William Gillis 🏴Jan 25, 2023

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.

Show threadSam LawtonJan 25, 2023
@rechelon the radicals you speak of are usually people like myself who are hypervigilant to encroaching fascism in democracies such as the USA, Brasil, France and Italy. My comrades generally share these anxieties about 'just how bad [i.e. genocidal] things can get'.
Show threadWilliam Gillis 🏴Jan 25, 2023

@SamLawton

This is true for a subset of radicals, and has historically been true for focused antifascists in particular, which is among many reasons why I historically gravitated to antifascists back during the pre-2017 era when they were often marginalized within radical communities, but it is not true for a huge swathe of radicals and anarchists (not so coincidentally among whose ranks hostility to antifa is common). Taking our present world as the worst possible is quite common.

Show threadSam Lawton
@rechelon I worry about institutions that used to be fairly socially liberal (e.g. SCOTUS) in their norms being infiltrated by fascists who have eradicated norms with impunity. I don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss the concerns of people living in the nation-state that they do about the State they have to interact with, and can fight to resist. I'm concerned about UK politics because it's gotten more fascist and transphobic since Brexit, but also the responsibility that I have to fight it.
Jan 25, 2023 at 2:55amWeb