Do anarchists really believe anarchism?

Question

I have a lot of interest in anarchism, but I'm not yet an anarchist. Because I believe that all knowledges and ideologies are fallible. No one does not know whether anarchism can make the world a better place. Since it has never actually been realized and can't do experiment, I think anarchists only believe in a possibility that anarchism is able to change the world better.

Comments

Communists never achieved communism.  Pacifists have never achieved world peace.  Cynics have never dispelled idealism.

These ideas are labeled after a principle instead of an achieved reality. That doesn't mean that proponents of the ideas don't really believe in them.

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Can you tag this comment so it indexes with other related questions please?

(don't tag it with anarchism or anarchy or anarchists though, as that is just redundant on this site)

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i feel inclined to point out anarchy has been realized and many anarchists argue it's an ever-present reality, a state of anarchy exists when there is no authority/coercion. As has been argued millions of times before, most primitive societies did not have a form of institutional authority, for example, native american tribes had chiefs but the postion "chief" was only used for ceremonial reasons, chiefs often didn't have the power to command other people in the tribe what to do or limit their behavior...behavior can certainly be limited in an anarchist group but it's exercised in the form of custom and disapproval of certain behavior rather than law and command

Answer 1

Well,
I believe if your system or ideology forces me to do something I don't want to do, then it isn't legitimate.
Anarchism has existed before, one example is revolutionary Catalonia in Spain. A modern example is the YPG in Kurdistan.
Furthermore, individuals can practice anarchism in their every day lives.
Have to cut this short, but wanted to throw my own ideas out there.

Answer 2

A distinction some anarchists (myself included) make is between anarchy and anarchism. I agree that, as you say, knowledges and ideologies are fallible, and I am highly suspicious of visions of a better world or of the idea of anarchism as some end point. For this reason, I spend not a lot of time in the prefigurative realm, or thinking about what I want the world to be like After The Revolution. I actually think that a belief in a particular event as the pivot between this world and the ATR-world is unrealistic, utopian, and millenarian in nature,

I view my own anarchism as much more an attack on the things that prevent my experiencing anarchy in the here and now, as well as playing with ways of living and being with people that allow me some space to experience some glimmer of unmediated freedom, which is sadly all too rare in most of our day-to-day lives.

Comments

grate answer! i especially like the last paragraph. definite resonance.