Probably the critics of anarchism that I take the most seriously are survivors of decentralized genocides or warzones who tend to become staunch conservatives upon immigration to western democracies. They may recognize shit sucks, but also assume any boat rocking will return society to a much worse baseline.
Among radicals, revolutionaries and other critics of the status quo there's a general lack of awareness of *how much worse things can be* and I think factoring such in is important.
This is not to say that I think such critiques of the anarchist project hold up ultimately. But they're the ones I think should be treated with the most respect and care.
And to some degree this boils down to a question of risk tolerance that I'm not sure can be so easily or objectively resolved. A slave that refuses to revolt because they infinitely more fear a return to even worse horrors than they desire the utopia of liberation is not so trivially in the wrong.
One thing we should learn from such folks is to temper our rhetorical moves around casting the present in the most darkly dystopian terms.
There's a strong tendency by anarchists to frame the existing hellworld we live in as the Worst Of All Possible Worlds. To really emphasize it as the darkest night imaginable, so as to justify ANY revolt or risk taking against it.
But this move is dead on arrival to those who've seen nightmares beyond capitalism and democracy.
Relatedly I think this is also a reason to pay *extra* attention to the analysis of those anarchists who emerged from such contexts, were granted the relative stabilities and privileges of western democracy and still chose anarchism.
Someone who lived through the Lebanese civil war or the Rwandan genocide and still chose anarchism is far more insightful than western anarchists who clumsily point to McDonalds as hell on earth.
William Gillis 🏴
anoreon
sal