RE: The Problem With Anarchism - An Open-Minded Challenge

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The Problem With Anarchism - An Open-Minded Challenge

in anarchism •  8 years ago 

Most people when thrown into the freedom of choice, first don't know what to do with it and what it all means and what the consequences are for their own lives. Its usually starting a chain of events. Setting up your own rules, which fit positively in a bigger context, and creating consciousness for the fact. First step is often the punker's way, simple to follow no rules and wreck it all up. Its silly if it stops there. But in many cases such groups of punks develop a deep understanding of the context they are living in, where the real boundaries are and what they can do to live free and become valuable members of the sub-society they are living in. You got to live it every day, without a level of general abstraction, straight from the heart.

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I was in the punk rock scene when I was young and I observed a lot of fucked up shit happening among the people. If course the use of drugs was part of the problem. The structure that emerged, seemed as dysfunctional to me, as what I see in big society but with variations. Of course there is some punk rock codex of honor, which one might adhere to or not, but there was definitely an underlayer of the " lord of the flies" scenario. I've seen people getting beat up, and folks just standing around laughing and getting off on a weak person bleeding on the floor. It looked like animals picking on a sick member of the pack. I've also been in political groups "Anarchos against Fascism", (I'm from Germany), and I have seen the disfunctional dynamics in those groups. The people where deeply divided and fascist against each other. My last experience was a community garden; There are always some great people who do their work and give a lot to the community, and then there are the arse holes, who steal and piggy bag on others hard work. There was no unity in the garden on how to handle this, so I tried to at least catch the thiefs, who where garden members. My fellow gardeners disapproved highly and I was ridiculed and lectured. Those people actually enabled the bad behavior. Now, this was not an anarchist garden, but just to show how fast the dynamic sets in because there is no unity about how to handle things and if you act alone you get voted down. I have since retreated into doing my own thing and stay away from groups altogether. I deal with situations individually and only answer to myself. Good enough for now. People are difficult! Anarchism would require a certain set of reality to at least work out to some degree, but the world and many people are far from being that just and honorable and honest with themselves and others.

I like your last sentence in this post:
"You got to live it every day, without a level of general abstraction, straight from the heart."
That's what I try to do.

I'm from Hamburg, the scene was not my home, never been a member, but somehow well received for sarcasm, open mindedness, and the ability to party like them, I enjoyed to hang around in the vicinity early, Kaffeestube, Marktstube, Subito, Hafenstraße