Good text. In a way, “anti-authoritarians” make unprincipled criticisms of the form, not the content of authority.
Not “in a way”, that is exactly what is done.
Imagine if someone said that your central nervous system’s control over your limbs is authoritarian and therefore undesirable.
your central nervous system’s control over your limbs is authoritarian
In that case, a solution would be to remove your brain, which I can only assume these “anti-authoritarians” have already done
Engels’ “On authority” is my favorite on this subject.
damn what a brilliant username
appreciate it, comrade <3
yeah that one’s a must read
Who decides what peoples history and thoughts are correct? Supose you use the authority of the workclass to rule, some persons (the ones who study it more) will represent the historical ideas of people, as describe during the text. This representants will authority over the people who dont study politics or history, but what line determines that this representant will not sucumbe to power? Just for being opressed before doesnt mean that they will not opress further. The human being is a really instable creature, sometimes subordinated to ego and passions. A good person could sucumbe to power when she has more authority than the people at her side
The workclass is not a person itself, so, in an authoritianism context, it has to be represented by whatever number of people (that it is always less than the total of the workclass itself) considered better to do that. Who decides that - knowing that the workclass cant decide for itself, because it is not a person, and can just be represented by a group of people (even when it is the most of the workclass, it is not the workclass itself)?
The worst thing in authority is that it has to be represented. The representation weaks the good things that we could get of “authority” (when authority, for me, turns to be not the best word to describe)
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The mental gymnastics you need to do to believe being a bootlicker is revolutionary.
Anarchist proving themselves to be enemies of marxism once again.
Do you like Makhnovia? Was it anarchism in action when he conscripted the peasants into his army?
I’ll take your little movement seriously when it starts producing results. And no, “Rojava” oppressing their Assyrian and other minorities to build their ethnostate is not the vanguard of anarchism.
And no, “Rojava” oppressing their Assyrian and other minorities to build their ethnostate is not the vanguard of anarchism.
With the help of a US base, no less. Truly, the great anti-authoritarian state of our times!
Since you appear to be making a criticism of the text written there, can you show where does it defend “being a bootlicker”? Because in practice, the “anti-authoritarians” are in fact the bootlickers, only they are unaware of that. To defend a revolution is to defend a change in the authority, not the abolishment of authority, because authority will always exist in one form or another. For instance, a person who dedicates 20 years of their life in the study of a particular phenomenon usually tends to become an authority on the subject.
From the text linked, which I assume you didn’t even read apart from the title:
If you’re anti-authoritarian, consider you’ve likely only ever lived under the authority of oppressors. So your understanding of “authority” is itself tainted, and this informs your understanding of the world. But if you’re familiar with revolutionaries and history, you know that’s not the only way authority can be used; revolutionary authority has been used successfully to overthrow corrupt governments and run nations in way far more just than what we’ve experienced in the US. Authority can be used to oppress the people or it can be used to achieve goals to benefit the people.
The anarchist attack on authority is not on their modern/contemporary form, but on the concept of authority, on whatever form it gets on society. It is first a philosophical attack on the nature of authority, so then exported to a sociological plain
So you’re saying anarchists are analyzing a concept instead of paying attention to the material reality, then they expand their thought based on that idealist premise. In that case, I thoroughly agree with you.
I really think that this issue is a misconception of the word “authority”, an abism of language and the meanings of concepts. Anarchists dont desapproval authority when authority is refered in common language as hability or excellence. And it has been explicitly debated by anarquists, as you can see in God and State by Bakunin. I, as an anarquist and a political philosophy student, have extreme necessity to read comunnist books, even because they are rich and a real basis to think and analise capitalism. Marx is a genius. But as well as Kropotkin, Reclus and Goldman. Read us. The authority of nature, as well as the authority of excellence, dont share the same matter and form of the authority of state and power. We should attack anarquist thoughts in their fragil points, it is important for everyone, even for us, anarquists. But this issue of authority is already seen in basic anarquists writings. We need to read each other, to make debates more constructive. I know there is some real divergences that cannot be conciliated, and I hate (false)moralism and dont think all the people has to like the doctrines of each other. But I really would appreciate the same curiosity of each side for the doctrines of the another side. We need to study even Leviathan to understand the nature of power. This issue (of the comment) is an issue of language.
I’ve read Kropotkin. His conquest of bread was utopian to the highest degree; the overarching idea was “people will just come together when they see how good anarchism is, trust me. They just will”. It had nothing on Marx or Lenin. I’ve heard mutual aid was good and there were good things to learn in there, so maybe I’ll give it a read when my schedule frees up.
As you are a student of political philosophy, you said you’ve read Marx, but have you done the exercise of understanding marxism? The three fundamental components of dialectical materialism, the LTV (less important for philosophy students), and the class struggle, and how they relate to each other? Many people tell me they’ve read Marx, but they didn’t really go the whole way. I think one way of reading something you disagree with is pretending you agree with it, to understand what the author actually said and why.
But ideology is preceded by the material world, the material conditions people find themselves in – people don’t pick their ideology out of thin air. Marxism and marxism-leninism is the ideology of the proletariat (as it will liberate them). Anarchism has long been regarded as the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie by marxists, as it will liberate the petty bourgeois. Proudhon’s land-credit plan was to make everyone into a bourgeois (he took that up after meeting Marx, while not understanding contradictions; you cannot solve a contradiction by removing only one side of it).
But once again, I think results speak volumes. If anarchism was the vanguard of the revolution, I think many of us here would turn towards anarchism. The objective problem of anarchism in the 21st century is that it hasn’t had any success. Anarchists can’t even seem to agree what is anarchism and what isn’t, and while we have some issues doing that on the marxist side as well sometimes, I’ve seen anarchists say that any revolution that fights against authority is anarchist in nature. The Paris Commune and the Spanish Civil War were not fought entirely by anarchists, yet anarchists make it seem as though they were the driving force behind the movement.
In fact, to segue back into authority, let’s look at the Paris Commune. Marx said the communards should have marched directly to Versailles with their weapons to seize the government before the army had a chance to reassemble. Kropotkin, on the other hand, claimed the Commune was neither anarchist nor “authoritative and semi–religious communism of 1848” but actually it was anarchist because the “people” organised themselves. “The revolution of 1871 … sprang spontaneously from the midst of the mass”.
And where did that get them? Killed like we’d never seen before after three months. Marching on the French government was an authoritarian move; the people of Paris would have exacted their authority on the government, and then on the French people. Yet Kropotkin, while extolling the virtues of the commune, cleverly forgets to fit in their demise, and how the two are linked. Of course the army would march on Paris – there was no way they would let their biggest city secede. Of course they would make an example out of them – the proletariat revolting would mean the end of the bourgeoisie, as a class and as individuals. I cannot fault the Communards for not necessarily realising this (I wasn’t there, I didn’t live that context), but I can fault Kropotkin for claiming that theirs was actually the right path, because it was anarchism. And anarchism is all that is good, and declaring a “popular” revolt is good even if you die at the end, while seizing the government is bad.
So which is more authoritarian? Seizing the government so you can ensure the success of your revolution, or letting things run their course even if you know you will die at the end?
I think this article is quite relevant here, describing how “the fetish for defeat is one of the fundamental characteristics of Western Marxism”. That applies to anarchism even more.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/western-marxism-loves-purity-and-martyrdom-not-real-revolution
You’re right, authority has a vague meaning, which is why revolutionaries usually don’t spend their time dwelling over that. This is why “anti-authoritarian” is a meaningless political thought, because instead of analyzing the state based on the class interests it serves, anti-authoritarians consider all states authoritarian and end up describing existing socialist states (where workers are in power) as “authoritarian” states.
I’ve seen anarchists defend that position too many times and it’s an example of why this terrible political thought is counter-revolutionary, much like the article above presented.
People who hate on “authoritarians” while refusing to read Marx or Lenin are just useful idiots for the bourgeoisie. If you dont even know their theories then you dont deserve to talk about the topic.
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It’s tankie shit like this that drives people away from communism
Did you read the article?
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I did
What exactly are your qualms with the specific content of the article?
In addition to using goddamn Marvel movies to illustrate their point, the central point of thinking that authoritarianism is good when done by the “right people” is just same sort of justification for the oppressive authoritarianism that many communists purport to fight against. “It’s good if we do it”.
Haha using a Marvel movie is definitely a bit tacky, but as you said, it was more to illustrate their point rather than actual proving anything. Take it as an easy-to-understand supplement rather than actual historical proof, especially since they provide the latter later in the article.
Also, what do you mean when you say “do authoritarianism”? What is an authoritarian action to you? You say this word and detach it from any sort of meaning other than bad and oppressive, and then come to the conclusion that since you already think everything bad and oppressive for a specific people in one situation and moment in time is, well, bad and oppressive, then it always is. This is wrong.
The authoritarianism clearly described in the article is one used by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. It is the disciplined, planned oppression of the oppressive minority ruling class by the oppressed proletariat in order to secure their future. Frankly, I tend to agree with Paolo Friere’s take that this isn’t even oppression, but instead self-defense against the violence that created oppressed people in the first place (although it’s been a while since I read Pedagogy of the Oppressed so I may have this wrong).
Are you against the proletariat’s “oppression” of the bourgeoisie in order to secure their future? If so, you’re against real revolution.
