Add new comment

TOTW: Why aren't you doing exciting anarchist things?!!!

"My idea of fun..." - The Stooges

Is it true that anarchism in practice is often really boring? If fun, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, how dare anyone judge long assemblies as boring. Maybe they're profoundly enriching and stimulating, on top of necessary, for those who attend them. So anarchists should not heed the sneers of onlookers from other ideologies trying to give them FOMO. Or is this just a deliberate slight, and the opposite is true, that boredom is a symptom that anarchy is sorely lacking? What's the point if we can't have fun?

But, how is it to be fun? What are fun anarchist things: can we list them? What is making anarchists boring? Between employment, organizing, assemblies, mutual aid, prisoner support, and many other projects: is all work and no play making anarchy dull? Or is fun, pleasure and excitement overrated, and therefore anarchists are wise to focus on such more important and pressing matters? After all, you're not in it for the cheap thrills, but as a commitment to the utmost logical extension of lofty humanist ideals! Ensuring that people have their basic needs met, so that they're able to live with dignity. Right? And to those who don't do any of the above: What's your excuse for being a boring anarchist? Is it the current self-imposed social isolation, a too acquiescent adaptation to the "new normal", or other forms of risk aversion; like social anxiety, fear of faux pas, of being cancelled, or of things like brutal repression by police on the streets, incarceration, torture, death?

Are you mostly being stopped from doing fun anarchist things or are you stopping yourself? If you killed the cop in your head and got rid of all the spooks, why aren't you going for it (whatever it is)? Is it because you've decided that crime doesn't pay, or are you too busy pursuing other interests, or even passions? Like, let's say botany, for example. Is this about accepting that and loving your "boring" anarchist self? Or is this when you realize you've been putting off doing the very things that make you feel alive, the things that give meaning to any anarchy worthy of the name?