Anarchy, a beautiful idea

From Propaganda of the...

I often find that when I’m trying to have conversations with other anarchists it seems that the more they think of anarchy as politics (by which I mean the practice of organizing society, it doesn’t necessarily have to be within the purview of a government, but certainly an attempt to codify relationships) the more likely they are to dismiss me and my ideas as too radical. I’m told my “solutions” don’t take problems seriously. But I am not in the business of proposing solutions. I’m in the business of trying to figure out how to be and live as though I am already a fully liberated person. For me anarchy is a beautiful idea.

If anarchy is an idea then the practicality of it isn’t really a necessary consideration. If anarchy is politics then the practicality is paramount and the concept in and of itself is secondary.

The idea of anarchy to the person for whom anarchy is a form of politics is a fine and good idea, but is not necessarily compatible with reality. That’s why we see anarchists burn out and move toward authoritarianism – inevitably they don’t think of anarchy as pragmatic enough. They look at how we are today and can’t imagine how to remove capitalism and the state and end up with anarchy. This is how there are anarchists who make videos about how their post-revolutionary jail isn’t really a jail because they’re going to call it the democratic people’s community rehabilitation trauma-informed care center or some shit.

Thinking of anarchy as an idea invites curiosity and deep introspection. For me anarchy doesn’t need to be compatible with reality, because getting as close as possible while being true to the idea is still a worthwhile project. That’s how I can become more radicalized and less dogmatic the longer I spend with anarchist theory and practice with the idea rather than the politic. Anarchy as an idea allows me to engage with anarchy when and how I can within the limits of my own reality – right now, as I live and exist as an unemployed disabled enby who exists entirely on the generosity of others in a very small very conservative very Christian very white very poor town in the middle of nowhere.

Anarchy as politics would tell me that I must organize, that I must build. Anarchy as politics says that my anarchy is a farce, I’m a vulgar lifestylist in my veganism and refusal to settle for a job that is “better than nothing.” Anarchy as politics sees anarchists in one of the thousands of other towns and municipalities and villages like mine who looks around them and finds they while they must do something they can do nothing but become a part of the machine in hopes of doing some mitigation of some harm that’s leveraged against people by the small amounts of power that are levied by these small governments in hopes that creating a better small community they can build revolutionary potential. Anything, anarchy as politics says, is better than nothing, even if that anything is government. Anarchy as politics sees anarchist theorists quit anarchy after constantly beating their head against the refusal of other anarchists to accept their leadership and move on to write theory creating systems of government that other anarchists are still somehow suggesting is anarchist in and of itself. Is social ecology better than nothing? Sure.

Anarchy as an idea allows us to examine our base assumptions and trouble at the ways that our solutions are founded on these assumptions. I am able to imagine a world without jail because I start from the idea that jail cannot exist in anarchy. If we start from that foundation then everything else is baggage we need to figure out how to deal with. Making the argument that it would be necessary for there to be a system of involuntary incarceration is founded on the idea that incarceration is necessary in the first place. Anarchy invites and obligates us to be ruthlessly critical of any so-called necessity of society when in practice it is a limitation to liberation and solidarity.

If we know that incarceration is not in the practice of liberation, if we know that incarceration is harmful not only for the incarcerated, but to the people keeping them and to the communities that they’re kept from, then how can liberation possibly come from the continuation of the practice? Is a trauma informed care center where incarceration is as humane as possible despite still being involuntary better than nothing? Sure.

In these conversations where I’m dismissed as too radical for assuming that oppression and subjugation wouldn’t exist in an anarchist society I am often told that the concessions that we must make are for the best. I am asked why I refuse to settle? Isn’t anything better than nothing? Sure.

But better than nothing isn’t anarchy.