Anarchism

2920 readers

53 users here now

Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

Other anarchist comms

Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Did the 70's Punk movement damage people's understanding or opinion of Anarchism? (feddit.uk)

submitted 1 week ago by Babalugats@feddit.uk to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As per the title. I have been a long time supporter of Anarchism, but mostly following my own paths and reading random topics. One thing I find a lot, is that peoples opinions vary massively on their opinions of Anarchism and what it should entail (I am aware of the different types of Anarchism).

One thing I have noticed a lot over the years, is that, not only do many people not understand what Anarchism is, most seem to think it means Chaos, revolting against everything and destruction of many things.

This imho stems from the 70's Punk movement. That's where many people first heard the word, and it is what they associate the movement with.

Did the 70's (+ 80's to a lesser extent) Punk movement damage people's understanding or opinion of Anarchism in your opinion, and if so, how badly damaged is it?

In my opinion it did, and I guess I am wondering how it would be possible to reverse or remove that opinion of so many. Social Media not very effective as a tool for that sort of thing. Or at least doesn't seem to be anyway.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] alzymologist@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

But punk movement wasn't about chaos and destruction, so that's your answer. Anarchism and its image has nothing to do with punks except that quite some were and are anarchists (while some were conformist skinheads, too).

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It wasn't, but it was. It was about building different for many. Which for the status quo looked like destruction.

[–] alzymologist@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago

It wasn't but it was, couldn't be phrased better.

[–] Babalugats@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not that it wasn't about it, and I'm aware of the skinhead movement too, I'm tallking about perception, and specifically perception today and how to move on. A lot of people, if not most, seem to associate anarchy with punk, and punk with chaos.

I'm not saying it's right, as a matter of fact I know it's wrong, but that's what it is.

[–] alzymologist@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago

Exactly; it's associated with chaos. Yet it's in the wording exactly - the punk movement didn't ruin any of this; police/media resistance did, by associating both with each other and with all the evil scarecrows they could come up with. The conformist masses did, by following the proposed narrative. You could do any righteous thing that harms capitalist powers - from mailbombing to feeding the orphans saved from Epstein/Trump/Putin island - media will attack it with full powers of institutionalized philosophy mills with terrible wheels multiplied by media tools. Picking out details of what actually happened is beyond usefulness at this state of matter.

It's similar how Islam got associated purely with terrorism and radicalism just as a flow of anarchic thought influxed the islamic school of thought, culminating with Bei. We don't draw associations between Christianity and terrorism even as Russia mounts christian jihad faith warriors to strike Ukraine - media ignores that because there are no serious religious anarchist works coming from orthodox church, it does not question the status-quo at all.

Similarly, early Black Sabbath were singing about their drug dealer and stuff, nobody cared. They release "war pigs" - got all the blame in the world about destroying the fabric of society.

This might sound stretched, but I just happen to graduate from Moscow State University, where philosophy was a mandatory subject for science people even in BS/MS; those people from philosophy department made no secret about their true purpose - marketing and propaganda - and the latter had quite straightforward alignment. It's an automated mill, as everything in the system.

Punks culture has nothing to do with this image of anarchism.