I don't think I was ever not radicalized. But I've been disillusioned a lot over the years.
I reject the notion that I am "radical".
We're primitive talking chimps conducting a parasitic unplanned terraform of our home planet; the only place designed for our existence in the known universe, that has supported life for hundreds of millions of years, and we are killing it all in the blink of an eye due to our tribal ignorance, greed, and selfishness. That isn't just "radical". It is psychotic. It is mentally-ill. It is a planetary crime. We are a joke; just a complete fucking clown show.
a species that is parasitic in one set of circumstances might be useful under another set of circumstances.
One of Us One of Us One of Us
just embrace the clown shit show, you get a free hat 🤡
noses cost extra with a mandatory sub of course
Living next to russia.
I don't know that it would be a single thing.
Star Trek always seemed the right way for the future to be (yes the writers involved things sometimes that made it not fit, I'm going off concept here) - no one hungry, merit based on the pursuit of knowledge that all are given an opportunity for, etc.
When I was a teenager and the internet was a 'new thing', it seemed like the start. Linux was new and even usable - a direct attack on the corporations that seemed to be strangling innovation and progress.
I was in HS when Columbine happened. My friends mom was a counselor that was recommended and brought in. She obviously didn't share their experiences with us, but I saw the news, I saw the pain she felt after grieving with students and families, and recognized the combination of fear and gratitude when she just needed comfort after. I also saw the absolute complete lack of anything meaningful being done that wasn't directly from those getting involved.
I had thought everyone saw Reduce-Reuse-Recycle as the path forward. I saw concept cars with solar panels and charge station concepts, along with windmills and geothermal and hydro power and all kinds of ideas around energy that would lead us away from the idea of just burning things to create energy from incredibly limited resources. I saw CFCs get banned and thought the world was on the right track, and yet corporations (and the politicians they owned) would then start to push coal and oil and gas and more destructive means of getting access to these fundamentally unnecessary resources. It only has gotten worse from there.
I saw people getting motivated by grassroots campaigns, only to see those campaigns actually being funded and run by the worst sort of people, using marketing tricks to twist people away from their initial motivations.
I saw progress in acceptance, understanding, and a visible movement away from bigotry and hate, only to see it continue in the worst ways possible.
So I guess what radicalized me - and I'm not sure if thats even the right word, because to me it should be a commonly accepted view - was seeing small groups of people ruin everything that was working towards a better future for their own greed and hate, and with each passing year seemingly undoing years of prior progress for the sake of a meaningless and completely unnecessary profit for those who already had way too much, taking from those with way too little.
Lots of things, but the biggest ones were the hardships I've faced due to my identity and the current political climate.
Existing
Robert Evans
Nice try, CIA /s
Jordan Peterson pointing out that the average person produces seven times more resources than they consume, along with the continued failings of the liberal establishment.
The numbers he used are bad (he divided the US GDP by the average salary) but the general ratio isn't completely off, and the implications for the 99% are immediately obvious to anyone that isn't a brain damaged cryptofascist.
For me it was climate change. We are quickly heading towards the collapse of civilization and unless there's radical change, there will be mass death
I saw on the one hand,
I saw on the other hand,
I could go on. All of this stuff had built up for years. The specific turning point was probably meeting an actual anarchist in person, hearing him describe direct action and mutual aid, and going, "Hey that sounds almost the same as what I've been thinking about for a while now."
Media IPs I loved repeatedly get wrecked by the companies that own them for the sake of easy profit.
They can't even get the BREAD or CIRCUSES correct. Like jfc. Truly mind boggling.
When I was in primary school a homeless man froze next to a dumpster. It never made sense to me. Years later I started to understand why it made no sense to me and that our society can de better.
Life
I read Civil Disobedience by Thoreau in I think third or fourth grade? (Yes I was that much of a nerd in third or fourth grade 😆. It was in our class textbook and I was bored by whatever we were supposed to be reading.) I drifted around online individualist and lolbertarian essays in grammar school until I read Kropotkin's Mutual Aid in high school.
I've had several events in my life, the lives of my social circle, and predominantly national and international news that have reinvigorated my anarchism, but I was privileged enough to be able to learn about these things before they actually happened to me. E.g. I supported police abolition before I ever got harassed by a cop.
HIV/AIDS
Poverty
Sprinkle in some disappointment in your peers for being part of the problem, like those parroting the fatcat taboo against discussing salaries 🤦♀️
Why discusss salaries, when they should be educated to know that they aren't getting the dividends they made that week.
Honestly, I don't consider myself radical. I'm definitely frustrated with the world, but I'm not into tribalism -- I don't do -ist's & -ism's. I try to focus and talk about specific mechanisms, and my frustration largely derives from the world's refusal to address those real issues. The us-them tribalism is a self sabotaging distraction.
Like, here's something that will upset a lot of people: Cops and Anarchists have a lot of overlap. Neither are monolithic groups - both have bad actors that cause problems. Both have large portions who want to protect their communities. Both are willing to due so with violence. Both have a strange fixation on "bad-ass"-ery and skulls. Both have large groups of people they don't trust (the "feds" or the "criminals"), which as groups are kinda a social fictions (individuals are just individuals). Both justify their ideology by appealing to theory (legal theory or anarchist theory). Both think they're smarter than the other, but both have well read members and complete morons. Both have a tendency to ignore both the law and theory in favor of the practical.
I'm sure that's an upsetting comparison for some people, but I don't think it does us any good to fight about whether and to what extent it's true. It's far more productive to use that comparison to build bridges, make peace, and cooperate on specific mechanisms that will make the world a better place. For example police want legitimacy and a lot of anarchists don't think the current voting system gives legitimacy, both should thus want to move to ranked voting with lottery options, recall mechanisms, and randomized districting. Almost everyone wants free speech, but doesn't want money in politics. We should agree on taxing both political advertising and donations at insane rates and using those funds for publicly funded elections. Most people want the cheaper services that come from cheaper housing if not the cheaper housing itself, so it should be easy to make laws mandating a fraction of dirt cheap condos be made in proportion to new large houses -- that'd fix a big part of the the affordability crisis.
I don't really believe it's about who's in control because most the policies I just listed are things that could be implemented at the local level for essentially free and would dramatically improve the lives of people in that area, but I've not heard of anywhere even close to those policies. As far as I can tell most people will fight like cats and dogs for every scrap of power, but don't actually know what to do with it once they have it (even if they are well intentioned).
Police and anarchist have different relationships with violence. Police centralize violence on behalf of rulers against workers. Anarchists decentralize violence on behalf of the community against rulers. I'm opposed to making bridges with rulers and those that do violence on their behalf.
The aim of anarchy is no rulers. Without rulers the community guesses at six inches. The community discusses six inches while respecting individual autonomy. Somehow the topic of ice cream flavors is discussed. Consensus is built that vanilla is one of the flavors. Six inches is a matter that can wait for the next discussion.
That may seem ridiculous, but it was fun to write. Anarchy is communal and individual. Humans work together in the absence of the threat of violence and a ruler dictating their lives.
No rulers, but common units of measure are acceptable. Metric is base 10, like fingers, so that is neat. Imperial isn't base 10, unlike fingers, but six inches can still measure something. We can build cool things without getting whipped as long as we communicate details like unit of measure used along the way.
Stop getting whipped by rulers and the police doing violence on their behalf even if they insist it is only six inches.
Neither are monolithic groups
Cops are universally, by means of their position as enforcers of the bourgeois social order, monsters, hence why ACAB stands for "all cops are bastards". There literally is no good cop. They are an evil monolith. Obviously anarchists are against the bourgeois social order. Of course there are monsters who identify as anarchists, but these are people in conflict with the anarchist project. By contrast, monsters within the police are aligned with the intended monstrousness of their system.
Enos Strate, monolith of evil.^/s^
While systems and institutions have an extremely strong effect on society, projecting the perceived net-effect of an institution onto the intent of every individual participating in that institution is absurd, and your implied true version alignment isn't any better. Who get's to say what the true version or goal of institution is? Setting aside the net-effect questions from questionable evidence of what society would look like without some variation of these institutions, people are unique inherently multifaceted individuals. They have their own intentions that rarely aligns perfectly with the institutions they cooperate with. While I certainly understand taking issue with some or many specific actions cops are known to take, the idea that they're all constantly possessed by the specter of the policing institution is just silly. The idea that there is some more true evil version is laughable. Don't let the specter of your own ideology possess you and convince you of such nonsense - don't be an anarchist spook.
I urge you to step back from tribalism and ideology and view people as individuals, even if you find their flaws glaring acknowledge they have their own deeply complex lives. You don't have to forgive their actions, but focus on what's useful. Rather than letting your self be possessed by ideology and fixating on the flaws and cracks of the ideologies that sometimes possess them, focus on what you have in common and how you can use that to build parallel communities, systems, and institutions that will make a better world. What's the point in generating conflict and driving people away? Will starting fights with cops help you make the world a better place? On a practical level, what good does it do to conjure opposing ideological specters? Surely it's better to work together where you can and steer clear where you can't?
Perhaps there are instances where it's appropriate to demonize someone for a specific action they've taken, but do it consciously as targeted tactic to remove especially egregious and obvious threats, never as blanket ideology.
While systems and institutions have an extremely strong effect on society, projecting the perceived net-effect of an institution onto the intent of every individual participating in that institution is absurd, and your implied true version alignment isn't any better.
I don't have to project anything onto anyone. Cops and their "unions" speak their intentions all the time, and it's always vile.
I urge you to step back from tribalism and ideology and view people as individuals, even if you find their flaws glaring acknowledge they have their own deeply complex lives.
I'm not being tribalist, e.g. I acknowledge the possibility that individual police officers can do decent things outside their police jobs, and even that police officers can change for the better (by quitting their jobs and working to undo the harm they've done). I'm being, openly and assertively, collectivist in my analysis of police. Policing is a collective institution. It's not just a bunch of shitty individuals running around being assholes (although it certainly includes a lot of that.) It's their net effect, their superadditivity in the space of "doing the legwork for the bourgeoisie", that makes collective analysis work here.
What's the point in generating conflict and driving people away?
Safety. Police are dangerous individuals and need to be deradicalized before being allowed in safe spaces.
Will starting fights with cops help you make the world a better place?
Yes unironically, we need to fight them like they are an occupying military, because that's what they are.
On a practical level, what good does it do to conjure opposing ideological specters?
It's not just ideological, as cops are mostly too ignorant to internalize a complete ideology. If by "ideological spectres" you mean "lines in the sand", then yeah I actually do think it sometimes helps to draw lines in the sand, in particular to separate ourselves from dangerous people, like police.
Surely it's better to work together where you can and steer clear where you can't?
We literally cannot work together with police on a single issue. We are diametrically opposed. And even if ideologically we found common ground (which we won't, but just for the sake of argument), police are dangerous to be around.
Perhaps there are instances where it's appropriate to demonize someone for a specific action they've taken,
For example, joining a policing organization
but do it consciously as targeted tactic to remove especially egregious and obvious threats, never as blanket ideology.
That's what we're doing, but you reject our perspective for some reason.
Please, I beg you, read at least the first few chapters of Our Enemies in Blue by Kristian Williams when you get the chance. Policing is such a vile institution and I seriously doubt you would be writing like this if you understood its history.
Yeah, no, this is at best, a misrepresentation of both, the anarchists' beliefs, and the police's function.
The idea of anarchy is that NO authority should exist. No legitimacy can ever justify power over your fellow humans' lives, nothing can EVER legitimize a politician's power to harm. And politicians, among other things, have undeniable power to harm.
The function of police, in all real measurements, is to protect ownership. That's all they do.
You said that there are many policemen who are in the force, in order to protect their communities. By all scientific measures, policing fails miserably in every single metric on that. They don't reduce or prevent crime at all. Their only function when not corrupt, is to move in after, and remove the freedom, and later ownership (capital) of the offending party. A process, proven to not reduce crime or protect people, and occasionally shown to aggravate it.
I understand your "Both Sides" argument sounds appealing, and, on some level, in my soul, I deeply wish it was true. Many leftists do.
But unfortunately, I think you don't really understand what either side is really standing for, yet.
The purpose of police is to control the working class. It is why they were created. There is no such thing as a good cop.
Last time I checked, anarchists do not shoot dogs for fun.
Not sure really. It's been a slow progression for me from dead centre on the political compass over into anarcho-socialist territory.
That said, my taste for punk rock, the feeling of betrayal over my government's stance on trans rights, and hearing about the shit that world governments get away with without repurcussion definititely helped.
The Kenan Institute for Ethics podcast from Duke University season 5, The Repair, and season 7, Capitalism.
These weren't near the beginning for me, nor the end, but packaged a lot of what I'd gathered over the years nicely. No matter where anyone ends up in their journey, I think these are great places to start. The bare minimum foundational changes of what I think we should be collectively striving towards.
If radical is wanting things like democracy in the workplace and putting a clear end to capitalism and the profit motive.
Decades of the subtle (and often not so subtle) pressures of capitalism constantly making me increasingly miserable until I got mad enough about it to try and educate myself and once I had a framework for the world I very quickly got very annoyed with it. Did make me less miserable though in it's own weird way.
It is a question that i love to ask. Thanks for your answer.
Since i challenged myself to use as must as open-source software as possible, i am mad at the quality and potential that is found in foss versus proprietary. I hate ads, subscription, login in so my info can be sold, so that i can be called 4/5 time a day to sell me stupid crap.
I wanted to see what kind of software was in use in Minneapolis during the resistance against ice, the only in-depth account of such niche info i could access was crimetheinc (anarchist website)
I looked around, they have a podcast called the ex-worker. Quite funny to listen to that while commuting to work.
At work (IT), i could literally increase the productivty of at least myself by a 100 in a secure way if able to. (ansible, key based security, etc) But no, workload keep increasing, no ability to organise my work, forced to do the stupidest stuff ever cause, because. And all the time, i am responsible if anything happen. Both expert and inexperienced grunt. Verbal,moral abuse as well. Yeah burnout before 30. 100% work related, certified fresh.
Funny enough, i became the ex-worker.
The thing that helped me was of course a supportive as hell significant other, doctor, psychologist and friends that lived,live or will be in the same situation as me... Lots of them, it is quite scary, across lots of fields.
And "stories of monk and robot" of becky chamber. While not explicitly anarchist, it does fit the bill very well and describe a futur worth fighting for.
I already was snooping around leftist media. That helped with though like "i abandoned my colleagues", "i do not want to be a charge of society","i am a manly man, i will return asap" That serves no purpose except being more exploitable and slow down recovery.
OFC stuff like climate change, surveillance state, books, violence, every time a politician is in trouble the tv talk about immigration or burkini saying dumber and dumber shit, feminism, sexism, homophobia, mazan trials, activist répression, billionaires.
Nothing is "normal" or "always has been the case". Be critical of the movement and each other, reflect and growth together. All power to all the people.
I had a great macroeconomics professor who brought the government statistics data to class each week and explained the implications of the numbers. I left class mad at the government each day, and it carried from there
The murder of Mike Brown. RIP
I didn't leave normal.
Normal had already left me.
Leaving me rendered a radical.
Radically in favour of [me, and ideally, each and all] saving, freeing, provisioning each and all, so we can go on exploring space, both inner and outer, together, forever, in peace.
Every NewNormal(TM), moved the "normal" goalposts further from this simple principle of the best for each and all.
Now it seems radical to suggest catching up to our lost couple centuries, provisioning each and all with free energy, and all the other suppressed emancipatory technologies as much as they want.
Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.
Other anarchist comms
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
