even as an anarchist, the word "anarchy" nearly always brings up bad feelings thanks to social conditioning
anarchy is always shown as rioting, looting, everything violent under the sun. it's nearly always equated in mainstream media with the means anarchists use to peel back capitalism, rather than what anarchy actually is
capitalism and hierarchy sure have conditioned us extensively to believe that we require both to survive. but if they didn't, we'd have realised en masse that there are better options by now. conditioning us to believe they're the only option, is the only way they remain in place.
it'd be nice if different ideologies were actually talked about thoroughly in school. or if teachers at least taught us about how capitalism works.
even fascism is rarely talked about except in specific contexts. learning about "what not to do" is often very helpful, but we only know fascism as "hey there were nazis in that one war" which is really dangerous considering...what is happening now.
@noiob yeah, but in north america we don't even get much of that really.
@ctrlaltdog It's almost as if catching kids early with only one possible system was the whole point.
@h @ctrlaltdog I think one of the most confusing/terrifying aspects of anarchy is that it is a negative definition, it is the absence of -archy.
But what does that mean? What does that look like?
For most people, anarchists included, there is not a clear answer to these questions and I've experienced that fear of the unknown is one of the most powerful fears.
That's why I focus on #ubi #ud #lvt #coop #commons #platformCoop #sharing #p2p instead of anarchy. Less scary = better message transfer.
@douginamug @ctrlaltdog IDK, I have read what you said twice and I still can't glean anything that has to do with cryptocurrencies.
@h @ctrlaltdog I'm a bit confused... was I meant to have said something about cryptocurrencies?
@douginamug @ctrlaltdog Sorry, I was reading a different thread. My mistake.
@douginamug @h getting rid of hierarchies. establishing a system of community involvement. giving every single person as much power to speak, bring ideas to the table, and shape the way their community works, as any other person in the country/on the planet. and giving the choice for people to decide what community they want to live in, as easily as switching instances or creating your own on mastodon.
i think it's pretty easy to explain anarchy
@h @douginamug i feel like the majority of the population needs to get over their fear of words and actually try to understand what they mean before assuming that because a word gives them a bad feeling, the concept underneath is bad.
coming up with more words to describe something, waters down the initial idea, and makes everything all the more inaccessible and confusing to everyone. it also makes it difficult to see who agrees with you and who doesn't know what you're talking about.
@douginamug @h for instance, my partners and i can't really tell what the heck democratic socialists seem to want. some of them are actually anarcho-communists that use the word socialism to avoid legal troubles or negative public opinion, still insisting that a socialist revolution is the means while communism is the goal.
on the other hand, we've got demsoc folks that want only socialism, still hate commies. that's...not how that works though...
@h @douginamug it becomes really hard to tell what exactly a person is trying to say, or what their end goals are, if you keep discarding/updating words to skirt public prejudice, instead of keeping the initial terminology and insisting the general public should get over their prejudice. it's hard work, but in the end you'll have a more solid movement than if you create 10 different movements where nobody knows what they actually believe or hope to achieve
@ctrlaltdog @douginamug I agree people should stop using Newspeak and they should all become people who look at the root cause and the root meaning of things.
Compulsory, mandated by anarchist decree :-)
@h @douginamug "newspeak" isn't the problem in every area of life, but when it comes to ideology, i personally feel it's important to use the root words if you can
@ctrlaltdog @douginamug When people don't understand their own condition and they are led to act against their best interest, I posit that Newspeak is central, and taking back command of language an enterprise of the outmost importance.
@h @ctrlaltdog I respectfully have another view. I think words are a subjective, consensus game. I'm happy to use new ones, reclaim old ones or use the common ones to achieve my ends. That's another reason I point to things more than ideologies: I can show people what I mean and they can directly experience them if they want to.
I'm agnostic regarding method and willing to try whatever works 😁
@douginamug @ctrlaltdog That's the very definition of opportunism, to not believe firmly in anything but choose whatever appears to work at any given time, to change the meaning of things when they suit your convenience, and it's okay if you like it and things work well that way for you.
It's okay to agree to fundamentally disagree and not interact again on that basis as well.
@h @ctrlaltdog I gather you have a lower opinion of me based on my last toot. I want to clarify my position:
I have firm beliefs, for example coop-commons.
I'm happy to describe coop-commons in one way to person A and another way to person B since they are individual people with their experiences and lexicons.
I'm not saying language is unimportant, in fact the opposite. I am saying language is subjective, not objective.
Does that change anything for you?
@douginamug @ctrlaltdog Oh rest assured that I don't form a belief and I don't judge a person based on one toot alone. That would be odious, of course.
And that makes more sense, to adapt stories to the culture or biases of other people so that they can make sense of new ideas by relating them to their own experiences.
@h @ctrlaltdog Cool :)
I've managed to make some people quite angry in the past due to my belief in the subjectivity of language :(
But that is my position based on my experience on this world and reinforced by what I know of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. Popper writes this nice thing that words are tools: they work if they work, they don't work if they don't work and they useless if simply used to maintain each other.
@douginamug @ctrlaltdog I think Karl Popper has said other things that are more interesting, intelligent, fundamental, and less prone to misunderstandings.
Think of it, kind of funny that this particular approach has caused you so much trouble, no?
@h Oh I would agree that he said more important things, but actually I think this point is pretty important.
I've sat through a lot of group discussion about linguistics/semantics which typically go on for so long because some people think their word is 'right'.
It hasn't caused me too much much trouble 😉 And even when it does I'm happy to go through it, just like I'd be happy to combat sexism every time it comes up.
(p.s. I don't know if you're still interested in this chat @ctrlaltdog ?)
@ctrlaltdog Teachers walk a slippery slope when talking about things like this. Some parents are adamant that we teach nothing that could interfere with what their version of reality is.
I worked in a very "conservative" school when you-know-who was elected. It was understood that we didn't talk about it being a bad thing because it was unpatriotic. Because we are under contract, we have to toe the line or else they can make our lives miserable. I left as soon as my contract was up.
@ctrlaltdog in Germany we actually learnt about some Nazi dogwhistles and recruitment tactics, I mean that's the least they could do