From The Nightly: UW's Anarchist Newspaper
May 11, 2024

After posting an article ever so lightly critiquing socialist organizing, we at The Nightly were shocked and dismayed to learn that people actually read The Nightly. We got several comments basically saying we were harming Palestinian liberation by questioning the means by which we achieve our ends. It’s a pretty glaring double standard, showing just how thoroughly organizing spaces have trained people to see authoritarian socialism as the default. When people come into the Quad looking for ways to help and are handed a Community Guidelines sheet printed with the UF [United Front for Palestine] logo, attend a “community” meeting run by the UF, and the biggest ideological difference they’re exposed to is UF vs. PSU, that’s not pushing any ideology– but when we put forth critiques and suggest an alternative, it’s opportunistic and detracting from the movement.

I think if people understood what anarchism was beyond wearing all black and smashing shit, it’d be easier to comprehend that we’re not out for recruitment. There are no orgs to expand in anarchism. That’s kind of the whole point. Anarchism is about offering people a perspective beyond the one they’re fed in mainstream organizing: the organizers aren’t magically always right, and if you don’t think they’re right, you don’t have to go along with what they’re doing. Anarchy is opposition to hierarchy. Why is the presence of hierarchy taken for granted while a lack is forced to justify itself? Aren’t these ruler/subject dynamics, however hard they try to appear benevolent, what we’re all claiming to be fighting against?

An argument I’ve seen a lot lately is that bringing up any concern aside from The Demands is detracting attention from Gaza. This feels like another symptom of entrenchment in org politics. Orgs, like non-profits, are typically single-issue, and they train their members to put on blinders and laser-focus on one cause. In the real world, though, no issue exists in isolation. All oppression is interconnected, which means when we’re considering methods with which to fight back, we can’t just think about it in the context of a single issue. No action ever plays out in just one arena. We’re all thinking about this Liberated Zone on a global scale, but we have to keep in mind that as we interact with each other here and now, we’re setting the precedent for what the “better world” we’re fighting for will look like. That world depends on a free Palestine, but it also depends on us learning how to treat each other as equals, which will never happen if we keep making excuses not to. I don’t know what people mean when they say, “It doesn’t matter how, it just matters that the demands are met.” Okay. What do you think is going to happen after that? Will the whole world be free once UW divests from Boeing, or are there going to be more battles we’ll have to fight together? At what point do we decide it’s worth it to prioritize our relationships with each other?

The power structures we’re familiar with are so internalized that a lot of times, we don’t even notice they’re there. This goes for capitalism, for the authoritarian socialist monopoly over leftist spaces, for cliques within purportedly “horizontal” organizing— from birth to minoring in Labor Studies, the one consistent idea we’re fed is that you’re either a leader or a follower. If you’re part of the inner circle, you’ve earned the power to make decisions for others, and if you’re not part of the inner circle, you haven’t earned the power to make decisions for yourself. You can’t be trusted. Other people know better than you, so you should just do what they tell you. But the reality is, everyone knows better than everyone else about something. When we take for granted that people in positions of power should have more of a voice than everyone else, it limits the range of perspectives we’re exposed to. We’ll never reach the true height of our collective strength and wisdom unless everyone gets an equal voice, and that will never happen as long as organizers keep invalidating (or straight-up ignoring) all critiques.

The ends don’t justify the means; the means create the ends. Engaging in resistance is how we learn to cooperate with each other outside the capitalist system, and if we keep refusing to address our internal dynamics, this counterculture will become just another establishment willfully ignorant of its own flaws.

Comments

anon (not verified) Sun, 05/26/2024 - 05:23

It's not authoritarian "socialism," professor: typing slowly now, if it's based on wage labor and commodity production, it's capitalism. If you cannot comprehend this transparently clear fact I'm gonna have to make you stay after class to clean the erasers -- no extra credit points for you.

Prof Dillweed (not verified) Sun, 05/26/2024 - 09:08

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Go to "The Socialist States of the 20th Century" class at 1 PM, do the whole course and bring back on my desk a 5000-words report on any authoritarian socialist regimes that didn't had their form of wage labor commodity-driven economy, and instead brought some groundbreaking economic model where anyone can work on their own schedules, on any job they want, and get all the stuff they need for free at local free shops.

See you later. Or maybe not.

anon (not verified) Sun, 05/26/2024 - 10:42

So far, communist class struggle anarchism in Spain during the war was the most widespread and advanced expression of this. And that's a different kettle of fish from the consumer society/adolescent rebellion/alienated wholly bourgeois individualism brand that prevails on the fringe of the alternative scene in the late 20th to early 21st century United States.

anon (not verified) Mon, 05/27/2024 - 11:49

Very weak and vague clapback offering platitudes instead of an analysis of whatever situation is at issue here. So anarchism isn’t wearing black and smashing stuff, it’s just… individualism? Not sure how this will stop “tankies” or whomever from thinking you’re prioritizing ideological proselytization to the point of undercutting whatever group efforts you’re participating in. In my experience anarchists can either choose political purity or they can join forces with non-anarchists, but getting involved in a broader front while also trying to sabotage the core organizers/more popular factions/etc will not go well. You can offer a well designed critique (which this isn’t) but if you’re determined not to play well with others it will blow back on you.

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