💾 Archived View for germination.systems › ~vidak › problem-of-liberalism.gemini captured on 2022-04-28 at 17:39:50. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I choose to put *this* particular question, and not, say, "what
separates liberalism and anarchism?" It is better to ask the former,
because we too often talk in abstractions. The issue I wish to raise
is, above all, intimately connected with my activist practice of
anarchism. So, I wish to argue by using demonstrations, and not by
theoretical constructions.
It is also my habit of asking myself: to whom am I addressing this
piece? The answer I have for this question today is unhappily: to
anyone who will listen, given I have very few avenues for a receptive
audience lately.
Anyway, let me begin.
The attitude of a liberal towards authority, in contradistinction to
an anarchist, is, ironically, described rather well by
A. C. Grayling's *Secular Bible*:
7. If they submit their opinion to the judgement of those who, alone,
have the right of making and repealing laws,
8. And meanwhle acts in nowise contrary to that law, they have
deserved well of the state, and has behaved as a good citizen should;
9. But, if they accuse the authorities of injustice, and stir up the
people against them,
10. Or seditiously strives to abrogate the law without their consent,
they are merely an agitator and a rebel.
*The Lawgiver*.
The anarchist knows no such requests for permission from
authorities. Liberals will go to great lengths to uphold the crimes of
authorities, to the point where they propagate lies, political spin,
and disguises of great nuance.
This is a fundamental problem of all libertarian and truly militant
organising and struggle today. So far, liberals have had the upper
hand in all struggle in the early twenty-first century. We have had
many movements taken over and dissolved.
It does not matter whether you call yourself an anarchist, a
socialist, a libertarian. You are a liberal if you (a) perpetuate
hierarchies of any sort, if you are (b) coercive in your organising
practices, and (c) you are not an anti-capitalist.
An important point to make is also not to elevate the cause of one
struggle above all others. I say this as a criticism of identity
politics. I also say this as a criticism of class
reductionism. Elevating the concerns of any section of the oppressed
above any other is to create a hierarchy: to tell one section of the
oppressed they are, in effect, not oppressed.
I will conclude by communicating a recent observation that has made me
despair: I feel as if my generation of activists do not fully
understand what it means to be anti-capitalist. This is because,
perhaps, they cannot even imagine what a world without commerce would
look like. Cynical, anti-utopian thinking.
This factors into my first thought. It is precisely cynicism and lack
of vision that leads to people opting to dismantle some hierarchies,
and not others.