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I've found the majority of anarchist identifying people where I'm from to be so painfully and paralyzingly conflict averse and avoidant to the point that they assume there's some serious problem with even having to witness real conflict between two people, let alone engage in it themselves.

It's hilarious and pathetic and obviously answers any lingering questions you might have about whether deteriorating social conditions will automatically create a bunch of badasses. Apparently the opposite is true?

So that's what anarchist conflict has mostly "looked like" to me. Scared kids being scared.

Elsewhere, I've had great success with conflict resolution! Usually with simple assertiveness, sometimes with proportionate violence and I highly recommend both! Open locked doors with your forehead. The classics are still highly effective when you stfu about your feelings for a few minutes. Time and place for all things. Learn to take the respect from those who fail to offer that which you are reasonably owed. They should offer! So if not, take it.

"the decision to be peaceful is meaningless until you can defend yourself."

Anyway, a lot of the confusion in the @ discourse seems to stem from not even parsing extremely different kinds of conflict?

Like, you working out some hurt feelings amongst friends and acquaintances is pretty fukin different from banishing somebody who deserves it and these are completely different skillsets but it all gets lumped together as "conflict".

As for "restorative justice" and all that hippy crap, I've seen it done well and I'd prefer to live and let live in 9 out of 10 cases BUUUT ...

none of that matters if you or your group lacks the basic ability to ferociously assert and defend boundaries against transgression in the first place. respect is always either given or taken. so take it! LEARN HOW