TOTW: Delusional thoughts

flying human

I’ll admit I have a flair for the dramatic. If permitted to see the inner workings of my mind, you’d catch me, one day, strolling on my private astral plane of individuality, unimpeded by the herd, empowered and enthused by notions of my own autonomy, negation, and other five dollar words. On certain other days, you couldn’t convince me I’m more than a mere product of my environment, a manufactured post-human created to serve myths and markets that run just fine without me. I believe both of these sentiments to be entirely true and entirely false facts of my life that, once tilted heavily enough toward an extreme, border on what I’d call delusional thinking. I don’t mind delusions, to be clear. In fact they’re like sweets to me. I indulge in them but grow nauseous from ingesting too many. Also like sweets, I’m often not in the mood for them and the thought of that delicious treat I enjoyed so recently makes me shudder and swear them off entirely (only to return again). I don’t wish to seek out a proper “balance” or advocate for a healthy “diet” of delusions, only to share that certain seductions wax and wane in rhythms that escape my understanding.

Now, in case you haven’t noticed, anarchists also have a flair for the dramatic. Just check the articles and comments on this site to see for yourself. Birds of a feather flock together, I suppose. They also squawk at one another and eat their young.

Even the anarchists I prefer, like my favorite gay nurse of the Civil War, contain multitudes. They bomb banks and burn down 5G towers. Their writing exudes a wonderful solipsism and enthusiasm that’s contagious. Some have no qualms with lengthy prison stints in ways I’ll never understand. Others think stealing meat from supermarkets will shut down slaughter houses.

If I’m feeling generous, I can feed on this buzzing excitement. If I’m not, I can feel quite alone, skeptical, and defeated. Excessiveness demands a lot. Sometimes I beg for a break from delusions and wish to return to some kind of relative normalcy. “Give me the blue pill,” I think if only for a passing moment. Perhaps this makes me a part-time anarchist.

Anarchy, as a concept and lived way of being, is alluring to some because of its delusion. The reminder that impossibility is possible, that moments of self-destruction and creation can displace limits imposed on us by the State, one another, and ultimately ourselves can appear as a freedom as well as a crushing burden. What's the difference, anyway? “It’s what you make of it,” as the saying goes.

How do you indulge in your delusions for anarchy? Do you fly close to the sun without regard for your melting wings? Or look up only at the moon from the ground? Perhaps your feet have never left the dirt. When do delusions serve to empower you and when do they only serve to twist your stomach in knots? Do you regularly flip-flop like I do, or ride a more neutral wave of rebellion?

Leave your dramatic take below!

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There are 40 Comments

It would be delusional to dismiss anarchy as a delusion. Anarchy is one of the four propositions of political realism.
Its dynamics are baked-in reality and can be seen all the way from the micro to the macro level.
To fail to account for anarchy is to fail to account for a great part of how things are, how they behave and interact.
To recognize your agency, and that of other actors of varying intelligence, rationale, and motivations, is to account for anarchy.

Even statists are required to face this reality in order to engage with it and to be effective.
It's nations and states which are fictions and delusions. They are myths built up to serve those who wish to wield great power over many, those who wish to govern and to wage politics and war by all means necessary.

An anarchist as a utopian socialist is delusional. An anarchist who merely recognizes the game of politics for what it is, and refuses to be someone else's dupe, as well as refusing to dupe others, is not delusional, but merely is someone who has adopted a somewhat exotic ethics, or is guided mainly by somewhat uncommon desires. The degree of intelligence with which a given individual maneuvers in the amoral political playing field may be evaluated, but to be incompetent (specially willfully incompetent, unruly, obstreperous), does not necessarily imply delusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relations)

States are "delusions" sure, but nations not so much. Or can you argue otherwise?

The claim that there are groups of people with a cohesive cultural identity based on birth/location just isnt true.

For instance, the difference within a country between the culture of terminally online anarchists and the culture of ultranationalists in that country is often going to be more than the difference between the culture of ultranationalists in neighbouring similar countries.

Source: I made it up.

I mean we would still have regional identities in premodern times as far as I know. Don't even hunter-gatherer tribes have some sort of identity?

Among many tribal groups, the “group identity” is more closely related to kin than more modern national-like ideas (based on ethnicity, law, language, common values or territory). The broader national identity in many parts of the world has emerged only within the last few centuries.

Neither are collective identities universal to every person within these assigned groups. Different people within these kin based groups will have different relationships to group identities because people are individuals. For instance, one person within a tribe might have a stronger tribal identity, while another person within the same tribe might have a stronger identity with respect to a broader national body.

But even the collective identities of kin-based groups are social identity based constructs and not materially real any more than race or gender are. There is no need to idolise a social construct just because some hunter gather groups have it.

Further readings
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-101841#_i4
https://www.academia.edu/40353321

Listen, they all had spooks, which ultimately construct identity types. Even the hunter/gatherer would have had the Alpha male macho masculine warriot type.

Anarchism is not a lived way of being. It is a political commitment to smash the military rule of the state, to decentralize its bureaucratic apparatus, and to emancipate humans and animals from exploitation and extraction.

Those who believe you can live anarchism alongside capitalism are reformists. One of them war just elected president of Argentina.

There's decentralization of bureaucracies, there is just the fighting against bureaucracies, or compromising with them. Bureaucracies only share power when that means allegiance to centralized external authorities (your municipality, academic admin, NGO, nonprofits, government civil bodies. etc), where decentralization becomes in itself the delusion.

Also "smashing the military rule of the state"... okay, sure, maybe. But what happens with the soft power? Also good luck "smashing" the US military without at least the help of foreign superpowers, lol.

Soft power is fake. It only exists in periods of prosperity. The question of how to break the armed forces is daunting and scary even. It's required for anarchists to think about if they believe in destroying the state. Luckily there is a lot of history and reflections on these attempts. Sadly most of is not read by anarchists

No but really, what is *not* fake when it comes to any power? The clothes of the monarch? The national flags? The regime's propaganda? The money that comes with all of it? Society is nothing but reified fake. The very place you walk/sit/drive/bike onto is very likely a constructed stage that is as fake as any other stage play... just with real consequences.

Yep, getting beaten or murdered by authoritarian thugs ain't fake. Just like burning their houses and bombing their cars... nuking their cuntry.. slaughtering their families. Look at Burma... they thought they'd have it easy crushing the opposition but now their regime, as violent and brutal as one can be, is facing several insurgent factions and they'll be at best having a long civil war that sends the country to shit. Who wins? Only the external war profiteers, who aren't those using the hard power, just selling it. This is where soft power takes value. In order to ensure the lasting dominance of a regime they need public institutions, and buy out the opposition with carrots. And yes, carrots are real. As real as the stick.

Counterinsurgency is FAR from being just about repression. The earlier you realize that the sooner you start winning.

IMPORTANT QUESTION: How do you have soft power without state and capital sanctioned media. At that point it would just be people sharing things or ideas they like.

I think I feel a similar thing to what's being described here, but instead of delusions, I would call them feelings. Often I feel powerless and sad that I am not heroic in the face of the status quo, but rather just like anyone else. I often don't feel excitement about anything. Though pessimism tints the world a certain way, shifting perspective from glass-half full, to glass half-empty sort to speak, I still think it's a valid perspective and not deluded. The ability to take some distance from feelings and look at things in a cold an detached way may give one another perspective, same as with trying to look at things from another person's shoes: perhaps someone more eager, skilled, stronger, bold, and daring. If some days you feel up, and some days you feel down, don't beat on yourself by calling yourself deluded. I think even entertaining fantasy and daydreaming to a certain extent is very sane, and some may even say sanity and reality is overrated.

Anarchism is not an ideology or a lifestyle choice for me. It is a way of describing a kind of integration between what is commonly divided into the philosophical, political, and personal. That is only possible because becoming an anarchist is a lot like becoming an atheist. I grew up in a strict religious bubble, and losing my religion was like “waking up” from an illusion. Hence the word “disillusionment”.

The illusion that there are hierarchies that function as necessary evils to some other ends is the real delusion.

That's a pretty esoteric definition, but one that's valuable somehow.

Anarchy pertains to a power dynamic, or relationship... that is without archy, principality, governance. Anything beyond is whatever your mind want it do, just like how ancoms define anarchy as another form of socialism, or a philosophy.

Archism is the delusion, not anarchism, indeed. As anarchy is the natural order of beings, as in "nature" (i.e. non-civilized spaces, not dominated by human domestication and controls).

For PERSISTING, ESTABLISHED authorities to stay in place, tho... they will always be needing delusions to justify their monopoly. Religion, nationalism, ideology, futuristic pipedreams of progress are their usual formulas.

As for the delusion used within tribal orders brought by other comments, of course they are a thing, duh. Read Levi-Strauss and Marcel Mauss. There are instances of articulated statues or totems with mechanisms used to animate idols and hence create the make-belief of living deities. Idol-worship is the typical trademark of all authoritarian places of power. Gimme gimme a temple without representations of imagined beings... or imagined communities.

This reminds me of this short column by Sean Swain titled "On the Hierarch Delusion, Abolition, and the Future"
https://anarchistnews.org/content/hierarch-delusion-abolition-and-future

'Fewer and fewer people seem to be suffering from the hierarch delusion these days. I say “delusion” because hierarchy is a diagnosable mental illness. The delusion of hierarchy is dependent upon a number of irrational and illogical premises– all provably and observably false.

To be a hierarch is to say that we are better off with the few ruling the many rather than everyone ruling themselves. The argument goes, people are messy and cannot be trusted to self-rule. This is obviously and observably irrational, to suggest that we are better off under the rule of a privileged few “messy people” who have inordinate power concentrated in their hands, as if the concentration of power in the hands of a few “messy people” will somehow make them less messy rather than more corrupt. This is clearly a delusion, as proven by eight thousand years of hierarchy never working as advertised.

To be a hierarch is to also say that we are better off with government, that without government we will experience violence and upheaval, chaos and death. This is obviously and observably irrational to suggest that we are better off under the rule of a privileged few with nukes and air craft carriers and attack helicopters– a privileged few who do not know our names, let alone what our needs are –and we will somehow experience less violence, upheaval, chaos and death. This is clearly a delusion, as the Fraternal Order of Police have murdered more people than all of the other gangs in the United States combined; as continuous wars and upheaval and chaos continue to escalate everywhere– school shootings, pandemics, terrorism, war, road rage, suicide, toxicity of the ecosystem, famine, inflation, and all forms of disaster looming on every horizon. This belief that we are “better off” is clearly a delusion, as proven by eight thousand years of hierarchy never working as advertised.

It appears fewer and fewer people are suffering this hierarch delusion each day. It used to be that everyone accepted that we “need government,” and that capitalism “rewards hard work and merit,” and that our system of justice isn’t perfect but “it’s the best one we’ve got.”

Nobody accepts any of that now. Some people go along in self interest, motivated by practicalities like food rewards, but nobody buys the sales pitch anymore.

Our collective mental health is improving. The hierarch delusion is losing power over us. Millions quit their jobs, simply opting out of the pharaoh’s stone-dragging exercise. Millions more stopped paying rent. An epidemic of flash robberies plagues corporate chainstores like biblical locusts. Hundreds of supply ships linger off the coast with millions and millions of products that require unloading, and nobody gives a shit.

[...]

They have gone from delusional to disillusioned. Their passive withdrawal from hierarchy, while not active opposition, leaves the existing system far more hollow, vulnerable and unstable."

delusion:

"I am an anarchic/good/smart/honest person. I know whats best for other people.

Uh oh! People are now starting to see that there are flaws in my analysis, and that my activism is hypocritical. They are just_______(insert insults here). I'm a victim, its okay for me to act like this."

you're also describing all attempts to influence the world in any way, by anyone, ever.

which doesn't include how lots more people don't even notice the effect they have on others.

so you've selected for the slightly more thoughtful ones, which is... good?

yeah, like what do you prefer? a guy whose delusion is "i can avoid being authoritarian" and tries that, or a guy that thinks "i can conquer the world" and then tries to do that

latter sounds good! especially if you try to recognize the authoritarianism, whatever you mean by that, and avoid it

Yeah ok I agree. I think we're just talking past each other here...

anon's loaded response, that these kinds of things IMO are best not seen as some sort of mutually exclusive dualism.

I have nothing against you conquering the world...or avoiding "being an authoritarian". I personally think anarchism is kinda paradoxical from the get go, because it's authorities wanting to get rid of authorities.

... the issue isn't with anarchy/ism, problem exists between keyboard and chair

and use the labels they assign to others as smokescreens...are "thoughtful"? That's what it looks. My comment on people in general obviously doesn't apply to every radical or activist.

As far as "influencing the world", I could easily come up with a laundry list of problems with choosing to try and do that. The biggest problem is that existing it self also means "influencing the world".

If I can't be critical of others in light of "the path to hell is often paved with good intentions", then there's really no sense in talking at all, as people regularly do not tell the truth in terms of describing themselves, or even something more simple (like what they want).

so now you've talked yourself out of the purpose of talking? that's too bad!

was started by you fundamentally mis-understanding comments. It might seem funny for you to try and get other people to be hard on themselves because of the things you say, but it's pretty typical cult/maoist type of stuff.

how do you "fundamentally mis-understand" i'm doing this on purpose after watching me over time?

it's not a lack of comprehension ... the OP was not breaking new theoretical ground

stupid troll gibberish is as do and deserves the company it attracts

and responded with this, because in your initial comment you did conflate using insults with being thoughtful:

"and use the labels they assign to others as smokescreens...are "thoughtful"? That's what it looks. My comment on people in general obviously doesn't apply to every radical or activist.

As far as "influencing the world", I could easily come up with a laundry list of problems with choosing to try and do that. The biggest problem is that existing it self also means "influencing the world".

If I can't be critical of others in light of "the path to hell is often paved with good intentions", then there's really no sense in talking at all, as people regularly do not tell the truth in terms of describing themselves, or even something more simple (like what they want)."

and somehow this was your take away:

"so now you've talked yourself out of the purpose of talking? that's too bad!"

That looks a lot more like bad faith trolling rather than "being thoughtful". No lumpy, I was still criticizing hypocrites and your weird posts just the same. I was not talking myself into not talking, that makes absolutely no sense.

....as people regularly do not tell the truth in terms of describing themselves, or even something more simple (like what they want)."

Seems like I really struck a nerve with this one! I thought this was pretty obvious, considering that i have actually talked to people before. Maybe it also applies to you.

yes, it's bad faith trolling. you finally caught up. congrats!

I don't like you. i didn't like what your initial post implied, i think your assumptions are wrong and deserve mockery.

clear now? good!

I AM AN ANARCHO-LANDLORD THAT OWNS MULTIPLE PROPERTIES IN ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST AREAS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND OWN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND ANARCHIST TECH INFRASTRUCTURE THAT I USE TO SILENCE ANARCHISTS FROM COMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER THEY SAY THINGS THAT I DISAPPROVE OF OR ARE MEAN TO MY SECRET AUTHORITARIAN PASSIONS!

Being a landlord and calling yourself an anarchist is certainly delusional as is enforcing standards of acceptability on what can and can not be expressed. Good points, anon.

I think one delusion of many anarchists is the idea that it is desirable to be "unimpeded by the herd", where "herd" just means "other people". Because really, I don't know about you, but I rarely encounter a herd but I do encounter people in their ones and twos.

Top 5 anarchist delusions...caught on camera

5. Federationism

Thinking that the entire world can become anarchist under a scheme of a federation of federations, and that this governing structure is itself anarchist.

4. Legalism

That their ideas should be legal and tolerated by the governments they oppose.

3. Civic virtue

That neighborhood assemblies, town hall meetings, municipalism, and communalism constitute forms of anarchy.

2. Utilitarianism

That the goal of anarchy is to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered. In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.

1. Revolution and insurrection

That moments of mass revolt constitute the central aspect of anarchism or its utmost expression. Or worse, that it's only during or after one of these moments of mass revolt that anarchy as an end state can be achieved.

Yeah, no... None of these attributes got to do with anarchy or even anarchism. Especially not for 2, 3 and 4. You're referring to ancom and ansoc here... who are hardly more anarchistic than ancaps at this point.

And, hey! Let's play this game this way as well! Get 5 attributes of ancaps then just apply it to "anarchists", idiot!

... do you even realize you're doing historical revisionism for dumbasses right now?

most anarchist thought literally comes from the leftist tradition, whether you like it or not.

You are seriously an idiot if you think this. If you think anarchist communism is no more anarchist than ancaps I have no words. You are exactly what is wrong with our movement and anarchists like you are a sad joke.

I like this topic of the week!

One intriguing book I read that I still haven’t integrated into my habitual way of thinking about things is Ludwig Binswanger’s “Dream and Existence”:

“Swiss psychiatrist Binswanger's 1930 essay "Dream and Existence" is paired with Foucault's first published work, "Dream, Imagination, and Existence" (1954), a lengthy introduction to Binswanger's pioneering essay in existential psychiatry. Originally published in Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, v.XIX, no.1, 1985. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR”

( here’s one place you can read it: https://archive.org/details/dreamexistence0000fouc )

What’s interesting to me about it is this idea that Foucault talks about in his long introductory essay that dreaming consciousness precedes waking consciousness, that dreaming is something like consciousness without the restraints of the body and its usual world. At least that’s what I think he’s saying. It’s also a claim that doesn’t immediately feel true to me for a number of reasons. But when I entertain the idea, it offers a perspective on waking life, knowledge, truth, and delusion that positions such things as secondary to a more fundamental structure of consciousness. In other words, if dreaming precedes reality, delusion precedes truth.

In Husserl, we find a similar idea: objectivity is a special form of subjectivity. I think that’s in Husserl! This is also …interesting.

Taking these ideas together, maybe delusional anarchy appropriately precedes realistic anarchy. Plenty of anarchists have said as much; that first we must imagine, dream, desire. I’ve seen plenty of early-Crimethinc bashing for espousing such things. But on this one, I’m on early-Crimethinc’s side. This is also the side of the Surrealists and the Situationists. Of course, it’s also the side of many existentialists. If existence precedes essence, then this means that Being precedes Knowledge… and that means being realistic and constructing accurate maps of the world upon which our plans are plotted is inevitably a constricted mode of thinking. The knowing subject, the serious man with his spirit of seriousness are basically inauthentic modes of being-in-the-world. Simone de Beauvoir does an excellent job taking such people to task in the Ethics of Ambiguity.

Just as Husserl didn’t reject science, but wanted to develop an ontology that examined what it is that makes science possible …all sciences… the above doesn’t mean I think we should reject realistic plans. However, it does mean that we should be aware of the basic artificiality and limitations of being realistic. The speciality of being realistic can become its own nightmare… one that Bakunin warned socialists about when it came to Marx and his technocratic tendencies. It’s probably best to be realistic only as much as we need to be. The reality principle is quite discontenting, at least.

By crafting a comment and entering the discourse we subject ourselves to peer review. Objective truth is apprehended through the struggle to survive and associate with our fellows. We can occupy the space of the comment section in free association and express our opinions and respond to the thoughts of others. What can we agree on? At least we can agree to disagree but first of all we must be free.

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