I want to like anarchists, I really do, but then I see them post shit like that and I just have to :cringe:
Anarchists, why are some of you like this?
OP please edit your post to get rid of the anarchist ribbing. Dumb takes are very much not exclusive to anarchism.
you can't really base your idea of anarchists off of radlibs or other bad take generators on reddit or wherever else you see them. And also like wtypstan said every tendency can have people who make bad takes. I don't see why our anarchists here have to cover for some random other people on the internet. also as other people here have pointed out they might have had a decent nuanced point that got lost in simplification.
None of us are going to live in Communism. Why the hell are we arguing about what it's going to look like instead of building the transition that opens the possibility of communism.
Imagine a bunch of nerds living in the 17th century trying to argue about what capitalism would look like 400 years in the future. They would be able to vaguely gesture at some general trends but besides that they'd be wrong about the specifics. Let's leave this one to our children. We have more pressing tasks.
My cellmate and I were going to work together to break out of prison. But I can't work with him because after we get out of our cells, sneak past the guards, break out of the building, scale the fence, and escape to Mexico, that asshole wants to be a farmer while I want to open a restaurant.
Log off and talk to real anarchists, the internet brings out the worst people
I am aware I am on the internet
How are 8+ billion people going to cohabitate the planet if there are no cities? Concentrations of people make it easier to supply wants and needs as well as drastically reducing the human footprint on the natural environment, which is kind of necessary as we're seeing. Abolish the suburbs, return them to nature. Sparse rural settlements and cities seems the most sensible and easier to accomplish, the problems of cities today can be rectified, most likely. I love living in cities, I've been living in apartments for years, the problem isn't my neighbors, it's landlords and businesses running government, i.e. capitalism.
"Abolish XYZ" is confusing because sometimes it means "literally abolish immediately," but sometimes it means "radically change but have something to serve the social function." It will often be used to mean both things even on the same topic depending on who you're talking to.
In the 1850s, when people said they wanted to abolish slavery, they meant literally abolish immediately. Today, when people say they want to abolish ICE, just about everyone who says that wants to literally abolish the agency immediately. But when you get to stuff like "abolish the police" or "abolish prisons" or especially "abolish school," you get a mix of both. The matter is further complicated when people say things like "I want to abolish the police, and I mean abolish abolish, but we should totally have some sort of community defense organization that would investigate murders and such."
It's a lot clearer to say "here's what XYZ should look like in the future," or "here's how we should handle the stuff XYZ nominally handles today."
Abolishing the distinction between the built and unbuilt environment in an effort to establish a holistic relationship between human society and the planet as an organism? good, very good. Great, even. Uncritical support.
Telling the 7 billion people who live in cities now that they have to leave because cities are a classist institution? bad, not good, really stupid dumb idea, even if rooted in historical materialism to some degree.
communism will abolish cities
I mean, it doesn't say immediately, cause it wouldn't be communism instantly now would it? Theres a very long transitional period for achieving true communism, I don't see why you're reading it the way you are
I guess I just see something fundamentally strange about not wanting people to live together en masse. Yeah, modern cities like the east coast metropolis are cesspits of capitalist reproduction, but it doesn't need to be that way. We can build communist cities.
not wanting people to live together en masse
I think it's just as likely that the thought process could be "people living en masse is always bad no matter the circumstances because of xyz so we should stop that"
Which is a thing you could disagree with, but probably makes sense with their beliefs, meaning at least you could understand why they believe it. And hey maybe the process of thinking about this and examining it from someone elses perspective would be beneficial, even without you changing your mind or anything. IMO a post in !anarchism@hexbear.net saying "I saw this take and it made me go wtf, can y'all help me understand?" would have done you better, though I understand I'm overthinking this and you probably made this post offhandedly, but I wanted to speak up
Idunno, posts like this one are for libs and chuds not for comrades (unless it's reactionary or w/e) even if they say wacky shit, especially without even looking into it. anyway end of rant sorry lol/
I also assume theres gotta be some way to do communist cities that are good, but I haven't looked into it so I'm open to the opposite
Well, I think it’s a common issue of taking end goals and putting them before the cart (or whatever the expression is), so to speak.
I mean "immediately get rid of cities" is ridiculous but so is assuming no one would ever want to live in the country.
City is good. Countryside is good for different reasons. If we can marry the reasons why the countryside is good with the reasons the city is good we will have achieved communism.
Meh, big cities are not inherently better than smaller cities, they create issues with concentrated waste and pollution, plus higher efficiency seems more like indulgence to waste. Dunno, I feel ideally cities shouldn’t be bigger than 200-500 k people
Mm yes? There is no qualitative difference (outside of underground) between 10 million city and 0,5 - 1 million city: power plants, sewage treatment and all just multiply to scale
idk, my impression is that because I'm missing some context that sounds way more outlandish than it actually is. This has usually been the case in my experience, whether I agree or not if I sit down and talk to folks of different tendencies I can understand why they believe it, I can see how it makes sense through their worldview.
