I think there's really a point to be had here. It's not that there are a lot of "bad anarchists" but in the US especially and english speaking countries in general it's the more accessible entry point to the left, so you get a disproportionate number of people who have adopted it out of a desire to find their footing in the left but decades of being submerged in anti-communist propaganda puts all these thought terminating obstacles in the way of for example accepting that dialectical materialism is a useful tool for analysis or that there's a lot to be learned from Maoism and mass line tactics that overlaps with anarchism.
There's also that the superficial understanding of anarchism=freedom is too similar to the American ideology. It means that people can become anarchists without ever doing much self-criticism or examining their own biases.
Yeah that was a hurdle I got over mostly thanks of being exposed to the very broad diversity of takes on the old sub. I'm still an anarchist in many of my ideals, I grew up around a bunch of pot farmers old radical hippies and weird anarchist preppers so it's deeply embedded in my ideology. But I can also recognize that there is use value in all sorts of theory and praxis and I know who my comrades are.
I think there's really a point to be had here. It's not that there are a lot of "bad anarchists" but in the US especially and english speaking countries in general it's the more accessible entry point to the left, so you get a disproportionate number of people who have adopted it out of a desire to find their footing in the left but decades of being submerged in anti-communist propaganda puts all these thought terminating obstacles in the way of for example accepting that dialectical materialism is a useful tool for analysis or that there's a lot to be learned from Maoism and mass line tactics that overlaps with anarchism.
There's also that the superficial understanding of anarchism=freedom is too similar to the American ideology. It means that people can become anarchists without ever doing much self-criticism or examining their own biases.
Yeah that was a hurdle I got over mostly thanks of being exposed to the very broad diversity of takes on the old sub. I'm still an anarchist in many of my ideals, I grew up around a bunch of pot farmers old radical hippies and weird anarchist preppers so it's deeply embedded in my ideology. But I can also recognize that there is use value in all sorts of theory and praxis and I know who my comrades are.