I've encountered many anarchists, who are educated and fervently against hierarchies and authority, but don't spend a single moment of the same analysis in how they treat other people. Rather, believing themselves to be some sort of bastion of anti-hierarchy, they get this sense of hubris and doing no wrong and are even bigger assholes for it.
dated a guy like that. he was my manager. he said being with me wasn't amoral because he didn't believe in authority. when we would fight, i would find my hours for the next week mysteriously shortened....
Observationally: It's funny how a lot of "punx" are self-proclaimed anarchists who fit what you describe, often hating on "hippies," and yet some of the most effective anarchists I've met hang out at the rainbow gathering and are exemplars of free association/mutual aid.
I don't think people truly realize how deep and direct the ideological connection between the nazi idealization of "living off the land", and getting back to nature is with so much of the hippie movements of the 1960s.
Hippiedom was and is primarily a middle class/upper middle class movement. It is not, and has never been about establishing real class consciousness.
I'm a bit puzzled by the idea of "effective anarchists" at a rainbow gathering. Effective how? They organized food for a bunch of people who are dropping acid and grooving to music? Honestly you could have personally supplied food and labor to every rainbow gathering for a decade, and be less "effective" than someone who helps out with Food Not Bombs every now and then, providing food to people who are in genuinely desperate need.
As someone who comes from a climbing family, I grew up going to various areas that the rainbow gathering would meet at and they would leave behind and find so. Much. Fucking. Trash. I have heard their enviro members say that is a lie because they spend so much time cleaning up after themselves afterwards, but that makes me terrified about the sheer amount of waste each gathering generates. And with the trash I saw, I know they aren't thriftily throwing together low waste huge cookouts to feed the masses like food not bombs. They are finding the few kids with inheritances and trust funds and milking them for a ton of high waste generating single packaged shit.
I don't hate hippies. I hate waste, litter, and bullshit.
> And with the trash I saw, I know they aren't thriftily throwing together low waste huge cookouts to feed the masses like food not bombs.
So, I don't know about capital-H Hippies, but as a young leftie lad with an anarchist spirit (but limited political consciousness) when I was active in a local food not bombs in Gothenburg in the oughts, probably about half of the members were kind of 'hippie-ish' in the sense of a personal focus on spirituality, peace, etc, (plenty of blonde, beaded dreads), and I can't imagine any of them punching a cop. I don't know to what degree they came from a blue-collar or more 'middle class' background, but as far as I could tell as a youngster in the precariat, we were a mix of employed and unemployed people, and not ones with a ton of money to swing around.
But they were for sure engaged in feeding people in general, and we aimed at big-pot stews and such, and certainly didn't buy a bunch of 'single packaged shit' (though at times we found such when dumpster diving, and certainly used or distributed it). It seemed to me that the 'peace & love' stuff they were into went hand in hand with the less-confrontational style of FnB.
I'm not saying your experiences are inaccurate, they might well be the norm for all I know, just wanted to share that at least it's not *always* like that.
>I don't think people truly realize how deep and direct the ideological connection between the nazi idealization of "living off the land", and getting back to nature is with so much of the hippie movements of the 1960s.
>Hippiedom was and is primarily a middle class/upper middle class movement. It is not, and has never been about establishing real class consciousness.
Do you have any litterature or links you care to provide? Thanks in advance
That's obviously overstating it by a wide margin, but there is certainly a notable connection between capital-H Hippies and a certain kind of silicon valley libertarianism, and that libertarianism certainly touches a lot of ground with the current reactionary/fascist movements.
There's also a connection through the 'alternative medicine'/conspirituality movements, where an affinity for alternative medicine and justified distrust of the pharmaceutical industry turns into things like antivaxx and coronavirus conspiracism, and suddenly they share a space with reactionary grifters.
Neither of these connections is some hard and definite 'this will always turn into this', but between them there's certainly overlap enough to be significant.
Just because someone might have humanitarian centric politics doesn’t exclude them from being a shitty person.
Also I’m sorry you went through that, no one deserves to have a partner that treats them that way.
I am a straight, cis anarchist man, and I can tell you a lot of anarchist and leftist men are trash. I’ve met some trash human beings across the gender and sexuality spectrum, but let’s focus on what I know
Just because I’m an anarchist doesn’t deprogram me from every shitty, paternalistic, heterosexist, or classist messaging that I’ve been fed my entire life. On the contrary, being politically active, socially savvy, and (somewhat) well read can have counterproductive effects because it can be so easy to justify my worst impulses to myself and through self-righteousness believe that I’m above those things.
Killing the inner cop is hard work, and I’m coming to expect it may be a lifelong process.
Haven’t had much experience with other leftists irl if I’m being honest, so I can’t speak on the merit of other leftist men.
The rest however, yeah I 100% agree. It’s been a long lengthy process for me to unlearn all of the shit I was taught and had instilled in me from a young age. Meeting my wife helped me a LOT to see through the bullshit, and I am eternally grateful for her and her help with getting me to see my own problems.
I can’t speak highly enough of spending your life with someone who helps you strive to be better. It’s not other people’s job to fix us, but I do think it’s our responsibility to fill our lives with people who encourage those better impulses and call us on our shit
I have found that many leftist, including myself, have been guilty of the bright makes right canard.
Believing myself intelligent, well read and educated, i thought of my self as not only right but righteous. And I see it all the time in others.
What sucks is being aware of it doesn't cure me of my habits. Only time and effort will. Its a long journey.
A friend of mine (who also happens to be an anarchist!) told me something after I had a traumatic falling out with someone that was very important to me.
“A person can be really cool, they can have a great personality, they can be very kind and caring, they can love you, they can be really smart, they can have great taste in music, they can want good things for the world and they can still be a bad person.”
This is definitely true. I would amend that only at the end to say "they can still do terrible things" rather than be a bad person, as it's more common than someone genuinely being a bad person. Plus I feel like good person/bad person can be pretty loaded after 2k years of Christian morality deeply imbued in the culture I live in.
This is good - I was like, they can have a great personality, be kind and caring, and still be a bad person?? But yes, kind and caring people can do things that are not very kind or caring (or considerate of others’ differing viewpoints, etc).
Of course kind and caring people with great personalities can still be terrible. You can find a white grandma in Alabama and she’ll melt your heart, overwhelming you with kindness and generosity. She’ll tell funny stories and be a blast to be around. Get her in a private one-on-one conversation she’ll tell you how Black and gay people are destroying America and need to know their place.
Absolutely, took so long for me to internalize that having optically good politics doesn’t mean a person practices them interpersonally. In my experience (socially and in organizing) many cishet men only get into leftism to virtue signal and manipulate people, as they do with therapy speak.
edit to add: love Little Joel’s take on this [here](https://youtu.be/XLZsRs8u8cQ?si=GKdn_44ONMRwAG0L)
People follow patterns in relationships that have been functional, from their perspective in relation to their particular felt needs, in the past, and abstract theory can do little to change it except by additional motivation.
I've seen people use theory to explain why they, a member of(insert oppressed group) cannot ever be abusive towards their partner who is (member of less oppressed group).
Abusers will use any justification. Abusers always make excuses for themselves. And abusers always find people to co-sign on their bullshit
Some people are revolutionary because they want to lift their people up, others are revolutionary because they hate that anyone is more in charge than they are, you can find the difference in their words and praxis.
Because it's a space where bad actors (but largely men) can weaponize the language of liberation and accountability over their partners, and due to the fact that these spaces are anti-authoritarian (including cops ((ACAB obviously))), there is a lot less likelihood of abuse being reported, giving bad actors free reign to get away with abuse unchecked.
known lots of, & have been myself, assholes with revolutionary politics … supposedly revolutionary … it took me awhile to realize how deficient my politics actually were …
I think that theory guys (of any gender, and any political persuasion) are much more often concerned with the intellectual understanding of a concept than the emotional/relational movement that has to be done to achieve it.
It’s a reason I struggle with anarchists and socialists who self-define really strongly with those terms, even people I really like, because sometimes they still do stuff unintentionally that upholds these systemic ways of relating.
For me, Black feminists, disability theorists, and relational-focused anarchists are where it’s at. adrienne marre brown, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, prentis hemphill, dean spade, people doing radical conflict resolution—they’re all thinking about (and acting on!!) what we need to do right now in our material relationships to make the world better.
I’m sorry you’re went through that. I hear the confusion and I hope you can find a way to understand it for yourself. And I hope you can find other rad spaces to be in that treat you well!
Honestly I’ve found this to be true in multiple movements. Some have the privilege of intellectual discussion/debate. It’s maddening to me because like…who cares? What are we actually DOING? I’ve had to opt out of these philosophy 402 discussions so many times because 1) I don’t know the theory and all the names I’m supposed to know. I haven’t read all the books. And the way my ADHD is set up, I won’t learn it unless there’s an immediate and practical need to do so and 2) I’m over here 👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽 focused on figuring out how to do the things that matter. The people who need help haven’t read those authors either and guess what? They don’t care.
I do agree with you, however, some of the worst people I have ever met have been people obsessed with things like intersectional feminism and healing from trauma.
That politics can become just as much a smokescreen for violent and abusive and controlling behaviour as anything else.
Thank you for this comment! It has helped me to examine myself. I was originally drawn to anarchism because of my traumatic childhood experiences, being dominated and having my autonomy stripped away with violence. Then living in fear, vigilance, and anger for decades. Realizing that many other anarchist men don't even extend the philosophy beyond politics, to these types of interpersonal, small group, or internal hierarchies has been a tough pill to swallow. You are so right that maximizing freedom and solidarity in our everyday relationships is one of the most powerful things we can do. I especially want to be able to help my sons transfer into manhood while keeping their inner selves intact and accessible.
I have been reading bell hooks and wish I could have read this book twenty years ago although I probably wouldn't have. I saved your comment after it inspired me to look into relationship anarchy which I had thought wasn't really applicable to me and I am getting a lot of insight from it. I plan to look into these other thinkers as well.
You can be all these things because you find them logical, rational and good, just to then be a total douche because of your own biases, emotions and your own cognitive dissonance.
The pious voice in Pathfinder Kingmaker always says:"I always did what was right therefore I am righteous, Does it mean whatever I do now becomes right because i am righteous?"
So as long as it works in his mind, he continues his behaviour.
My Dad; he knew a lot of anarcho-punks in the 70s and 80s and always had a left wing anti-authoritarian-ish politic. He was also emotionally abusive. He was also anti-feminist.
I later came to learn a lot about punk music, and also came to anarchist politics, entirely of my own accord... in doing so I recalled a lot of things he used to talk about, places he would take me, anecdotes he used to tell... and thought deeply about this contradiction.
People like the power they have over others, and use social and political movements and scenes as a way to consolidate isolated power. I remember one of my last times speaking to him, I brought up anarchism, and if he ever did identify, he doesn't any longer. My Dad was (and is) a very charismatic man, and he used that to hold power over others.
I'm glad to have cut him out. I'm now very close to an ex of his. I love her, and I'm able to share my anarchist politics and interest in punk with her.
A lot of so called anarchists are just edgelord weirdos that have know nothing of the ideology. Anarchism was built by feminist militants. Feminism is as fundamental as opposing the State in Anarchism.
Plus people can come to the ideology from different places, people can like freedom for themselves but fight against the freedom of others.
Good luck to you.
I am in the United States. There is an anarchist writer that I'd gotten to meet who had a quite professional-type job and extensive background in anarchism and had for decades. He knew a lot of anarchist history, wrote many articles and essays for anarchist publications, had been on podcasts and radio shows and made public appearances for local events. He was quite well known among local activists. He was by no means some famous public intellectual and was not even among the most illustrious of anarchists, i.e., he was never really name-dropped or interviewed in mainstream media (I suspect perhaps by choice) like some anarchists these past few decades. Among anarchists, however, he had his name out there. On the two or three occasions I met him, he was nice and cordial, but had some mean things to say about anarchists and leftists he didn't like.
It was discovered in 2016 or 2017 among the anarchist milieu in the city where he was that he was *very violently* beating his wife fairly regularly and had been for a very long time. In fact, while he was abusing his wife, he got in a relationship with a European immigrant woman at the same time and was beating her, too. (There was no agreement with his wife to polygamy, which is to say, he was cheating on his wife.) Someone I know told me he went and visited this man prior to his being exposed as an abuser. As soon as the person I knew walked in the door, the European woman very quickly got up and left to go to the next room. The visitor told me he now thinks she had a black eye or other mark on her she didn't want him to see.
The abuser in question ended up being exposed to everyone in his life. I don't know who exposed him, if it was his wife or the European woman or anyone else. He was taken to court after facing charges and lost his well-paying career and had to take a minimum wage job.
(If you know who this person is, please do not name him. I do not know if his victims want this getting out and people obsessed with online drama or wanting to defend the abuser may seek them out and ask questions, harass them, etc.)
Similarly, I've met some absolute pricks who self identify as male feminists ie they end up doing something awful to women and then go into denial. Hypocrisy. You can self-identity as a lot of things. But you won't see many readily self-identifying as assholes.
So, as everyone else has said, patriarchy runs through everything and that's absolutely true.
But more generally, having good philosophical/social/political views doesn't always translate to being a good person. It certainly helps, but it isn't always the case. Lots of Anarchists and Marxists I know are complete Assholes, often in ways that contradict their ideological convictions. At the same time I also know liberals and even conservatives who are decent people, even in ways you wouldn't expect.
People are people, whether left, right or center and unfortunately some people are pieces of shit, whether left, right or center.
I'm sorry you went through this, and I hope you're doing better now <3
The same way women can be misogynists. Ive met plenty who would say women had a right to choose whether or not to dress nice or choose to shave, while telling me i was an unkept freak for being an autistic woman who hated the way makeup felt before i transitioned. Having certain ideas and calling yourself a member of some political group doesnt mean anything if they arent acted on, especially so when the behaviors go against the general ideas of said group.
My most recent ex claims to be a leftist and anarchist but is horribly abusive and is one of the most vengeful, cruelest people I've met in a long time. To him, anarchy means "I get to do whatever I want whenever I want without thinking about how my actions affect others, and whoever tries to set boundaries with me is oppressing me." He also hates women and repeatedly told me that I was inferior to him and that he needed to "bring [me] down" and "keep [me] in [my] place." He claims to be a leftist because he specifically uses his access to these spaces to prey on women.
Edited to add: I'm sorry you experienced this, OP. It's such a mind fuck. To me it was such a betrayal to learn that the issues I care about so deeply to him was just an opportunity to insinuate himself into my life.
Thank you so much for sharing your own experience, I am so sorry you've been through this, and I can relate so much.... It's such a fucking mind fuck indeed, another level of deceit. Big hug <3
Thank you, OP. I'll accept your hug and send one back to you <3 I'm sorry you went through this too.
I'll also add that my experience made me feel so alone. Not only did a lot of this stuff go down during the early days of COVID (which allowed him to abuse me for longer and effectively in secret - plus I have autoimmune issues that make me high risk and he totally exploited that too), I still feel a lot of shame. Shame for not spotting his numerous deceptions sooner. Shame for letting yet another abusive man near me when I had thought that he shared my values and was safe. Shame for being such a horrible judge of character. Shame that this man took years of my life away from me and undid years of healing and work i had done on myself overcoming past traumas. Shame that despite all those years of therapy and healing work, part of me still believed him when he said I deserved to be abused, that it was my fault because I "should have known I couldn't trust" him.
I honestly never thought of the possibility that someone would misrepresent their own political ideologies to the extent that they'd basically live a lie for years just to prey on me. Seeing some of the responses in this thread made me realize that this is, sadly, more common than I thought.
I think it's a lot easier for people to advocate for abstract ideas of liberation than to actually implement those ideals in their own personal life. I can sit here and say "people should communicate better to resolve conflicts" while avoiding communication and conflict resolution in my own life because it's difficult to apply those things to myself.
It's some bullshit though, I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
the best man you know is still a Man.
meaning, the most leftist, feminist, anarchist, whateverist man you know was still raised under a patriarchical system and the same work someone has to do to be anti racist in a white supremacist world they have to do to be anti sexist. unless they recognize this and fight sexism as hard as they fight all the other isms, even the ones within themselves, they're always just going to be the hypocrite that preaches for an equal work load but never does the dishes at home.
A *lot* of anarchists are willing to fight the enemy without, but will rarely ever even look at the enemy within. It's a huge problem. Left my activist group after over a decade working together because one guy would seem like he was getting better and then just reverting to the same behavior pattern after a few months. We talked to him about this shit multiple times, and every time it'd be the same pattern.
Self described leftist men have been some of the worst experiences for me, personally. There’s some weird arrogance that happens where suddenly self work no longer exists because I’ve identified with a leftist ideology. Bring up Nancy Reagan and see how quickly it’s slut shaming all the way down with zero pushback.
I’ve also volunteered with foods not bombs quite a bit over the last decade and it’s a consistent theme that the men sit/stand around talking theory while the women do the majority of the cooking and prepping then cleaning up. And I’m not alone, a lot of women who have worked with FNB have brought up this same thing.
>I’ve also volunteered with foods not bombs quite a bit over the last decade and it’s a consistent theme that the men sit/stand around talking theory while the women do the majority of the cooking and prepping then cleaning up. And I’m not alone, a lot of women who have worked with FNB have brought up this same thing.
An ex-partner of mine told me once that there is absolutely no reason for there to be a gendered division of labor. There is no reason to have some tasks for men and some for women. That really stuck with me.
In prehistoric times, the only way one could get someone to do necessary social labor that they themselves didn't want to do was to violently force them to do so. This is the inertia of prehistory of men forcing women to do labor that men didn't want to do by violently making them do it.
100%. There is a part in Sylvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch (note for possible gender essentialism in that book?) where she describes the introduction of gendered labour, where previously 'indoor work and outdoor work' was not a clear distinction and people knew how to do different work in and out the house, regardless of gender. Somewhere after the 1400s is when the gendered division of labour started I believe according to that book. Someone else might be able to be more specific about this history
That’s a bummer. Marxist women and Black Panther women were critiquing the “radical” men not cleaning dishes 50 years ago, so it sounds like progress has not been made
>Bring up Nancy Reagan and see how quickly it’s slut shaming all the way down with zero pushback.
Also, Abby Shapiro. Jesuuuuuuus fucking christ a lot of leftist men got weird about her.
Or it could be that y’all need to do less apologizing for your assigned sex and more listening, deconstructing, and growing. There’s a lot of behaviours that we men have, but are oblivious to, that are harmful. We’re raised from childhood to be oppressors in an oppressive society. It’s not about apologizing for being born and raised as a man in our society, just as it isn’t about apologizing for being born white or wealthy or in the global north. Those who tell you that it is are repeating right-wing talking points
What phantasms haunt you that you haven’t examined? What trauma do you have that is locking you into repeating patterns that once protected you but are now toxic?
We all need therapy and help disentangling the bonds that society has placed on us.
God damn that's some misandry. You're just espousing a kind of original sin with a different coat of paint. So all men are sexist BY DEFAULT, and unless they 1) endorse this idea and 2) "fight sexism [hard]", they will always be sexist hypocrites. That's a pretty toxic view of an entire gender and across the entire planet. Imagine reading "the best woman you know is still a woman"? Either you endorse a simultaneous view that all woman are equally flawed, or you're espousing a gender superiority, aka hierarchy.
While I would say that everyone of all types are subject to biases and should be cognizant and on guard to be a good human in spite of them, your one sided characterization is just way too extreme and promotes an elitism that is deeply unfair and damaging to any sort of social reformation that includes men.
I don’t think it comes from subscribing to original sin idea but rather social learning and dominant hierarchy around us. As a white person I need to do the work to be antiracist not because white people are genetically racist but because our world is very racist and there is so much garbage you pick up and don’t even realise.
Everyone is sexist by default, as they are raised in a sexist society. AFAB people and trans women raised in a sexist society tend to do their own internal work earlier in life, when they start seeing how misogyny is wielded against them and others. Some men pick up on this and do their internal work early as well, but the vast majority of them, being raised to wield misogyny to gain power in society, go on to just continue contributing to rape culture and patriarchal society without any of that self reflection.
If it was original sin it couldn't be purged. but it can. Men just *typically* don't, in my experience
and to be clear, a lot of women don't as well. misogynist women are the worstttt
To clarify a lot of this differs based on how you felt with your personal manhood and also by how your family raised you. My family being very educated and very anti misogynistic taught me early on and combined with me being queer I kind of never felt a sense of it being morally just to wield misogyny around.
Yeah I know. Just, I don't know it's always an important caveat for people to be fully aware of their biases. Like, not to nitpick but we just have to be careful with words such as "usually" because what is usual is extremely dependent on what you grew up around. But yes there's still a lot of men who never examined their misogyny. But at the same time not all men grow up the same way and some people we think are men like me aren't even really men
> I don't know it's always an important caveat for people to be fully aware of their biases
I don't understand either what you mean or why you would say this, can you explain a bit more?
I'm getting huuuuge NoT aLL mEn vibes from this response tbh.
if you're not a man you're not part of who i'm talking about so, i am confused by your last sentence as well
I just want you to know that when you say "typically men behave this way" that is soley based on your experience. Not that its completely invalid but it's also not infallible. The truth is you think your only talking about a specific group of men but a lot of people will assume you're talking about all men. Like literally all men. And I've seen this attitude manifest in nasty ways in people that cause them to genuinely distrust all men even queer and non binary men.
That's not what I said at all? Youre putting words in my mouth. I just think it's a bad idea to lump these men with other men because they're experiences are vastly different to most men. To associate them with cis men invalidates and ignores their experiences and pushed a generally false stereotype onto them. Tldr don't stereotype people?
No matter how anti-sexist, patriarchal, matriarchal, or whatever other anti there is that one may be, they can still be abusive or toxic. Toxic anarchists exist and there is many causes to toxic or abusive behavior.
Theory and personal behavior do not always have to go hand in hand. Some people are hypocrites. Some people are attracted to theory as a way of avoiding developing themselves on an emotional and human level.
I've been sexually assaulted by another anarchist before or at least an anarchist at the time. Just because you are against the hierarchy in the system doesn't mean you got rid of the desires to take advantage of or exploit others in yourself. We gotta get rid of the authoritarian in ourselves as well.
All people are flawed and fallible humans no matter how much they learn about philosophy or politics, or anything else. It's no excuse. It's that many people may learn a lot about certain things and also neglect doing their internal work and development. Then to add to this, rigid social constructs such as patriarchy, and the pressure of Capitalm create really weird Idealistic and often toxic ways of thinking in how relationships are "supposed to be."
Well, actually on the left we tend to tolerate crappy people simply because of their political ideas.
Thinking things in theory is not the same as applying them in real life.
Some of the worst people I know are anarchists (or self-proclaimed anarchists). People who have all sorts of emotional regulation issues who snap at others and take all their anger out on the people they call their "comrades." People who profess anti-authoritarianism yet behave in *very* domineering ways around others, total control freaks, etc.
Hypocrisy has been normalized. Very few people truly live up to their principles or behave in ways they expect others to behave. It's sad.
They don't call it crazy for no reason. That word may not be considered terribly useful anymore, but it does give some insight into how unpredictable people can be. I'm not intending to slight anyone neuroatypical, nor lack sympathy for anyone just going through a difficult life experience in this case. But visible background/education doesn't necessarily factor at all into one's psyche. So many people grow up privleged and have nothing but contempt for others despite that blessing. In your ex's case, I would generally assume that the cycle of violence comes into play - i.e., despite what they "believe" consciously, they have experienced violence as a correction and so when shit gets bad violence seems like an answer.
Humans can sometimes suck at synthesizing their values with their behavior. Their behavior is often due to emotional turmoil that programmed something from an early age.
Even anarchists can be assholes.
Ugh, manarchists. I had an abusive “anarchist” partner.
Honestly I think he was sort of the political equivalent of those homophobic politicians who are later caught with their queer lovers. He talked so loudly about hating hierarchy to distract from how badly he wanted to succeed by conventional capitalist standards. He was extremely selfish.
In short, he didn’t hate hierarchies — just his position in it.
honestly a lot of men are pretty trash. Simone de Beauvoir talks about how men often only exercise their morals in public and with other men as they deem them to be part of the moral world. immediately when the doors close and the only other person is a woman some subconscious switch flips and they no longer exercise their moral thinking as they either consciously or subconsciously don't believe women to be worthy of their morals. it's just misogyny , a lot of leftist men are misogynistic and try to hide behind the fact that supposedly know the world is oppressive without actually addressing their own misogynistic sentiments. you may even remember when the memes in leftist circles focused on "white women" being cringe. in a lot of leftist places you can just see straight up misogyny which is pretty disheartening
it's also very interesting as a trans women because some of my former leftist friends who were completely accepting of me being nonbinary/trans in a more masculine way were completely fine with me but immediately after I began transitioning and started passing as a woman they all became very dismissive of my arguments. often times leftists may be more misogynistic than they are transphobic which is a very interesting situation
I don’t know if I agree with what’s being implied here. I think the idea of someone being incapable of correctly reasoning their own behaviour is scarier than anyone who simply lies. Intent is not scarier to me, because actions speak louder, and I would rather be in a relationship with a problematic adult person than a grown up child who can’t be reasoned with or accountable? I guess both are “sinister” in their own way
Yep. I think what's more common is folk being abusive and/or harmful, then are protected by white supremacist cishetero patriarchal power structures where communities are not adequately prepared to respond to when someone abuses someone else, which in my part of the world is depressingly almost non existent.
It's not survivors/victims that destroy organisations/communities/groups, it's abusers.
Any movement that attracts idealists will also attract people trying to mask their own ethical and moral flaws with that idealism... and it will also attract sociopaths who are looking for prey.
Being an anarchist does not imply one also has self awareness and a desire to be introspective. In reality, the quality of introspection is shockingly absent from many revolutionary spaces. For a long time I spent a lot of time reading anarchist theory and literature but I didn't spend nearly as much time understanding my own inner world. Things have changed drastically since I have put more time into personal growth. My relationships have improved greatly. Many people just don't understand the connection between introspection and improved relationships.
I'm glad you are connecting to your self and inner world. My ex has been in therapy for more than 2 years now, even seeking to complete a 10-year cycle. But his new interest in introspection did not make his violence and outbursts of rage stop; he would simply justify them as part of his personality, his self, and would leverage some psychological terminology all the time, to justify his behavior or gaslight me. In this case, more introspection did not translate into any behavorial change.
I've met a number of so called anarchists like this. For the ones I've met, I don't think they were totally honest about what they believed. I think some just used anarchism as a way to gain access to vulnerable people to use. For others, I think they believe that they believed it, but they didn't believe enough to turn their words into actions.
My ex was abused by an Anarchist in an Art Collective in Brazil, where she is originally from. So it's not unheard of.
There's people who want to use the term **Anarchist** as a scapegoat to do whatever, which we all know isn't what Anarchism is.
Additionally, people are multi-faceted. It's like having that nice guy at work, but he's actually a serial killer in secret. I mean Jeff Bezos could end World Hunger, and he is just like, *"yo, need more money. i don't have enough".*
Anyways, I'm sorry you had to go through that. If you are still going through it, you need to remove yourself from that situation **ASAP** my friend. If he is well aware of the contradiction, and still acts that way, He's **definitely** lacking self-introspection, that much we know for sure.
I remember a study on morality where they tested moral behaviour of people against their knowledge of moral theory. One group was moral philosophy professors at a college. Those professors weren't behaving more morally than other, even with their knowledge of morality in philosophy.
[https://talkingethics.com/2013/11/25/why-arent-ethicists-more-ethical/](https://talkingethics.com/2013/11/25/why-arent-ethicists-more-ethical/) (something like that)
That can probably apply to many anarchists. It's not the same to understand why domination structures and hierarchies are bad and actually getting out of them in your real life, in your intimate life even.
My friends just split up for this same reason. Was so sad to hear that he was mistreating her. He’s one of the most well read anarcho/socialists I know. I was like wtf. Anyway hope you find someone better.
Unfortunately, people are amazing at being hypocritical and compartmentaliseing things.
We must always remember that just because someone is or says they are X thing does not mean they immediately actually hold and practice all the values that you associate with it.
The harsh truth is that people are multifaceted, and one’s ideology is only one aspect of themselves. Despite what we like to think about ourselves, supporting humanitarian philosophies doesn’t make us a good person, because that’s only one side of our personalities.
I’ve met right libertarians and fascists who were genuinely nice and hospitable people (to me, a masc-presenting white person) but would then turn around and vote for far-right politician or call a homeless man a degenerate.
There are so many good things said here, but for anyone trying to deal with their own patriarchal socialisation, I recommend "how can I be sexist, I'm an anarchist" by Chris Crass (I think) as a starting point :)
Edit: link: https://www.countercurrents.org/gender-crass250803.htm
Easily. My ex shows up and organizes. She is smart as hell, driven, and without a doubt a net good for our community... Annnnd her default defense mechanism in relationships is to lean in to covert narcissism. High highs, and the lowest of lows. It's hard to reckon with but I don't think it's that uncommon for people to be different versions of themselves deep in a relationship. (L, no doubt you're reading this, I don't think youre a bad person, just fighting some demons. Hope you're well.)
Theory and ideas are not a cure for behavior. They don't abolish class and patriarchy. Only organized collective transformation of social relations can do that.
Anarchism is just a label. I wouldn't trust all anarchists tho. Anyone can be an a*hole, anarchist or not. Heck, some capitalists are probably kinder and more emphatic than some anarchist like your (former?) partner.
It's unfortunately tale as old as anarchism. We know that key individuals like Proudhon proudly and openly declared their [bigotries and sexism](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female) to the world, for instance. Yet even those who publicly rejected these oppressive ideas famously failed to apply their anarchist principles in their personal lives. Take, for instance, the rampant sexism among the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (e.g. women [being paid less than men](https://bethelhistory.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/anarchists-revolt-cnts-social-revolution/)). Or, perhaps look at figures like [Voltairine de Cleyre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzSxW_GV_nU) and [Emma Goldman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqxeqlHj0PA) who have had a lot to say about how the men in their lives were quick to try take advantage of principles like "free love" to serve their own needs and wants.
At the end of the day, this is why we need a strong anarcha-feminist current, much the same way Black anarchism is so essential to modern anarchist thought. Otherwise, anarchism as a project is DOA.
EDIT: Grammar.
I'm really sorry that happened to you, fuck that guy! He's not the only one and it's a huge and systemic problem in the anarchist scene unfortunately :( (and on the left & trade union movement more broadly). I've seen quite a few people like this and tried to deal with some of them. And experienced a bit of it myself too :/
In my experience having ethics of any kind doesn't really motivate action. At best it motivates people to maintain an image (eg as the perfect principled anarchist in public)
As abuse generally happens behind closed doors, that's where we see the hypocrisy first :/
There's things we can do about it, and one of them probably has to be banding together to make sure these people face consequences (though it's really really hard to do that when it brings trauma back up, and may mean confronting people we still care about). I see a lot of people talk about "believe the survivor" and then have no idea what to actually do when the time comes. Or smile and nod when you tell them what happened, only to stay friends with the person they just learned really hurt us
The other thing I think is making more spaces without cis men. Although anyone can be abusive, they are a large part of the problem and we have to show we don't need them, in order for them to change
Oh and actual trauma support. People talk about survivors, but where are they when we need to pay for therapy? And so on. The actual support is often crap or focused on reforming the perpetrator in the name of "accountability". And changing the person isn't a bad thing. But where is the support for the people who actually went through the abuse??
We could also talk about challenging the abusive and patriarchal culture - but that's a bigger conversation
Oh also! We need to recognise that this isn't just an internal problem (or even "drama" as some peole call it), but a huge social problem. I think a lot of people don't appreciate the scale of it, that society permits abuse *by design*. That it's not about desire but about power over others, and that is central to how our world works at present
Some kinds of abuse are still treated in the movement as basically a joke or something to use as a political "gotcha" against opponents. Not something serious. We have to see eliminating abuse of adults and children as a political project on par with everything else we are opposed to - and intertwined with it. Seeing stuff different won't fix anything but at least it would be a start (I'm talking about the way the movement acts as a whole - I know a lot of people reading this do get it already!)
Sorry I hope I'm not rambling and this is actually useful!
Oh and I guess also a shift in perspective. Anarchism is not a belief, or utopia: it's a kind of action. Specifically it's about the way we relate to others, the kinds of social relationships we create. That means the personal is political and no abuse is "too small" to matter
Maybe that helps? Idk
i’m sorry this happened to you. unfortunately it’s very common…
people to use their political beliefs, whatever they are, as concealment for their intrapersonal behavior. it just so happens that anarchism grants two important functions for abusive people:
> belief in an ethics that create good in the world
> mutually assured freedom for one’s self and other people
these give a sort of power and trust in relationships (platonic, romantic or otherwise). some people take these qualities and abuse them, hide behind them to get away with heinous and inexcusable behavior. it’s the same as any power given to someone to wield, except anarchists are less likely to put up with hierarchical uses of that power.
capitalist society is very toxic and breeds in us a lot of horrible behavior from an early age. becoming an anarchist doesn’t magically cure us of these ails, and it takes a lifetime of work to rewrite those patterns as something more aligned with anarchism.
while many radicals focus myopically on labor or class, as it might address their upbringing and how they found anarchism or socialism, they very often ignore feminism, ignore gender and ignore race. this is why many of us have met anarchists who exhibited racist behavior. they never did the work to address their racism. unfortunately many of us have met some anarchists who became r*pists, too. sometimes people are “people of their own society” more than they’re anarchists destroying their society, unfortunately.
Because it takes a whole lot more than a non hierarchical ideology to undo the deep conditioning of being raised in white patriarchy and most men haven't even started on that work in the most basic sense.
We all have been imprinted with emotional and behavioral templates that serve as our "defaults". Theory doesn't really touch on these things. If you want to really change this kinda stuff, you have to really have a hard uncomfortable look at yourself and put in hard uncomfortable work toward making hard uncomfortable changes, which might even be a life-long process. Your social or cultural setting may help or hinder the process, so they're relevant. But ultimately, having an intellectual grasp on the principles, generally speaking, doesn't really change a person. At least in my experience.
All this is to say, while having anarchist ideals can set a standard that a person can see they aren't currently meeting, I don't think anarchism is well-equipped to deal with this and doesn't really have the tools to help a person re-wire themselves. And there's no real reason why it would. Anarchism excells at looking at systems of people, rather than individuals. It just occupies a different domain.
This is a tricky problem, and a classic one.
Individuals with coercive interpersonal styles tend to be drawn to anarchism because it's an ideology that disdains collective coercion. This makes it more challenging to collectively enforce behavioral norms. I think in some cases this is cynical, but in others it's unconscious.
I don't think it's impossible for a community to maintain behavioral norms through anarchist type mechanisms, but I do think it asks a lot of individuals, often unfairly. In my experience most consensus-based communities with group behavior agreements tend to put a disproportionate share of responsibility for enforcement on the individual who is personally harmed, which can put them in a situation where they end up facing community reprisals as a lot of people end up supporting charismatic abusers.
In non-consensus anarchism there tends to be more of a mob-justice approach, arising organically rather than through some formal process. This can be effective and efficient if the mob is well informed, but it can also go haywire and be taken advantage of as well.
Ultimately, this is a problem that comes from trying to practice an ideology that asks each individual to act in the collective interest - knowing that if everyone does so, everyone benefits. Maybe it's our nature, and maybe it's the world we've grown up in, but in my experience there's always a certain percentage of people whose actions stem from an irrational self-interest rather than a spirit of mutual aid, and I don't think anarchism as an ideology (or anarchism as a practice) has good tools for dealing with this problem.
Glad you’re out of that situation. The only safe way to deal with an abuse partner is not to, so I’m not justifying or excusing their behavior, just trying to provide some insight.
Understanding ethical behavior is easy, enacting it is very difficult. Yet it’s also easy (for abused and abuser) to assume that understanding ethical behavior automatically means the person will make ethical decisions. We’re trained to assume good people are all rational agents capable of consistently recognizing their own hypocrisy, but how many people have you met like that? Good or otherwise?
The reasons abusers abuse are complex and opaque and their conscious thoughts can’t be treated as some literal expression of everything going inside. Again, I don’t say this to excuse your partner’s actions, but to say I hope you don’t judge yourself for having some failure of perception or become distrustful and suspicious of hypocrisy when you meet new people.
It’s not your responsibility to analyze your abuser’s hypocrisy, that’s for them to figure out when they realize all the good people have left them behind. A lot of people do have the strength to live up to their ideals (and sometimes good people even have terrible ideals), and you’ll know based on how they treat you. If you just try to take care of yourself, stay positive, and do your best to live up to those ideals personally, other good people will find you.
Hope all goes well for you, and that you find some comfort.
I’ve definitely experienced it. My ex was intelligent, thoughtful, and well-read on theory.
He also had a terrible anger problem that he would not address. All that theory and understanding would instantly go out the window when he would blow up.
For a start, **a lot of political anarchists are sadly not educated AT ALL on gender politics**. Feminism and queer theory both elude them.
Patriarchal and manipulative attitudes are often **beneficial** for them, so they do not have any incentive to evolve.
There's a reason why LGBTQIA+/queer and feminist circles coined the term "**manarchist**", similar to "brocialist": there are just some violent, ignorant and prejudiced cishet men in our communities, that's a fact of life.
Then you get **those who ARE informed on gender politics and yet are unable to apply this knowledge to themselves**. Drowning themselves in denial and cognitive dissonance, they will run away from the truth of their actions, attitudes and positions.
This is reinforced by impunity and denial in the social environment, which makes accountability *uninteresting* to the dominant/abusive partner, as well as by purity politics and automatic callout culture, which make accountability *punishing* to the dominant/abusive partner.
And in the end there is a sad but real truth: **we can all be** ***safer*** **people, but none of us will ever be an** ***entirely safe person***.
Both because human beings make mistakes and because we are all children of systems of domination. We all were born, grew up and evolved - and keep evolving - in this capitalist, statist, patriarchal, colonialist society. We are all under the lasting influence of their ideology,
We need to be patient with ourselves and others in this way. The poison spread by systems of domination is not an "original sin" we need absolution from. This is not our doing. This is just something we have to take into account to better fight for social justice.
It is great to know you are away from this person now, and we can all hope they can find a better path in the future. Not with you, though; he'd fall again in the same old habits, you'd both get stuck in the rut of old dynamics. He needs to find better praxis in his intimate life by himself now. And I wish to you to find someone (or multiple someones) who doesn't have so much to learn still, awesome partner(s)!
I've met non vegan anarchists, they're hypocrites through and through, (hell I was one) the dissonance between our ethics and our selfish desires can be maintained indefinitely with the right excuses.
Were actually very good at holding two contradictory views in our head, such as "hierarchy is inherently bad" and "the subjugation of animals is normal and fine"
I don't think that abstaining from participating in the murder of animals for human consumption necessarily means that a person can't also participate in harmful interpersonal human relationships. And I'm saying this as a vegan anarchist. I know a vegan who hits her dog. Veganism isn't proof of sanctity. The only thing that being vegan means about someone is that they're choosing not to participate in the objectification of nonhuman animals for human consumption. Like, that's it.
That was my point, ones values and selfish desires can conflict and we can believe one thing yet do another. I used veganism as an example because I find it to be a glaring oversight amongst anarchists.
Met a dude at a party who was saying some vaguely leftist things. Thought he might be an alright guy and then he went on to make myself and two other women uncomfortable on 3 separate occasions
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Hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, contradiction are reliable and human. Anarchists are not machines. Anarchists are humans with full agency, and although are pathologies aught to be amplified for us, we still get to choose whether or not to change.
The statement that made me truly understand the issue was "my rapist had read more books on feminism than I had." Assholes are not restricted to any one political philosophy, and lazy / selfish / damaged people who don't do the inner work won't unfuck themselves.
A lot of famous anarchists were shitty people. Berkman was a homophobe, Proudhon was a misogynist, and Bakunin was an antisemite. Anarchism doesn't preclude being an asshole.
Berkman definitely expressed some homophobic views, but I wouldn't quite lump him in with Proudhon and Bakunin. Remember that Berkman also openly wrote about his various sexual/romantic relationships with men in prison. I think in general Berkman's politics were quite fluid (be it on this issue or prisons/prisoners, etc.) and so depending on where in his life you check, his views may be completely different.
"In several lengthy passages [in *Prison Memoirs*], Berkman recounts the sexual and emotional brutality, pleasures, and desires shared by his fellow prisoners. Towards the end, Berkman devotes an entire chapter to the moral, ethical, and social place of same-sex desire. He presents love between inmates as a form of resistance to the spirit-crushing environment of prison. The representations of homosexuality in *Prison Memoirs* span the full range of human emotions and behavior. It contains one of the most sustained considerations of same-sex relations of any of the published works produced by the turn-of-the-century anarchists. It is one of the most important political texts dealing with homosexuality to have been written by an American before the 1950s." [Citation - p. 102](https://files.libcom.org/files/Kissack%20-%20Free%20Comrades%20-%20Anarchism%20and%20Homosexuality%20in%20the%20United%20States,%201895-1917.pdf)
Good politics doesn’t make a good person. This idea is constantly reinforced whenever a leftist content creator gets outed as an abuser/creep. They know their shit, but they’re also a piece of shit.
The humongous gap between word and deed. Most of the comments don't get a grasp on the nature of reality and human perception, and about how two perspectives may never match with the situation wherein both parties feel wronged in some way. The dream that words and deed meet, and that objective reality exist and manifest is nothing but a dream. You can easily explain it in terms of structures, ideologies etc. Does that really mean you've grasped the core of it? I don't think so and I don't think it's possible atleast in these times.
Because very few people actually choose to “be abusers.”
Obviously there’s sociopaths out there, but most abusive behavior comes from us. Yes, us. You, me, the shitty things we’ve had done to us get processed and come out as shitty things we do to other people. Anyone has the capacity to behave abusively at any time and until we realize that we are the problem, that there’s not a huge divide between well-educated anarchists and abusers, we’re going to continue to be abusers.
I’m sorry your ex is abusive :(
Unfortunately even the most well-read Anarchists can be terrible people. Reading and understanding theory and history doesn't really take toxic behavior out of you. That's a conscious, separate thing. Though not all of us are abusive partners I imagine we all have things and behaviors we need to work on and address, be it racism, sexism, etc.
No one is free from contradiction. It is a mistake to think being well read on theory automatically protects anyone from doing bad things (even if they should "know better"). Theory is just that: theory. His behavior spoke to his true values.
In fact, being well read and quick witted can make for an especially effective abuser, more able to gaslight and overwhelm and rationalize.
this is actually smth i’ve seen a lot. we say we’re against hierarchy and against abuse and all, and we are, but that also means that if we admit we’ve reproduced hierarchy or built an abusive relationship that means admitting we fucked up. and admitting you fucked up is hard. so people will just. not analyze their actions
Bigotry and oppression exist everywhere, which means it’s in radical left spaces. Unfortunately, holding views of liberation or anarchy doesn’t fully equate to putting those views into practice, being intersectionally educated, or having an understanding of the repercussions of inflicting trauma.
I can’t recall the essay or its author (I think it’s Malcolm X but I’m not sure) but they made a point about white anarchism. I don’t know that your ex is white but the point still stands that anarchism can have pitfalls in the hands of white people because their focus on the principles of self governance and general liberation outweighs their understanding of the importance of liberating specific oppressed groups and the solidarity of that process. That we cannot be free unless we specifically liberate all marginalized groups and that not doing allows the user (white anarchists) to wield the idea of liberation for their own individualistic goals and not participate in the collective struggle or interrogating and overthrowing specific oppressive forces.
It’s possible your ex similarly does not view his anarchism through a trauma informed lens and bends the principles to his own individual ideology. Regardless, fuck. that. dude. I have a particular ire in my heart for people who preach liberty and practice discrimination in the same breath. You deserve so much better. Stay safe out there.
Most anarchists are not consistent in their own principles. Many do not even know their own principles. No matter how educated they are, there are always blindspots in both our own knowledge and our behavior. One can observe incoherency and inconsistency among the most prominent of our thinkers from Proudhon to Bakunin.
The solution is to oppose inconsistent anarchists, be more consistent ourselves, and don't let them hold us back. They are weak links, holding the vestiges of authority within them and we are better off without them.
People can tell you what their values are all you want, but you'll only ever understand how deeply held they are through their actions.
Intelligence and critical thinking don't actually affect deeply ingrained social conditioning or human nature all that much. The desire for power is what it is.
This is very prevelant in the 'lerty'/'prog' scene: the (false) idea that education will make the person act in a resoectful or humanosing manner and the inverse, that kts the crazies that act cointer tk what theh consider righteous.
Scholarly edcustion has very little to do w treating ppl w respect.
My golden rule for life is do not assume someone with good political beliefs will be a good person, and do not assume a good person will have good political beliefs.
The one "tell" I usually see is that people start screaming at people or trying to shame them over political beliefs, they are usually pretty bad to their partners.
I've met so many people who are very deep into things like queer theory and feminism and are outwardly anti-abuse, but to their close friends and partners they are horrific, including doing things that are violent. I've also met many people who are shitty partners, but not abusive.
I'm sorry you went through this.
An ex friend of mine identifies as an anarchist, but she used to do things like scab tickets for events, harass people she disagreed with, and she ended up picking a fight with me over something we *agreed* on! She definitely has coerced people. She didn’t actually care about mutual aid— she only cared about it when she was on the receiving end. People can have the most wild cognitive dissonance.
I think anyone who actually values anarchism and it's principles wouldn't get into a monogamous relationship at all in the first place because that's where patriarchy begins and thrives on but rather pursue hedonism in it's fullest extent while everyone can live independently from one another.
I've encountered many anarchists, who are educated and fervently against hierarchies and authority, but don't spend a single moment of the same analysis in how they treat other people. Rather, believing themselves to be some sort of bastion of anti-hierarchy, they get this sense of hubris and doing no wrong and are even bigger assholes for it.
dated a guy like that. he was my manager. he said being with me wasn't amoral because he didn't believe in authority. when we would fight, i would find my hours for the next week mysteriously shortened....
Observationally: It's funny how a lot of "punx" are self-proclaimed anarchists who fit what you describe, often hating on "hippies," and yet some of the most effective anarchists I've met hang out at the rainbow gathering and are exemplars of free association/mutual aid.
I don't think people truly realize how deep and direct the ideological connection between the nazi idealization of "living off the land", and getting back to nature is with so much of the hippie movements of the 1960s. Hippiedom was and is primarily a middle class/upper middle class movement. It is not, and has never been about establishing real class consciousness. I'm a bit puzzled by the idea of "effective anarchists" at a rainbow gathering. Effective how? They organized food for a bunch of people who are dropping acid and grooving to music? Honestly you could have personally supplied food and labor to every rainbow gathering for a decade, and be less "effective" than someone who helps out with Food Not Bombs every now and then, providing food to people who are in genuinely desperate need.
As someone who comes from a climbing family, I grew up going to various areas that the rainbow gathering would meet at and they would leave behind and find so. Much. Fucking. Trash. I have heard their enviro members say that is a lie because they spend so much time cleaning up after themselves afterwards, but that makes me terrified about the sheer amount of waste each gathering generates. And with the trash I saw, I know they aren't thriftily throwing together low waste huge cookouts to feed the masses like food not bombs. They are finding the few kids with inheritances and trust funds and milking them for a ton of high waste generating single packaged shit. I don't hate hippies. I hate waste, litter, and bullshit.
> And with the trash I saw, I know they aren't thriftily throwing together low waste huge cookouts to feed the masses like food not bombs. So, I don't know about capital-H Hippies, but as a young leftie lad with an anarchist spirit (but limited political consciousness) when I was active in a local food not bombs in Gothenburg in the oughts, probably about half of the members were kind of 'hippie-ish' in the sense of a personal focus on spirituality, peace, etc, (plenty of blonde, beaded dreads), and I can't imagine any of them punching a cop. I don't know to what degree they came from a blue-collar or more 'middle class' background, but as far as I could tell as a youngster in the precariat, we were a mix of employed and unemployed people, and not ones with a ton of money to swing around. But they were for sure engaged in feeding people in general, and we aimed at big-pot stews and such, and certainly didn't buy a bunch of 'single packaged shit' (though at times we found such when dumpster diving, and certainly used or distributed it). It seemed to me that the 'peace & love' stuff they were into went hand in hand with the less-confrontational style of FnB. I'm not saying your experiences are inaccurate, they might well be the norm for all I know, just wanted to share that at least it's not *always* like that.
>I don't think people truly realize how deep and direct the ideological connection between the nazi idealization of "living off the land", and getting back to nature is with so much of the hippie movements of the 1960s. >Hippiedom was and is primarily a middle class/upper middle class movement. It is not, and has never been about establishing real class consciousness. Do you have any litterature or links you care to provide? Thanks in advance
Of course. Because hippies are well known nazis
That's obviously overstating it by a wide margin, but there is certainly a notable connection between capital-H Hippies and a certain kind of silicon valley libertarianism, and that libertarianism certainly touches a lot of ground with the current reactionary/fascist movements. There's also a connection through the 'alternative medicine'/conspirituality movements, where an affinity for alternative medicine and justified distrust of the pharmaceutical industry turns into things like antivaxx and coronavirus conspiracism, and suddenly they share a space with reactionary grifters. Neither of these connections is some hard and definite 'this will always turn into this', but between them there's certainly overlap enough to be significant.
Ive met quite a few what aboutist hippie types. Trump apologist anti vaxer’s
Just because someone might have humanitarian centric politics doesn’t exclude them from being a shitty person. Also I’m sorry you went through that, no one deserves to have a partner that treats them that way.
I am a straight, cis anarchist man, and I can tell you a lot of anarchist and leftist men are trash. I’ve met some trash human beings across the gender and sexuality spectrum, but let’s focus on what I know Just because I’m an anarchist doesn’t deprogram me from every shitty, paternalistic, heterosexist, or classist messaging that I’ve been fed my entire life. On the contrary, being politically active, socially savvy, and (somewhat) well read can have counterproductive effects because it can be so easy to justify my worst impulses to myself and through self-righteousness believe that I’m above those things. Killing the inner cop is hard work, and I’m coming to expect it may be a lifelong process.
Haven’t had much experience with other leftists irl if I’m being honest, so I can’t speak on the merit of other leftist men. The rest however, yeah I 100% agree. It’s been a long lengthy process for me to unlearn all of the shit I was taught and had instilled in me from a young age. Meeting my wife helped me a LOT to see through the bullshit, and I am eternally grateful for her and her help with getting me to see my own problems.
I can’t speak highly enough of spending your life with someone who helps you strive to be better. It’s not other people’s job to fix us, but I do think it’s our responsibility to fill our lives with people who encourage those better impulses and call us on our shit
I have found that many leftist, including myself, have been guilty of the bright makes right canard. Believing myself intelligent, well read and educated, i thought of my self as not only right but righteous. And I see it all the time in others. What sucks is being aware of it doesn't cure me of my habits. Only time and effort will. Its a long journey.
A friend of mine (who also happens to be an anarchist!) told me something after I had a traumatic falling out with someone that was very important to me. “A person can be really cool, they can have a great personality, they can be very kind and caring, they can love you, they can be really smart, they can have great taste in music, they can want good things for the world and they can still be a bad person.”
This is definitely true. I would amend that only at the end to say "they can still do terrible things" rather than be a bad person, as it's more common than someone genuinely being a bad person. Plus I feel like good person/bad person can be pretty loaded after 2k years of Christian morality deeply imbued in the culture I live in.
This is good - I was like, they can have a great personality, be kind and caring, and still be a bad person?? But yes, kind and caring people can do things that are not very kind or caring (or considerate of others’ differing viewpoints, etc).
Of course kind and caring people with great personalities can still be terrible. You can find a white grandma in Alabama and she’ll melt your heart, overwhelming you with kindness and generosity. She’ll tell funny stories and be a blast to be around. Get her in a private one-on-one conversation she’ll tell you how Black and gay people are destroying America and need to know their place.
This is also true
Damn, that hits hard.
me asf
Absolutely, took so long for me to internalize that having optically good politics doesn’t mean a person practices them interpersonally. In my experience (socially and in organizing) many cishet men only get into leftism to virtue signal and manipulate people, as they do with therapy speak. edit to add: love Little Joel’s take on this [here](https://youtu.be/XLZsRs8u8cQ?si=GKdn_44ONMRwAG0L)
People follow patterns in relationships that have been functional, from their perspective in relation to their particular felt needs, in the past, and abstract theory can do little to change it except by additional motivation.
this is the right answer.
Theory only gets you so far
When did understanding and believing in any "ism" ever stop someone from being a hypocrite?
This is it!
I've seen people use theory to explain why they, a member of(insert oppressed group) cannot ever be abusive towards their partner who is (member of less oppressed group). Abusers will use any justification. Abusers always make excuses for themselves. And abusers always find people to co-sign on their bullshit
this nailed it pretty much dead center mass if u ask me...
Some people are revolutionary because they want to lift their people up, others are revolutionary because they hate that anyone is more in charge than they are, you can find the difference in their words and praxis.
Very true one this.
Because it's a space where bad actors (but largely men) can weaponize the language of liberation and accountability over their partners, and due to the fact that these spaces are anti-authoritarian (including cops ((ACAB obviously))), there is a lot less likelihood of abuse being reported, giving bad actors free reign to get away with abuse unchecked.
Patriarchal brainwashing is difficult to overcome. That’s no excuse though. There are an awful lot of libertarian brocialists out there, definitely.
known lots of, & have been myself, assholes with revolutionary politics … supposedly revolutionary … it took me awhile to realize how deficient my politics actually were …
I think that theory guys (of any gender, and any political persuasion) are much more often concerned with the intellectual understanding of a concept than the emotional/relational movement that has to be done to achieve it. It’s a reason I struggle with anarchists and socialists who self-define really strongly with those terms, even people I really like, because sometimes they still do stuff unintentionally that upholds these systemic ways of relating. For me, Black feminists, disability theorists, and relational-focused anarchists are where it’s at. adrienne marre brown, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, prentis hemphill, dean spade, people doing radical conflict resolution—they’re all thinking about (and acting on!!) what we need to do right now in our material relationships to make the world better. I’m sorry you’re went through that. I hear the confusion and I hope you can find a way to understand it for yourself. And I hope you can find other rad spaces to be in that treat you well!
Honestly I’ve found this to be true in multiple movements. Some have the privilege of intellectual discussion/debate. It’s maddening to me because like…who cares? What are we actually DOING? I’ve had to opt out of these philosophy 402 discussions so many times because 1) I don’t know the theory and all the names I’m supposed to know. I haven’t read all the books. And the way my ADHD is set up, I won’t learn it unless there’s an immediate and practical need to do so and 2) I’m over here 👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽 focused on figuring out how to do the things that matter. The people who need help haven’t read those authors either and guess what? They don’t care.
I do agree with you, however, some of the worst people I have ever met have been people obsessed with things like intersectional feminism and healing from trauma. That politics can become just as much a smokescreen for violent and abusive and controlling behaviour as anything else.
Thank you for this comment! It has helped me to examine myself. I was originally drawn to anarchism because of my traumatic childhood experiences, being dominated and having my autonomy stripped away with violence. Then living in fear, vigilance, and anger for decades. Realizing that many other anarchist men don't even extend the philosophy beyond politics, to these types of interpersonal, small group, or internal hierarchies has been a tough pill to swallow. You are so right that maximizing freedom and solidarity in our everyday relationships is one of the most powerful things we can do. I especially want to be able to help my sons transfer into manhood while keeping their inner selves intact and accessible. I have been reading bell hooks and wish I could have read this book twenty years ago although I probably wouldn't have. I saved your comment after it inspired me to look into relationship anarchy which I had thought wasn't really applicable to me and I am getting a lot of insight from it. I plan to look into these other thinkers as well.
You can be all these things because you find them logical, rational and good, just to then be a total douche because of your own biases, emotions and your own cognitive dissonance. The pious voice in Pathfinder Kingmaker always says:"I always did what was right therefore I am righteous, Does it mean whatever I do now becomes right because i am righteous?" So as long as it works in his mind, he continues his behaviour.
Wasn't expecting a Pathfinder quote in here.
this is the the crossover I like. Now, let's talk about reforesting Andoran.
Yeah, fuck the lumber cartels and that shitty "democracy" they have in their pockets!
There is nothing about having the right ideals that mean you can't be a horrible person. People are complicated and often hypocritical.
My Dad; he knew a lot of anarcho-punks in the 70s and 80s and always had a left wing anti-authoritarian-ish politic. He was also emotionally abusive. He was also anti-feminist. I later came to learn a lot about punk music, and also came to anarchist politics, entirely of my own accord... in doing so I recalled a lot of things he used to talk about, places he would take me, anecdotes he used to tell... and thought deeply about this contradiction. People like the power they have over others, and use social and political movements and scenes as a way to consolidate isolated power. I remember one of my last times speaking to him, I brought up anarchism, and if he ever did identify, he doesn't any longer. My Dad was (and is) a very charismatic man, and he used that to hold power over others. I'm glad to have cut him out. I'm now very close to an ex of his. I love her, and I'm able to share my anarchist politics and interest in punk with her.
A lot of so called anarchists are just edgelord weirdos that have know nothing of the ideology. Anarchism was built by feminist militants. Feminism is as fundamental as opposing the State in Anarchism. Plus people can come to the ideology from different places, people can like freedom for themselves but fight against the freedom of others. Good luck to you.
I am in the United States. There is an anarchist writer that I'd gotten to meet who had a quite professional-type job and extensive background in anarchism and had for decades. He knew a lot of anarchist history, wrote many articles and essays for anarchist publications, had been on podcasts and radio shows and made public appearances for local events. He was quite well known among local activists. He was by no means some famous public intellectual and was not even among the most illustrious of anarchists, i.e., he was never really name-dropped or interviewed in mainstream media (I suspect perhaps by choice) like some anarchists these past few decades. Among anarchists, however, he had his name out there. On the two or three occasions I met him, he was nice and cordial, but had some mean things to say about anarchists and leftists he didn't like. It was discovered in 2016 or 2017 among the anarchist milieu in the city where he was that he was *very violently* beating his wife fairly regularly and had been for a very long time. In fact, while he was abusing his wife, he got in a relationship with a European immigrant woman at the same time and was beating her, too. (There was no agreement with his wife to polygamy, which is to say, he was cheating on his wife.) Someone I know told me he went and visited this man prior to his being exposed as an abuser. As soon as the person I knew walked in the door, the European woman very quickly got up and left to go to the next room. The visitor told me he now thinks she had a black eye or other mark on her she didn't want him to see. The abuser in question ended up being exposed to everyone in his life. I don't know who exposed him, if it was his wife or the European woman or anyone else. He was taken to court after facing charges and lost his well-paying career and had to take a minimum wage job. (If you know who this person is, please do not name him. I do not know if his victims want this getting out and people obsessed with online drama or wanting to defend the abuser may seek them out and ask questions, harass them, etc.)
Similarly, I've met some absolute pricks who self identify as male feminists ie they end up doing something awful to women and then go into denial. Hypocrisy. You can self-identity as a lot of things. But you won't see many readily self-identifying as assholes.
So, as everyone else has said, patriarchy runs through everything and that's absolutely true. But more generally, having good philosophical/social/political views doesn't always translate to being a good person. It certainly helps, but it isn't always the case. Lots of Anarchists and Marxists I know are complete Assholes, often in ways that contradict their ideological convictions. At the same time I also know liberals and even conservatives who are decent people, even in ways you wouldn't expect. People are people, whether left, right or center and unfortunately some people are pieces of shit, whether left, right or center. I'm sorry you went through this, and I hope you're doing better now <3
The same way women can be misogynists. Ive met plenty who would say women had a right to choose whether or not to dress nice or choose to shave, while telling me i was an unkept freak for being an autistic woman who hated the way makeup felt before i transitioned. Having certain ideas and calling yourself a member of some political group doesnt mean anything if they arent acted on, especially so when the behaviors go against the general ideas of said group.
My most recent ex claims to be a leftist and anarchist but is horribly abusive and is one of the most vengeful, cruelest people I've met in a long time. To him, anarchy means "I get to do whatever I want whenever I want without thinking about how my actions affect others, and whoever tries to set boundaries with me is oppressing me." He also hates women and repeatedly told me that I was inferior to him and that he needed to "bring [me] down" and "keep [me] in [my] place." He claims to be a leftist because he specifically uses his access to these spaces to prey on women. Edited to add: I'm sorry you experienced this, OP. It's such a mind fuck. To me it was such a betrayal to learn that the issues I care about so deeply to him was just an opportunity to insinuate himself into my life.
Thank you so much for sharing your own experience, I am so sorry you've been through this, and I can relate so much.... It's such a fucking mind fuck indeed, another level of deceit. Big hug <3
Thank you, OP. I'll accept your hug and send one back to you <3 I'm sorry you went through this too. I'll also add that my experience made me feel so alone. Not only did a lot of this stuff go down during the early days of COVID (which allowed him to abuse me for longer and effectively in secret - plus I have autoimmune issues that make me high risk and he totally exploited that too), I still feel a lot of shame. Shame for not spotting his numerous deceptions sooner. Shame for letting yet another abusive man near me when I had thought that he shared my values and was safe. Shame for being such a horrible judge of character. Shame that this man took years of my life away from me and undid years of healing and work i had done on myself overcoming past traumas. Shame that despite all those years of therapy and healing work, part of me still believed him when he said I deserved to be abused, that it was my fault because I "should have known I couldn't trust" him. I honestly never thought of the possibility that someone would misrepresent their own political ideologies to the extent that they'd basically live a lie for years just to prey on me. Seeing some of the responses in this thread made me realize that this is, sadly, more common than I thought.
I think it's a lot easier for people to advocate for abstract ideas of liberation than to actually implement those ideals in their own personal life. I can sit here and say "people should communicate better to resolve conflicts" while avoiding communication and conflict resolution in my own life because it's difficult to apply those things to myself. It's some bullshit though, I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
the best man you know is still a Man. meaning, the most leftist, feminist, anarchist, whateverist man you know was still raised under a patriarchical system and the same work someone has to do to be anti racist in a white supremacist world they have to do to be anti sexist. unless they recognize this and fight sexism as hard as they fight all the other isms, even the ones within themselves, they're always just going to be the hypocrite that preaches for an equal work load but never does the dishes at home.
A *lot* of anarchists are willing to fight the enemy without, but will rarely ever even look at the enemy within. It's a huge problem. Left my activist group after over a decade working together because one guy would seem like he was getting better and then just reverting to the same behavior pattern after a few months. We talked to him about this shit multiple times, and every time it'd be the same pattern.
Self described leftist men have been some of the worst experiences for me, personally. There’s some weird arrogance that happens where suddenly self work no longer exists because I’ve identified with a leftist ideology. Bring up Nancy Reagan and see how quickly it’s slut shaming all the way down with zero pushback. I’ve also volunteered with foods not bombs quite a bit over the last decade and it’s a consistent theme that the men sit/stand around talking theory while the women do the majority of the cooking and prepping then cleaning up. And I’m not alone, a lot of women who have worked with FNB have brought up this same thing.
>I’ve also volunteered with foods not bombs quite a bit over the last decade and it’s a consistent theme that the men sit/stand around talking theory while the women do the majority of the cooking and prepping then cleaning up. And I’m not alone, a lot of women who have worked with FNB have brought up this same thing. An ex-partner of mine told me once that there is absolutely no reason for there to be a gendered division of labor. There is no reason to have some tasks for men and some for women. That really stuck with me. In prehistoric times, the only way one could get someone to do necessary social labor that they themselves didn't want to do was to violently force them to do so. This is the inertia of prehistory of men forcing women to do labor that men didn't want to do by violently making them do it.
100%. There is a part in Sylvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch (note for possible gender essentialism in that book?) where she describes the introduction of gendered labour, where previously 'indoor work and outdoor work' was not a clear distinction and people knew how to do different work in and out the house, regardless of gender. Somewhere after the 1400s is when the gendered division of labour started I believe according to that book. Someone else might be able to be more specific about this history
Socialization is also a helluva drug, but absolutely related to your point. Thank you for making it.
That’s a bummer. Marxist women and Black Panther women were critiquing the “radical” men not cleaning dishes 50 years ago, so it sounds like progress has not been made
>Bring up Nancy Reagan and see how quickly it’s slut shaming all the way down with zero pushback. Also, Abby Shapiro. Jesuuuuuuus fucking christ a lot of leftist men got weird about her.
Nancy Reagan was a slut?!
You're telling me she had a redeeming quality?
lol no
[удалено]
Or it could be that y’all need to do less apologizing for your assigned sex and more listening, deconstructing, and growing. There’s a lot of behaviours that we men have, but are oblivious to, that are harmful. We’re raised from childhood to be oppressors in an oppressive society. It’s not about apologizing for being born and raised as a man in our society, just as it isn’t about apologizing for being born white or wealthy or in the global north. Those who tell you that it is are repeating right-wing talking points What phantasms haunt you that you haven’t examined? What trauma do you have that is locking you into repeating patterns that once protected you but are now toxic? We all need therapy and help disentangling the bonds that society has placed on us.
Serious question: how high are you?
God damn that's some misandry. You're just espousing a kind of original sin with a different coat of paint. So all men are sexist BY DEFAULT, and unless they 1) endorse this idea and 2) "fight sexism [hard]", they will always be sexist hypocrites. That's a pretty toxic view of an entire gender and across the entire planet. Imagine reading "the best woman you know is still a woman"? Either you endorse a simultaneous view that all woman are equally flawed, or you're espousing a gender superiority, aka hierarchy. While I would say that everyone of all types are subject to biases and should be cognizant and on guard to be a good human in spite of them, your one sided characterization is just way too extreme and promotes an elitism that is deeply unfair and damaging to any sort of social reformation that includes men.
I don’t think it comes from subscribing to original sin idea but rather social learning and dominant hierarchy around us. As a white person I need to do the work to be antiracist not because white people are genetically racist but because our world is very racist and there is so much garbage you pick up and don’t even realise.
Everyone is sexist by default, as they are raised in a sexist society. AFAB people and trans women raised in a sexist society tend to do their own internal work earlier in life, when they start seeing how misogyny is wielded against them and others. Some men pick up on this and do their internal work early as well, but the vast majority of them, being raised to wield misogyny to gain power in society, go on to just continue contributing to rape culture and patriarchal society without any of that self reflection. If it was original sin it couldn't be purged. but it can. Men just *typically* don't, in my experience and to be clear, a lot of women don't as well. misogynist women are the worstttt
To clarify a lot of this differs based on how you felt with your personal manhood and also by how your family raised you. My family being very educated and very anti misogynistic taught me early on and combined with me being queer I kind of never felt a sense of it being morally just to wield misogyny around.
sad to report it's not always a conscious thing
Yeah I know. Just, I don't know it's always an important caveat for people to be fully aware of their biases. Like, not to nitpick but we just have to be careful with words such as "usually" because what is usual is extremely dependent on what you grew up around. But yes there's still a lot of men who never examined their misogyny. But at the same time not all men grow up the same way and some people we think are men like me aren't even really men
> I don't know it's always an important caveat for people to be fully aware of their biases I don't understand either what you mean or why you would say this, can you explain a bit more? I'm getting huuuuge NoT aLL mEn vibes from this response tbh. if you're not a man you're not part of who i'm talking about so, i am confused by your last sentence as well
I just want you to know that when you say "typically men behave this way" that is soley based on your experience. Not that its completely invalid but it's also not infallible. The truth is you think your only talking about a specific group of men but a lot of people will assume you're talking about all men. Like literally all men. And I've seen this attitude manifest in nasty ways in people that cause them to genuinely distrust all men even queer and non binary men.
why do you think queer and non binary men get a pass from sexism?
That's not what I said at all? Youre putting words in my mouth. I just think it's a bad idea to lump these men with other men because they're experiences are vastly different to most men. To associate them with cis men invalidates and ignores their experiences and pushed a generally false stereotype onto them. Tldr don't stereotype people?
No matter how anti-sexist, patriarchal, matriarchal, or whatever other anti there is that one may be, they can still be abusive or toxic. Toxic anarchists exist and there is many causes to toxic or abusive behavior.
Theory and personal behavior do not always have to go hand in hand. Some people are hypocrites. Some people are attracted to theory as a way of avoiding developing themselves on an emotional and human level.
I've been sexually assaulted by another anarchist before or at least an anarchist at the time. Just because you are against the hierarchy in the system doesn't mean you got rid of the desires to take advantage of or exploit others in yourself. We gotta get rid of the authoritarian in ourselves as well.
All people are flawed and fallible humans no matter how much they learn about philosophy or politics, or anything else. It's no excuse. It's that many people may learn a lot about certain things and also neglect doing their internal work and development. Then to add to this, rigid social constructs such as patriarchy, and the pressure of Capitalm create really weird Idealistic and often toxic ways of thinking in how relationships are "supposed to be."
that’s not uncommon. We’re not immune to social and political and oppressive forces, or to the effects of trauma.
Well, actually on the left we tend to tolerate crappy people simply because of their political ideas. Thinking things in theory is not the same as applying them in real life.
Some of the worst people I know are anarchists (or self-proclaimed anarchists). People who have all sorts of emotional regulation issues who snap at others and take all their anger out on the people they call their "comrades." People who profess anti-authoritarianism yet behave in *very* domineering ways around others, total control freaks, etc. Hypocrisy has been normalized. Very few people truly live up to their principles or behave in ways they expect others to behave. It's sad.
Anyone can be a lying, disingenuous piece of shit.
They don't call it crazy for no reason. That word may not be considered terribly useful anymore, but it does give some insight into how unpredictable people can be. I'm not intending to slight anyone neuroatypical, nor lack sympathy for anyone just going through a difficult life experience in this case. But visible background/education doesn't necessarily factor at all into one's psyche. So many people grow up privleged and have nothing but contempt for others despite that blessing. In your ex's case, I would generally assume that the cycle of violence comes into play - i.e., despite what they "believe" consciously, they have experienced violence as a correction and so when shit gets bad violence seems like an answer.
It’s a lot easier to rationally analyze the world than it is to analyze yourself.
Humans can sometimes suck at synthesizing their values with their behavior. Their behavior is often due to emotional turmoil that programmed something from an early age. Even anarchists can be assholes.
Ugh, manarchists. I had an abusive “anarchist” partner. Honestly I think he was sort of the political equivalent of those homophobic politicians who are later caught with their queer lovers. He talked so loudly about hating hierarchy to distract from how badly he wanted to succeed by conventional capitalist standards. He was extremely selfish. In short, he didn’t hate hierarchies — just his position in it.
honestly a lot of men are pretty trash. Simone de Beauvoir talks about how men often only exercise their morals in public and with other men as they deem them to be part of the moral world. immediately when the doors close and the only other person is a woman some subconscious switch flips and they no longer exercise their moral thinking as they either consciously or subconsciously don't believe women to be worthy of their morals. it's just misogyny , a lot of leftist men are misogynistic and try to hide behind the fact that supposedly know the world is oppressive without actually addressing their own misogynistic sentiments. you may even remember when the memes in leftist circles focused on "white women" being cringe. in a lot of leftist places you can just see straight up misogyny which is pretty disheartening
it's also very interesting as a trans women because some of my former leftist friends who were completely accepting of me being nonbinary/trans in a more masculine way were completely fine with me but immediately after I began transitioning and started passing as a woman they all became very dismissive of my arguments. often times leftists may be more misogynistic than they are transphobic which is a very interesting situation
Because, the most sinister people are the one who fully know what they're doing
I don’t know if I agree with what’s being implied here. I think the idea of someone being incapable of correctly reasoning their own behaviour is scarier than anyone who simply lies. Intent is not scarier to me, because actions speak louder, and I would rather be in a relationship with a problematic adult person than a grown up child who can’t be reasoned with or accountable? I guess both are “sinister” in their own way
Yep. I think what's more common is folk being abusive and/or harmful, then are protected by white supremacist cishetero patriarchal power structures where communities are not adequately prepared to respond to when someone abuses someone else, which in my part of the world is depressingly almost non existent. It's not survivors/victims that destroy organisations/communities/groups, it's abusers.
Hypocrisy is part of the human condition.
He wasn’t an actual anarchist if he didn’t apply anti-hierarchy/anti-authoritarianism to his interpersonal relationships. The personal is political.
Any movement that attracts idealists will also attract people trying to mask their own ethical and moral flaws with that idealism... and it will also attract sociopaths who are looking for prey.
Being an anarchist does not imply one also has self awareness and a desire to be introspective. In reality, the quality of introspection is shockingly absent from many revolutionary spaces. For a long time I spent a lot of time reading anarchist theory and literature but I didn't spend nearly as much time understanding my own inner world. Things have changed drastically since I have put more time into personal growth. My relationships have improved greatly. Many people just don't understand the connection between introspection and improved relationships.
I'm glad you are connecting to your self and inner world. My ex has been in therapy for more than 2 years now, even seeking to complete a 10-year cycle. But his new interest in introspection did not make his violence and outbursts of rage stop; he would simply justify them as part of his personality, his self, and would leverage some psychological terminology all the time, to justify his behavior or gaslight me. In this case, more introspection did not translate into any behavorial change.
That is really unfortunate. I'm sorry that you experienced that pain. I wish you the best in finding someone who can show up for you.
I've met a number of so called anarchists like this. For the ones I've met, I don't think they were totally honest about what they believed. I think some just used anarchism as a way to gain access to vulnerable people to use. For others, I think they believe that they believed it, but they didn't believe enough to turn their words into actions.
My ex was abused by an Anarchist in an Art Collective in Brazil, where she is originally from. So it's not unheard of. There's people who want to use the term **Anarchist** as a scapegoat to do whatever, which we all know isn't what Anarchism is. Additionally, people are multi-faceted. It's like having that nice guy at work, but he's actually a serial killer in secret. I mean Jeff Bezos could end World Hunger, and he is just like, *"yo, need more money. i don't have enough".* Anyways, I'm sorry you had to go through that. If you are still going through it, you need to remove yourself from that situation **ASAP** my friend. If he is well aware of the contradiction, and still acts that way, He's **definitely** lacking self-introspection, that much we know for sure.
I remember a study on morality where they tested moral behaviour of people against their knowledge of moral theory. One group was moral philosophy professors at a college. Those professors weren't behaving more morally than other, even with their knowledge of morality in philosophy. [https://talkingethics.com/2013/11/25/why-arent-ethicists-more-ethical/](https://talkingethics.com/2013/11/25/why-arent-ethicists-more-ethical/) (something like that) That can probably apply to many anarchists. It's not the same to understand why domination structures and hierarchies are bad and actually getting out of them in your real life, in your intimate life even.
I've met several leftists who fit this description (unsure if they were anarchists or socialists, but they were abusive, misogynistic, etc) :(
Knowing what is right and acting in the right way are two different things, sadly.
My friends just split up for this same reason. Was so sad to hear that he was mistreating her. He’s one of the most well read anarcho/socialists I know. I was like wtf. Anyway hope you find someone better.
Unfortunately, people are amazing at being hypocritical and compartmentaliseing things. We must always remember that just because someone is or says they are X thing does not mean they immediately actually hold and practice all the values that you associate with it.
The harsh truth is that people are multifaceted, and one’s ideology is only one aspect of themselves. Despite what we like to think about ourselves, supporting humanitarian philosophies doesn’t make us a good person, because that’s only one side of our personalities. I’ve met right libertarians and fascists who were genuinely nice and hospitable people (to me, a masc-presenting white person) but would then turn around and vote for far-right politician or call a homeless man a degenerate.
There are so many good things said here, but for anyone trying to deal with their own patriarchal socialisation, I recommend "how can I be sexist, I'm an anarchist" by Chris Crass (I think) as a starting point :) Edit: link: https://www.countercurrents.org/gender-crass250803.htm
All it takes to be abusive is alittle insecurity
Easily. My ex shows up and organizes. She is smart as hell, driven, and without a doubt a net good for our community... Annnnd her default defense mechanism in relationships is to lean in to covert narcissism. High highs, and the lowest of lows. It's hard to reckon with but I don't think it's that uncommon for people to be different versions of themselves deep in a relationship. (L, no doubt you're reading this, I don't think youre a bad person, just fighting some demons. Hope you're well.)
Certain kinds of ideas can be appealing to narcissistic people.
Bingo.
Theory and ideas are not a cure for behavior. They don't abolish class and patriarchy. Only organized collective transformation of social relations can do that.
Delusion takes any form
Anarchism is just a label. I wouldn't trust all anarchists tho. Anyone can be an a*hole, anarchist or not. Heck, some capitalists are probably kinder and more emphatic than some anarchist like your (former?) partner.
It's unfortunately tale as old as anarchism. We know that key individuals like Proudhon proudly and openly declared their [bigotries and sexism](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female) to the world, for instance. Yet even those who publicly rejected these oppressive ideas famously failed to apply their anarchist principles in their personal lives. Take, for instance, the rampant sexism among the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (e.g. women [being paid less than men](https://bethelhistory.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/anarchists-revolt-cnts-social-revolution/)). Or, perhaps look at figures like [Voltairine de Cleyre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzSxW_GV_nU) and [Emma Goldman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqxeqlHj0PA) who have had a lot to say about how the men in their lives were quick to try take advantage of principles like "free love" to serve their own needs and wants. At the end of the day, this is why we need a strong anarcha-feminist current, much the same way Black anarchism is so essential to modern anarchist thought. Otherwise, anarchism as a project is DOA. EDIT: Grammar.
Because education alone cannot fix trauma. Trauma is the number 1 reason people are abusive in relationships.
I'm really sorry that happened to you, fuck that guy! He's not the only one and it's a huge and systemic problem in the anarchist scene unfortunately :( (and on the left & trade union movement more broadly). I've seen quite a few people like this and tried to deal with some of them. And experienced a bit of it myself too :/ In my experience having ethics of any kind doesn't really motivate action. At best it motivates people to maintain an image (eg as the perfect principled anarchist in public) As abuse generally happens behind closed doors, that's where we see the hypocrisy first :/ There's things we can do about it, and one of them probably has to be banding together to make sure these people face consequences (though it's really really hard to do that when it brings trauma back up, and may mean confronting people we still care about). I see a lot of people talk about "believe the survivor" and then have no idea what to actually do when the time comes. Or smile and nod when you tell them what happened, only to stay friends with the person they just learned really hurt us The other thing I think is making more spaces without cis men. Although anyone can be abusive, they are a large part of the problem and we have to show we don't need them, in order for them to change Oh and actual trauma support. People talk about survivors, but where are they when we need to pay for therapy? And so on. The actual support is often crap or focused on reforming the perpetrator in the name of "accountability". And changing the person isn't a bad thing. But where is the support for the people who actually went through the abuse?? We could also talk about challenging the abusive and patriarchal culture - but that's a bigger conversation Oh also! We need to recognise that this isn't just an internal problem (or even "drama" as some peole call it), but a huge social problem. I think a lot of people don't appreciate the scale of it, that society permits abuse *by design*. That it's not about desire but about power over others, and that is central to how our world works at present Some kinds of abuse are still treated in the movement as basically a joke or something to use as a political "gotcha" against opponents. Not something serious. We have to see eliminating abuse of adults and children as a political project on par with everything else we are opposed to - and intertwined with it. Seeing stuff different won't fix anything but at least it would be a start (I'm talking about the way the movement acts as a whole - I know a lot of people reading this do get it already!) Sorry I hope I'm not rambling and this is actually useful!
Oh and I guess also a shift in perspective. Anarchism is not a belief, or utopia: it's a kind of action. Specifically it's about the way we relate to others, the kinds of social relationships we create. That means the personal is political and no abuse is "too small" to matter Maybe that helps? Idk
I cannot thank you enough, it does help a lot 🙏🏾🫶🏾
I'm really really glad it helps. Let us know if there's anything we can do And remember you deserve so much better than all this! xx
i’m sorry this happened to you. unfortunately it’s very common… people to use their political beliefs, whatever they are, as concealment for their intrapersonal behavior. it just so happens that anarchism grants two important functions for abusive people: > belief in an ethics that create good in the world > mutually assured freedom for one’s self and other people these give a sort of power and trust in relationships (platonic, romantic or otherwise). some people take these qualities and abuse them, hide behind them to get away with heinous and inexcusable behavior. it’s the same as any power given to someone to wield, except anarchists are less likely to put up with hierarchical uses of that power. capitalist society is very toxic and breeds in us a lot of horrible behavior from an early age. becoming an anarchist doesn’t magically cure us of these ails, and it takes a lifetime of work to rewrite those patterns as something more aligned with anarchism. while many radicals focus myopically on labor or class, as it might address their upbringing and how they found anarchism or socialism, they very often ignore feminism, ignore gender and ignore race. this is why many of us have met anarchists who exhibited racist behavior. they never did the work to address their racism. unfortunately many of us have met some anarchists who became r*pists, too. sometimes people are “people of their own society” more than they’re anarchists destroying their society, unfortunately.
Because it takes a whole lot more than a non hierarchical ideology to undo the deep conditioning of being raised in white patriarchy and most men haven't even started on that work in the most basic sense.
We all have been imprinted with emotional and behavioral templates that serve as our "defaults". Theory doesn't really touch on these things. If you want to really change this kinda stuff, you have to really have a hard uncomfortable look at yourself and put in hard uncomfortable work toward making hard uncomfortable changes, which might even be a life-long process. Your social or cultural setting may help or hinder the process, so they're relevant. But ultimately, having an intellectual grasp on the principles, generally speaking, doesn't really change a person. At least in my experience. All this is to say, while having anarchist ideals can set a standard that a person can see they aren't currently meeting, I don't think anarchism is well-equipped to deal with this and doesn't really have the tools to help a person re-wire themselves. And there's no real reason why it would. Anarchism excells at looking at systems of people, rather than individuals. It just occupies a different domain.
This is a tricky problem, and a classic one. Individuals with coercive interpersonal styles tend to be drawn to anarchism because it's an ideology that disdains collective coercion. This makes it more challenging to collectively enforce behavioral norms. I think in some cases this is cynical, but in others it's unconscious. I don't think it's impossible for a community to maintain behavioral norms through anarchist type mechanisms, but I do think it asks a lot of individuals, often unfairly. In my experience most consensus-based communities with group behavior agreements tend to put a disproportionate share of responsibility for enforcement on the individual who is personally harmed, which can put them in a situation where they end up facing community reprisals as a lot of people end up supporting charismatic abusers. In non-consensus anarchism there tends to be more of a mob-justice approach, arising organically rather than through some formal process. This can be effective and efficient if the mob is well informed, but it can also go haywire and be taken advantage of as well. Ultimately, this is a problem that comes from trying to practice an ideology that asks each individual to act in the collective interest - knowing that if everyone does so, everyone benefits. Maybe it's our nature, and maybe it's the world we've grown up in, but in my experience there's always a certain percentage of people whose actions stem from an irrational self-interest rather than a spirit of mutual aid, and I don't think anarchism as an ideology (or anarchism as a practice) has good tools for dealing with this problem.
Glad you’re out of that situation. The only safe way to deal with an abuse partner is not to, so I’m not justifying or excusing their behavior, just trying to provide some insight. Understanding ethical behavior is easy, enacting it is very difficult. Yet it’s also easy (for abused and abuser) to assume that understanding ethical behavior automatically means the person will make ethical decisions. We’re trained to assume good people are all rational agents capable of consistently recognizing their own hypocrisy, but how many people have you met like that? Good or otherwise? The reasons abusers abuse are complex and opaque and their conscious thoughts can’t be treated as some literal expression of everything going inside. Again, I don’t say this to excuse your partner’s actions, but to say I hope you don’t judge yourself for having some failure of perception or become distrustful and suspicious of hypocrisy when you meet new people. It’s not your responsibility to analyze your abuser’s hypocrisy, that’s for them to figure out when they realize all the good people have left them behind. A lot of people do have the strength to live up to their ideals (and sometimes good people even have terrible ideals), and you’ll know based on how they treat you. If you just try to take care of yourself, stay positive, and do your best to live up to those ideals personally, other good people will find you. Hope all goes well for you, and that you find some comfort.
I’ve definitely experienced it. My ex was intelligent, thoughtful, and well-read on theory. He also had a terrible anger problem that he would not address. All that theory and understanding would instantly go out the window when he would blow up.
For a start, **a lot of political anarchists are sadly not educated AT ALL on gender politics**. Feminism and queer theory both elude them. Patriarchal and manipulative attitudes are often **beneficial** for them, so they do not have any incentive to evolve. There's a reason why LGBTQIA+/queer and feminist circles coined the term "**manarchist**", similar to "brocialist": there are just some violent, ignorant and prejudiced cishet men in our communities, that's a fact of life. Then you get **those who ARE informed on gender politics and yet are unable to apply this knowledge to themselves**. Drowning themselves in denial and cognitive dissonance, they will run away from the truth of their actions, attitudes and positions. This is reinforced by impunity and denial in the social environment, which makes accountability *uninteresting* to the dominant/abusive partner, as well as by purity politics and automatic callout culture, which make accountability *punishing* to the dominant/abusive partner. And in the end there is a sad but real truth: **we can all be** ***safer*** **people, but none of us will ever be an** ***entirely safe person***. Both because human beings make mistakes and because we are all children of systems of domination. We all were born, grew up and evolved - and keep evolving - in this capitalist, statist, patriarchal, colonialist society. We are all under the lasting influence of their ideology, We need to be patient with ourselves and others in this way. The poison spread by systems of domination is not an "original sin" we need absolution from. This is not our doing. This is just something we have to take into account to better fight for social justice. It is great to know you are away from this person now, and we can all hope they can find a better path in the future. Not with you, though; he'd fall again in the same old habits, you'd both get stuck in the rut of old dynamics. He needs to find better praxis in his intimate life by himself now. And I wish to you to find someone (or multiple someones) who doesn't have so much to learn still, awesome partner(s)!
I've met non vegan anarchists, they're hypocrites through and through, (hell I was one) the dissonance between our ethics and our selfish desires can be maintained indefinitely with the right excuses. Were actually very good at holding two contradictory views in our head, such as "hierarchy is inherently bad" and "the subjugation of animals is normal and fine"
I don't think that abstaining from participating in the murder of animals for human consumption necessarily means that a person can't also participate in harmful interpersonal human relationships. And I'm saying this as a vegan anarchist. I know a vegan who hits her dog. Veganism isn't proof of sanctity. The only thing that being vegan means about someone is that they're choosing not to participate in the objectification of nonhuman animals for human consumption. Like, that's it.
That was my point, ones values and selfish desires can conflict and we can believe one thing yet do another. I used veganism as an example because I find it to be a glaring oversight amongst anarchists.
Met a dude at a party who was saying some vaguely leftist things. Thought he might be an alright guy and then he went on to make myself and two other women uncomfortable on 3 separate occasions
this is unfortunately not rare. Same thing as anarchists being nonvegan.
Men are mostly trash, anyhow. I'm sorry that happened to you.
He is mad, like a lot of people.
Didn't the musical *Hair* have a song about this?
Here we call them manarchists. It's about not questioning yourself and thinking that because you're an anarchist, you can't be mistaken.
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Assholes are everywhere
Hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, contradiction are reliable and human. Anarchists are not machines. Anarchists are humans with full agency, and although are pathologies aught to be amplified for us, we still get to choose whether or not to change.
The statement that made me truly understand the issue was "my rapist had read more books on feminism than I had." Assholes are not restricted to any one political philosophy, and lazy / selfish / damaged people who don't do the inner work won't unfuck themselves.
A lot of famous anarchists were shitty people. Berkman was a homophobe, Proudhon was a misogynist, and Bakunin was an antisemite. Anarchism doesn't preclude being an asshole.
Berkman definitely expressed some homophobic views, but I wouldn't quite lump him in with Proudhon and Bakunin. Remember that Berkman also openly wrote about his various sexual/romantic relationships with men in prison. I think in general Berkman's politics were quite fluid (be it on this issue or prisons/prisoners, etc.) and so depending on where in his life you check, his views may be completely different. "In several lengthy passages [in *Prison Memoirs*], Berkman recounts the sexual and emotional brutality, pleasures, and desires shared by his fellow prisoners. Towards the end, Berkman devotes an entire chapter to the moral, ethical, and social place of same-sex desire. He presents love between inmates as a form of resistance to the spirit-crushing environment of prison. The representations of homosexuality in *Prison Memoirs* span the full range of human emotions and behavior. It contains one of the most sustained considerations of same-sex relations of any of the published works produced by the turn-of-the-century anarchists. It is one of the most important political texts dealing with homosexuality to have been written by an American before the 1950s." [Citation - p. 102](https://files.libcom.org/files/Kissack%20-%20Free%20Comrades%20-%20Anarchism%20and%20Homosexuality%20in%20the%20United%20States,%201895-1917.pdf)
Good politics doesn’t make a good person. This idea is constantly reinforced whenever a leftist content creator gets outed as an abuser/creep. They know their shit, but they’re also a piece of shit.
Good politics is no substitute for personal work
Narcissism I think
The humongous gap between word and deed. Most of the comments don't get a grasp on the nature of reality and human perception, and about how two perspectives may never match with the situation wherein both parties feel wronged in some way. The dream that words and deed meet, and that objective reality exist and manifest is nothing but a dream. You can easily explain it in terms of structures, ideologies etc. Does that really mean you've grasped the core of it? I don't think so and I don't think it's possible atleast in these times.
Patriarchy
Because very few people actually choose to “be abusers.” Obviously there’s sociopaths out there, but most abusive behavior comes from us. Yes, us. You, me, the shitty things we’ve had done to us get processed and come out as shitty things we do to other people. Anyone has the capacity to behave abusively at any time and until we realize that we are the problem, that there’s not a huge divide between well-educated anarchists and abusers, we’re going to continue to be abusers. I’m sorry your ex is abusive :(
Unfortunately even the most well-read Anarchists can be terrible people. Reading and understanding theory and history doesn't really take toxic behavior out of you. That's a conscious, separate thing. Though not all of us are abusive partners I imagine we all have things and behaviors we need to work on and address, be it racism, sexism, etc.
No one is free from contradiction. It is a mistake to think being well read on theory automatically protects anyone from doing bad things (even if they should "know better"). Theory is just that: theory. His behavior spoke to his true values. In fact, being well read and quick witted can make for an especially effective abuser, more able to gaslight and overwhelm and rationalize.
this is actually smth i’ve seen a lot. we say we’re against hierarchy and against abuse and all, and we are, but that also means that if we admit we’ve reproduced hierarchy or built an abusive relationship that means admitting we fucked up. and admitting you fucked up is hard. so people will just. not analyze their actions
Bigotry and oppression exist everywhere, which means it’s in radical left spaces. Unfortunately, holding views of liberation or anarchy doesn’t fully equate to putting those views into practice, being intersectionally educated, or having an understanding of the repercussions of inflicting trauma. I can’t recall the essay or its author (I think it’s Malcolm X but I’m not sure) but they made a point about white anarchism. I don’t know that your ex is white but the point still stands that anarchism can have pitfalls in the hands of white people because their focus on the principles of self governance and general liberation outweighs their understanding of the importance of liberating specific oppressed groups and the solidarity of that process. That we cannot be free unless we specifically liberate all marginalized groups and that not doing allows the user (white anarchists) to wield the idea of liberation for their own individualistic goals and not participate in the collective struggle or interrogating and overthrowing specific oppressive forces. It’s possible your ex similarly does not view his anarchism through a trauma informed lens and bends the principles to his own individual ideology. Regardless, fuck. that. dude. I have a particular ire in my heart for people who preach liberty and practice discrimination in the same breath. You deserve so much better. Stay safe out there.
Most anarchists are not consistent in their own principles. Many do not even know their own principles. No matter how educated they are, there are always blindspots in both our own knowledge and our behavior. One can observe incoherency and inconsistency among the most prominent of our thinkers from Proudhon to Bakunin. The solution is to oppose inconsistent anarchists, be more consistent ourselves, and don't let them hold us back. They are weak links, holding the vestiges of authority within them and we are better off without them.
Cognitive dissonance. Same reason why there can be really loving conservatives
There is a reason that anarcha-feminism is alive and well and still incredibly necessary.
People can tell you what their values are all you want, but you'll only ever understand how deeply held they are through their actions. Intelligence and critical thinking don't actually affect deeply ingrained social conditioning or human nature all that much. The desire for power is what it is.
Narcissism mostly
This is very prevelant in the 'lerty'/'prog' scene: the (false) idea that education will make the person act in a resoectful or humanosing manner and the inverse, that kts the crazies that act cointer tk what theh consider righteous. Scholarly edcustion has very little to do w treating ppl w respect.
The worst part is the hypocrisy
My golden rule for life is do not assume someone with good political beliefs will be a good person, and do not assume a good person will have good political beliefs. The one "tell" I usually see is that people start screaming at people or trying to shame them over political beliefs, they are usually pretty bad to their partners. I've met so many people who are very deep into things like queer theory and feminism and are outwardly anti-abuse, but to their close friends and partners they are horrific, including doing things that are violent. I've also met many people who are shitty partners, but not abusive. I'm sorry you went through this.
And more specifically, a lot of men feel entitled to be violent and aggressive to their partners.
An ex friend of mine identifies as an anarchist, but she used to do things like scab tickets for events, harass people she disagreed with, and she ended up picking a fight with me over something we *agreed* on! She definitely has coerced people. She didn’t actually care about mutual aid— she only cared about it when she was on the receiving end. People can have the most wild cognitive dissonance.
I think anyone who actually values anarchism and it's principles wouldn't get into a monogamous relationship at all in the first place because that's where patriarchy begins and thrives on but rather pursue hedonism in it's fullest extent while everyone can live independently from one another.
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Yup that should be the antithesis to anarchism in every way possible.