I am an anarchist pessimist, and a pessimist anarchist.
For the sake of simple discussion in layman's terms. colloquial language:
Pessimism: A feeling that good things are unlikely to happen, and that bad things are likely to happen.
Anarchism: Being against "arche" (governing etc), stemming from a feeling and an analysis that authority/oppressive hierarchies and social orders suck and makes the world suck.
Anarchist Pessimism: The world sucks because of "arche". Bad things have happened, will continue to happen, because of "arche", and good things will be few and far between, and fewer, unlikely, and unlikelier. Good things being anarchy.
Pessimist Anarchism: Anarchists can't stop the world or everyday life from sucking from "arche". The world as it is, with its inhabitants as they are, disfavors anarchy. Anarchy can be lived everyday in spite of this, as a lived tension, as lived contradictions, as a mix of few small victories, many compromises, and many defeats.
What follows? Let me know in replies below.
Now, what doesn't follow:
-Therefore, I am not an anarchist.
-Therefore, "arche" is good, actually, and I love it now, and the world doesn't suck anymore.
-That one is either an optimist, or a pessimist, and that it's fixed, and that there's nothing in between.
An anarchist and a pessimist doesn't stop being either; it doesn't stop being one, because of the other. Both categories are not mutually exclusive, nor is it required to one, because of the other. Most people, including pessimists, aren't anarchists. There are no good sources to determine an approximate percentage of anarchists who consider themselves optimists, or pessimists.
Yet, in cheap rhetoric, some people complain about nihilism, conflating it with defeatism, and with doomerism. Philosophically, historically, practically, factually, anecdotally, and rhetorically, that's unfair to nihilists. I will not bat for them here. But coming to bat for pessimists, I will say that pessimism does not equal defeatism. Everyone knows there good sports and bad sports, good losers and bad/sore losers. One can persevere and not give up, even while not thinking one will win. One can enjoy being the underdog, without being deluded that the odds are in one's favor.
At this point, are there any optimist anarchists/anarchist optimists? Who are they? Were there ever any? Who were they? Is optimism synonymous with naivety, or is equating such an affect or temperament, or any, to an inherent lack, unjust?
There are many bad anarchist 101 arguments, like those about human nature being predisposed to good, or to anarchism, that are low-hanging fruit not worth the time to use as strawman piñatas.
What does a steelmanning of an optimist anarchist/anarchist optimist perspective look like? Are there any writers who are intellectually honest and rigorous that write from this standpoint?
What would an optimist anarchist/anarchist optimist even be?
For the sake of simple discussion in layman's terms. colloquial language:
Optimism: A feeling that good things are likely to happen, and that bad things are unlikely to happen? Or that good outweighs the bad? Or that one should focus on the good, rather than the bad? Or that good wins out in the end?
Anarchism: Being against "arche" (governing etc), stemming from a feeling and an analysis that authority/oppressive hierarchies and social orders suck and makes the world suck.
Anarchist Optimism: The world is great(?), or not all that bad(?) despite of "arche". Bad things have happened, will continue to happen, because of "arche", yet good things will also continue to happen, are very likely, and will become likelier. Good things being anarchy.
Optimist Anarchism: Anarchists can stop the world and/or everyday life from sucking from "arche". It can even get to be pretty good. The world as it is, with its inhabitants as they are, favors anarchy. Anarchy can be lived everyday because of this.
Rather than claim one or the other is virtuous, instead, I'd like to understand both worldviews, and for people with these two differing worldviews to understand each other, and to mutually accept and recognize each other as fellow anarchists, and be grateful for their existence.
Comments
This is just nihilist…
anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/20/2026 - 23:21
This is just nihilist-anarchism with less poignant and lowkey worse rhetoric.
Not at all. You can be an…
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/21/2026 - 15:20
In reply to This is just nihilist… by anonymous (not verified)
Not at all. You can be an optimistic nihilist, or a pessimistic nihilist (often annoyingly conflated with active and passive nihilists). Are you doing that annoying type of conflation with nihilism and pessimism?
A pessimistic anarchist may still hold on to morals, or hold on to other spooks nihilists allege to have overcome. Being pessimistic is an affect that need not be mobilized into a rhetoric.
Everybody has a level of…
a cat (not verified) Fri, 01/23/2026 - 12:08
In reply to Not at all. You can be an… by anonymous (not verified)
Everybody has a level of morality, duh. The attempt of erasing it makes one alienated from their own feelings, an important aspect of their human lived existence.
Children are nihilistic by default, yet they tend to have a well-grounded morality, valuing friendship, fun, mutual aid (I hate this over-used term but it's the best way to call it in English) and caring for other beings.
That scene in Enter the Dragon with the baddie testing that Budget 007 character with a cat stuck in a torture device is a clear reference.
Morals are human... so why not defining and asserting them, as long as they are grounded in real-life, instead of spooks and socially-induced paranoia?
This is holding on to the…
Le Way II: Wra… (not verified) Sat, 01/31/2026 - 05:56
In reply to Not at all. You can be an… by anonymous (not verified)
This is holding on to the spook of thinking that words innately have determinate meanings and not realizing that the semantic fields of 'nihilism' and 'pessimism' often overlap, especially in anarchist theory (i.e. nihilist-communism, BITF, et caetera.)
The ideas discussed in the OP have been dealt with more thoroughly and more elegantly by nihilist-anarchists even if they did not deploy the term 'pessimism'.
i'm both on different days…
anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/22/2026 - 17:40
i'm both on different days. heck i'm both on the same day
fellow champ!
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 03:54
Okay, when I got to the end of your post, I saw that I didn't need to say a lot of what I wrote here; but I'm going to keep it up, anyway! Not wanting to edit any more!
Anyway,
I think you limit yourself too much with your europeon (?) centric assumption-beliefs! Like "either/or".?? No bridging between? It's like you're thinking-outloud/process is a kind of wearing these terms, or something. Trying to figure out which ONE (and only one) you Believe, in your head, you "MUST" wear,, fer cryin' out loud!
So Why not wear 'em BOTH?, for different occassions? And THEN find that ther's lotz more possibilities! I.e. that the Europeon imagination entraps one into deadening reductions!
Optimistic anarchs, hmm. Well, as I see it, anarchist ideals may not "prevail" in our lifetimes, but there are always future lifetimes! And maybe you need to PREPARE for those? (And, who knows, something might suddenly change!)
My own methodology inspires me towards seeing things spiritually. Out in the REAL woodz, re-wilding to extents, escaping tents, anti-mosquito stuff, all the Beliefs planted in our heads about the woodz! You get into that in a deep-enough way, and stuff like that can happen to people, where they start to recognize paradigms beyond City-centric(k) imagination! (I'm not talking about religion, I'm seeing a distinction between "gnosis", apparently, and these confines in religions!)
Question:
WHEN is "Most People"????
Again, Sounds like you buy into (?) or got hypnotized by The Propaganda System's Illusions, too much. ANOTHER reason to go out into the wild Unknowns, and CHALLENGE yourself, and move thru the Fear planted in you (underlying these spoken uncertainties, it seems to me)! Anyway, that worked for me.
Others go to some organization like the peyote church, the rainbow gathering, or something like that. And that helps them open their minds more. Or maybe you pedal a bike-powered boat across the ocean. Or SOMETHING that ROCKS YOUR WORLD!
Get it? But you've got to Bust Yourself OUT of your self-limiting Beliefs!)
Also it helps NOT to get stuck in the ol' "Us vs Them" thing.
If you radically empathize with how soldiers get hoodwinked into "just doing their jobs", and you out-flank The Program planted in your own and others' heads, you start to see openings that didn't SEEM to be there when you could only look thru ideological (?) lenses.
This approach has proven surprisingly open-ended, for me, in the last 30 years! The worst I've gotten is psy-op stupidity of diverse stripes. But I'm not stuck in the Misery they Want me to React with! And I'm not getting stuck in hating on these tools!
Hell, I started off obtuse to the bone! Dumb-assified to the max! You feel me?
This "busting out" has shown me that there ARE openings, even now; but it depends on "how deep is your love" of the promise of anarchist ideals. If it's only dystopian, then you're missing something crucial, I think. Depends, crucially, on how CREATIVE people dare.
Or do you "Lack The Nerve" to explore beyond the deadening?? Assuming assuming assuming, and driving your spirit into the ground!??
(Or perhaps seeking to Justify "maturing" and escape To the "More Realistic"??)
(If you have the privilege, why try to ONLY rigidly stick with one way?? You have an ability, it is not Bad, categorically; the gift within the difficulty is you can hold onto your ideals while doing what you think you need!)(You don't "need" to spank yourself for not adhering into an overwhelm!)
Look, psy-op tools lay into me regularly (I'm pretty 'out'), with threats and such, but I don't let their Misery tool me! I've certainly "reeled" a few times, but I don't get stuck in it!!
They believe they Need me to Be Stuck in their "Misery Loves Company", but I somehow see the traps (and sometimes my spirituality takes over), and I somehow navigate around them, so far! Including over 20 years of living on the edges and getting harrassed by cops so often that I got pretty good at "dealing" with them! (Using my "rights" as a tact, since cops are still, I figure, taking an oath to protect the constitution! THIS is what non-ideology looks like, for me! I don't spank myself for not being a fundamentalist!!)
Sure, sometimes they outmanuver me, scare me with their fierce Misery, sending me reeling. The price of caring about people in general, I suppose. (In my reeling, I see my care, wishing that my fellow humans could be less lost!)
So in this seeing, we "own" such and learn from such! "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger"! (and if you feel there's an afterlife, passing on can be only another form of strengthening!)
As for optimist anarchists? How about the Clandestine Clown Posse? Or Max Stirner from the AJODA perspective? Or the zine "Shit Happy"?
On 'authority'; not all authority, in my view is categorically 'Bad' as you seem to imply.
There's 'natural authority' for instance. As in what Harold Barclay said in his book 'People Without Government' I think it was; where someone who, say, knows how to build a treehouse, helps someone looking for such. And becomes "an authority" on it. Get it?
But generally I think I get what you mean about these systems "sucking". Well, I happen to see them as SYMPTOMS. Symptoms of what happens when Only "One Way of Doing Things" blocks all other possibilities out! Making the Believers of those Ways into slaves stuck in Misery! (As in "Misery Loves Company")
In the reality of many realities, HOW we see what we see affects the QUALITY of our reality!
So WHY BUY INTO the Left/Right meta-game of PERPETUATING such lostness???? Maybe try putting yourself in the place of these Lost tools of Miserycraft from time to time (especially if you are in "the Belly of the Beast")! By a twist of fate, EACH OF US COULD have been FOOLED into such traps, if you think about it!!
Sure, SOMETIMES the programming in me pushes me to "want" to React insanely. And yet, mixing the two -what we know in our hearts is sane and insane- has its values, but doing only one, I think, misses the gift behind the facade of these Misery-stuck Naive Trusters of Freedumb!)
You said:
'and for people with these two differing worldviews to understand each other, and to mutually accept and recognize each other as fellow anarchists, and be grateful for their existence.'
==
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the kind response…
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 16:07
In reply to fellow champ! by anonymous (not verified)
Thanks for the kind response. It helps me wrap my head around a more optimistic anarchist worldview. Lots of valid sensible points giving me lots to think about.
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