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If you exclude organizations like the PKK, which ones would you consider to be the true anarchists? How about the Industrial Workers of the World, one of the mo
by ewzimm 4y ago
If you exclude organizations like the PKK, which ones would you consider to be the true anarchists? How about the Industrial Workers of the World, one of the most prominent international anarchist organizations? You can read the constitution at iww.org, and it mainly defines the organizational hierarchy.
I'm curious about your perspective, because when I've seen this argument before, it seems to be based on a personal literal interpretation of the world anarchism as the negation of hierarchy, as if the etymology of the term is more important of the history of the movement. If you have a deeper insight beyond that, it's worth explaining!
Another definition that might be helpful comes from Noam Chomsky's "What is Anarchism?"
"...anarchism is a tendency in human development that seeks to identify structures of hierarchy, domination, authority, and others that constrain human development. And then it seeks to subject them to a very reasonable challenge: Justify yourself, demonstrate that you're legitimate, and maybe in some special circumstances or conceivably in principle. And if you can't meet that challenge, which is the usual case, the structures should be dismantled, not just dismantled but reconstructed from below."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/noam-chomsky-what-is-anarchism https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/noam-chomsky-what-is...
- lapinot 4y agoThis thread seems to get derailed into the age old anarchistic debate "organization or not", also sometimes named "platform or not". My take on it is that this debate is usually theoretic in nature (in particular in this thread), and that anarchism is very much not a theory and actually a praxis. A core principle is also to refuse bottom-line-truth and dogma to keep being relevant in day-to-day struggles. Hence the unifying principles of the anarchistic nebula elude any objective definition (one behave "like an anarchist" only if a couple other ones says so, not that this would be sufficient tho).
- ewzimm 4y agoConstantly renegotiating definitions comes with the territory, so I wouldn’t expect this to go away. The name is meant to be provocative, so it fits. Defining it outside theory is an interesting take. But doesn’t praxis eventually require considering theory when a decision has to be made?
- elliotec 4y agoZapatistas (EZLN) are a common example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Lib... Also check out Intentional Communities: https://www.ic.org/ https://www.ic.org/ And of course, the IWW is an anarchist organization - I haven't read the entire constitution but skimming it doesn't describe an actual hierarchy, simply a structure and process of delegation and consensus-based decision-making of job duties and organized geographic branches. In fact, they explicitly decry it in favor of grassroots and worker empowerment.
- ewzimm 4y agoFrom the article you linked, “the Zapatistas have rejected and defied political classification.” I think they main issue is that they have a deep indigenous tradition outside of socialist anarchism, although they have clear intersections of thought. Intentional community development is one of my projects right now, so I appreciate the reference! I think what you’re describing is something better than anarchism because it has a lot less historical violent baggage associated with it and probably deserves a new name. It might get one if it grew enough. It would probably still involve hierarchies based on consensus and clear limits on scope and time. More arrangements like these would do a lot of good, and I hope we get more of them!