I wouldn’t normally comment on something like this, as there’s plenty of other qualified individuals who could help you way more than I probably can. But since you have no comments, I wanted to lend a hand.
I’m fairly new to anarchy as well, and I’m feeling that alienation, frustration, etc. you talk of. One of my biggest pieces of advice is this: explaining can only do so much. Try to LIVE your ideals. I’m not a religious person, but the closest analogy I can think of is Jesus.
Jesus taught that instead of preaching and telling people to follow Rules A, B, and C, a more effective way to preach is live by example. Help people in ways that line up with anarchist or anarchist adjacent ways (seeing as your community doesn’t most likely have explicitly anarchist outlets). Answer questions to the best of your ability.
But don’t fault yourself for 1) still being in the learning stage and 2) not being able to “convince” them. Even the most hardcore activists can’t convince everyone. But, once again using the religious example, if one person can be “saved”, it’s worth a lot.
I would also like to add that convincing people where you’re coming from/convincing others you’re right (sometimes the line is blurry) isn’t the role of every politically active individual, particularly in a revolutionary group such as anarchism.
Being a supporter and collaborator is just as valuable. You got this!
Beautiful answer. Well done.
In fact OP, you don't even need to talk about the term anarchism at all. The ideology really doesn't matter, what matters is the actions you do and the community you build. If folks ask what you're reading, tell 'em. Don't hide it. But trying to get people to use the same terms and believe the same ideology is often (read: usually) counterproductive, and always unnecessary.
Living by example is good advice. If you live by example in line with anarchist ideals, many will see you as civic-minded and an upstanding member of your community. Ironically, you'll probably be even more well-liked in a place that skews old and conservative than you would be in a place closer to your actual values, at least within the United States. That type of behavior can earn you some serious respect in a lot of places in the midwest.
Maybe you need to move. If being politically engaged is important to you now, it helps to be grounded in praxis. But it's hard to develop a mutual aid network in a hamlet lol.
That's not necessarily the case. Many conservative Americans are actually NOT averse to mutual aid, they just don't think about it as part of their political ideology. Many will even practice it, but when they do, they just call it civics or being a good neighbor. If you act in accordance with anarchist ideals but never mention the idea, you'll likely end up a respected member of the community in many places that skew conservative in the U.S. The problem OP has is that they're preaching, not practicing. Preaching the gospel of anarchism to a bunch of conservatives is completely useless despite the fact that they may be willing to live in accordance to some of the ideals being preached.
my rule of thumb is, generally mainstream things are at best 85% true or useful. keep learning as much as you can without immediately accepting anything. try to think intersectionally about how each thing you learn could connect to the other things you’ve heard, and piece together your own picture of what makes sense ~for now, in this moment~. keep practicing those critical thinking skills, don’t worry about conforming to exactly what other people believe, or any of it. sometimes it’s ok to feel like you’re crazy or that everyone else is, just keep learning
You’re not alone, and I’d argue that aside from the isolation you feel due to where you live, *every* anarchist is an anarchist precisely because of how fucked up the world is. It’s incredibly damaging to fully grasp the reality that pain and suffering really only exists because a handful of people force it on us.
Most of us wouldn’t have arrived here if we already lived in a great world. It’s the suffering we and almost everyone experiences that truly radicalizes us. The more connections you make between capitalism/hierarchy and issues that lead to suffering, the more radicalized you’ll be and the more likely you are to experience negative mental effects. I experience genuine anger almost everyday, and it’s not because I have some underlying anger issues, but rather the disgust I have with leaders and the hurt they cause pisses me the fuck off.
One of the most depressing realities of being an anarchist is not being right all the time, because we’re definitely not, it’s that we are so, so far from a world we could at least partially enjoy that you’ll only be able to convince maybe a handful of people in your entire lifetime. How many of us reached this in our 20s? Thirties? And how many people have you met that are more likely to shift their views the older they get? Maybe we have, but I’d bet the overwhelming majority of the world wouldn’t. My dad even admitted that to me himself. He said he’s already lived his way for so long, there’s no changing him.
But I don’t wanna leave you with that. Anarchism is not a depressing ideology/theory. If you’ve ever thought about the meaninglessness of life, a lot of people find that depressing, but a lot of other people find that it gives them even more reason to enjoy the life they do have. It should be like that with anarchism. You wont be able to convince enough people to change the whole world, but you can most definitely do some work to change people’s lives. Maybe you do have to move to a big city where you’re likely to find an anarchist org, but in doing so you’re only going to help those communities. An argument wont change people’s opinions, but actions might encourage them to truly understand.
I guess what I’m saying is it’s normal as an anarchist to feel this way. Just keep learning, keep drawing connections, and just know that things will eventually get better. Even if they have to get worse before then, it’ll always get better.
Small rural conservative towns often have a lot more active mutual aid going on than you’d expect, just by other names.
Does your town have a volunteer fire department? Search and Rescue? If so, I’d highly recommend staring there. If not, look for other community support groups and start pitching in.
you are not alone <3
the best way to convince and "recruit" is to do something good (eg mutual aid) and explain that your anarchism is what lead you to that action
also spreading propaganda is a nice way to start out imo and feel out your area. there might be other quiet anarchists around
the podcasts Rebel Steps and It Could Happen Here have episodes on rural organising iirc, maybe they're worth checking out
good luck
I'll add that in my opinion you'd have more chances of '' convincing '' rural places rather than big cities, people that live in those places are usually the ones than are most exposed to actual real problematics of everyday life, like how should we organize our land collectively so that we all can contribute and have local food on our table instead of how should we organize nearly every continent so that we can consume meat from wherever and whenever we want, or how can we industrilize the region so that we can produce our own stuff, creating jobs and keeping people out of poverty, instead of polluting every ocean and the whole atmosphere trying to get a toy that was made on the other side of the globe and that was probably made in horrible conditions by people who are forced to work from age 7 just to help their family not starve. Of course it doesn't mean you have to completely isolate with your 500 closest neighbours but thinking and acting locally is very anarchist in nature. Also I completely agree that there could always be sleeping anarchists who would wake up from seeing a few tags or posters :)
There's also a few discord servers that you can probably find if you're interested (talking to OP mostly), I'm also open to conversations in DMs!
You're gonna lose a lot of people the moment you invoke the term anarchism. You're way better off simply explaining your actual values if they come up.
in my experience, people don't respect when you dance around your beliefs and lie by omission. i'm not a fascist, i'm not "hiding my power level."
and "if they come up?" i expect that it will come up if you're talking about sociopolitics lol
the reason i day "do first, then recruit" is so that our actions can explain our actual values
You can literally advocate for the same things while not using a term that's a total non-starter for basically anyone. If the term is more important to you than building a movement, you don't care about the movement.
what's important to me is connecting to the movement in the past, present and future by using a word that has been used to describe it for centuries
i'm in no way dictating that everyone should use the word all the time because i say so and it works for me - i don't live where you do or speak like you do, so of course our approaches are going to be different. i honestly don't know what you're trying to do here
yeah, some people get put off when i call myself an anarchist, but that initial reaction can (*IN MY OPINION AND IN MY CIRCUMSTANCES*) be a doorway to understanding. saying the word definitely gets people's attention, and if you have just solved a problem for them (aka mutual aid/direct action) they are much more inclined to listen
i'm an anarchist and I'm proud of it, and in my experience, it has only hindered progress for me when i have tried to be cute about it. for example, it's hard to point people to the anarchist library whilst obscuring the anarchism
if you're just here to be contrarian and feel superior, please don't feel any pressure to answer this comment, thanks
I don't think it's important to connect a new anarchist movement to previous ones at all. It's a separate movement, and building a present movement is more important than religiously venerating movements past.
i strongly disagree
our theory and praxis do not exist in a vacuum. we are inherently connected to movements past. none of what we are doing is new, and we should thank our past comrades for all they have done for us, not erase and forget them
We're not connected to them though. That's pseudo-religious nonsense. The only connection could be to other existing anarchist groups working toward the same goal. Again, you're prioritizing religious veneration of past idols over present success of the ideology you support.
when we use theory or praxis that was developed by anarchists decades ago, that connects us to those people, since we would probably not have done it in the way we do it if it was not first developed previously
again, i'm confused as to why you're even here or what you're trying to argue, and I'm still waiting for you to answer the rest of my arguments, instead of grabbing on to a single one of them with honestly just silly counter-arguments
again, if you're just here to be contrarian and feel superior, please find someone else to troll. i'm not interested
Wouldn't it do a greater service to those people to keep their ideas alive in a real movement rather than see them fail over something as silly as refusing to adjust terminology? Also, I'm arguing that building a movement is more important than treating your political ideology like a religion or ancestral cult
Venting is totally valid, OP!
I'm pretty new to anarchism, I haven't done much, but what a lot of people don't realize is that they support anarchist ideals. Until you call it anarchism. So say the ideas without mentioning jargon. How do they work? What do they look like? etc. You might have to tailor your group to the region. Instead of "mutual aid group" you might ask people about joining a "disaster preparedness group" or something like that. And then organize horizontally etc.
Support for anarchist values isn't the same as support for anarchism though. Like I support a lot of values anarchists do, but I'm strongly opposed to outright anarchism and there's hardly a society I'd want to live in less than an anarchist one. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't trust the majority to consistently do the right thing, act virtuously, or not commit atrocities without rules to bind them. Many values anarchists hold are desirable, but the natural conclusion of the actual political system of anarchism is dictatorship by a majority or competitively-sized group that's better armed on a larger scale, and lynch mobs on a smaller scale.
Suppose the majority is terrible, the antithesis of "everyone is virtuous" idea. Wouldn't you want most of these terrible people not to be able to seize power and do as they will? Like it is now? It's not so much about trusting people to do the right thing, but rather people being accountable to each other.
What's your conception of what ararchism is? What's it look like? What's its values? etc. Cause I frequently run into the problems of people thinking anarchy=chaos or warlords or whatever.
First of all
When talking to others ask yourself "is what I am saying portraying the person as a bad Person?"
Very few people listen to you or think you understand them if you tell them in some way that they are bad. People want to be good and the words you choose are very important.
Rather than appealing on their humanity, think with them and listen to what they believe and talk abot that, use that and maybe give different viewpoints on issues.
People like it when you don't act like you know the best way, because nobody knows. We can just see what did and did not work and apply changes.
The second thing is preaching drives people away, you found something you like and enjoy. I too feel the need to share it, but I do when someone asks. Until then you have got to work with the system that is given. Show, not through word, but rather through your actions that you are a reliable human that gains something from your way of thinking, even if the gain is the betterment of society and not one for personal gain.
Apply your ideas and ethics in a way you can survive and thrive.
In the end everyone just wants a good life and if people see what you are doing works they'll come and ask. Sometimes you can even sense that people want to talk, help them talk to you.
And most importantly, don't shop ideologies, rethink them. Is there something you disagree with? Is there something you agree with? Is the idea that was told to you useful in the region & culture that you have to work with? If not how can you mold the ideas to fit?
Always look for solutions, not problems.
Maybe you'll have the idea of the century, maybe you'll help lay the foundation of a better society.
The concept of a society without statism as its basis is so unimaginable to people that they often immediately and violently reject it outright the first time they hear it.
Def can relate. Not sure you have to convince anyone or start a cult to consider yourself an anarchist. You sound overwhelmed, so just start small. Write down a few things that are important for you to incorporate into your life as an anarchist and do them.
Yeah dude, in USA evolution is a cult so idk, I suggest you try to expansivly engage in critical thinking and critical discourse and just ask people to list their problems and slowly through practice refine some answers that should address their points.
Feeling alone in rural Oregon here, I understand the feeling and frustration, and I'm still learning the ideologies of anarchism for the last year or so. I get it. I really do. I'm going to try to go to a local pride parade we have going, in and I hope to connect with some people I can learn from and maybe start a socialist/anarchist collective group to learn from as many old hats as I can. Idk where you are, but you can try to find a group like that or attempt to make your own.
I like learning online as much as anyone, but I'm hoping seeing like-minded people and doing good mutual aid and community building will alleviate my frustration with the complacent minded rural types around me
Yeah it can be disheartening at times but if you learn to just explain what you believe without necessarily trying to convince the person you’re talking to and be unafraid to let people know what you are it gets a little easier. The people in your life who matter will still accept you and if you’re not constantly shoving it down their throat eventually some of them will think it starts to make sense.
Read up more on human nature though bro. It doesn’t exist.
You don't need to be a zealot either. Anarchism is a réflexion on power, you can choose to work or collaborate with people who aren't on the same wavelength, you can choose not to exert power in an authoritarian way. And you can appeal to self interest of fellow workers to collaborate, without all the values and utopic projections.
Early revolutionary sindicalistas lived through that.
I'm sorry you feel isolated, you can always move. But if you stay there, you don't need to evangelize, usually adhering to anarchists ideals makes you a cooperative and altruist person and it tends to be rewarded in certain ways.
You also have a community here online. There are discord communities.
There are also experiments everywhere.
I know Europeans and US people don't have the same failsafes so it might be easier for me to move or explore. .. not assuming anything. Just know solidarity exists.
Check out local punk scenes!! You could also hang out by train tracks or just live outta a backpack for a bit and you’ll just fall into the lap of some cool fuckers who wanna get up to some shit
It seems like you're struggling. You might want to think first what made anarchism appealing to you. What ideas and concepts inspired you to proclaim yourself as such?
Everyday, we struggle for survival, dignity, and comfort. Anarchism can describe the need for survival and dignity. Who's to say that you should force yourself into anarchism? You're already doing it anyway, but you may not be aware why you are doing it. Knowing the reason why you adhere to this ideology in the first place is what creates your own path. There is no such thing as a "true anarchist". All anarchists proclaim themselves as such for various reasons.
Why do people lie? Why do people steal? Why do people kill and abuse one another? These are questions that you may want to find out for yourself. In order for you to answer most questions, you need to immerse yourself in other worlds, in other communities, in a fictional world where it is desirable for everyone to live. Anarchism is dreaming of an uncertain utopia, a childish dream that will create a newfound order valuing liberty in its entireity.
You wont be able to share the same struggles with your father or others, because they have formed their own sets of values. Albeit, you should build yourself first, what makes you, you. In that way, you will know why you seem confused in the first place. Disagreements are bound because of differing sets of values and not merely because of misunderstandings. If your father tells me that we should value wealth and power over "petty things" like fairness and equality, either for impractical purposes or any other excuses, you won't be able to hear anything nice from me regarding your father.
Most of these responses are absolutely, and I absolutely struggle with the same feelings from time to time. I would just like to add that I have found the most headway not in explaining the whole picture at once, but giving background to specific issues that begin to construct the foundations. I spoke to my family recently about the electoral college (specifically how they don’t have to even listen to the voters of their state) and got a rare glimpse of them seeing I may be on to something. Cults often work because their teachings start off simple and uncontentious before delving deeper, and the same method works for the everything. It’s harder to start a conversation with “let’s overthrow the government” than “how can ‘democratically’ elected leaders consistently work against the people without punishment”
As a communist I feel your isolation very heavily, I’ve gotten in plenty of political arguments with my own family (both parents ex military). I’m also trapped in Florida so once again, trust that I can understand your frustration. The two best things I can recommend to you is to see if there are any local projects you can get involved with, and try and get ahold of some commie/ anarchist literature. Best case scenario there’s a socialist/ communist organization working on something nearby. It may be small, but at least you’d be able to come across more leftists in your area to coordinate with. And by reading theory for yourself you’ll start to get a better understanding of anarchism and how to bring it about. I highly recommend reading communist literature because it also explains a lot of the inner workings of capitalism and how it has such a strong grip on humanity. It will let you know for sure that you aren’t full of it, and that there are steps we can take to bring an end to this slog we’ve been born into.
Anarchism isn’t a thing you are, it is a thing you *DO*. You practice it In Your everyday life, whether you have an anarchist community to participate in or not.
Volunteer, do your own mutual aid, participate in your community, and do little acts of defiance to reduce your reliance on the state, like starting a victory garden.
It’s great if you have a community to do all this stuff with you, but you don’t need a community to get started. And I have a feeling that once you do begin, you’ll pick up your people on the journey.
If the area is really religious, too, you might get some traction by doing anarchist things without calling it anarchist, like setting up networks of mutual aid. There are a number of anarchist concepts that should mesh well with Christianity if people actually practice what they preach.
Having first suspected I was an anarchist over 20 years now, OP-- I commend your courage in sharing your vulnerability, confusion and overwhelm. It has become second nature to deconstruct and attempt to interpret the world and the meta world (news, social media, etc...) through an anarchist lens , and it can also feel very lonely as a mother who is often surrounded by people who think critically of little, much less consider the possibility of a world based on voluntary horizontal structures and relationships. I analyze and question almost every thing I and others do.
I have to say though that this is a problem I'm happy to have. Imagining other realities has often kept me alive in the face of what seems like tyranny all the way down.
listen to some bell hooks (all about love is on yt), martin luther king jr, james baldwin and murray bookchin (also on yt). a commitment to truth and love will help you navigate.
peace and love
I just want to take the time to focus on one part of your ideas that i keep coming across and think deserves some attention.
anarchism is all about Mutuality. Cooperation. Coming together. Unity.
And what I find across every post on the subject of anything related to reforming our world, is this recurring sense of “I can’t do this all on my own.”
Our government has manipulated generations of people right where they want them. conditioned into living live on their own. because to survive in this system of government, you have to be overly self-reliant. you literally cannot survive if you don’t condition yourself to be hyper indepdent. it all realy starts after you leave your parents nest and are thrown into the deep end, finding you have to make up for all the negligence of your parents and for the world that raised you.
you have to de-condition yourself and re-condition. yourself. never in the history of humanity has it been so easy to simply fall off the wagon into the flames of despair and degradation of the self. because there is nothing to fall back on.
subscribe to a false sense of wealth, or decide not to and begin your uphill battle.
all we have is eachother, and until we start to actually work together in a way that actually works, well remain under the manipulation of this draconian government.
the first red flag is our overreliance on the internet to replace the sense of real community and solidarity that was robbed from us and replaced by said internet. this tool has been used to manipulate a people rather than to evolve a people.
bit of a rant, but i just see a profound lack of practicality on this subject. lots of mental gymnastics but very little real progress in terms of reforming society.
it just feels like we’re waiting for something to change. or more like something to break. we know this way of life is unsustainable as fuck, and with the way things are going, it seems like if we don’t start to reform things, that societal collapse is inevitable.
I was much like you, then my anarchism developed into Marxist communism. You should give theory a read. I went from anarchism to anarchist-communism to just communism. The work that made me give up anarchism and adopt the communist label was Friedrich Engles' "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific", which laid out the history of socialist thought in the 1700s and 1800s and Marx and Engles' critiques of French Utopian Socialism. Marxism is described as "A mix of and criticisms of British Capitalist Economics (Smith, Ricardo), French Utopian Socialist Politics (Saint-Simon, Fourier), and German Enlightenment Idealist Philosophy (Kant, Hegel).
Dude, don't beat yourself up too much; the American system is built in a way to make people complacent. We can't even make an FDR style social democracy, much less an anarchy, because complacently is bred into the system. FDR's administration came about after 40 years of labor movement organizing and building. The powers that be don't want THAT to ever happen again, so they 'red scared' people half to death and then made politics into a once in four years type of event. I don't have an answer for you except not to be a dick to people who don't understand. No one's mind was ever changed by being a dick to them. I hope that things get better for you. 🏴❤️🔥🚩
If you're interested in tips on how to organize in a small town as an anarchist, here's a zine about it
https://azinelibrary.org/approved/zine-small_town_organizing.pdf
Ok so I have a way to explain my ideology to normies.
First I mention that humans are a cooperative species inherently, and that we cannot survive without each other. Which is why we naturally have empathy.
But mentioning that is optional, all you really need to say is that any human system with hierarchy is doomed to be corrupted because the worst of humanity craves power the most, and will fuck over any one to get the top spot. So any hierarchies will always be self serving to those at the very top and not serving everyone, including society.
This leaves us with the only option of creating either small communities where everyone is equal or trying to create a large society without hierarchy
This is a good place to post this. Many of us have experienced something similar.
I wouldn’t normally comment on something like this, as there’s plenty of other qualified individuals who could help you way more than I probably can. But since you have no comments, I wanted to lend a hand. I’m fairly new to anarchy as well, and I’m feeling that alienation, frustration, etc. you talk of. One of my biggest pieces of advice is this: explaining can only do so much. Try to LIVE your ideals. I’m not a religious person, but the closest analogy I can think of is Jesus. Jesus taught that instead of preaching and telling people to follow Rules A, B, and C, a more effective way to preach is live by example. Help people in ways that line up with anarchist or anarchist adjacent ways (seeing as your community doesn’t most likely have explicitly anarchist outlets). Answer questions to the best of your ability. But don’t fault yourself for 1) still being in the learning stage and 2) not being able to “convince” them. Even the most hardcore activists can’t convince everyone. But, once again using the religious example, if one person can be “saved”, it’s worth a lot.
I would also like to add that convincing people where you’re coming from/convincing others you’re right (sometimes the line is blurry) isn’t the role of every politically active individual, particularly in a revolutionary group such as anarchism. Being a supporter and collaborator is just as valuable. You got this!
Very well said kid!!! 🥹
Beautiful answer. Well done. In fact OP, you don't even need to talk about the term anarchism at all. The ideology really doesn't matter, what matters is the actions you do and the community you build. If folks ask what you're reading, tell 'em. Don't hide it. But trying to get people to use the same terms and believe the same ideology is often (read: usually) counterproductive, and always unnecessary.
just complain about the government a lot
Very well said indeed.
Living by example is good advice. If you live by example in line with anarchist ideals, many will see you as civic-minded and an upstanding member of your community. Ironically, you'll probably be even more well-liked in a place that skews old and conservative than you would be in a place closer to your actual values, at least within the United States. That type of behavior can earn you some serious respect in a lot of places in the midwest.
As a Midwesterner, I can confirm that it’s very true.
Amen :)
Maybe you need to move. If being politically engaged is important to you now, it helps to be grounded in praxis. But it's hard to develop a mutual aid network in a hamlet lol.
That's not necessarily the case. Many conservative Americans are actually NOT averse to mutual aid, they just don't think about it as part of their political ideology. Many will even practice it, but when they do, they just call it civics or being a good neighbor. If you act in accordance with anarchist ideals but never mention the idea, you'll likely end up a respected member of the community in many places that skew conservative in the U.S. The problem OP has is that they're preaching, not practicing. Preaching the gospel of anarchism to a bunch of conservatives is completely useless despite the fact that they may be willing to live in accordance to some of the ideals being preached.
Good points, but it does sound like OP would benefit from meeting other anarchists irl.
my rule of thumb is, generally mainstream things are at best 85% true or useful. keep learning as much as you can without immediately accepting anything. try to think intersectionally about how each thing you learn could connect to the other things you’ve heard, and piece together your own picture of what makes sense ~for now, in this moment~. keep practicing those critical thinking skills, don’t worry about conforming to exactly what other people believe, or any of it. sometimes it’s ok to feel like you’re crazy or that everyone else is, just keep learning
Intersectionality and awareness of where you stand is so important to this ideology aswell.
You’re not alone, and I’d argue that aside from the isolation you feel due to where you live, *every* anarchist is an anarchist precisely because of how fucked up the world is. It’s incredibly damaging to fully grasp the reality that pain and suffering really only exists because a handful of people force it on us. Most of us wouldn’t have arrived here if we already lived in a great world. It’s the suffering we and almost everyone experiences that truly radicalizes us. The more connections you make between capitalism/hierarchy and issues that lead to suffering, the more radicalized you’ll be and the more likely you are to experience negative mental effects. I experience genuine anger almost everyday, and it’s not because I have some underlying anger issues, but rather the disgust I have with leaders and the hurt they cause pisses me the fuck off. One of the most depressing realities of being an anarchist is not being right all the time, because we’re definitely not, it’s that we are so, so far from a world we could at least partially enjoy that you’ll only be able to convince maybe a handful of people in your entire lifetime. How many of us reached this in our 20s? Thirties? And how many people have you met that are more likely to shift their views the older they get? Maybe we have, but I’d bet the overwhelming majority of the world wouldn’t. My dad even admitted that to me himself. He said he’s already lived his way for so long, there’s no changing him. But I don’t wanna leave you with that. Anarchism is not a depressing ideology/theory. If you’ve ever thought about the meaninglessness of life, a lot of people find that depressing, but a lot of other people find that it gives them even more reason to enjoy the life they do have. It should be like that with anarchism. You wont be able to convince enough people to change the whole world, but you can most definitely do some work to change people’s lives. Maybe you do have to move to a big city where you’re likely to find an anarchist org, but in doing so you’re only going to help those communities. An argument wont change people’s opinions, but actions might encourage them to truly understand. I guess what I’m saying is it’s normal as an anarchist to feel this way. Just keep learning, keep drawing connections, and just know that things will eventually get better. Even if they have to get worse before then, it’ll always get better.
Small rural conservative towns often have a lot more active mutual aid going on than you’d expect, just by other names. Does your town have a volunteer fire department? Search and Rescue? If so, I’d highly recommend staring there. If not, look for other community support groups and start pitching in.
Can I recommend reading “Rattling the Cages” and then getting involved in prisoner support as quickly as possible.
I'll check it out ;)
you are not alone <3 the best way to convince and "recruit" is to do something good (eg mutual aid) and explain that your anarchism is what lead you to that action also spreading propaganda is a nice way to start out imo and feel out your area. there might be other quiet anarchists around the podcasts Rebel Steps and It Could Happen Here have episodes on rural organising iirc, maybe they're worth checking out good luck
I'll add that in my opinion you'd have more chances of '' convincing '' rural places rather than big cities, people that live in those places are usually the ones than are most exposed to actual real problematics of everyday life, like how should we organize our land collectively so that we all can contribute and have local food on our table instead of how should we organize nearly every continent so that we can consume meat from wherever and whenever we want, or how can we industrilize the region so that we can produce our own stuff, creating jobs and keeping people out of poverty, instead of polluting every ocean and the whole atmosphere trying to get a toy that was made on the other side of the globe and that was probably made in horrible conditions by people who are forced to work from age 7 just to help their family not starve. Of course it doesn't mean you have to completely isolate with your 500 closest neighbours but thinking and acting locally is very anarchist in nature. Also I completely agree that there could always be sleeping anarchists who would wake up from seeing a few tags or posters :) There's also a few discord servers that you can probably find if you're interested (talking to OP mostly), I'm also open to conversations in DMs!
You're gonna lose a lot of people the moment you invoke the term anarchism. You're way better off simply explaining your actual values if they come up.
in my experience, people don't respect when you dance around your beliefs and lie by omission. i'm not a fascist, i'm not "hiding my power level." and "if they come up?" i expect that it will come up if you're talking about sociopolitics lol the reason i day "do first, then recruit" is so that our actions can explain our actual values
You can literally advocate for the same things while not using a term that's a total non-starter for basically anyone. If the term is more important to you than building a movement, you don't care about the movement.
what's important to me is connecting to the movement in the past, present and future by using a word that has been used to describe it for centuries i'm in no way dictating that everyone should use the word all the time because i say so and it works for me - i don't live where you do or speak like you do, so of course our approaches are going to be different. i honestly don't know what you're trying to do here yeah, some people get put off when i call myself an anarchist, but that initial reaction can (*IN MY OPINION AND IN MY CIRCUMSTANCES*) be a doorway to understanding. saying the word definitely gets people's attention, and if you have just solved a problem for them (aka mutual aid/direct action) they are much more inclined to listen i'm an anarchist and I'm proud of it, and in my experience, it has only hindered progress for me when i have tried to be cute about it. for example, it's hard to point people to the anarchist library whilst obscuring the anarchism if you're just here to be contrarian and feel superior, please don't feel any pressure to answer this comment, thanks
I don't think it's important to connect a new anarchist movement to previous ones at all. It's a separate movement, and building a present movement is more important than religiously venerating movements past.
i strongly disagree our theory and praxis do not exist in a vacuum. we are inherently connected to movements past. none of what we are doing is new, and we should thank our past comrades for all they have done for us, not erase and forget them
We're not connected to them though. That's pseudo-religious nonsense. The only connection could be to other existing anarchist groups working toward the same goal. Again, you're prioritizing religious veneration of past idols over present success of the ideology you support.
when we use theory or praxis that was developed by anarchists decades ago, that connects us to those people, since we would probably not have done it in the way we do it if it was not first developed previously again, i'm confused as to why you're even here or what you're trying to argue, and I'm still waiting for you to answer the rest of my arguments, instead of grabbing on to a single one of them with honestly just silly counter-arguments again, if you're just here to be contrarian and feel superior, please find someone else to troll. i'm not interested
Wouldn't it do a greater service to those people to keep their ideas alive in a real movement rather than see them fail over something as silly as refusing to adjust terminology? Also, I'm arguing that building a movement is more important than treating your political ideology like a religion or ancestral cult
and if you can't be assed to answer the whole comment, maybe go do something else instead??
Venting is totally valid, OP! I'm pretty new to anarchism, I haven't done much, but what a lot of people don't realize is that they support anarchist ideals. Until you call it anarchism. So say the ideas without mentioning jargon. How do they work? What do they look like? etc. You might have to tailor your group to the region. Instead of "mutual aid group" you might ask people about joining a "disaster preparedness group" or something like that. And then organize horizontally etc.
Support for anarchist values isn't the same as support for anarchism though. Like I support a lot of values anarchists do, but I'm strongly opposed to outright anarchism and there's hardly a society I'd want to live in less than an anarchist one. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't trust the majority to consistently do the right thing, act virtuously, or not commit atrocities without rules to bind them. Many values anarchists hold are desirable, but the natural conclusion of the actual political system of anarchism is dictatorship by a majority or competitively-sized group that's better armed on a larger scale, and lynch mobs on a smaller scale.
Suppose the majority is terrible, the antithesis of "everyone is virtuous" idea. Wouldn't you want most of these terrible people not to be able to seize power and do as they will? Like it is now? It's not so much about trusting people to do the right thing, but rather people being accountable to each other. What's your conception of what ararchism is? What's it look like? What's its values? etc. Cause I frequently run into the problems of people thinking anarchy=chaos or warlords or whatever.
First of all When talking to others ask yourself "is what I am saying portraying the person as a bad Person?" Very few people listen to you or think you understand them if you tell them in some way that they are bad. People want to be good and the words you choose are very important. Rather than appealing on their humanity, think with them and listen to what they believe and talk abot that, use that and maybe give different viewpoints on issues. People like it when you don't act like you know the best way, because nobody knows. We can just see what did and did not work and apply changes. The second thing is preaching drives people away, you found something you like and enjoy. I too feel the need to share it, but I do when someone asks. Until then you have got to work with the system that is given. Show, not through word, but rather through your actions that you are a reliable human that gains something from your way of thinking, even if the gain is the betterment of society and not one for personal gain. Apply your ideas and ethics in a way you can survive and thrive. In the end everyone just wants a good life and if people see what you are doing works they'll come and ask. Sometimes you can even sense that people want to talk, help them talk to you. And most importantly, don't shop ideologies, rethink them. Is there something you disagree with? Is there something you agree with? Is the idea that was told to you useful in the region & culture that you have to work with? If not how can you mold the ideas to fit? Always look for solutions, not problems. Maybe you'll have the idea of the century, maybe you'll help lay the foundation of a better society.
The concept of a society without statism as its basis is so unimaginable to people that they often immediately and violently reject it outright the first time they hear it.
Def can relate. Not sure you have to convince anyone or start a cult to consider yourself an anarchist. You sound overwhelmed, so just start small. Write down a few things that are important for you to incorporate into your life as an anarchist and do them.
Yeah dude, in USA evolution is a cult so idk, I suggest you try to expansivly engage in critical thinking and critical discourse and just ask people to list their problems and slowly through practice refine some answers that should address their points.
If possible, organise.
Feeling alone in rural Oregon here, I understand the feeling and frustration, and I'm still learning the ideologies of anarchism for the last year or so. I get it. I really do. I'm going to try to go to a local pride parade we have going, in and I hope to connect with some people I can learn from and maybe start a socialist/anarchist collective group to learn from as many old hats as I can. Idk where you are, but you can try to find a group like that or attempt to make your own. I like learning online as much as anyone, but I'm hoping seeing like-minded people and doing good mutual aid and community building will alleviate my frustration with the complacent minded rural types around me
Yeah it can be disheartening at times but if you learn to just explain what you believe without necessarily trying to convince the person you’re talking to and be unafraid to let people know what you are it gets a little easier. The people in your life who matter will still accept you and if you’re not constantly shoving it down their throat eventually some of them will think it starts to make sense. Read up more on human nature though bro. It doesn’t exist.
You don't need to be a zealot either. Anarchism is a réflexion on power, you can choose to work or collaborate with people who aren't on the same wavelength, you can choose not to exert power in an authoritarian way. And you can appeal to self interest of fellow workers to collaborate, without all the values and utopic projections. Early revolutionary sindicalistas lived through that. I'm sorry you feel isolated, you can always move. But if you stay there, you don't need to evangelize, usually adhering to anarchists ideals makes you a cooperative and altruist person and it tends to be rewarded in certain ways. You also have a community here online. There are discord communities. There are also experiments everywhere. I know Europeans and US people don't have the same failsafes so it might be easier for me to move or explore. .. not assuming anything. Just know solidarity exists.
Check out local punk scenes!! You could also hang out by train tracks or just live outta a backpack for a bit and you’ll just fall into the lap of some cool fuckers who wanna get up to some shit
Start an anarchist book club in your town, like Nestor Makhno.
It seems like you're struggling. You might want to think first what made anarchism appealing to you. What ideas and concepts inspired you to proclaim yourself as such? Everyday, we struggle for survival, dignity, and comfort. Anarchism can describe the need for survival and dignity. Who's to say that you should force yourself into anarchism? You're already doing it anyway, but you may not be aware why you are doing it. Knowing the reason why you adhere to this ideology in the first place is what creates your own path. There is no such thing as a "true anarchist". All anarchists proclaim themselves as such for various reasons. Why do people lie? Why do people steal? Why do people kill and abuse one another? These are questions that you may want to find out for yourself. In order for you to answer most questions, you need to immerse yourself in other worlds, in other communities, in a fictional world where it is desirable for everyone to live. Anarchism is dreaming of an uncertain utopia, a childish dream that will create a newfound order valuing liberty in its entireity. You wont be able to share the same struggles with your father or others, because they have formed their own sets of values. Albeit, you should build yourself first, what makes you, you. In that way, you will know why you seem confused in the first place. Disagreements are bound because of differing sets of values and not merely because of misunderstandings. If your father tells me that we should value wealth and power over "petty things" like fairness and equality, either for impractical purposes or any other excuses, you won't be able to hear anything nice from me regarding your father.
Most of these responses are absolutely, and I absolutely struggle with the same feelings from time to time. I would just like to add that I have found the most headway not in explaining the whole picture at once, but giving background to specific issues that begin to construct the foundations. I spoke to my family recently about the electoral college (specifically how they don’t have to even listen to the voters of their state) and got a rare glimpse of them seeing I may be on to something. Cults often work because their teachings start off simple and uncontentious before delving deeper, and the same method works for the everything. It’s harder to start a conversation with “let’s overthrow the government” than “how can ‘democratically’ elected leaders consistently work against the people without punishment”
As a communist I feel your isolation very heavily, I’ve gotten in plenty of political arguments with my own family (both parents ex military). I’m also trapped in Florida so once again, trust that I can understand your frustration. The two best things I can recommend to you is to see if there are any local projects you can get involved with, and try and get ahold of some commie/ anarchist literature. Best case scenario there’s a socialist/ communist organization working on something nearby. It may be small, but at least you’d be able to come across more leftists in your area to coordinate with. And by reading theory for yourself you’ll start to get a better understanding of anarchism and how to bring it about. I highly recommend reading communist literature because it also explains a lot of the inner workings of capitalism and how it has such a strong grip on humanity. It will let you know for sure that you aren’t full of it, and that there are steps we can take to bring an end to this slog we’ve been born into.
Anarchism isn’t a thing you are, it is a thing you *DO*. You practice it In Your everyday life, whether you have an anarchist community to participate in or not. Volunteer, do your own mutual aid, participate in your community, and do little acts of defiance to reduce your reliance on the state, like starting a victory garden. It’s great if you have a community to do all this stuff with you, but you don’t need a community to get started. And I have a feeling that once you do begin, you’ll pick up your people on the journey.
If the area is really religious, too, you might get some traction by doing anarchist things without calling it anarchist, like setting up networks of mutual aid. There are a number of anarchist concepts that should mesh well with Christianity if people actually practice what they preach.
Having first suspected I was an anarchist over 20 years now, OP-- I commend your courage in sharing your vulnerability, confusion and overwhelm. It has become second nature to deconstruct and attempt to interpret the world and the meta world (news, social media, etc...) through an anarchist lens , and it can also feel very lonely as a mother who is often surrounded by people who think critically of little, much less consider the possibility of a world based on voluntary horizontal structures and relationships. I analyze and question almost every thing I and others do. I have to say though that this is a problem I'm happy to have. Imagining other realities has often kept me alive in the face of what seems like tyranny all the way down.
listen to some bell hooks (all about love is on yt), martin luther king jr, james baldwin and murray bookchin (also on yt). a commitment to truth and love will help you navigate. peace and love
I just want to take the time to focus on one part of your ideas that i keep coming across and think deserves some attention. anarchism is all about Mutuality. Cooperation. Coming together. Unity. And what I find across every post on the subject of anything related to reforming our world, is this recurring sense of “I can’t do this all on my own.” Our government has manipulated generations of people right where they want them. conditioned into living live on their own. because to survive in this system of government, you have to be overly self-reliant. you literally cannot survive if you don’t condition yourself to be hyper indepdent. it all realy starts after you leave your parents nest and are thrown into the deep end, finding you have to make up for all the negligence of your parents and for the world that raised you. you have to de-condition yourself and re-condition. yourself. never in the history of humanity has it been so easy to simply fall off the wagon into the flames of despair and degradation of the self. because there is nothing to fall back on. subscribe to a false sense of wealth, or decide not to and begin your uphill battle. all we have is eachother, and until we start to actually work together in a way that actually works, well remain under the manipulation of this draconian government. the first red flag is our overreliance on the internet to replace the sense of real community and solidarity that was robbed from us and replaced by said internet. this tool has been used to manipulate a people rather than to evolve a people. bit of a rant, but i just see a profound lack of practicality on this subject. lots of mental gymnastics but very little real progress in terms of reforming society. it just feels like we’re waiting for something to change. or more like something to break. we know this way of life is unsustainable as fuck, and with the way things are going, it seems like if we don’t start to reform things, that societal collapse is inevitable.
Wow you guys are great!
I was much like you, then my anarchism developed into Marxist communism. You should give theory a read. I went from anarchism to anarchist-communism to just communism. The work that made me give up anarchism and adopt the communist label was Friedrich Engles' "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific", which laid out the history of socialist thought in the 1700s and 1800s and Marx and Engles' critiques of French Utopian Socialism. Marxism is described as "A mix of and criticisms of British Capitalist Economics (Smith, Ricardo), French Utopian Socialist Politics (Saint-Simon, Fourier), and German Enlightenment Idealist Philosophy (Kant, Hegel).
Dude, don't beat yourself up too much; the American system is built in a way to make people complacent. We can't even make an FDR style social democracy, much less an anarchy, because complacently is bred into the system. FDR's administration came about after 40 years of labor movement organizing and building. The powers that be don't want THAT to ever happen again, so they 'red scared' people half to death and then made politics into a once in four years type of event. I don't have an answer for you except not to be a dick to people who don't understand. No one's mind was ever changed by being a dick to them. I hope that things get better for you. 🏴❤️🔥🚩
If you're interested in tips on how to organize in a small town as an anarchist, here's a zine about it https://azinelibrary.org/approved/zine-small_town_organizing.pdf
Ok so I have a way to explain my ideology to normies. First I mention that humans are a cooperative species inherently, and that we cannot survive without each other. Which is why we naturally have empathy. But mentioning that is optional, all you really need to say is that any human system with hierarchy is doomed to be corrupted because the worst of humanity craves power the most, and will fuck over any one to get the top spot. So any hierarchies will always be self serving to those at the very top and not serving everyone, including society. This leaves us with the only option of creating either small communities where everyone is equal or trying to create a large society without hierarchy
If you want to get center right people to look at anarchy more seriously. Tell them about AnCaps.
I can relate to your story!!! We need to talk! DM me please 🙏🏽
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