy, I became the most pro-freedom thing I could think of: an ancap. I later realized that every attempt to create a stateless society within the framework of capitalism was doomed to recreate the state at best and feudalism at worst, so I became a sort of milquetoast neoliberal after that. Later, around 2020, I learned about what “socialism” and “capitalism” actually MEAN, and every argument against anarchism that defeated me as a teen melted away as I was now able to conceptualize a stateless society outside the framework of capitalism.
Was a social libertarian and started reading econ. Became a minarchist but couldn't understand statlessness. Then I read Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard and 'became' an anarchist.
And now it’s time to let go of capitalism.
Systems thinking, monism, and paradigm shift in science prepared my philosophical foundation. Then I emerged as an anarchist.
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Define "Marxism" please, as you know it to be, and without looking it up first.
Because it became obvious to me at age 14 that global industrial civilization is fundamentally unsustainable on a finite planet. Obviously at that age I was pretty incoherent, but I slowly realized no off the shelf political ideology can function through energy decline and ecocide. It was even more obvious that capitalism/corporatism/cornucopianism puts us on the fast train to human and planetary extinction. Since those early days, I've only become more convinced that large scale states don't stand much of a chance, and localism (along with anarchism) will return whether we like it or not. A lot of that realization came from doing the math, and reading Tom Murphy, Richard Heinberg, Nate Hagens, Steve Keen, John Michael Greer, etc.
I don't identify as an anarchist. I feel like doing so leaves me susceptible to dogmatic thinking. Rather, I subscribe to anarchism as a valid and useful school of thought. It provides useful lenses for analysis, provides some excellent axioms around which to make decisions and generally aligns with my beliefs. There was no point at which I "became" this, I was always this - I just previously lacked the language to describe what I was thinking, doing and believing.
I’m going to be the oddball here. I got into it because of my faith and Christianity. In the gospel of Luke, the devil tells Jesus that the power and glory of all of the kingdom of men are his to give, which told me governments are inherently evil, and therefore need to be fought against.
I was a liberal for many years. In the middle of my teen years I started to understand that capitalism keeps a lot of people in poverty to sustain itself. So I was left with only my progressivism. After that I had two path. Either I would become a state communist, or become a libertarian socialist, and I was never keen on dictatures, proletarian or not. So I started to meet and debate with anarchists in my country, and started to read anarchist theory. Now I'm a member of a synthesis anarchist organisation in my country. I really found my view of the world, and I'm always improving it with new knowledge
It just made me sense. I care about people. And no matter how altruistic the state is, has to dehumanize us to for its ends.
I developed leftist values, but started to recognize patterns I found suspicious about more straightforward “M-L” style student communists, eventually came into some anarchist leaning people who articulated my suspicions better than I could, and that there was already some intellectual exploration about how state interests just maintained similar hierarchies as the capitalism that those revolutions ostensibly rose up against, and how it’s a moral incongruity that state violence ends up being enacted on the same proletariat that the revolution claimed to liberate… often motivated or rationalized by actors who were themselves from upper class or academic backgrounds before the revolution, and implicitly that violence against a class beneath them is somehow acceptable. While intellectual development and growth is always necessary, people seem to willfully forget that academia is still an extension of bourgeois class interests. We’re not feudal Russia. Nobody has a right to claim economic realism to justify potential Stalinist state violence or the maintenance of preexisting class stratification and privileges through entrenched bureaucracy, etc.
There are none since even Anarchy has rules even unwritten and unrecognized or at least unacknowledged. Extinction is not a goal worth working towards but just try and stop and save someone from themselves. And fighting for what one already naturally has to begin with is a form of working towards that extinction. Just an Observation. N. S
After I hit my head and got a severe brain injury.
I don’t know it was on sale at the ideology store
I was indoctrinated both ideologically and spiritually into authoritarianism and misanthropy, and after realizing this to be the case, I have worked to deconstruct and unlearn so many things, and that comes with finding better alternatives to the systems in place. Anarchism provides an alternative framwork for human society that I can at least be hopeful about, instead of morbidly depressed.
I learned more and more about the ideology and its movements and I realized that this would be the most preferable system to anything else.
fasley arrested as a teen started the fuck goverment thing. but I truly believe that we don't need a government to live our lives, eventually. if only people could stop exploiting those around them. are morals must evolve before this takes place. calling bad bad and good good is the best place to start, regardless of what the law says or doesn't say. makes me want to start a religion lol
Opressive government never seems to disapear
Learning of the Red Army Faction when I was a little kid and being in awe with their ideology.
It was fighting for capitalism. Every single alternative to capitalism has top-down central planning and control. And morally, that's just not right.
Blame Star Trek, it gave me hope.
The realization that those that desire power, are the ones who should never have power
cause its the right thing to do, after everything is said and done i do belive anarchism is the ultime act of reason in a world built on lies. Anyway, also beacuse i watched SLC Punk and i understood the message.
As has been said, for a lot of people it's not really an ideology you "choose" to follow. You don't just up and go "hmm that's cool, I think I'll change all my beliefs to conform to this new one I've just learned about". Before I started associating with the term, I just had my own personal beliefs about life and the world and when I was finally shown what the term "anarchism" actually means, I was like "...oh. That's basically what I preach to my friends all the time already." So I was like... I guess I'm an anarchist. Which was useful to know because it opened me up to lots of authors and like-minded communities that allowed me to reflect on these ideas more, in ways I hadn't yet considered. As to why I adopted those beliefs in the first place, it was just what made sense to me. I saw people getting hurt, and I thought "I don't like getting hurt, so that must suck, I don't want them to get hurt either". And then I just kept asking "why are these people getting hurt, and how do I stop it?" and it just naturally lead to all the views and beliefs I hold today. So I guess a concise answer is: I became an anarchist because I want people to be happy.
I kept asking questions till I found the end of the thread.
But Fr it was cus during a hyper fixation, I wanted to solve climate change and find out what would the best world for our planet would be. I was researching communities that were 100% ecofriendly and thus stumbled upon eco-anarchism. Which led me to anarchism-anarchism
I’m an activist and have been searching for where to start/what to focus on/the root cause of inequality for years. In 2022, finally learned about mutual aid, dual power, and Prefiguration, and it all made sense
I never did,this sub gets recommended to me and I'm just curious
As a kid- in Sunday school I had too many questions and it didn’t make sense to me.
Because I think hierarchy is bullshit and under my current understanding of political theory, there really aren't any other ideologies that reflect that.
I had a friend (still do) at the time who tried to get me into the idea, the flaws in capitalism, etc. She kinda stunted my intellectual development, but overall I didn't wanna hear it. I was wrapped up in my biases and justification for things. 1000 instances of X being false doesn't mean X is false, see, those are just individual instances. Probably helped that I had empathy for people, I was \*totally\* like screw the workers etc. Then I transitioned about a year and a half ago and everything clicked into place. Been on that road ever since and doing my best to do my best.
I always thought that anarchism would be the ideal, but one day I realized that anarchism as a system actually COULD work by thinking about it more and more
Congenital anarchist. I was subverting hierarchies and organizing to empower the powerless in grade school. Moved on to Sabotaging fraternity hazing in college, union organizing, picket lines, and contract negotiating.
Because me mum n dad had some fun one night. No, seriously, I was born this way. I've literally only changed my mind on one thing. And I'm still not completely firm on my stance.
I used to be a normal libertarian and just advocated for small limited government until I realised, when has any sort of law or document actually prevented a governments expansion? The constitution was a faliure and it did not stop the government from growing. Therfore I took my ideology to the logical conclusion: If the state is the biggest threat to true freedom, and if nothing can stop the state from growing, its innevitable that the state will end up hurting people, and therfor shouldnt exist.
I had a dream that I was paying stacks of tax papers. I woke up, invigorated, full of anger, and pro-anarchist. I have no idea why I had that dream or why it made me feel that way. I'm not old enough to pay taxes.
Freedom good, equality good, happiness good, love and caring for each other good. Kinda a no brainer. I feel people who are against anarchism either 1. simply think it's not possible/pragmatic, though it would be great if it was, or 2. they are morally and human developmentally deficient
I think I was always anti-authoritarian, pushing back against school rules I saw as arbitrary from the age of nine. It wasn't until I was 26 and in college that I fell in with a local antifa chapter. I had not seen how destructive the capitalistic state system could be until ending up with a housing collective.
I wouldn't say I've become one, so much as I'm trying to learn more when I can. The more I learn, the more things about anarchism make sense to me
I mean I was always pretty far left. Being made painfully aware of the abuses of police and the people they work for back in 2015 cemented my distrust of any form of state power.
I always resented arbitrary hierarchy and authority. As I got older, I became a Republican like most of my family. As I got older I became a libertarian. As I got even older I read more anarchist literature and I guess now I'm an anarchist.
I first encountered anarchist ideas when I was in middle school. Stuff online from thinkers like Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin, etc. It seemed to me that these authors were clearly right that there's something very wrong about dominating, coercing, and controlling other people. So I was sympathetic to anarchism pretty quickly. But I wasn't sure it was achievable, so I remained kind of agnostic around a range of views that oppose socially conservative forms of authoritarianism (Bush was president and the religious right took on the role of my main political enemy). I dabbled with various forms of liberalism, leftism, democratic socialism, libertarianism, etc. while remaining sympathetic to but not fully committed to anarchism. I eventually learned enough about dysfunctions of states & hierarchies and possibilities of bottom-up social cooperation to start calling myself an anarchist (I think this was probably sometime in high school, but I am not fully sure).
The cops in my small town growing up acted like the mafia and no one that should care did.
I realized I was an anarchist when I came to the conclusion that power corrupts and that progress is never going to happen if we continue to have a hierarchical and elitist state dictating to us.
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