4 ms·
I'll never forget the hilarity I felt when I heard about the gigantic political fights happening at a big convention of anarchists in Minneapolis in the 80s. I
by sverige 8y ago
I'll never forget the hilarity I felt when I heard about the gigantic political fights happening at a big convention of anarchists in Minneapolis in the 80s. I was a college student working on a history degree and remember thinking, "Wait, why are people who want a society with no laws or rules holding a convention? And what is the fight about? Rules? Goals? Leadership?"
I still can't do anything but laugh when someone tells me they're an anarchist. No you're not, what you mean is you don't like the current structure, whatever it happens to be. You have an idea of what you think it should be, even if you can't clearly express what that is exactly or how to get there.
- thecrash 8y agoAnarchism as a political philosophy does not "want a society with no laws or rules". It wants a society where power (social, political, economic, etc) is not distributed based on a hierarchy. Some misinterpret this as meaning that anarchists oppose the structuring of power in general (a.k.a. chaos), but in fact power can be organized through all kinds of non-hierarchical forms. Anarchism as a broad philosophy is not prescriptive as to how power /should/ be organized, only how it should not. There are many complementary and competing ideas about how a society or group can best structure itself to minimize hierarchical power, and anarchists argue about these a lot. They also actively experiment with them, and often the experiments fail. But sometimes they succeed, and those discoveries help all of us expand our possible modes of social organization. So basically I think even if you don't subscribe to anarchist philosophy, you should not be so dismissive of it.
- jonathankoren 8y agoAnarchist Club Meeting Tuesday Elections To Be Held