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Title: Growing Up
Author: John Jacobi
Date: 22 November 2014
Language: en
Topics: anarchism, anarchist, anti-civilization
Source: Retrieved on 22 November 2014 from [[https://medium.com/@jf_jac/growing-up-ea38d36e2080]]

John Jacobi

Growing Up

While most of the anarchist movement consists of fairly young people, I

have the privilege of living in a town with many older anarchists. By

“older” I mean people in their 30s, but also people in their 40s and 50s

(or at least approaching their 50s).

This has been a great benefit to me. I am young, so lots of ideas and

experiences that are commonplace to older anarchists in my town are

still novel to me, and when I encounter them, my responses are often

predictable. When I encountered Ted Kaczynski’s writings, I suddenly

called everything and everyone “leftist.” When I learned of the ELF, I

thought this was the only model of resistance that anyone should

consider. As I learned about theFederazione Anarchica Informale, the

Conspiracy Cells of Fire, Individualidades Tendiendo a lo Salvaje (now

Reaccion Salvaje), and other anti-tech terror groups, I—again,

predictably—began to think that the only way this industrial machine

will fall is if people make direct attacks on infrastructure (which, I

should mention, is not a position I hold any longer).

Living in the age of the internet has made some of these phases rather

embarrassing and permanent. Like every other young activist, I went

through a quick period where I was enraged with a few different things

and decided to take it out on a specific label. In my case the label was

“anarchist.” Given I was particularly frustrated and publishing on the

internet is just so simple—it almost beckons you—I posted “Why I am

leaving anarchism.” To be fair, I still have qualms with the things that

I noted in the essay, and I don’t always refer to myself as an

anarchist, since it usually does steer the conversation in a direction I

just don’t want it to go. But there are still tell-tale signs of a young

activist growing up: rebellion against something abstract, talks of

starting a “totally new movement,” things like that.

But no matter how predictable my viewpoints are, no matter how colored

they are by inexperience, the older anarchists have always been

supportive and offered guidance in a non-intrusive way. It’s not like

this in all places. I know this from what others have told me, from some

of my interactions with anarchists in other towns, and from general

anarchist gatherings like the yearly bookfair. Some people are intent on

burning down the aspirations of the young, dismissing their ideas as

naive immediately and then leaving them jaded—at 17, 18, 19, 20! What

kind of resistance these anarchists think they are inspiring is unknown

to me.

They do not, I think, do this intentionally. This world is harsh, and

the development of industry has so far been uncompromising. These

activists are the ones who sat for months, sometimes years, in a forest,

growing close to it, caring for it, loving it—only to see it left in

tatters after being clearcut. No one can be blamed for looking at death

of that magnitude and then acquiring a sort of threatening “I dare you

to say something hopeful” nihilism.

I’ve always thought that resistance is spearheaded by young people so

often because of their proliclivity to run into a wall of daggers. I

still think this is mostly true, although I suspect now that resistance

is not, in fact, spearheaded by the young, but by the older generation

that has learned how to inspire an appreciation for the beating drums of

struggle, the poetry, the songs. This is the base that allows the more

reckless components of resistance to exist.

And the beautiful thing about the artistic components of resistance is

that you can still appreciate them as a nihilist. One need not believe

that the forest will be saved to believe that it should be and to sing

songs about its beauty.

Given that the anarchist, primitivist, and eco-defense movements have

been around long enough to catch the nihilistic fever, this appreciation

for stories and art is, perhaps, the thing that will allow it to

continue to grow. When we young people make mistakes—or even just offer

a kooky idea that hasn’t been tried yet—a response that reinforces the

values these ideas are coming from will sustain the fight for freedom

much better than a response that cuts down the idea itself. Who knows?

The kooky idea might just work.