TOTW: Death of the family

no family

An overly generous doomsday narrative is circulating in popular media: the nuclear family is on its way out. [1][2] While I’m not so optimistic, fewer people are getting married and “intentional childlessness” is a more defensible position than in previous decades.

While it’s not inherently anarchist to not have kids or to choose to remain unmarried, it opens up the topic of how we hope to relate to others and form lasting relationships without the burden of familial obligation or coercion—to put it another way, the ability to “choose our own family.”

Voluntary association, like this, opens up a variety of possibilities the traditional family form attempts to shut, though this creativity in relating to others is a difficult lived practice. Old habits die hard and it's a challenge to not bring too many seeds from the old world into the new. For example, anarchists aren’t immune from participating in petty drama, abuse, superiority complexes, hostile impatience, and the uncomfortable silence of “off limit” conversations that avoid conflict. This type of behavior may fly within a family forced to endure one another's company, but is less tolerable to a group of individualists or egoists.

What familial dynamics between anarchists would you undo with a wave of your magic wand? And what does it look like to gesture toward that change? What are the biggest impediments to anarchists developing long term, stable relationships with one another?

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i think a common dynamic is that some people get a feeling of empowerment as adults once they get to perform as an authority figure in their workplace or in their household, while those who hold job positions that are merely underlings and remain living with their parents, or with other people who are parents and are authority figures in their own jobs, don't. it's still seen as an important milestone and achievement for a lot of people to become their own boss or the boss of their household.

but what actually makes a family has more to do with time and exposure and less with choice, since you can choose to be with a set of people, but i wouldn't consider them family unless i'd already spent a significant part of my life with them. circumstance is usually the culprit of keeping people together for really long times, and even posing resistance when people choose to get out of relationships

With my magic wand I would undo the patriarchal drive in anarchists to moderate, silence, and control conversations. This authoritarian drive is very present in the traditional family structure and sadly has invaded anarchist social dynamics. I would like to think that any anarchist wishing to see anarchy in the world would first limit this drive to moderate others.

Sorry can't do, our hierarchy is based upon the familial patriarchal model. You can try whining to the lady janitor who runs our errands around here, poor wingeing minority type person that she is, sorry, but mmkay,,,,,k?

this topic to me riffs off of last week's topic--i think that the argument for gangs is a response to fucked up families/a desire for bonds that are real with people who we want to be loyal to (and get loyalty from) even or especially when we're not related, don't have that social expectation reinforcement.

i don't think we can undo any of the family dynamics, if we really want to build sustained relationships. we are all fucked up people. we have to decide to stay connected despite that, more than imagine we can find the perfect group and/or become the perfect group member.

That is what i have found, after realizing that physiologically born emotions and the relationships which grow with familiarity and connection rather than alienation within a family are our first test as individuals to gain inner-knowledge and orientate ourselves within the complex family milieu. After one gains self-awareness one can decide which members of the family one should avoid or emote towards, and possibly include them in the anarch ideas, and find out how much money and material goods they are willi g to donate towards your anarch dreams.

Also I'm a proud anarch dad. SO THERE YOU SYNDICALIST FEMINIST NAY SAYERS!

Humans who have offspring they do not consume immediately are disgusting saps on the Earth.

You presumptuous fool, I'm fattening it up for the sacrificial feast to your spooky Earth God!

It's Anarch101 dood, no authority, god, institution or other person tells an anarch who they can and cannot love. It can only be pure and unconditional!

Nobody looks at the bottom of the website anyway

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"What are the biggest impediments to anarchists developing long term, stable relationships with one another?"
Poor website maintenance. How are we expected to communicate on a broken and over moderated website? Tsk tsk.

Just because they're not allowing u to fully expaaand your asshole through hate slur-filled comments over here, or just more casual inanity doesn't mean Thecollective is over-moderating...

Perhaps you need to get a life, so your petty ego grievances can just fade away?

Btw they're also seldom removing my comments for dubious reasons. Am I cry-babying at every opportunity? No, coz I grew up and got a life at some point.

We can't hear you coz all of your cry-babying bootlicking is too distracting. Not to mention your obvious heteronormative dig. Anal play is perfectly acceptable anarch behavior,,,,, mmkay?

lol it's "hetero-normative" to say that assholes shit everywhere because reading comprehension is also shit

Who mentioned anything about shit? LOL someone certainly has a shit reading comprehension issue,,,,, it's you.

... i did. it's a joke. just read it a few more times, slowly. you'll get there sweetheart!

That is soooo true. As a veteran deletee I have hardened my resolve and express my stoic acceptance of the deletion of my sometimes spurious comments. Thankyou thecollective for teaching me humility.

I find the notion of an open Family (not like that awful Manson Family, but more like that Motherfuckers Family you had in NYC, circa the '60s) between anarchs to be way more fruitful than "gangs" as a relationship to build. Family members support each other at all costs, and it takes some very objectionable act, like sex abuse, to make this solidarity void. They also can benefit from a level of detachment from the rest of the fam, and the relation is more open to diversity... as far as we're talking of non-hereditary family relations.

The gang, on the other hand, can mean a lot of shitty herd dynamics, that are some of the factors making me stay away from these groups (another being me being a rare kind of dork, lol). Herd dynamics are very damaging and hindering to the self-fulfillment of a person, as well as the development of their individual critical thinking skills, and the articulation of their personal will. They're just not meant for grown-ups, but rather the socially-insecure.

The family, on the other hand, can become a very self-empowering relationship. I so totally dream of an anarchist Cosa Nostra kinda nightmare for the state.

Personally I'm looking for a somewhat open family, more of the secret handshake type, tho nodamic lifestyle can make it more complicated. Full cross-cultural, cross-ethnic, gender-universal and intergenerational of course. Hit me up somewhere in Europe in the coming weeks/months... I'm a big family guy! ;)

You can camp with our family. Dick pics required first. What's your insta?

I'm still at Anokchan levels of craptek, but will look into it!

Already got the invite for that big campground to happen in Hamburg. Tho I can't stand big cities these days -except more of BCN much later, maybe- so not sure... But thanks! Look some other place(s). Think the Alps bioregion... but opsec for the rest.

Follow the FERAL smell and you'll find me!

How do FERAL ones afford airfare/travel so often and passport expenses? Is it from money saved by dumpstering meals, no personal hygiene expenses, and vanlife, brah?

This would actually be a good topic. How to travel on no budget. Safe spots for anarchists. Traveling abroad without passports or papers.

Same old deals, afaik... Boat/train-hopping, "illegal" border crossings, hitching a ride or boat fare...

My crewoogle needs to travel to Eirpoe to distro some of our based zines but don't have enough money or passports. How do you do it, brah?

Really, I could fund any fam members, i.e. good-hearted anarcho brahs (term is meant to include sis and brosis), for their Eirpoetrips. Tho only if the're confirmed anarcho-brahs, and not some tiqquntards or much worse, ya know, sum deceitful internet edgelords who'd like to trap me/us in "dark corners" with their... exquisite venom.

Yeaaa. I know about it.

Tiqqun is based and tiqqunistas are just based Eirpoean anarcho-brahs. Traps are hot af.

I don't need them to get 5-star pizzas from posh restaurants for free, I just need myself. Brah. While you normies keep working and paying for everything like good chunps. Brah.

Debased!

member the tiqqunist/appelist "they're just trust fund anarchists" slight spin on classic red scare mini-scandal that only mattered to anyone who paid attention to french anarchist forest occupations?

i member!

"to anyone who paid attention to french anarchist forest occupations?"

If you knew your shit instead of posting out of your ass, Lump, you'd know that every fucking forest defense occupation of the last few years in Europe (and possibly beyond) has derived from this "French" occupation (that was btw a very international and cross-cultural event). Starting with Hambacher, and many others that followed in Germany and the UK.

i don't actually care that much, not overly preoccupied with europe cuz why should i be?

what's your point tho? you hate "tiqqunists" and think the reds are trying to "take over" too?

cuz that whole narrative has an unhinged taint to it, imo

Lumpy,

Point out two things, I must:

1. You don't need to champion every communesq thing.
2. "an unhinged taint" will never allow for a fully closed anus.

Everybody knows this.

i don't NEED to do anything here ever, this is just a house of troll snark and occasional learning

there are no needs being met here, barely even desires

> you hate "tiqqunists"

Yep. And not seeing any wrong with that.

> and think the reds are trying to "take over" too?

When have they *not* been trying to take over? The whole range of Commie strategies has always to do with recuperation and monopolozation. Quit Red-bootlicking here, m'kay?

Lumpy, Google is tracking you every time you use or recommend a YouTube link and every person that clicks that link is linked to you. Be a good comrade and at least use an invidious instance. Security culture,,,,,,brah.

*gasp* google knows about dirty mike and the boys?! mon dieu!

does "1337B0t " not know how to remove tracking from youtube links and depend on other people to do it for them?

pretty sad - maybe this bot needs to touch grass, brah

Does DrPotato think URL tracking codes are the only way Google tracks? LOL GRASS ISN"T REAL BRAAAAAHH! You're living in a simulation.

"What familial dynamics between anarchists would you undo with a wave of your magic wand?"

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Family and business structures can be weirdly similar. What’s a more horizontal family structure look like? A co-op?

"What are the biggest impediments to anarchists developing long term, stable relationships with one another?"

Poor hygiene is up there, surely. These brahs come to our bookfaires and their swampass is on another level. They breaths burn the eyes and we don't want them around. One can be a true Stirnerian anach and avoid smelling like a summer camp outhouse, brahs.

Another big one is trustfund-anarchs thinking they can slip by unnoticed amongst the poors by sewing on a few patches and crashing in our squats. These brahs glow a kilometer away.

We Stirnerian Knights shower on a daily basis. Now GTF out of MINE shower!

Work on prodiving everyone with access to showers if you think they don't shower enough, duh.

Oh you need people to provide simple things for you? How un-anarch of you. How un-Stirnerian!

So your option is... to whine online about people you don't know, based on the typical chump stereotypes you got on them

Other alternative is just: stfu, and suck it up, Kanye.

i like the symmetry of the bad faith hot takes!

are you clean? get fucked, ya trust fund poser!

don't shower much? fuck you too stinky!

^perfect trolling achieved. fight fight fight!

Line 2 ain't quite right tho. Normie moralcuck at 13:40 was literally whining and shaming some people for their poor hygiene and bodily smells. While being conformist tools they also are grossly missing the plot of how bodily smells work, lol...

Like it's a dumb received notion that unpleasant smell is related to not bathing too much. There's genetic and nutritional factors that weight more heavily in the balance, and some persons that actually bathe and launder everyday are still gonna stink, at least according to some people's noses.

"tools" should have been singular, as I was referring more to this specific poster.

"it's a dumb received notion that unpleasant smell is related to not bathing too much"

LOL. Just wash your ass and brush you teeths, brah. It's not "genetic" or "nutritional" factors,,,,, it's FECES and bacteria! Nobody can concentrate on anarchy coz you stank.

"While being conformist tools they also are grossly missing the plot of how bodily smells work, lol... Like it's a dumb received notion ..."

Mine God, the mysterious genius of the human ego to consider itself, like, intelligent when producing sentences such as these.

I can offer no further advice. Smell as nasty as you wanna, 08:28.

"Mine God, the mysterious genius of the human ego to consider itself, like, intelligent when producing sentences such as these. "

No uuu

Imagine being this ashamed of your swamp-ass you cry on an anonymous anarchist website calling someone "Kanye" because they suggested you think about your hygiene.

It's ok, Stank-brah. You do you,,,,, far over there.

I betcha didn't see enough swamp-assed crusties at your overcivilized bougie bookfairs? Lemme try to *arrange that* for the next one, then. Let's go for.... one bucket for every normie refusing us a free shower. Oh and ya better watch out for these nice tables, brah!

Cya!

The further atomization and separation of humans from the disintegration of community in modern life. Bowling alone from TV. Now an ever-growing expanse of media that keep people from real life interactions with people and also resulting from the busy life of just trying to make ends meet- work on the task at work and then doing all the chores and just being done with it. I do believe the real life connectivity could arise again when people use it more to meet people through the internet and use it to create real life interdependent relationships. I believe that could be done by inviting people through the internet to land with ecovillages for sharing land freely and meeting our needs coopeatively and more directly from the land.

The real anarcho-nihilist does not make distinctions concerning the plethora of social constructs such as family, school, office, team, orgy, squad or brawl, because death is inevitable for all of them. In a way this is a neutral centrism which approaches an idea of wildness.

^i foresee no problems with this whatsoever

a family orgy school brawl at the office with the squad team resulting in at least one death!

because wild centrism!

The term is "neutral centrism", that's because it means -- non-ideological and non-binary, which imparts a sense of unleashed (wild) creative potentialities and alternatives. Read some books dood!

Where is the new topic of week???????? You have one job people!

Anti-imperialism is a term used in a wide variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger body politic (often in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic sovereign state) or as a specific theory opposed to capitalism in Marxist–Leninist discourse, derived from Vladimir Lenin's work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. People who categorize themselves as anti-imperialists often state that they are opposed to colonialism, colonial empires, hegemony, imperialism and the territorial expansion of countries.

For this topic of the week we will discuss anarchism and anti-imperialism with the situation in Ukraine as a recent focal point to think about. What does resistance to imperialism look like, or does it look like in an anarchist context? How can we be more proactive in combating imperialism instead of constantly responding to crises?

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