Capturing Anarchy

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Capturing Anarchy Anonymous 25-02-26 13:49:28 No.6351

Assuming a definition of anarchy as a state of being where there are no vertical hierarchies between individuals, it's safe to presume that it's quite a common occurrence in daily life. We look for anarchy, and try to create those moments in our lives and the people and relations around us. This is not denying the overall superimposed political hierarchy inherent in the state and government, and you could argue for that reason no "anarchy" may happen inside a state.
Beyond being oddly reductive of anarchy can be, I believe anarchy between people and in certain spaces can occur, albeit temporarily or unsustainably. Moments like people meeting someone new at a bar, kids playing, friends talking, parties, queer events, and so on. All these places and situations have the potential to be in anarchy, but of course not every single instance of those occurrences IS anarchy. The overarching social dynamics of age, maturity, condescending speech and whatnot would invalidate this "state of anarchy".
For as difficult as it may seem, it would seem rather interesting for someone to capture these brief moments of "anarchy" in life. People do it unintentionally everyday, but something focused with that in mind seems like it could yield some more interesting results. Thoughts?

Glownonymous 03-06-26 11:27:09 No.6394

>>6351
>a state of being where there are no vertical hierarchies between individuals, it's safe to presume that it's quite a common occurrence in daily life.
I don't think it is. There are really no individuals and slowly individuality is collapsing or an illusion. If there are no individuals, they can't be organized into a hierarchy or non-hierarchy one way or the other. Individualism enables domination because only when people become individual objects is it possible to control and manage them in a bureaucratic way.

>people meeting someone new at a bar, kids playing, friends talking, parties, queer events, and so on
In all of these situations, there are inevitable asymmetries and power imbalances. When kids play, there are dominant kids, more senior kids etc. bars, parties, "queer events" (whatever this means, I mean is a party of queer people really that different from heteros? Doubt it) all have their social dynamics where there's acceptable and unacceptable behavior, people who are more authoritative than others, things you can and cannot say, insiders and outsiders etc. To change this, you'd have to encourage people to live anarchy, but I don't think that's really doable.

It seems to me that anarchists are too liberal. They see humans as atomized individuals who should be free to contract social relations with each other, but in a way that avoids hierarchy. In many ways, this is liberal thinking and also impossible to implement.

On the other hand, the idea that you can create your own spaces insulated from state and capital, a kind of counter public, has been done successfully, but mostly by religious groups e.g. Muslim Brotherhood, Mennonites, Amish etc. They can do so because their grassroots organizations are built around a moral tradition all of their members share. Basically, they have a belief system that they themselves have authority over which allows them to reject and resist wider society. I'm not sure anarchists could do this because their own morality is paper thin and many oppose morality outright.