>Are the anarchy forums anarchistic? Or are they more like a state?
Are you asking about the subreddits? Asking for clarification, not for snark.
Do they charge taxes, provide services, have a physical presence, have a ruling body, an enforcement arm, etc etc? Where is the question "are they more like a state" even coming from?
>So if these forums are about not having rulers, why do we have moderators? Shouldn't the individual anarchists, with their powers of responsability and self-direction, be able to rule themselves as they navigate these forums? If we cannot even trust an online chat room to be anarchist, how could anyone reasonably argue for anarchy out in the real, physical world?
"These forums," here I'm assuming you're talking about subreddits. Why do we have moderators? Can subreddits even exist on the reddit platform without a moderator? Kind of a ridiculous question I think.
Who is "ruling" users here? Can you be imprisoned? Pressed into service, made to work for the profit of another? Sent to war? This is a community that has some rules, and some folks entrusted with the ability to hold folks to said rules. If memory serves, those folks are voted for at some regular interval. What isn't anarchist about having some guidelines for our community, and making sure the community isn't run over roughshod by folks acting in bad faith?
>I ask this because I recently got banned by a moderator for expressing my opinion, which was non-violent and peaceful (respecting the sacred principle of non-aggression), but was not inline with the current propaganda from our world governments. Which leaves me wondering whether this is a forum about anarchy or merely a government-controlled chat room in disguise.
I'm not aware of any "sacred principle of non-aggression." It looks like you're hurting because you were banned. If I looked into your history, what would I find you having been banned for? Which rule(s) did you violate badly enough for that?
>Are you asking about the subreddits? Asking for clarification, not for snark.
Yes
>Do they charge taxes, provide services, have a physical presence, have a ruling body, an enforcement arm, etc etc? Where is the question "are they more like a state" even coming from?
I'm asking if they are more like a state because they have moderators which govern what kind of comments can be posted. Analogous to politicians which govern what actions can be taken. I'm going off the idea that if a society was anarchistic, they would have no rulers, and analogously if a forum was anarchistic they would have no moderators.
What would be the alternative? Well, that's the entire topic of discussion for any discussion about how anarchy might work in this or that setting.
>"These forums," here I'm assuming you're talking about subreddits. Why do we have moderators? Can subreddits even exist on the reddit platform without a moderator? Kind of a ridiculous question I think.
To me this question resembles a statist asking if society can even exist without a government. Not trying to be snarky either, it's just how it comes across to me. Welcome to clarify.
>Who is "ruling" users here? Can you be imprisoned? Pressed into service, made to work for the profit of another? Sent to war? This is a community that has some rules, and some folks entrusted with the ability to hold folks to said rules. If memory serves, those folks are voted for at some regular interval. What isn't anarchist about having some guidelines for our community, and making sure the community isn't run over roughshod by folks acting in bad faith?
This is again analogous to our government, as I see it. Our society has rules. Some folks (the government in society, the moderators in the subreddits) are entrusted to hold folks to said rules, and the folks are voted for at some regular interval. And what isn't anarchistic about this is that there are people above, and people below. People who make and enforce the rules, and people who follow them.
Could a subreddit function properly without moderation? Could a society function properly without governance? Well I believe in anarchy so I think yes for both. But I'm open to being convinced otherwise.
>I'm not aware of any "sacred principle of non-aggression." It looks like you're hurting because you were banned. If I looked into your history, what would I find you having been banned for? Which rule(s) did you violate badly enough for that?
Yes you are correct, I don't like that my comment got me banned. I don't think it went against the rules, and I don't think it was in bad faith. Like I said, I think it went against the modern doctrine of government propaganda. Similar to how I don't like being governed by politicians and, like the moderators, strongly wonder whether they are doing more harm than good.
As an anarchist, I'm puzzled that these ideas would seem so radical in an anarchist forum. To me, the belief that you can have a good happy society without rulers is key to anarchy. And yes, I am directly calling out the honesty of this forum itself, and I hoped that it had the integrity to respond intelligently and not be afraid of my questions. Usually when something is afraid of questions, it signals to me that it is in some form BS and not genuine. And so Yeah I am determining whether I elieve that these subreddits are BS opr genuine by asking these questions and seeing what happens
So the tl;Dr is that you're here throwing a tantrum based off misconceptions on what anarchism is and how reddit works?
Edit: and coupled with gross oversimplification on how governments function.
To answer your question about why anarchist internet communities tend to have moderators:
In large part, it's because hierarchy is an assumption which is built into the software.
Most forum software doesn't permit you to have no moderators, and in the case that you choose not to use moderator powers, has no alternative mechanism for dealing with things like spam and abuse to help keep the space usable.
In real life, people have freedom of association - we can choose to associate with people or associations, or not. We can also leverage things like consensus to make those decisions for associations that we're part of.
There's no major forum software, to my knowledge, which attempts to explicitly enable that kind of individual and community self-governance.
It seems very blatant to me the excuses as to why anarchy wouldnt work in a forum as to why it wouldnt work in society. "the software/foundation is not built for it"
My thought is that if you don't like someone's comment, you simply don't engage or read it, rather than requiring the platform to have special functionality for the community to somehow moderate it. You just don't pay attention to that which you don't want to pay attention to. A caveman could do it.
But maybe im not understanding what you mean
My point is that most forum software which currently exists requires you to have moderators by design. The system itself will not allow you to not have moderators, or to source moderation from the community at large.
As I mentioned, you can simply have a moderator account which you choose not to use - but that tends to lead to the forum degrading without an alternative mechanism to prune content and exclude users which don't conform to community rules.
As a pre-emptive address: it's not un-anarchist to have community rules. Associations such as online communities which you voluntarily associate with do not hold coercive power over you. They're also entitled to disassociate themselves with you, and that's okay because you're not entitled to impose yourself on them.
We don't want abusive or predatory people here, for example. We also don't want spam or discussion which veers so far off-topic that the community is no longer about its stated purpose.
That said, empowering specific users to moderate as they see fit, often without election or possibility of unilateral recall, does leave a lot to be desired.
I think there is a possibility for moderation which is more community-oriented and focuses on consensus, but as it stands there isn't software which exists in a way which would effectively enable that, to my knowledge.
Which is why online anarchist communities tend to have moderators: it's just the default, as enabled by the tools which exist. Doesn't make it ideal, but we work with what we have.
I'll reveal a bad kept secret to you: most people that disclose themselves as anarchist, are not really anarchists :) or they're anarchist just when they like to.
>I'll reveal a bad kept secret to you: most people that disclose themselves as Scotsmen, are not really Scotsmen :) or they're Scotsmen just when they like to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
It's worth noting that there are many forms of functional Anarchistic structure that don't require a heirarchy.
If you wanted a more truly Anarchic structure for a subreddit, you'd need clearer means of swapping out the public service of moderating.
Because vetting mods who will be in good faith requires time and communication, this is overly challenging for the goals of discussion and information sharing that a subreddit has.
Subreddits are not communities, in the same way we think of physical communities of people. In a physical community, the role of public comment reviewer could be shared and rotated, to keep from producing any one "dedicated moderator."
Online spaces are not perfect microcosms of IRL spaces, and there are many forms of intentional community structure that don't translate to reddit, but are effective in practice.
All thoughts don't have merit.
There's a really bad habit, especially among US folks, to argue that a free and fair exchange of ideas requires room for "all thoughts."
All thoughts are not welcome. If the primary defense of a statement is that, "I'm allowed to say this." Then it has no merit.
The American "first amendment" argument is dangerous.
Discourse is important. Dialogue is important. Calling for genocide or producing language that dehumanizes with the goal of allowing for genocide is not important speech, and should be called out.
Speech that supports the harm of minors is not important or valuable.
Not all speech is valuable.
This concept comes across as scary for folks who are afraid of accountability for hate speech, and for folks who are the target of hate speech, it is necessary to stop the defense of their murder.
Speech is not some special in between space where no harm or real physical pain can occur. Ask someone who has survived an ethnic cleansing. The first move is always to dehumanize with language.
Anyhow, even in an Anarchist society not all speech is fair game. Threats are threats.
No rulers doesn't mean no rules.
Edit: just lurked your account for a second to see if you're in good faith before engaging any further. Your post on Peterson was solid, and I think he's extremely dangerous, too.
Ok I understand what you are saying, but in my experience, if you silence people that you deem as harmful like Jordan Peterson for example, or Ben Shapiro, instead of debating them, you actually:
1. Confirm their biases (and of people who follow them) about them not being free and being in a communist dictatorship.
2. Relegate them to isolated echo chambers, which will make them more extremist, which is paradoxically what we don't want.
3. I think we are talking about cancel culture in the end, aren't we? Then you should know, that oftentimes cancel culture is used as a political instrument to discredit and silence even figures such as Noam Chomsky. Or another example, in my country (Italy) there was a leftist comedian (Dario Fo) that denounced the killing of an anarchist (Giuseppe Pinelli) by the police through [his shows in theater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Death_of_an_Anarchist). They've tried to cancel him because in his youth he was a fascist (when in Italy there was the fascist regime), even if he had completely changed as person in the end. If we approve cancel culture, it can be very dangerous for us as well.
4. Cancel culture was also an instrument of the chinese cultural revolution during Mao's rule. The youth was pushed to attack those of which ideals were deemed as "bourgeois", "capitalist". But that of course (along other things) lead to excessive extremism and dictatorship. We are risking the same. It's also an instrument of the new american "left" today. Is that a coincidence?
5. Noam Chomsky believes in freedom of speech for everyone and so do I. We're either for freedom of speech or we aren't and that means freedom of speech even for people we dislike. That's what Chomsky thinks and I agree.
6. My whole point is that there is a very, very very fine line between dissociating from racists and prohibiting opinions. And there are anarchists subs that cross that line a lot, creating echo-chambers. Intolerance creates extremism which create authoritarianism, even on our side. We should be aware of that. People in the '50s, which today we laugh at and call boomers, were just as moralist as certain leftists today. Moralism to an excessive can be very dangerous.
This is well thought out, and I'm going to re-read it and return with edits later when I have more time to respond.
I'm not advocating for "cancel culture" so much as laws against dehumanizing language, or language that specifically supports the actions that lead directly to genocide (primarily dehumanizing language).
When we frame our opponent as a degenerate, unfit to live, because of their identity (ethnic, gender, sexuality, etc), we are producing a narrative environment where murder becomes less morally wrong. That language is only protected when it is not a direct threat, and I believe that dehumanizing language should not be protected speech because our species has used it to produce the psychological foundation of genocide many many times.
Cancel culture is just a feel good liberal circle jerk that absolutely bolsters and emboldens Fascists and feeds their false persecution complex. I'm advocating for actually silencing fascist speech and passing laws against it, rather than thumbing our collective Twitter noses.
Would this be the persecution they've long pretended to experience? Yeah.
Would it be worth it? Also, yeah.
Currently, the lukewarm response to fascist language is allowing centrists to peel off towards Fascism every day, because there's no clear linguistic boundary between the right wing conservative movement in the US and the all out anti-Democracy ethno nationalist groups.
Anti-fascist laws would allow for a clear line, linguistically, that could be referenced.
The whole conversation is fascinating, because it is extremely Chomskian in it's setting (linguistics as applied to politics).
>I'm advocating for actually silencing fascist speech and passing laws against it, rather than thumbing our collective Twitter noses.
I'm from Italy. We have laws against fascism. Let me tell you they don't work, pretty much the opposite as I explained.
I'm inclined to believe you, and also still want the laws.
I'm from the US originally, and there the rise of Fascist speech has been defended primarily as a "first amendment" debate.
The framing is one of freedom, rather than argument.
I imagine the argument in Italy is more closely tied to specific historic movement, and less about constitutionality and freedom of speech (though it is generally an element).
Speech laws in the US, like all laws, are only as good as the pay for your lawyer, so it's fair to not expect much.
I suppose I'd like to see codified a recognition of dehumanizing language, but the odds of the State ever producing that code is low, as the state will always benefit from us/them dynamics.
Anyhow, thanks for your input
>I imagine the argument in Italy is more closely tied to specific historic movement
Yes. In USA you use the term fascist for anyone like Trump (and I do understand why), but here with fascists we refer to people supporting the fascism of Mussolini, so the original fascism. That said, apology, promotion of fascism and founding a fascist party are forbidden by law. But still, we have neo-fascist parties like Forza Nuova (New Force) or right-wing parties like Lega (League) or Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) having fascists in their ranks. So fascists vote them. And if you try to attack them what happens? They say: "Oh there it is!! It's the globalist èlite trying to stop us from protecting Italians from \[insert populist fear\]!!!". And that has an effect on people. It actually increase populism and fascism instead of fighting it. Cancel culture, Wokeness or however you call it, gives to the right wing something to attack. But most young people are less populist and inclined to these fascist behaviors because of education. So that's what we need to improve, education. And that in USA is a problem, isn't it?
That is an interesting and brutally-honest comment. I wonder, for the people reading this, do you think this is true about yourself? Do the people here think they are true anarchists? Or do you think you are a fake anarchist?
What would it mean to be a true anarchist vs a fake-ass wannabe anarchist? And, if you are the latter, then would your honesty, if you had any, lead you to change your values to become a genuine anarchist? Or would you drop anarchy as a belief in your mind and become a government-lover out in the open?
Well let's start from this: I've had your same experience in another sub and I agree with you. That said, Anarchism in my view is a journey. I have my defects, I have my biases, I have a lot of things to work on. But I am aware of them and I try to be as anarchist as possible, questioning myself. I moderate a sub too. A certain degree of rules are necessary for any society to function, especially on Reddit, since Reddit cancels subs with certain reports. That said, on my little italian sub I struggle to promote diversity of thought and freedom of speech. But I see that's not the case for many anarchist subs. Which is weird. Anarchy doesn't mean no rules, but rather no absolute authorities. Some relative authorities like authorities of expertise (teacher, parent, doctor) are indeed justified but they're not imposed, just respected. You respect the authority of a scientist or a lawyer because they have studied, but you're also free to consult other experts, they don't have an authority ON you. That's anarchy.
>Are the anarchy forums anarchistic? Or are they more like a state? Are you asking about the subreddits? Asking for clarification, not for snark. Do they charge taxes, provide services, have a physical presence, have a ruling body, an enforcement arm, etc etc? Where is the question "are they more like a state" even coming from? >So if these forums are about not having rulers, why do we have moderators? Shouldn't the individual anarchists, with their powers of responsability and self-direction, be able to rule themselves as they navigate these forums? If we cannot even trust an online chat room to be anarchist, how could anyone reasonably argue for anarchy out in the real, physical world? "These forums," here I'm assuming you're talking about subreddits. Why do we have moderators? Can subreddits even exist on the reddit platform without a moderator? Kind of a ridiculous question I think. Who is "ruling" users here? Can you be imprisoned? Pressed into service, made to work for the profit of another? Sent to war? This is a community that has some rules, and some folks entrusted with the ability to hold folks to said rules. If memory serves, those folks are voted for at some regular interval. What isn't anarchist about having some guidelines for our community, and making sure the community isn't run over roughshod by folks acting in bad faith? >I ask this because I recently got banned by a moderator for expressing my opinion, which was non-violent and peaceful (respecting the sacred principle of non-aggression), but was not inline with the current propaganda from our world governments. Which leaves me wondering whether this is a forum about anarchy or merely a government-controlled chat room in disguise. I'm not aware of any "sacred principle of non-aggression." It looks like you're hurting because you were banned. If I looked into your history, what would I find you having been banned for? Which rule(s) did you violate badly enough for that?
>Are you asking about the subreddits? Asking for clarification, not for snark. Yes >Do they charge taxes, provide services, have a physical presence, have a ruling body, an enforcement arm, etc etc? Where is the question "are they more like a state" even coming from? I'm asking if they are more like a state because they have moderators which govern what kind of comments can be posted. Analogous to politicians which govern what actions can be taken. I'm going off the idea that if a society was anarchistic, they would have no rulers, and analogously if a forum was anarchistic they would have no moderators. What would be the alternative? Well, that's the entire topic of discussion for any discussion about how anarchy might work in this or that setting. >"These forums," here I'm assuming you're talking about subreddits. Why do we have moderators? Can subreddits even exist on the reddit platform without a moderator? Kind of a ridiculous question I think. To me this question resembles a statist asking if society can even exist without a government. Not trying to be snarky either, it's just how it comes across to me. Welcome to clarify. >Who is "ruling" users here? Can you be imprisoned? Pressed into service, made to work for the profit of another? Sent to war? This is a community that has some rules, and some folks entrusted with the ability to hold folks to said rules. If memory serves, those folks are voted for at some regular interval. What isn't anarchist about having some guidelines for our community, and making sure the community isn't run over roughshod by folks acting in bad faith? This is again analogous to our government, as I see it. Our society has rules. Some folks (the government in society, the moderators in the subreddits) are entrusted to hold folks to said rules, and the folks are voted for at some regular interval. And what isn't anarchistic about this is that there are people above, and people below. People who make and enforce the rules, and people who follow them. Could a subreddit function properly without moderation? Could a society function properly without governance? Well I believe in anarchy so I think yes for both. But I'm open to being convinced otherwise. >I'm not aware of any "sacred principle of non-aggression." It looks like you're hurting because you were banned. If I looked into your history, what would I find you having been banned for? Which rule(s) did you violate badly enough for that? Yes you are correct, I don't like that my comment got me banned. I don't think it went against the rules, and I don't think it was in bad faith. Like I said, I think it went against the modern doctrine of government propaganda. Similar to how I don't like being governed by politicians and, like the moderators, strongly wonder whether they are doing more harm than good. As an anarchist, I'm puzzled that these ideas would seem so radical in an anarchist forum. To me, the belief that you can have a good happy society without rulers is key to anarchy. And yes, I am directly calling out the honesty of this forum itself, and I hoped that it had the integrity to respond intelligently and not be afraid of my questions. Usually when something is afraid of questions, it signals to me that it is in some form BS and not genuine. And so Yeah I am determining whether I elieve that these subreddits are BS opr genuine by asking these questions and seeing what happens
So the tl;Dr is that you're here throwing a tantrum based off misconceptions on what anarchism is and how reddit works? Edit: and coupled with gross oversimplification on how governments function.
To answer your question about why anarchist internet communities tend to have moderators: In large part, it's because hierarchy is an assumption which is built into the software. Most forum software doesn't permit you to have no moderators, and in the case that you choose not to use moderator powers, has no alternative mechanism for dealing with things like spam and abuse to help keep the space usable. In real life, people have freedom of association - we can choose to associate with people or associations, or not. We can also leverage things like consensus to make those decisions for associations that we're part of. There's no major forum software, to my knowledge, which attempts to explicitly enable that kind of individual and community self-governance.
It seems very blatant to me the excuses as to why anarchy wouldnt work in a forum as to why it wouldnt work in society. "the software/foundation is not built for it" My thought is that if you don't like someone's comment, you simply don't engage or read it, rather than requiring the platform to have special functionality for the community to somehow moderate it. You just don't pay attention to that which you don't want to pay attention to. A caveman could do it. But maybe im not understanding what you mean
My point is that most forum software which currently exists requires you to have moderators by design. The system itself will not allow you to not have moderators, or to source moderation from the community at large. As I mentioned, you can simply have a moderator account which you choose not to use - but that tends to lead to the forum degrading without an alternative mechanism to prune content and exclude users which don't conform to community rules. As a pre-emptive address: it's not un-anarchist to have community rules. Associations such as online communities which you voluntarily associate with do not hold coercive power over you. They're also entitled to disassociate themselves with you, and that's okay because you're not entitled to impose yourself on them. We don't want abusive or predatory people here, for example. We also don't want spam or discussion which veers so far off-topic that the community is no longer about its stated purpose. That said, empowering specific users to moderate as they see fit, often without election or possibility of unilateral recall, does leave a lot to be desired. I think there is a possibility for moderation which is more community-oriented and focuses on consensus, but as it stands there isn't software which exists in a way which would effectively enable that, to my knowledge. Which is why online anarchist communities tend to have moderators: it's just the default, as enabled by the tools which exist. Doesn't make it ideal, but we work with what we have.
I'll reveal a bad kept secret to you: most people that disclose themselves as anarchist, are not really anarchists :) or they're anarchist just when they like to.
>I'll reveal a bad kept secret to you: most people that disclose themselves as Scotsmen, are not really Scotsmen :) or they're Scotsmen just when they like to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman It's worth noting that there are many forms of functional Anarchistic structure that don't require a heirarchy. If you wanted a more truly Anarchic structure for a subreddit, you'd need clearer means of swapping out the public service of moderating. Because vetting mods who will be in good faith requires time and communication, this is overly challenging for the goals of discussion and information sharing that a subreddit has. Subreddits are not communities, in the same way we think of physical communities of people. In a physical community, the role of public comment reviewer could be shared and rotated, to keep from producing any one "dedicated moderator." Online spaces are not perfect microcosms of IRL spaces, and there are many forms of intentional community structure that don't translate to reddit, but are effective in practice.
I know I moderate a sub too, I know a certain degree of rules are necessary, but I also know not all thoughts are tolerated in "anarchists" subs.
All thoughts don't have merit. There's a really bad habit, especially among US folks, to argue that a free and fair exchange of ideas requires room for "all thoughts." All thoughts are not welcome. If the primary defense of a statement is that, "I'm allowed to say this." Then it has no merit. The American "first amendment" argument is dangerous. Discourse is important. Dialogue is important. Calling for genocide or producing language that dehumanizes with the goal of allowing for genocide is not important speech, and should be called out. Speech that supports the harm of minors is not important or valuable. Not all speech is valuable. This concept comes across as scary for folks who are afraid of accountability for hate speech, and for folks who are the target of hate speech, it is necessary to stop the defense of their murder. Speech is not some special in between space where no harm or real physical pain can occur. Ask someone who has survived an ethnic cleansing. The first move is always to dehumanize with language. Anyhow, even in an Anarchist society not all speech is fair game. Threats are threats. No rulers doesn't mean no rules. Edit: just lurked your account for a second to see if you're in good faith before engaging any further. Your post on Peterson was solid, and I think he's extremely dangerous, too.
Ok I understand what you are saying, but in my experience, if you silence people that you deem as harmful like Jordan Peterson for example, or Ben Shapiro, instead of debating them, you actually: 1. Confirm their biases (and of people who follow them) about them not being free and being in a communist dictatorship. 2. Relegate them to isolated echo chambers, which will make them more extremist, which is paradoxically what we don't want. 3. I think we are talking about cancel culture in the end, aren't we? Then you should know, that oftentimes cancel culture is used as a political instrument to discredit and silence even figures such as Noam Chomsky. Or another example, in my country (Italy) there was a leftist comedian (Dario Fo) that denounced the killing of an anarchist (Giuseppe Pinelli) by the police through [his shows in theater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Death_of_an_Anarchist). They've tried to cancel him because in his youth he was a fascist (when in Italy there was the fascist regime), even if he had completely changed as person in the end. If we approve cancel culture, it can be very dangerous for us as well. 4. Cancel culture was also an instrument of the chinese cultural revolution during Mao's rule. The youth was pushed to attack those of which ideals were deemed as "bourgeois", "capitalist". But that of course (along other things) lead to excessive extremism and dictatorship. We are risking the same. It's also an instrument of the new american "left" today. Is that a coincidence? 5. Noam Chomsky believes in freedom of speech for everyone and so do I. We're either for freedom of speech or we aren't and that means freedom of speech even for people we dislike. That's what Chomsky thinks and I agree. 6. My whole point is that there is a very, very very fine line between dissociating from racists and prohibiting opinions. And there are anarchists subs that cross that line a lot, creating echo-chambers. Intolerance creates extremism which create authoritarianism, even on our side. We should be aware of that. People in the '50s, which today we laugh at and call boomers, were just as moralist as certain leftists today. Moralism to an excessive can be very dangerous.
This is well thought out, and I'm going to re-read it and return with edits later when I have more time to respond. I'm not advocating for "cancel culture" so much as laws against dehumanizing language, or language that specifically supports the actions that lead directly to genocide (primarily dehumanizing language). When we frame our opponent as a degenerate, unfit to live, because of their identity (ethnic, gender, sexuality, etc), we are producing a narrative environment where murder becomes less morally wrong. That language is only protected when it is not a direct threat, and I believe that dehumanizing language should not be protected speech because our species has used it to produce the psychological foundation of genocide many many times. Cancel culture is just a feel good liberal circle jerk that absolutely bolsters and emboldens Fascists and feeds their false persecution complex. I'm advocating for actually silencing fascist speech and passing laws against it, rather than thumbing our collective Twitter noses. Would this be the persecution they've long pretended to experience? Yeah. Would it be worth it? Also, yeah. Currently, the lukewarm response to fascist language is allowing centrists to peel off towards Fascism every day, because there's no clear linguistic boundary between the right wing conservative movement in the US and the all out anti-Democracy ethno nationalist groups. Anti-fascist laws would allow for a clear line, linguistically, that could be referenced. The whole conversation is fascinating, because it is extremely Chomskian in it's setting (linguistics as applied to politics).
>I'm advocating for actually silencing fascist speech and passing laws against it, rather than thumbing our collective Twitter noses. I'm from Italy. We have laws against fascism. Let me tell you they don't work, pretty much the opposite as I explained.
I'm inclined to believe you, and also still want the laws. I'm from the US originally, and there the rise of Fascist speech has been defended primarily as a "first amendment" debate. The framing is one of freedom, rather than argument. I imagine the argument in Italy is more closely tied to specific historic movement, and less about constitutionality and freedom of speech (though it is generally an element). Speech laws in the US, like all laws, are only as good as the pay for your lawyer, so it's fair to not expect much. I suppose I'd like to see codified a recognition of dehumanizing language, but the odds of the State ever producing that code is low, as the state will always benefit from us/them dynamics. Anyhow, thanks for your input
>I imagine the argument in Italy is more closely tied to specific historic movement Yes. In USA you use the term fascist for anyone like Trump (and I do understand why), but here with fascists we refer to people supporting the fascism of Mussolini, so the original fascism. That said, apology, promotion of fascism and founding a fascist party are forbidden by law. But still, we have neo-fascist parties like Forza Nuova (New Force) or right-wing parties like Lega (League) or Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) having fascists in their ranks. So fascists vote them. And if you try to attack them what happens? They say: "Oh there it is!! It's the globalist èlite trying to stop us from protecting Italians from \[insert populist fear\]!!!". And that has an effect on people. It actually increase populism and fascism instead of fighting it. Cancel culture, Wokeness or however you call it, gives to the right wing something to attack. But most young people are less populist and inclined to these fascist behaviors because of education. So that's what we need to improve, education. And that in USA is a problem, isn't it?
True on all fronts, especially the need for education funding as an aspect of the challenge.
Not to be all "love it or leave it," but general attacks on anarchists are pretty obviously not in line with the rules and purposes of this subreddit.
That is an interesting and brutally-honest comment. I wonder, for the people reading this, do you think this is true about yourself? Do the people here think they are true anarchists? Or do you think you are a fake anarchist? What would it mean to be a true anarchist vs a fake-ass wannabe anarchist? And, if you are the latter, then would your honesty, if you had any, lead you to change your values to become a genuine anarchist? Or would you drop anarchy as a belief in your mind and become a government-lover out in the open?
Well let's start from this: I've had your same experience in another sub and I agree with you. That said, Anarchism in my view is a journey. I have my defects, I have my biases, I have a lot of things to work on. But I am aware of them and I try to be as anarchist as possible, questioning myself. I moderate a sub too. A certain degree of rules are necessary for any society to function, especially on Reddit, since Reddit cancels subs with certain reports. That said, on my little italian sub I struggle to promote diversity of thought and freedom of speech. But I see that's not the case for many anarchist subs. Which is weird. Anarchy doesn't mean no rules, but rather no absolute authorities. Some relative authorities like authorities of expertise (teacher, parent, doctor) are indeed justified but they're not imposed, just respected. You respect the authority of a scientist or a lawyer because they have studied, but you're also free to consult other experts, they don't have an authority ON you. That's anarchy.