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Fantasies can be completely disconnected from any practice. Which is the issue I see in a lot of this continental philosophy fixation, and also the fixation on projected imaginary anarchy, such as what they do in anarchist theater projects, anarchist fiction, and simply collective living room discussions about "how would it be after the collapse", or "what would be our dream anarchist world".

But fantasies can also be something something entirely... something that is on the contrary extraordinarily productive and creative. Take Christianity for instance. No matter how you disagree with the Church and the Jesus freaks, they have achieved incredible things since the 5th century. Monasteries have created the public schools, pushed for literacy and have evolved into the first town-factories. Also compare the Virginia colony to Portsmouth, for instance. The first one, while being a lucrative business, was a unstable, disorganized, violent project which relied fundamentally on slavery and mass-murder of natives. The latter -while also having its hands stained with native blood, being run by religious fanatics and having imported witch hunts to NA- was known for having been a frugal community with strong morals and cohesion, and was based on food farming and primitive industry which quickly ended up developing diversified markets that other colonies relied upon. The Christians, when a well-structured community, were undefeatable and could overcome anything. They were ant colonies. In the lower Alps they created stone towns right off mountain slopes, and they built some of the richest architectural wonders just to be filled with void.

That was all due to a kind of fantasy which, instead of discarding or escaping the reality of practices and real-life constraints, transcended and consecrated those towards the spiritual realm. The religious belief system gave almost every act of the daily life a spiritual meaning connected to a greater design. You weren't just gardening for feeding, and you just did't have babies because you felt like it; it a central part of a lifestyle commanded by the Lord himself. You were beating your children to chastize the impure demonic infuences. It was a godly fucking mandate, and it gave you a purpose, that shown you where's the north and south, no matter how it was delusional. A whole society, which I'd call the pre-oil social order, had grown out of this, and it was an unstoppable machine. The British Empire -beyond question the most powerful empire at the times- tried to thwart and control it, and they failed. Protestant fanaticism (a.k.a. puritanism) was just too damn powerful, and it allowed for limitless self-sustained communities.

So the problem ain't with fantasies, but their quality, and how they connect with our lives. Lecturing the "masses" for directing their actions is something that *works*. It did work and nobody here can deny it. Castro's sermons for a while were driving millions of Left-leaning proles worldwide. There was also a time, not long ago, when ancom fantasies were driving a lot of people... yet they lack connection with the daily constraints. You wanna fight the Capitalists? Cool, then what about your landlord? Or how about going to eat with Comrades after a protest at a diner that's capitalizing on gentrification? More importantly... what practices can you sanctify as truly revolutionary in FnBs and picketing and even (more recently) filling potholes?

The closest we've seen coming from the Left is with the green religion, of people being sermoned by local green preachers on how they can wash their asses, wash their clothes, build tiny houses (lol) for the Planet. But the green religion doesn't have welfare programs for all those who work double time for the planet, they only have the politician's promise of a cleaner, greener future with a "stable" climate.

There is a specific purpose in every religious practice, with its set of goals and morals which drive organizing, where organizing is the product of a discipline necessary to reach those ideals. But in the case of liberals and some aspects of radicals, it's just plainly *lacking*. There's either (1) this huge void, opened between you and the perceived ideal (Revolution, or whatever), or it is instead at the outer reaches of a set of practices, where the ideal should be hanging (practices/rituals leading to ???... as seen in Occupy). On one hand there is the blurry goal of "anti-austerity", but where is your plan to bring about social equity, beyond supporting a dumb party that's never gonna be elected?

Ritualism has been too long studied outside of its specific purposes for the people who practiced it. Feyerabend has tried to de-compartmentalize it, by presenting ritualism and mythology as a system of production of living conditions, even a form of science of the living.

So all this to say... I think the question is which fantasies that exist, or those we can create, that can show a path to people for organizing themselves. The problem lies partly in the poverty and detachment of our fantasies from the real world, and how they can serve the purpose of free-living.