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
view the rest of the comments
I have a fairly similar opinion to @mambabasa@slrpnk.net, I have no real issue working with anyone on the left, even the more liberal types as long as our goals happen to be aligned.
The only 'left' group I would not be able to work alongside in good conscious, are tankies. Every time in recorded history that Anarchists have teamed up with authoritarian leftists, it inevitably went south in some of the worst ways possible.
I've never met a tankie in real life, only ever encountering them online, but if I ever did meet one, that would be my line in the sand (at least, if anything meaningful was on the line). There's no need to repeat that part of history again.
Ironically, I’m cooperating with Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, democratic socialists and other pro-State socialists because we’re pretty much in agreement in opposition to both the so-called dictatorship of the bourgeoisie AND the decrepit Communist Party of the Philippines. On an interesting sidenote, Marxism-Leninism in the Philippines had a bit of a de-Stalinization moment in the 90s (part of the schism and purge with the CPP), so it's a very different creature from tankies in other countries.
As long as they don't yearn for a jackboot of olden days, and acknowledge that Stalin, Mao, and other authoritarian 'communist' regimes are not something to strive for or apologize for, I wouldn't mind working with them for the common good and shared goals. 🙂
Since they were de-stalinized, would you say they fall somewhere along those lines?
Yeah, they recognize that Stalin and Mao have important contributions to Marxism-Leninism, but de-Stalinization refers to a rejection of certain features like purges, show trials, stuff like that. Some people like Trotskyists don't take their word for it and still see them as Stalinists. Really, I'm more concerned about my personal safety than ideological pronouncements. The Rejectionist Left, or the Marxist-Leninists who reject the CPP, developed these critiques of Stalinism precisely because they were targeted for purging and assassination by the CPP. So they're more conscious than some white ass ML on the dangers of what Stalinism entails. This makes them safer to work with than those ideologically reaffirming the CPP, called the Reaffirmist Left.
As someone who hasn't ever looked into Filipino politics, you've given me some interesting rabbit holes to go down.
Bit of a long shot, but, have your own views ever come up with them? I'm curious if any of them ever explained what they find appealing about Leninism over Anarchism.
Yeah of course. They've even read Bookchin and the anarchist authors. It's not as if anarchism is the one true faith and all it will take is some enlightenment for all to come to it. Different people have different experiences and come with different conclusions. Under a different set of experiences, I could have thought Marxism-Leninism would be the logical conclusion. What makes Marxism-Leninism in the Philippines unique is that unlike Marxism-Leninism in the West, which is often anti-revisionist (and thus Stalinist), de-Stalinization forced a rethinking of principles and experimentation with new ideas. This, of course, happened in the United States as well. Angela Davis, once a staunch supporter of Soviet authoritarianism in Eastern Europe, eventually changed her mind on Marxism-Leninism after the collapse of the USSR and led a non-Leninist bloc within the CPUSA. What makes the US different is that the post-1989 wave of de-Stalinization in Western Europe saw former MLs rebrand as democratic socialists while the true faith MLs kept the ML brand. In the Philippines, the wave of de-Stalinization after the end of the dictatorship saw instead a reclaiming of the Marxist-Leninist brand while repudiating Maoism (but not Mao Zedong Thought).
Apologies for the late response!
This is something I'm interested in understanding. I think your new Communism community might be a good place for me to explore that topic further, when I have time to write a more compelling question.
See you there then!