Anarchism and Social Ecology
!anarchism@slrpnk.net
A community about anarchy. anarchism, social ecology, and communalism for SLRPNK! Solarpunk anarchists unite!
Feel free to ask questions here. We aspire to make this space a safe space. SLRPNK.net's basic rules apply here, but generally don't be a dick and don't be an authoritarian.
Anarchism
Anarchism is a social and political theory and practice that works for a free society without domination and hierarchy.
Social Ecology
Social Ecology, developed from green anarchism, is the idea that our ecological problems have their ultimate roots in our social problems. This is because the domination of nature and our ecology by humanity has its ultimate roots in the domination humanity by humans. Therefore, the solutions to our ecological problems are found by addressing our social and ecological problems simultaneously.
Libraries
Audiobooks
- General audiobooks
- LibriVox Public domain book collection where you can find audiobooks from old communist, socialist, and anarchist authors.
- Anarchist audiobooks
- Socialist Audiobooks
- Social Ecology Audiobooks
Quotes
Poetry and imagination must be integrated with science and technology, for we have evolved beyond an innocence that can be nourished exclusively by myths and dreams.
~ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom
People want to treat ‘we’ll figure it out by working to get there’ as some sort of rhetorical evasion instead of being a fundamental expression of trust in the power of conscious collective effort.
~Anonymous, but quoted by Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us
The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.
~Murray Bookchin, "A Politics for the Twenty-First Century"
There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society based on self-administration must be achieved by means of self-administration.
~Murray Bookchin, Post Scarcity Anarchism
In modern times humans have become a wolf not only to humans, but to all nature.
The ecological question is fundamentally solved as the system is repressed and a socialist social system develops. That does not mean you cannot do something for the environment right away. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine the fight for the environment with the struggle for a general social revolution...
~Abdullah Öcalan
Social ecology advances a message that calls not only for a society free of hierarchy and hierarchical sensibilities, but for an ethics that places humanity in the natural world as an agent for rendering evolution social and natural fully self-conscious.
~ Murray Bookchin
Network
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What does the author mean by democracy? He has an obvious antipathy for the idea but isn’t direct democracy a central tenet of most anarchist organizations? Is he holding to some fringe idea where democracy is not needed or is he using democracy in a different way than I am?
I also am completely baffled by the statement that the climate movement is the world’s greatest threat to life on earth? This idea raises so many questions I don’t know where to begin to understand it but I guess I’ll first ask: is this some kind of accelerationist idea?
There is a rich body of anarchist critique of democracy, or the dictatorship of the 51% as some like to call it. Direct democracy, while better, is not without problems either, but personally I think it's sometimes necessary to do when no consensus can be reached.
I am not sure where you got that part about the climate movement. He seems to be specifically referring to the liberal idea that renewable energy investments or so allow to preserve the status quo, but I am not totally clear on what he means exactly by that part either.
It’s towards the bottom of his lessons learned from recent events at the top of the article. Seems to come out of left field and requires further explanation in my opinion.
Criticisms of democracy are definitely valid but I don’t really see any other alternative for making decisions in large groups. As you point out, consensus can’t always be reached and it is often very slow—which is fine for some situations but not for others.
There is definitely a need for social structures to prevent the majority from terrorizing the minority but there are lots of ideas I’ve on how to address this, so I’m not ready to write off the idea entirely as the author does. At the very least I would like to know what would be used instead.