this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Anarchism and Social Ecology

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Anarchism

Anarchism is a social and political theory and practice that works for a free society without domination and hierarchy.

Social Ecology

Social Ecology, developed from green anarchism, is the idea that our ecological problems have their ultimate roots in our social problems. This is because the domination of nature and our ecology by humanity has its ultimate roots in the domination humanity by humans. Therefore, the solutions to our ecological problems are found by addressing our social and ecological problems simultaneously.

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Poetry and imagination must be integrated with science and technology, for we have evolved beyond an innocence that can be nourished exclusively by myths and dreams.

~ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom

People want to treat ‘we’ll figure it out by working to get there’ as some sort of rhetorical evasion instead of being a fundamental expression of trust in the power of conscious collective effort.

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~Abdullah Öcalan

Social ecology advances a message that calls not only for a society free of hierarchy and hierarchical sensibilities, but for an ethics that places humanity in the natural world as an agent for rendering evolution social and natural fully self-conscious.

~ Murray Bookchin

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Obviously this man was an important anarchist thinker, but I think this is particularly relevant to anarchism right now in a US election year where this conversation will come up ad nauseum.

He stops short of decrying electoralism in general here, but makes the point that the milquetoast emptiness of the US liberals enables a rightward slide. What he says is short and to the point and avoids getting bogged down in wider issues. He acknowledges that "at least they're not nazis" is an appeal of the liberals, but points out that is the only appeal.

I just think this is a good thing to have if you don't want to type out this argument every time you see it, to point out that this has been happening for a very long time, and to hear a voice of sanity when every single liberal is yelling at you to stop criticising poor Joe or else we'll get the fascists again.

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[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 3 points 7 months ago

I'm not American, but a further left party exists, it's called the green party. It just isn't a viable strategy. The Majority Report is a US podcast that are very electoralist, but from a left perspective. I don't agree with their electoralism, but one strategy they talk about a lot is primarying republicans, because both parties are vulnerable to this approach. They have flipped in the past, so there is value to the idea I guess. The problem is there's only so far you can take a strategy like that before the political machinery subsumes it. Smart people have tried electoralism for a very long time, and equally smart people have worked against them. The structures in place however reinforce the logic of hierarchy and will not allow us to vote for true liberation.

There's nothing wrong with voting, but it will never bring about the world we want. We have to do direct action.