The problem with this “dark centrism” is that it acts as though political ideologies are just built up of various smaller beliefs that inform a larger ideology, and you can just pick out little elements from each. In reality, this is not how ideologies function. Ideologies have their own internal frameworks for viewing the world, that become very difficult or near impossible to extract without the proper context surrounding them.

PF Jung claims he likes the Christian nationalist idea of Christianity being fundamental to western values. But the attachment to Christianity extracted from Christian nationalist views creates an element with no connection to its original source. You’re not taking something from Christian nationalism, so much as you are just making a claim about Christianity that a member of any ideology could hold.

What even is politics if not attached to a broader framework? Politics as a collection of issues to take a stand on is silly. Politics is a way of viewing the world, history, psychology, etc. and the way in which this is done makes up the various ideologies that exist.

Though I appreciate the attempt to be open and undogmatic when it comes to politics, I think ultimately that approach is found better within anarchism. Anarchism certainly holds a specific view of the world and has a slightly specific goal (can vary wildly however). But anarchism also explicitly has no platform, no principles which you must follow or else not be called an anarchism, aside from the rejection of a state. It is clearly the most flexible ‘ideology.’ I’d much rather everyone be a “dark centrist” than whatever the world is right now. But at the same time it doesn’t appear to be anything other than a strange form of liberalism, that continues to uphold a state and capitalism and liberal democracy.

For a democracy to work, people have to be able to elect representatives freely and through proper education and deliberation. Otherwise they can be easily manipulated and caught up in issues where they end up voting against their own interests. This is evidently the case with modern politics, especially in America. But how do people get caught up in all of that? Well for starters it begins with a poisoning of the mind by the capitalist machine. The desire for instant gratification, for success and objectification. A nihilistic, highly utilitarian way of viewing the world. Capitalism feeds on and reproduces a culture of nihilism: of apathy. Where pursuing your own individual pleasures is all that matters, and sitting with things, putting in effort to benefit your community, is not a priority.

Furthermore, capitalism keeps us working. It keeps us stressed, anxious, and unmotivated. Capitalism makes sure that we spend all of our time either working, thinking about working, or basking in mindless pleasures to take our brain off of working. No wonder we don’t have time to seriously think about politics

I see the appeal of a movement like Marxism. It feels much more expansive, bigger than anarchism. This is the argument they make, that we need something global and powerful in order to defeat the colonial powers. And I understand the appeal of this. If Marxist Leninism was something that actually worked in making progress toward the revolution, then obviously its tactics would be preferable to anarchist ones.

Unfortunately, we tread the harder road. Hierarchy and capitalism are strong, and though Marxism seems powerful, it actually works too deep within the bounds of the preexisting hierarchies to ever properly break free of them. True revolution must be completely different. It cannot be a philosophy of victory, of maximum power, of utilitarian might. This is why Marxism always devolves back into capitalism, always back into authority. The same logic of the colonial powers: win or lose, destroy or be destroyed, submit or be submitted to. We must break from capitalism by breaking free of its deeper psychological tyranny. It is a matter of desire, not of political groups. It’s unfortunate, but you cannot win the revolution without the people on the side of revolution. Establishing another hierarchy creates just another dependence on external authority, the exact dependence that capitalism feeds on and consumes into its own sphere.

If only we could simply take control. Unfortunately we have to actually change, as people. We have to actually live the revolution in the here and the now.

Marxist Leninism makes a lot of big promises, and ones that it can never fulfill. It does not operate by a revolutionary spirit but by an opportunist one, a utilitarian one, and ultimately a fascist one.

They say we need governments to stop criminals. I say we need to abolish governments to stop the real criminals. Who’s worse: the robbers and murderers on the street or the robbers and murders with immense amounts of power (who steal and kill thousands, maybe millions, of times more)?

Police and military are supposed to keep order. What kind of order is a world where whoever has enough power can bomb and destroy whatever they see fit, often with no accountability?

You need a reevaluation of all values if we are to achieve revolution. This cannot happen through authority, because authority inherently inspires the opposite of individual value creation and instead a focus on an external entity/value creator.

Capitalism thrives on the comfort it provides. It knows that if it gives people nothing, then they’ll have nothing to lose through revolution. So it gives people something, and not just anything, but the most enticing thing. Comfort, or at least, the illusion of comfort. Of course life under capitalism is not comfortable, in fact the very opposite. It is deeply stressful, full of fear and constant effort, but there is the promise of comfort on the horizon, and small momentary comforts that help us feel placated in our daily lives. We do have more to lose than just our chains, but these things are worth losing. These comforts are inextricably tied to a system that’s destroying us. We have to choose to live over choosing to die in blissful ignorance.

(Regarding Mathew 5:39)

Spontaneous acts of self-defense are clearly quite fundamentally different from systematic structures of violence such as the police and the military. Even political violence is fundamentally different in the sense that all of these acts of violence are prepared and planned. You have the aim beforehand of committing a violent act. Rather than in a particular situation, such as being raped or threatened when you are spontaneously put into a situation where violence is necessary. Violence is not horrible in itself but as a philosophy. The philosophy of resisting evil with evil, not the very act of resisting evil with evil. Evil knows and intends to do violence as a way of being, but the good do violence only in a particular, momentary, situation wherein it is the only way to protect yourself or others from harm.

If we can’t be full pacifists, we should at least recognize that violence comes in many forms and that pacifism doesn’t have to be all encompassing. We should strive to be as pacifist as possible and there is no world where systematic forms of violence are in any way conductive to the teachings of pacifism, whereas spontaneous acts of self-defense can clearly be argued for merely by virtue of their spontaneity.

Under capitalism work is driven by either hope or fear. Fear of poverty or hope for a better life. Additionally, the moment of production itself is simply for an external, unreached goal. Likewise, the work is individualized (MY work, MY job). It ceases to be a communal function of society and becomes merely a way for each individual to obtain a living.

Individualization, objectification + external striving

marxists are the idealist ones. The ones who dream of a utopia on the horizon. Anarchists don’t dream. We want to create the conditions for our freedom in the here and the now. Build our new society from the ground up, not hope that it comes from on high. Revolution exists only within the heart and soul of the people, and nowhere else.

Anarchism doesn’t need followers. It manifests itself everywhere wherein it goes unsaid. It manifests in the artist who rejects convention and form; in the neighbor who lends a helping hand from no want of his own; in the child who wonders, imagines, and always seeks to question; in the scientist who pushes further and further towards truth, never satisfied with any answer; in the teacher who inspires her student to think and to question beyond their preconceptions; in the hiker who wanders without aim, marveling simply at the beauty of the world. Freedom, love, and change are bound up with nature of our very being. Power structures will shift all around us, pulling us this way and that, time creates and destroys, but that one principle, the constant force, that unconstrained desire, remains. In it lies chaos, and order. In it lies the individual and the collective. It is a creative force. It creates truths. Truths seated in experience, free from representation and oppression. The truth of freedom lies ever-present within all mankind. That is Anarchism.

*Anarchism as a political reality is simply that which emerges from anarchism as a metaphysical and ethical perspective

You disdain the violent criminal? You support a criminal more violent than the violence of all criminals.

You want order? How is putting your life in the hands of the whim of whoever is in power considered order? Is genocide order? War?

You want justice? Is killing the many for the sake of the few considered justice?

The attacks on September 11th show us that governments create violence through violence, and respond with even more violence. When will it end? When the government of force is at an end.

The hardest thing I’ve encountered when trying to convince people of anarchism is that they are always thinking of the future within the context of the present. They assume anarchism as something that would be operating with the very same people and culture that exist now, which ignores the fact that anarchism must exist under entirely different conditions and after a whole series of material and philosophical developments within mankind.

The argument is that civilization has produced overall good material conditions for people.

This ignores (a) the great levels of exploitation, suffering, and violence that has ,and continues to, occur to maintain these conditions, as well as (b) the fact that human wellbeing is a combination of material and spiritual conditions, of which civilization has destroyed the latter.

Utilitarianism reflects the political idea of a state. A system that thinks only of the outcome, and of that outcome only in physical metrics of pleasure or pain. Deontology prioritizes the individual character primarily, and it follows that this will improve the lives of all other. Utilitarianism requires policies to be put into action rather than a standard of moral character to follow.

Utilitarianism sounds nice because it, in principle, puts the needs of the many above the needs of the few. But it goes about this in the wrong way. Its view of the world is one that is solely through a material lens.

We can only conceive of existence through particulars, I.e. specific objects that have finite existence. These are, of course, only creations of the mind and have no real determination. But “something” does still exist, just not as a particular, it’s simply the substance of which all is made up. We cannot conceive the substance as such but only as particulars. To say that such a substance does not exist is to affirm pure idealism, or essentially that nothing external exists. We cannot know this to be true or false, but if we are to believe in the existence of the external, then there must be something beyond particulars that “exists” but is not understood as existence, more as the essence of things (God, for Spinoza. Also my understanding of The Body Without Organs for Deleuze)

You are okay even when stuff is not