Liberty Hub

it states some assumptions of how you imagine anarchism as facts about anarchism even when some of your points are simply just a subsection of anarchist ideas.

No - what my points are are things I believe to be true.

What else would you expect?

strait-up ignores social anarchism

And not coincidentally, since I broadly reject the precepts of social anarchism.

I clarify in my second response that if a group of individuals all freely choose a particular couse of action, then all freely choose to cooperate in its pursuit, that's not authoritarian.

But that's not what social anarchism advocates. Social anarchism starts with the blithe presumption that it's possible for some to declare a colorable need for some particular organization dedicated to some particulat goal and as long as they don't stipulate a specific hierarchy, it somehow counts as anarchism, and I simply disagree. I think that the moment that anyone takes it upon themselves to declare that "we" need to ____, the philosophical basis for anarchism has already been cast aside, and replaced by the philosophical basis for authoritarianism.

where society is governed on a egalitarian line by the people for the people.

I think it's plainly obvious that society cannot be "governed" at all in anarchism - that the very idea is inherently authoritarian, since it can only mean to establish some set of norms as the nominally desirous ones, then to arrange things such that those who might choose otherwise are prevented from doing so.

the whole idea of anarcho syndicalism

I reject all subdivisions of anarchism, and honestly find anarcho-syndicalism to be one of the most ludicrous of them all.

All subdivisions of anarchism necessarily ignore the terribly simple fact that they do not and will not have universal support. What that means is one of two things - either they will not come to be, or they will come to be through the exercise of claimed authority - either the authority to declare the norms and ideals and mechanisms of the subdivision in question as the ones to be universally followed, or the authority to designate a border within which those norms, ideals and mechanisms will be followed.

There is simply no way that any group of people are going to each and all freely choose any specific subdivision of anarchism, so they are, each and all, either pointlessly speculative or inherently authoritarian.

My view is that the only possible way for anarchism to work without sinking back into authoritarianism is for each and all to be entirely free to choose as they please, constrained only by the fact that each and all will be entirely free to choose, to count on the ability of individuals to compromise (because without that ability anarchism will fail), then to just see what we end up with when everyone's done choosing and compromising.

Whatever we end up with then can't help but be the best possible system for all involved, simply because nobody will have the power to force anybody else to settle for anything less.

And I believe that any "anarchism" that instead proposes some specific set of norms and requirements and prohibitions will and can only devolve into authoritarianism.

What this implies is that people just have to get into the right mindset for anarchism and just have to realize they should oppose arbitrary authority.

No it doesn't.

Sorry, but if that's all you got out of:

True statelessness will only be possible when all of the individuals in a given area (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference) have achieved the psychological and philosophical state of being wholly in charge of and responsible for their own decisions, and wholly ceding to others control over and responsibility for their own.

then that's very much your problem and not mine.

Organizing can create a alternative which can change the material conditions and enable people to decide by themself how they want to live.

Yes - they're "free" to decide whether to live under the existing system or under your alternative.

You don't create the freedom to choose by taking it upon yourself to establish a specific alternative, then saying "Pick one." You create the freedom to choose by butting out.

I don’t hate you personally

Frankly I find the whole idea of "hate" even being treated as a possibility in such a context deeply unsettling.

if organizing as a group is authoritarian, does that mean protest is a contradicting act?

Organizing as a group isnt necessarily authoritarian in and of itself - setting out to organize is.

If some number of people all choose the same course of action, then come together to accomplish it, it's only authoritarian if one or some of them take it upon themselves to take charge.

But if one or some set out to organize others, then they've already effectively taken charge.

Protest though is inherently authoritarian, since it's an explicit attempt to force or coerce others into submitting to ones demands. It's an attempt to counter the imposition of the wills of others by forcing or coercing them into submitting to ones own.

The anarchistic response to authoritarianism is resistance. One can't, without violating anarchistic principles, attempt to force another to act as one prefers, but one certainly can refuse to willingly submit.

The basic distinction to always keep in mind regarding anarchism is whether one is controlling ones own actions or attempting to control the actions of others. The former is not only acceptable but necessary, while the latter is in fact the exact foundation on which authoritarianism is built.

If organizing is authoritarian in practice, does that mean anarchists will have to accept authoritarian tactics to fight the state?

No - it means that anarchists cannot fight the state. All anarchists can do is resist the state.

To fight the state is to adopt the state's philosophy and tactics and will destroy anarchism before it even gets off the ground.

During the act of political persecution, at what point does anarchism have to change it’s behaviour to meet the expectations of our surrounding environment?

At no point.

If it changes its behaviour to meet the expectations of an authoritarian system, it ceases to be anarchism.

So there’s the other question, at what point do we consider the environemnt hostile enough? Until there are 9 of us left?

Not even then.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if you must die in order to uphold your anarchistic principles, then you either must die or must abandon your principles. There is no third way - you cannot both retain your anarchistic principles and fight authority by its rules.

Now that said, I wouldn't begrudge anyone choosing to abandon their principles rather than to die, but make no mistake about it - it is necessarily an abandonment, and it won't, and in fact can't, serve the cause of anarchism.

Anarchism will come, if it does (if humanity can survive long enough) when the idea of forcing another to submit to ones own will is as repugnant as rape or murder - when it's seen, rightly, as an innately unjustifiable violation of the rights of another.

how do you know if we have enough time to be peaceful?

As individuals, we almost certainly don't. There's virtually no chance that anarchism will arise in any of our lifetimes. Humanity has a long, long way to go first.

All we can do is add to the foundation and help spread the ideas When the ideas have spread widely enough, anarchism will be inevitable, but until then, it will only be speculative.

IF the ideas of anarchism are so pure and easily agreeable, why haven’t we tried global revolution already?

Because they're not - they are, to most people, foreign and difficult, and even inconceivable.

Authoritarianism doesn't exist because some few power-hungry people impose it - it exists because the vast majority just take it for granted that they have the right to decide what others may, may not, must or must not do, say, think or believe, and they don't have the power to impose their decisions, so they say "Somebody oughta do something about those ______s!"

Which creates a situation in which the power-hungry few just have to volunteer to be that "somebody."

Anarchism will require people essentially universally rejecting that presumption, and instead sincerely holding to the view that each and every human has a full and equal right to make their own decisions regarding their own lives and nobody can possibly have the right to usurp that self-determination.

And as a bit of an aside, that last isn't a conclusion I arrived at as part of anarchistic theory but through simple and direct logic and it's much of the reason I identify as an anarchist.

If one presumes that humans necessarily possess equal rights, every argument for authority is self-defeating. Any argument by which one might attempt to claim the right to impose ones will on another is necessarily also an argument for that other's right to impose their will on oneself, and any argument by which one might claim oneself rightfully free from the imposition of the will of another is also an argument by which the other can claim themselves rightfully free from the imposition of ones own will. So institutionalized authority is logically unjustifiable unless one presumes that those who possess authority are somehow inherently superior, such that they possess rights that others do not.

Small wonder then that that's exactly how they act.

And more broadly, since I reject the idea that some can possess greater rights than others, I reject institutionalized authority.