Why are you an anarchist/what made you an anarchist?

Question

edited for tags

Comments

I originally was a kind of communist just because my parents are and we get along really well. One day a friend explained the difference of anarchy and anomy to me. It is not easy to hold on to what the big difference between realized communism and anarchy is so I stuck with the term that better expresses my feelings to how authority.

Answer 1

the u.s.
history, seeing how well other ideas have fared.
how i would like to live, and have other people be able to live.
trying to get to the heart of the problems i see in the world.
-or-
mommy issues.

(maybe those are all the same!)

edit to add:
BEAUTY!!! fuck!

Answer 2

Seattle 1999. Propaganda of the deed broadcast around the world, and me going, "Why are they smashing windows?" That's what it was, at least at first.

Fun question!

Answer 3

It started when I couldn't make sense of the reasons authoritarians give for various authoritarian behaviors and actions.

Answer 4

A discontent with my lack of options in the world combined with meeting the right people at the right time in my life. Plus a natural desire for conflict and habit of bucking authority. Fighting for our lives by Crimethinc. ;)

I am a little resistant to the language of being "made" an anarchist. I feel less like there was a conversion and more like I bounced around until I found anarchism, which simply felt like the world view most aligned with my intuitive understanding and desires. It gave me a language and culture to nurture what was already there.

Comments

I like to describe it in terms of having "come to anarchism."

Answer 5

This is a fun question.

I always had a tendency to ask "why," and was lucky to go to a school for three years that encouraged critical thinking and horizontal decision making (albeit it was really just lip service to the latter).

My first identification with anarchy was totally through the typical (of the early '90's) punk rock channels. I later distanced myself from the label, but came back around hesitantly as I realized that I could explain myself however I wanted, but the beliefs underpinning my actions were still anarchist.

Then I met some other anarchists. Then Seattle happened. It was all downhill from there.

Answer 6

-Years of inserting myself into various institutions(i.e school, work and family) and being rejected; insertion and rejection...over and over.
finding no place for a person like me.
-Finding new lenses to view the world from: food not bombs, DIY anarchism, getting lucky and meeting people, utopic dreaming
-questioning myself, my surroundings....not being satisfied with easy answers to difficult questions.

Comments

This I relate to. Well put.

Answer 7

I always had 'leftist' political view as long as I've been politically aware enough to have a political view and I was just on wikipedia reading any interesting articles, I was aware of the vauge concept of anarchist because I play and mostly listen to punk rock (although I try to be musically open minded) but I read the article on anarchism and it just clicked; finally the solution to all the problems I saw in our corperation controlled police-state excuse for a civilisation. Finally it seemed I understood.

Answer 8

i have a distant relative who spent many years as an elected official in the us government. this person is very smart, funny, irreverent, and has a reasonably amount of common sense.

during one discussion we were having, they actually said this (i'm paraphrasing of course):

"i was not elected to represent the people, i was elected to make the right decisions for them. most people are really too dumb to make the best decisions."

that made me question the very concepts of government and democracy, probably for the first time.  before long... viola!  yet another bisexual, biracial, biped anarchist is born.

Answer 9

Call me a consumer, but truthfully, the video game series Assassin's Creed. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. But it doesn't promote the "wild" or stereotypical anarchy people see today, rather to think for one's self and to become free and unbound individuals. No need for authority. The Assassins in this game aren't solely anarchists--they also support democracy, libertarianism, and communist ideals--to certain degrees of course. All for the fighting and defense for human free will. I spent around 5 years studying anything that related close to their philosophy and it has truly changed my life.

Comments

Woah. Upvote for shock and hilarity.

Answer 10

I called myself an anarchist when I was 13. I don't remember why. It wasn't a trendy thing.. I didn't listen to punk. It just seemed more fair and right, but I had no real analysis... no critique of private property or even capitalism. I discovered it on the internet-- there was a forum at anarchism.com or something that's gone now and I remember this guy Hogeye Bill... I recently rediscovered his website and I see that he's a so-called ancap. I read his site a lot but I can't say how much I understood back then. Here it is for nostalgia: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/index.html

Fast forward 13 years later and after a lull where I didn't identify at all, I call myself an anarchist again, in a fuller sense, after coming to Occupy Wall Street and meeting/organizing with other anarchists and seeing that it strikes at all oppression, and is unmediated, and real, and lively, and beautiful!

Comments

dude.
upvote for being the first/only one so far to mention beauty.
what was i thinking?!