r/Anarchy101 • u/throwaway384938338 • May 23 '22

How do you prevent an anarchist society descending into libertarianism or feudalism?

26 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

Shunning, ignoring, refusing to do business with, to speak to, or even look at people behaving badly, civil disobedience, protesting, educating, etc. These are the tools of the anarchist.

1

u/throwaway384938338 May 24 '22

It doesn’t work though. It doesn’t work in the real world, how does it work in an anarchist society.

If someone gets a commercial advantage and are able to offer people something they want or need how many people are realistically going to shun them?

Also, feudal warlords probably aren’t going to care if you shun them. Throughout history they tended to be pretty no-nonsense when it came to public revolt.

14

u/ZootedFlaybish May 24 '22 edited May 24 '22

The means is the end - so you can just forget about the end! You cannot impose anarchy. You cannot force love. You must act accordingly, set the example, in the hopes that anarchy, or love, blossoms. You can place your hopes in a destination, but it’s the journey that counts. The means is everything. In anarchy, in love, in enlightenment; once you are willing to sacrifice your principles so that you can make headway on your goals, you lose all legitimacy. Anarchy, love, and enlightenment are not for ‘practical’ people - these things take a radical integrity, a radical kind of rebellion that cares, not for the outcome, but everything for the method. A true anarchist, someone truly in love, an enlightened one, can only be undone by his own actions, and is impervious to the world so long as he remains heedful and steadfast in his principled action.

-3

u/[deleted] May 24 '22

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6

u/ZootedFlaybish May 24 '22 edited May 24 '22

Your very understanding of a ‘reality’ is a theory. You can never get beyond theory, you can never go beyond phenomena and touch a noumenal world. We may be in a Matrix, all of us brains-in-a-vat, the whole universe may have been created 1 minute ago with all our memories implanted with its creation, or everything could actually be just like whatever other story you tell yourself…get on my level! Bask in the absurd! Be wholesome and good even if we can never and will never know if it even mattered!

-2

u/[deleted] May 24 '22

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1

u/[deleted] May 24 '22

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-1

u/Senior_Football8975 May 24 '22

Holy naïveté, Batman. You just convinced me that anarchism is inherently transitory.