r/BiologicalAnarchy

There has been some debate about this in the discord server to say the least, which inspired me to write my take on nihilism. Upon looking into the debate i have unfortunately noticed how nihilism and defeatism were seen as synonymous with one another. Defeatism is just one response to nihilism, often taken up by either A: those with extreme depression or something similar, or B: those who have a fundamental misunderstanding of what nihilism is trying to get at. I used to dabble in anarcho-nihilism, and while i still respect it overall i moved away from it, feeling as though it was missing something. A lot of it kinda boiled down to "we're fucked either way, let's revolt regardless", which i can get behind but still feels rather defeatist. People talk about the praxis of it all, honestly i'm more of a "by any means necessary" type of mentality when it comes to putting ideas into practice, for the most part i tend to be open to anything so long as it doesn't cross my core values too much. But i'm getting ahead of myself, first we ought to define nihilism, because there's more than one kind and i feel like it just gets muddied from time to time into just "the doomer philosophy"

There is existential nihilism, which is that life has no inherent meaning or purpose. This is the most common definition as well as the one i will be referring most to, and at first glance it's not to see how it can be defeatist, however this is simply not the case. It's more so a critique of various established "truths" such as religion or authoritarianism and the likes to deconstruct the dogma associated with it, and to instead create your OWN meaning. Simply stopping at "life means nothing, fuck you" is stupid. Anyone can do that, i've DONE it. It's not about succumbing to the evils of the world around you, quite the opposite. It's about freeing yourself from the pre-established rules, logic, and societal dogma to live a more fulfilling life. Then there are the other types of nihilism, such as moral nihilism (no actions are inherently good or evil, it's merely a construct), cosmic nihilism (the universe is uncaring and hostile to humans), and epistemological nihilism (the belief that objectivity simply cannot be proven, some people thinking that everything we know COULD in fact be false). I have zero issues with any form of nihilism listed here, in fact i'd say they're so baked into my personal ideals that i hardly even notice them anymore. Now it's no secret the ideas of nihilism have kinda lost its meaning in modern contexts half the time, taking the bare bones definition of what these things are and then not doing anything else with it. This is exactly what pisses me off about people sometimes, they just can't interpret text for the life of them, they don't even try to. People kind of expect the things they consume to give them all the answers by holding their hand the whole step of the way and telling them "this is how it is". False. Much of it is meant to be analyzed and interpreted. It's like how people always go "we want more complex characters" but when you get a complex character all of a sudden they're just evil lmao. It's a similar way with philosophy, which is something you get by, idk, actually reading it

Now, back to the defeatism aspect. This person who i will not name, who claims to be into anarcho nihilism, which i am not inherently against mind you, that they want a better system but have accepted that it is "impossible". Bitch how is that nihilist? This is just giving into the system, even if the outcome is being critical of it. They are also anti civ, which is just anprim nonsense (i think postciv is a much better way of looking at it, not "return to monke"). The praxis that they like is stuff like blowing shit up, which ig you CAN do but it's not really going to be effective. Just feels a bit performative and frankly rather primitive. Again, you can use these tactics, that's whatever, but don't have it be your main method, you have to expand on it. And yes, this does fit into the ethos of nihilism to an extent, i can see that, but nihilism is NOT mindless destruction. We don't want to just stop at burning it down, we ought to create something new. Use nihilism to actively get rid of old values, old systems, old ways of thinking, old governments, etc, and then create new ones, rather than just be like "oh, it's impossible to do so". In the end i don't really care what you do, but for the love of god if you're gonna do it, do it correctly rather than just fall into the rick and morty doomer mindset lmao

From the moment we gain the ability to think, we are told that it is our civic duty to cast a ballot for a specific party during times of national and even local elections.

However despite everything you are told, this action does not solve the issue, rather it is apart of the root issue.

Party Politics, regardless of their side of the isle, left or right, are held up by two pillars: Centralized Heirarchy and Industrial Civilization.

A primary issue with Political Parties is that theyre Inherently heirarchical, whether a party claims to be "For the People" or "For bettering the Economy" they all still operate on a top-down structure, Those at the top make decisions, and the Rank-And-File members are expected to follow, and if they fail to do so, they are booted.

And eventually these decisions impact the citizens when these parties enter a position of power.

Heirarchy is a virus, a disease, a tumor. Once you create a position of power, you will always get people who want to obtain it and most importantly they will want to keep it for as long as they can. This leads to the inevitable cycle of corruption, where instead of making things better, the primary focus becomes staying in power for as long as physically possible.

By partaking and participating in party politics, we validate the idea that we need masters to tell us how we must live.

Now, if you look at every partys platform, they all promise one thing: "Perpetual Economic Growth"

Under our current system, our success is based entirely aroud GDP ("Gross Domestic Product"). For a political party to be "successful", the economy must grow.

However, on a planet with very limited and finite resources, it is absolutely impossible for an economy to grow endlessly and infinitely, it is a physical impossibility! And this is precisely where party politics fail the earth.

These parties, most commonly but not limited to, the green parties, often push for some form of "Green Capitalism" or "Environmental Legislation"

Now I have made my critique on legislation and reform in my prior essay, so I will save you the time by saying simply.. Green Capitalism is a scam, and legislation is a band aid on a raging and infected open wound.

They say "Buy more solar panels!" And "Buy our recycled plastic product!" But ensure that mining operations, some of which even utilize child labor, and oil drilling at sea (which i shouldnt even have to tell you the risks of..) all remain.

These two things are not your savior, they never will be, and it is foolish and childish to say such.

Now for the next topic subject to my attacking.

The Destruction of Local Autonomy.

When focusing on national, and even international, party politics we lose all connection to the very land that we actually live on. The decision on matters such as a forest or a waterway in a given area are often, if not always, made by a suit wearing politician in the distant lands known only as a parliament building, a senate, or a congress. Usually by people who never set foot in the regions home to these forests or waterways, distant and completely detached, sometimes even unaware of the ecosystems that surround these areas.

Party Politics offers us a "One Size Fits All" solution onto diverse cultures and environments.

Bioregionalism, the idea that human society should fit and be organized within natural geographic borders, because unlike borders drawn on a map, natural borders (such as where a biome begins and ends, mountain ranges and so on) actually exist! And it is something communities should utilize.

Rather than party politics, we need to move towards a world where the people who will be most affected by a decision regarding their local ecosystems, are the ones who get to make the decision.

For those unaware, this is a major essential part of anarchism; not chaos, but rather a high level of communal responsibility.

No rulers does not mean no rules.

Communes having a shared resposibility for the land they live on and share life with, is much like caring for one of their own, nature is alive, it is not a source to be profitted off of, once we treat it as such, we will better be able to treat eachother as such. This obviously is a dire need if we take one good hard long look at the rest of the world.

Finally, Party Politics just has a psychological toll, many people have begun to view politics as simply a sport, we all pick a team, Red Blue Green or Yellow, Tory or Labour, and just cheer them on from the sidelines. This creates us the false sense of accomplishment. Those who post a political meme, or cast their vote for what they deem as the "Lesser Evil" of the many options on a ballot, feel as though they have done their part, they go home afterwards and the day goes on..

This.. Passivity is very dangerous, it keeps us from building the skills we need to survive outside of the state system. By telling us that the party we voted for will "Fix Everything" and we all just sit on our couch and expect just that every issue is to disappear before our eyes.

But as reality shows and will always show, this "Everything" never gets fixed, and then the next elections arrives and each party promises a fix, like a hivemind we cast our votes and the endless cycle continues once more.

By providing us the verbal comfort of "fixing everything" we drop our intentions and dreams of change simply because the person on tv that we voted for.. promised to do that.

And it never happens, and we always fall for it.

It kills revolutionary spirit because "this candidate said they'd give us this and that, and because we voted, we have nothing to worry about!"

Do not let the system keep lying to you like this, it keeps you subdued with these ideas because it knows what youre capable of if you keep that spirit high and you actually use it.

The Psychological Toll of this never ending electoral cycle, is just that, never ending.

Party Politics can't and won't save you, and they never intended to.

This started off as something well thought out and ended a bit rambly, but oh well.

The modern Leftist political establishment has consistently marched under the banner of reform, for decades promising an increased carbon tax, social safety nets, the promises they offer have and will always be the same: "We can fix the system without tearing it down."

To these reformists the state is a tool that we can utilize for good, for the better of humanity.

However, to those like me, a green-anarchist, these pledges and promises are nothing but decorative bandages.

Our environmental crisis is not an accident or a mishap of capitalistic powers, it is the result of hierarchy and power dynamics as a whole, of course the state-capitalist industrial engine is the most guilty of these crimes against nature. But by trying to reform these wreckless institutions they inadvertantly strengthen the very structures that cause these damages to begin with, just because you tax a couple businesses for their increased carbon emissions doesn't mean you instantly save the planet, if anything.. you'll just make these businesses more sneaky in their methodology.

You aren't dismantling a damned thing by raising a few taxes.

In order to truly "reform" and protect the biosphere one must move past simple political slogans and ballot boxes and confront the real culprits, authority and greed.

One of the few platform points of leftist reformism is the belief that the government can regulate itself out of a world-ending ecological collapse, advocating for a centralized hierarchies, international treaties, and a switch to renewable energy. And while these goals seem noble and admirable even, they completely ignore and disregard the inherent nature of the state.

The state is simply nothing more than a centralized hierarchy that exists entirely to maintain order and protect only the interests of those in power within that state.

Historically the industrial capitalist complexes have grown and malformed into an ugly and deranged single organism, the state.

The state requires a taxable and growing economy to further fund its military industrial complex and its bureaucracy, meanwhile corporations rely on protections (laws, police, and infrastructure) to extract and aggressively violate earth and its natural resources.

When a reformist "environmental" law/bill passes, rarely does it ever directly challenge the core logic of the extractions being committed, rather they establish a system of "Controlled Destruction"

An example being Carbon Trading Schemes dont stop pollution; rather they turn pollution into a commodity that can be bought and sold on a whim.

By working through the state, these reformists validate the notion that a mere handful of rich elites get to decide how nature gets to fill their pockets, because their reform.. isnt reforming or fixing the issue, it places a simple band-aid over the problem and expects it to go away.

True and genuine ecological balance and sustainability can only occur through intense decentralization. Where local communities, those being the people who actually live on said land, have the Direct power to protect said land.

Another issue is that reformists often are supportive of the illusion that is "Green Capitalism"

Believing that if we just.. subsidize electric cars and build more wind turbines that we can simply just move on from the issue and climate change will just end! This illusion is a very VERY dangerous illusion.

Capitalism itself REQUIRES infinite growth.. on a Finite planet.

No matter if an industry is powered by coal or eletricity, their logic remains the exact same: "Produce more, Sell more, and Grow or Die."

This idea and reality is fundementally at odds with the biological limitations of Mother Earth.

Even if we 100% switch over to renewable energy, the sheer amount and volume of stuff the industries produce still requires mining operations to be preformed, still requires the destruction of habitats for new factories to be built, and of course.. the endless creation of waste.

Production should only be for a community and ecological needs rather than consumerism and profit.

The environment and humanity are one, by hurting the ecological state of earth, you also damage humanity in the process, killing us both slowly and agonizingly.

A lot of Reformist strategies rely on "Representative Democracy" the idea that we elect people to make choices on our behalf, this system inherently de-radicalizes the movement.

Someone could simply just promise to change things, not change a damn thing, get booted out and replaced by someone with the exact same intentions, and the cycle continues on.

We even have examples of this happening! Just look at ANY politician in the United States.

The State also uses reform to pacify the public, by producing small wins like.. creating a new park or banning plastic straws, the state provides the illusion that it is working, which inherently prevents people from seeking deeper structural change.

Reformism and its followers often seek to replace "Bad" leaders with "Good" Leaders, however this maintains the system of "man over man" is entirely intact.

Murray Bookchin (i will always use him, because hes my GOAT) states that the way we treat the environment is a reflection on how we treat ourselves and eachother. If we live in a world where we are set with the belief that some people can hierarchically dominate others, no matter if it be through race, sex, gender, or religion, that we will inevitably believe that we as humans have the right to dominate and destroy the natural world and its resources.

The health of our Earth is ticking down everyday, legislative reformism can only get us so far, and no matter what is reformed it will NEVER be far enough.

The solution isnt to sit in parliament or congress and swivel in your chair trying to make the system more green-friendly, its to take down completely and build off the weak shells of what once was.

Liberty, Equality, and Ecology:

That is our solution, and the state will not willingly hand it over.

Thank you.

This is a concept explored by Nyx that i will summarize and give my own takes on here and there. Essentially, it is an attempt at breaking the boundaries found in political theory. In academic spaces, once you reach that point, you'd find that most of the political theory you'd be writing is for other academics who really only like specific viewpoints and a specific method. It's essentially an intellectual circle jerk in the end, at best being marxist ideologically and at worst being liberals. In other words the viewpoint is rather narrow and doesn't value much experimentation, which is precisely why the ccru fled academic spaces. These spaces reject anything truly radical. Not to mention how the theory is presented. There's a reason why post leftist or even just regular leftist politics don't reach as many people and it's how damn academic many of the works are. It just alienates outsiders rather than trying to entice them. Theorypunk aims to sort of decentralize political theory and generate new ideas

For starters, we can utilize new things like youtube, blogs, posts, podcasts, even memes as the new form of communicating ideas, which so far has worked pretty well. It's not much different than the use of zines in terms of the purpose, that anyone can do it and it isn't put through a string of editors deciding what does and what doesn't get put out there, creating vast potential. Plus they'd be free to essentially everyone out there rather than gatekept to a few people. It's supposed to allow amateur theorists and propagandists to shine and generate new ideas at a faster and more accessible scale than before. The fact is as of now the left just worships academia and much of them, even anarchists, tend to be stuck in the 19th and 20th century. It's no wonder why the alt right has spread so quickly, they've adapted before we did, and now it is time for the left to adapt once more

Theory should be treated more as an art form than anything. It should transcend the original author and become an egregore that others can continue to build upon. It should inspire others to be active participants, and like theory shouldn't be subject to ownership from a singular person. It isn't a singular person or group of people going "i alone have found the truth", that is, for lack of a better word, fascistic in nature. It's the death of the author essentially. Essentially it's a lot like making a remix of a pre-existing song or having parts of it sampled until it becomes a completely different song. Ownership of an idea is a ridiculous concept, you can't own an idea. Shit, nobody really truly "owns" anything, tf you think this is? Lmao

In conclusion, the decentralization and evolution of how we both consume and create (emphasis on the latter) theory is a key aspect to unlocking these ideas to the masses, in an unfiltered deluge of unique thought and propaganda in unique aesthetics, media, etc. I'm sure you remember that brief moment where i was more influenced by maoism than i was before due to me looking more into the truth about what china is like and seeing that it's way different from western narratives. While i respect what it has accomplished and might even go there in the future, i now maintain a more critical stance of it and don't glaze it like i once did, much to many of you guy's relief. If you don't remember this, idk what to tell you, lurk moar ig. But anyway, the reason i bring this up is a half confession: while my beliefs genuinely did evolve to an extent at the time, my discussing it in the sub was an experiment. I wanted to see if a single person can change the trajectory of a philosophical movement, space, or thought. And what i found was it has not, if anything it only strengthened the amount of anarchist thought that was in the sub originally. This proves one thing: once a movement begins to evolve there is no going back, and the original creator of whatever space that may be has very little say in the direction it goes in the end. This is good. A theory and philosophy must be routinely updated and continued to be built upon until it becomes a lovecraftian force operating beyond the understanding or comprehension of any who was originally there to witness it. This is why marxists, or any traditional leftist for that matter, tend to get on my nerves slightly, they might call any deviation from the original thought "revisionism", which is essentially leftist for "heresy". As i said before, atheists are just as dogmatic as evangelicals often times. You can't just fall back on old ideas or old movements, that's just stupid. It's reactionary by nature, no other way of looking at it, and idolizing the past leads to stagnation. Obviously you can appreciate the past and even be inspired by it, but it is not our goal. You have to look towards what the future will be. Ironically, all you have to do is look at modern trends and the history of youth culture, the arts (music, tv, film, fashion, aesthetics, etc), politics, generational trends, philosophy, etc. This will give you a pretty solid approximation of the future. You have to take in all the information you can find and interpret it, not parrot it. Stealing water from the cathedral

Thank you for coming to my ted talk lol. Stay noided

Trans people choosing their own name, the names of indigenous people (or any racial minority for that matter), even our online personas all make a statement whether we are conscious of it or not. Whatever name we have is basically how people perceive us, the first thing people learn about us, and what their first perception of us is. When we choose our name, we are taking away what another person's perception of us is. Malcom X and others in the civil rights movements taking away their last names that were given to them by their former slave owners in favor of new ones, Malcom X just having it be an X, or trans people picking new names to better fit their gender. Those are the most notable examples of this. Ofc, the people who reclaim their identities aren't the only ones who see this, and the people that they are rebelling against, be it systemic discrimination, their parents, their community, etc, will try to reassert the identity that fits within their worldview. This is why people and figures would deadname you, to try to force you back into that box. When native americans got sent to boarding schools to try to get them to assimilate into white culture, or when africans first got captured by slavers, the first thing that they did was take away their names. Stripping them of their identity to create a new perception of that person and effectively force them into servitude. On the internet, we have usernames and various aliases. The idea is so that we can keep our identity intact, so that way there is no conceivable way to strip you of your sense of self. By naming yourself, you are basically asserting that others do not have power over you

boo hewo I found u guys :D >:3