27
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
27 points (100.0% liked)
Anarchism
2475 readers
26 users here now
Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.
Other anarchist comms
- !anarchism@slrpnk.net
- !anarchism@lemmy.blahaj.zone
- !anarchism@hexbear.net
- !anarchism@lemmy.ml
- !anarchism101@lemmy.ca
- !flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
While it's generally ok to study the anarchist perspective on any topic, I would caution against getting caught up in "definitionalism" and related absolutisms. Language is vague. There are no fixed definitions or meanings. There are no magic words. It can be counter-productive to insist on certain definitions or absolutist slogans. It's more about understanding your audience and their definitions, then building bridges and establishing clear communication based on mutual understanding.
My specific goal with this was to understand the mainstream anarchist/ancom definition of a central point of anarchist thought.
I would very much disagree that definitions are not important (but would differentiate between clear definition and semantic arguing).
Like in Marxism how people define socialism can be a categorically opposed group of people.
Without definitions, words have no meaning and theory becomes useless. And without revolutionary theory there cannot lasting revolutionary praxis!
TL;DR: We should be clear about our goals and our enemies. Since I wanted to genuinely understand a crucial part of anarchist thought, I very much am interested in definitions.
Edit: Political economy is a science (even if a "soft"/social one) and the scientific method of analysis requires clear terms.
Of course we are also talking about Philosophy here, but even there, useful discussion cannot be had without consensus of basic definitions.