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+4 votes
By abandoning, I mean leaving all association with the left and avoiding allied contact with them. Is it realistic to think we can get what we want without the left? Are we trapped and intertwined too much with the left to abandon them?
by (3.9k points)

1 Answer

+2 votes
For me, it means creating an explicit audience that feels more truth in domination being the problem rather than oppression. However, defining the two differently can be difficult. Oppression, in my opinion, is a loaded word now fully associated with the left and can not and is not able to be rescued from its loaded definitions as defined by the various leftist theories related to oppression.

Just as we have lost the ability to use socialism, communism and anarchist communism, we again lose the ability to focus on "oppression". Anarchists that want to be relevant today and not follow the coattails of the latest leftist trends would be wise to begin thinking about making explicit anarchist and ally groups based on combating the social order and its domination.

We have not answers to the masses of people and do not seek control, but we do know that the surveillance and the automation of weaponry has increased the ability for control to be more firmly established. We know that the police are militarized, that schools indoctrinate their children into accepting the system and the church's fill in the gaps of free time with institutional gatherings which encourage acceptance to the way things are. We know that the state has authorized very destructive practices on the world in order to maintain its present control on power. We know that the alternative energy solutions will not be enough to maintain the technological life support many countries have developed, which in turn has created bloated populations that can't exist without it.

To me, there are far more interesting issues than the left to be handled by anarchists. We want accomplices, but the left doesn't want to do what we want to do, though they may sympathize. We may sympathize with them, but like them, we should no longer assist them. The left is often the first place people turn to for rebellion, but perhaps we should re-examine our rebellion and our audience.

Where else do people go that rebel against the dominant cultures? That rebel against institutional life and the zombie life of home media entertainment? Should we even care about making a group anymore, even? Maybe anarchists need to act alone on things, sometimes, just to get it the way the individual wants it expressed.

But anyways, the best thing everyday anarchists should be doing, in my opinion, is focusing on explicit anarchist graffiti slogans, anti-authoritarian graffiti imagery, putting up posters and/or undermining the institutions in their daily lives in some way, whenever they can get away with it. Being able to share those experiences with others can create the kinds of cultures we want to exist in. They might be smaller than the left's cultures, but they would be ours. We can grow from here if we are away from demagogues and stay away from assigning agency beyond the groups doing the actions.

How to measure success? Success is in the experience and pleasure of the activity itself. And not just the one activity, but the many activities that combined make you an active anarchist individual. Moving into larger things requires a trust built on things like the previous activities of putting up graffiti and posters. A trust in yourself to be able to approach a location, do an action and leave without significant notice.

To me, the first fully clandestine activities are the break window, write communique. If anarchists acted as individuals that did these activities individually once a week, there could be thousands of instances of low level propaganda that is appealing to those that agree that stuff is messed up and asking the powerful for more shit isn't a game worth playing anymore.
by (3.9k points)
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