Thank you so much for taking the time to write this comment, and for being so nice about it too. In this polarized political climate, it’s quite refreshing to find someone who holds “extreme” views and who is still willing to educate rather than butt heads.
Can I ask a follow-up question? Reading your comment an immediate concern that came up was with complacency. The system you described seems to rely very heavily on nobody being an idiot (in the original Greek sense of the word, someone who isn’t interested in matters of the city-state) but in reality, a lot of people are. What if a few generations into an anarcho-syndicalist utopia, a group of people decide to elect a representative in a broad sense, informally of course, because they trust him and it’s easier this way and they can focus on other things? And then another group likes the idea, and another, and these representatives end up scheming amongst themselves…
I think where I’m going is that the structure doesn’t seem rigid. That can be a very good thing for several reasons, but it can also be bad in that it seems (again, to my uninformed self) to not be very resilient against erosion.
I hope you’ll notice that I am absolutely on board with the abolishment of impositional hierarchies. Both concerns I’ve expressed have to do with how the system would stay alive rather than with what it sets out to accomplish.
Thanks again for taking time out of your Sunday to educate a total stranger.
I’m always happy to ramble on about anarchism! Thanks engaging me with an open mind. My “extreme” views aren’t always met with a great reaction haha
Your follow up gets into a lot of deep theory from several different areas, but it’s a great question! I’ll do my best to answer it concisely but please know that I won’t be able to answer it perfectly; dozens of books have been written on each aspect of the breakdown I’ll be following this bit up with. If you’re interested in diving deep into these areas, the YouTube channel I linked in my last comment primarily does video essays. His largest project is titled “A Modern Anarchism” and it’s a synthesis work, bringing several strains of anarchism together to form a coherent framework for the present. I think you would find it very interesting. Some other notable creators in the theory and praxis space of anarchism are Andrewism and Zoe Baker. Shout-out to The Anarchist Library as well!
The way I read your question touches on a few areas. Hierarchical realism and self determination, complex systems and decentralization, and the cyclical nature of human history.
On hierarchical realism and self determination:
Like capitalist realism, many anarchists view society at large to be in a state of hierarchical realism - that is- dominant hierarchies are so ingrained into our collective conscience that the majority of people are incapable of imagining a world post-hierarchy. That isn’t a dig, it takes a long time of focused work to deconstruct all of the inherent biases our upbringing imbues us with. As such, any imagining of an anarchist society by people in a hierarchical society will inevitably be tainted by those biases, and will therefore be unable to perfectly depict an anarchist utopia. (Doesn’t mean people haven’t tried, Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed does a fair job that addresses your question to boot). To a degree, your question can never truly be answered. It is very much a question worth asking though.
Hierarchical realism not only taints our imagination towards the future. It taints our imagination for how we might oppose domination in the present. Hierarchy, primarily capitalism and the state in this instance, has stripped us of our self determination, the means and ability to manage our own affairs. From mending clothes to managing society, most of us are incapable of truly controlling our lives and are consequently reliant on the current systems of power for our very existence. Anarchists encourage people to reclaim their self determination because it’s vital to a thriving, citizen managed, society.
I’m sure you’ve noticed a trend in society that points toward a broad delegation of tasks that are vital to modern life. Meal delivery services, hardware that’s increasingly difficult to repair, the hyper-specialization of intellectual labor, broad individual isolation from community, public schooling that is geared to make good workers instead of an educated and capable population, representative democracy. Much of it stems from a systemic pressure to atomize human function and interaction that strips us of our self determination. Anarchists believe that reclaiming ou self determination not only empowers the individual, but creates an empowered society. A society organized without coercion, geared to ensure the individual is capable and supported to manage their life and interests, is one with people who know that allowing individuals to wield systemic power to control the collective is an idea worth rejecting.
On complex systems and decentralization:
Complex systems (as they apply to social structures) in a nutshell: society functions like a living organism. The status quo seeks to exist indefinitely and either resists harmful pressures or co-opts them in order to persist.
You are correct in saying that the power structures that anarchists propose isn’t rigid, it’s not supposed to be! The Anarchist approach to freedom and power is intentionally fluid, in part to allow the individual the maximal amount of freedom and self determination, as well as to entrench a system of collective power that is capable of changing and adapting to the ever changing needs of the community. In contrast, hierarchy is incredibly rigid. It is slow to change and slow to adapt,
A decentralized society is also more resilient in the face of disaster. Think of it in terms of cells, but not too hard lol. It isn’t a great analogy. A decentralized society would be best represented by a cellular culture. If one cell- hell, 90% of cells- die, the culture may still be able to recover and regrow. By nature of its complex organization, cells.dying doesn’t necessarily mean death of the culture. The remaining cells can adapt to the endogenous or exogenous pressures that lead to cell death in the first place and come out stronger than before. In this analogy, hierarchy would be considered a single cell. If the surrounding environment becomes inhospitable to the cell, or the cell develops some horrible mutation in one of its organelles, the cell dies. That’s the end of the cell and something else that is either capable of dealing with the environment or isn’t terminally mutated will take its place.
You recognized this in your comment and I can’t do it justice so I’ll stop there on complex systems but I hope I painted a decent picture. See this video for a much better explanation.
On the cyclical nature of human history:
Hierarchy isnt new, and neither are horizontal societies. Human history is a tapestry of these social forms existing in parallel, with one being more prevelant than the other at times. Most of our written history has occurred in some form of hierarchical society, but the majority of human history points toward a largely horizontal structure. I won’t call these structures anarchic, but they do speak to the horizontal impulses present in the overwhelming majority of humans.
The way I, and many anarchists, see it, people have cooperative and competitive impulses. A horizontal social structure reinforces our cooperative drive, while a hierarchical social structure reinforces our competitive drive. Human history as we currently understand it seems to bear this truth out. The late anthropologist David Graeber has said that human history seems to operate on a roughly 500 year cycle; where different social forms emerge, replace their predecessor, grow in strength and area, and are eventually replaced by other emergent forms. This isn’t necessarily saying hierarchical forms are replaced by horizontal forms. Feudalism was replaced by capitalism after all. It’s simply pointing out that social organizations seem to have an expiration date. Capitalism emerged in the 16th century, it may be well on its way to replacement. Anarchists want to replace it with something as close to anarchy as we can imagine. In 500 years anarchy may go down on the path you described. With people slowly reinventing hierarchical forms that were abolished well beyond living memory. It might also be replaced by something more horizontal and equitable than we can imagine. A post-anarchy, if you will.
I hope that these errant threads were able to answer your question. I wanted to add some more thoughts here to kind of tie them all together but I’m coming up short. This reply wasn’t as direct as my last one, but the resources I’ve peppered throughout my comment may be able to satisfy that if I missed the mark here.
Feel free to ask any more questions you might have too! I’m happy to have a go at them
Yes, you did answer my questiom very well especially with the part about cyclical history. I will watch the resources you linked to in both comments. Again, I am very thankful tbat you took the time to answer me so thoroughly.
After I’ve done some studying, would you mind if I maybe DM’d you?
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this comment, and for being so nice about it too. In this polarized political climate, it’s quite refreshing to find someone who holds “extreme” views and who is still willing to educate rather than butt heads.
Can I ask a follow-up question? Reading your comment an immediate concern that came up was with complacency. The system you described seems to rely very heavily on nobody being an idiot (in the original Greek sense of the word, someone who isn’t interested in matters of the city-state) but in reality, a lot of people are. What if a few generations into an anarcho-syndicalist utopia, a group of people decide to elect a representative in a broad sense, informally of course, because they trust him and it’s easier this way and they can focus on other things? And then another group likes the idea, and another, and these representatives end up scheming amongst themselves…
I think where I’m going is that the structure doesn’t seem rigid. That can be a very good thing for several reasons, but it can also be bad in that it seems (again, to my uninformed self) to not be very resilient against erosion.
I hope you’ll notice that I am absolutely on board with the abolishment of impositional hierarchies. Both concerns I’ve expressed have to do with how the system would stay alive rather than with what it sets out to accomplish.
Thanks again for taking time out of your Sunday to educate a total stranger.
I’m always happy to ramble on about anarchism! Thanks engaging me with an open mind. My “extreme” views aren’t always met with a great reaction haha
Your follow up gets into a lot of deep theory from several different areas, but it’s a great question! I’ll do my best to answer it concisely but please know that I won’t be able to answer it perfectly; dozens of books have been written on each aspect of the breakdown I’ll be following this bit up with. If you’re interested in diving deep into these areas, the YouTube channel I linked in my last comment primarily does video essays. His largest project is titled “A Modern Anarchism” and it’s a synthesis work, bringing several strains of anarchism together to form a coherent framework for the present. I think you would find it very interesting. Some other notable creators in the theory and praxis space of anarchism are Andrewism and Zoe Baker. Shout-out to The Anarchist Library as well!
The way I read your question touches on a few areas. Hierarchical realism and self determination, complex systems and decentralization, and the cyclical nature of human history.
On hierarchical realism and self determination:
Like capitalist realism, many anarchists view society at large to be in a state of hierarchical realism - that is- dominant hierarchies are so ingrained into our collective conscience that the majority of people are incapable of imagining a world post-hierarchy. That isn’t a dig, it takes a long time of focused work to deconstruct all of the inherent biases our upbringing imbues us with. As such, any imagining of an anarchist society by people in a hierarchical society will inevitably be tainted by those biases, and will therefore be unable to perfectly depict an anarchist utopia. (Doesn’t mean people haven’t tried, Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed does a fair job that addresses your question to boot). To a degree, your question can never truly be answered. It is very much a question worth asking though.
Hierarchical realism not only taints our imagination towards the future. It taints our imagination for how we might oppose domination in the present. Hierarchy, primarily capitalism and the state in this instance, has stripped us of our self determination, the means and ability to manage our own affairs. From mending clothes to managing society, most of us are incapable of truly controlling our lives and are consequently reliant on the current systems of power for our very existence. Anarchists encourage people to reclaim their self determination because it’s vital to a thriving, citizen managed, society.
I’m sure you’ve noticed a trend in society that points toward a broad delegation of tasks that are vital to modern life. Meal delivery services, hardware that’s increasingly difficult to repair, the hyper-specialization of intellectual labor, broad individual isolation from community, public schooling that is geared to make good workers instead of an educated and capable population, representative democracy. Much of it stems from a systemic pressure to atomize human function and interaction that strips us of our self determination. Anarchists believe that reclaiming ou self determination not only empowers the individual, but creates an empowered society. A society organized without coercion, geared to ensure the individual is capable and supported to manage their life and interests, is one with people who know that allowing individuals to wield systemic power to control the collective is an idea worth rejecting.
On complex systems and decentralization:
Complex systems (as they apply to social structures) in a nutshell: society functions like a living organism. The status quo seeks to exist indefinitely and either resists harmful pressures or co-opts them in order to persist.
You are correct in saying that the power structures that anarchists propose isn’t rigid, it’s not supposed to be! The Anarchist approach to freedom and power is intentionally fluid, in part to allow the individual the maximal amount of freedom and self determination, as well as to entrench a system of collective power that is capable of changing and adapting to the ever changing needs of the community. In contrast, hierarchy is incredibly rigid. It is slow to change and slow to adapt,
A decentralized society is also more resilient in the face of disaster. Think of it in terms of cells, but not too hard lol. It isn’t a great analogy. A decentralized society would be best represented by a cellular culture. If one cell- hell, 90% of cells- die, the culture may still be able to recover and regrow. By nature of its complex organization, cells.dying doesn’t necessarily mean death of the culture. The remaining cells can adapt to the endogenous or exogenous pressures that lead to cell death in the first place and come out stronger than before. In this analogy, hierarchy would be considered a single cell. If the surrounding environment becomes inhospitable to the cell, or the cell develops some horrible mutation in one of its organelles, the cell dies. That’s the end of the cell and something else that is either capable of dealing with the environment or isn’t terminally mutated will take its place.
You recognized this in your comment and I can’t do it justice so I’ll stop there on complex systems but I hope I painted a decent picture. See this video for a much better explanation.
On the cyclical nature of human history:
Hierarchy isnt new, and neither are horizontal societies. Human history is a tapestry of these social forms existing in parallel, with one being more prevelant than the other at times. Most of our written history has occurred in some form of hierarchical society, but the majority of human history points toward a largely horizontal structure. I won’t call these structures anarchic, but they do speak to the horizontal impulses present in the overwhelming majority of humans.
The way I, and many anarchists, see it, people have cooperative and competitive impulses. A horizontal social structure reinforces our cooperative drive, while a hierarchical social structure reinforces our competitive drive. Human history as we currently understand it seems to bear this truth out. The late anthropologist David Graeber has said that human history seems to operate on a roughly 500 year cycle; where different social forms emerge, replace their predecessor, grow in strength and area, and are eventually replaced by other emergent forms. This isn’t necessarily saying hierarchical forms are replaced by horizontal forms. Feudalism was replaced by capitalism after all. It’s simply pointing out that social organizations seem to have an expiration date. Capitalism emerged in the 16th century, it may be well on its way to replacement. Anarchists want to replace it with something as close to anarchy as we can imagine. In 500 years anarchy may go down on the path you described. With people slowly reinventing hierarchical forms that were abolished well beyond living memory. It might also be replaced by something more horizontal and equitable than we can imagine. A post-anarchy, if you will.
I hope that these errant threads were able to answer your question. I wanted to add some more thoughts here to kind of tie them all together but I’m coming up short. This reply wasn’t as direct as my last one, but the resources I’ve peppered throughout my comment may be able to satisfy that if I missed the mark here.
Feel free to ask any more questions you might have too! I’m happy to have a go at them
Yes, you did answer my questiom very well especially with the part about cyclical history. I will watch the resources you linked to in both comments. Again, I am very thankful tbat you took the time to answer me so thoroughly.
After I’ve done some studying, would you mind if I maybe DM’d you?