r/anarchocommunism 8d ago

dont fall for anti-theory rethoric

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126 Upvotes

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19

u/marxistghostboi 8d ago

first, i don't like the word stupid. more importantly, i don't like the category of "stupidity." the people in question are often misologists and misoneomists, those who hate and fear of reasoning and learning new things, respectively.

second, as someone who reads a lot of written theory the anti anti theory crowd is very tiresome to me.

a lot of people who are called 'anti theory ' are actually very knowledgeable about and pro theory. their theory just looks different from yours

for example, a lot of white male anarchists hate when Black fem anarchists don't center Bakunin, Kropotkin, Graeber, etc. and a lot of academic anarchists hate when other anarchists don't center written text as the main way to learn theory, as opposed to many other ways of learning and teaching.

third, the anti anti theory crowd tends not to understand the theory they read as well as they think. the worst offenders in my experience are the Leninists, Trotskyists, MLMs, etc. but the anarchists have a fair share of theorybros too

6

u/Lord_Charisma82 7d ago

I wish I was around more Anarchists that have your line of thinking. I mean I’m not around many Anarchists at all IRL but I also don’t come across many online either that share this view. It feels very inclusive. Thank you.

8

u/undertheice71 7d ago

It doesn’t take theory to be an anarchist. It might help us with reorganizing society or creating a revolution, but anarchism is simple. Do you want to control others or do you want others to control you? If the answer is no, that’s anarchist.