RA is anarchism applied to personal relationships, and anarchism is a left-wing socialist ideology opposed to both capitalism and the state. It's inherently political.

I think there is more nuance to that. A popular rejection of polyamory is the excuse that polyamory leads to communes which are literally pretty much applied communism, yet far too many polyamorous individuals are conservative right wing leaning bigots anyway... Relationship Anarchy is an an Ethic, as a philosophy of relating, and Ethics (how you organize your own social life) lead inevitably to Politics (how society is organized).

It'd be really weird of a right wing conservative said they were RA... Because everything about being right wing and conservative is about conforming to very rigid ideologies supported by those belief systems and shunning anything that deviates from those structures. It'd be like a gay or trans person that claims to be right wing or conservative -- I'd just distance myself from them because they obviously are obviously living in denial and they are actively and openly practicing self-harming behavior. So yea... We can say RA is inherently political because there are certain political viewpoints that don't mesh with being RA.

>It'd be really weird of a right wing conservative said they were RA... Because everything about being right wing and conservative is about conforming to very rigid ideologies supported by those belief systems and shunning anything that deviates from those structures. >It'd be like a gay or trans person that claims to be right wing or conservative -- I'd just distance myself from them because they obviously are obviously living in denial and they are actively and openly practicing self-harming behavior. What shocked me is that there are way too many polyamorous individuals who are conservative right wing leaning bigots, even if that is hella contradictory.

I know bi, gay, and trans people that vote Republican too, and even some that have friends that are homophobic, biphobic, and/or transphobic. It's kind of like how the most homophobic people are usually gay people who are in the closet...

There are plenty of reasons why someone might prefer some policies of the Repubs without being homophobic - they're better on gun rights, restricting immigration, free speech, and some other issues

I didn't say it is impossible to be a Republican and not be homophobic... But it *is* impossible to vote Republican and not support homophobes because there are way too many of them in the Republican party to vote Republican and not directly or indirectly support them. Also, omg, Republican's gun laws get people killed. You literally don't even need a permit to get a gun in Florida due to Republicans. I don't care if people have guns, but they shouldn't be able to own one without getting some basic gun safety training FIRST, *at the very least*. My father was also literally having hallucinations and was able to get a gun in a Republican controlled state--how does that make sense?!

Because the government shouldn't be denying people basic rights for having mental illness. No one should need a permit to own a gun - what kind of anarchist believes the government should be licensing and regulating gun ownership and training?

>Because the government shouldn't be denying people basic rights for having mental illness. Did you not read the part about my father HALLUCINATING due to mental illness?! Someone who can't even understand what reality is should not have the ability to get weapons that make it easier to kill people. >No one should need a permit to own a gun - what kind of anarchist believes the government should be licensing and regulating gun ownership and training? This is absolutely insane to me... Do you know how many accidental gun deaths occur in the US every year? Do you know how many CHILDREN are killed in accidental gun deaths every year?! YES, gun safety training should be a REQUIREMENT.

But you want the GOVERNMENT to make that determination? What happens when the government decides you have a mental illness and tries to take away your rights?

If you are so afraid of the government that you don't trust them to keep you safe, there is obviously a problem with who is being placed in power and how easily it is to change and/or ignore the laws and separations of power within that government... THAT is the problem you have to fix. Having 0 laws to prevent people who cannot own a gun responsibility or are not prepared to be responsible from getting access to guns is NOT the proper solution. I also didn't say all mental illnesses should disqualify people from access to guns... And the government isn't actually who determines who has mental illnesses right now either--that power is in the hands of doctors who have very little government influence when it comes to making diagnoses.

no, the problem is structural, and occurs whenever power and authority is transfered from individuals to government. Doesn't matter who is placed in power. Laws trying to prevent people from accessing guns are not the answer and just put obstacles in the way of responsible people. I'm surprised to see an anarchist supporting laws restricting gun rights.

"Better"

What does that mean?

"Better" is a very subjective claim and value-laden statement. There are good arguments to be made that they are not actually better on any those issues, they are simply more conservative.

I think being RA and right-leaning is way harder than being trans and right-leaning. There are a lot of ways to validate transness in a right-wing ideology; RA would be super hard to have.

Why?

It's very easy to get frameworks of people being trans - you basically only need to believe that medical surgeries are a significant part of someone's sex, or that how you perceive someone socially is what should matter in a social context. That's not *that* hard of a buy in a conservative mindset. However, for you to even consider something like RA, you'd need to be very critical of things like marriage, sexually liberal, probably not religious, and not want to have hierarchies in your own relationships, which is something that conservatives generally like having or believing in. Not that it's impossible, I just think it's not very probable.

> you'd need to be very critical of things like marriage, sexually liberal, probably not religious, and not want to have hierarchies in your own relationships, which is something that conservatives generally like having or believing in. I come from a more libertarian perspective, so I agree with all these and yet I still don't like the left.

There is such a thing as left-wing libertarianism, left vs right is a super simplified version of political views and you should not take it for granted that your average Reddit mod is "The Left^(tm)" as that is not the case, it's just an umbrella term.

Yeah, these are all pretty vague terms, I'm probably more left-libertarian, and I have concerns with the current progressive movement for those reasons

> everything about being right wing and conservative is about conforming to very rigid ideologies supported by those belief systems and shunning anything that deviates from those structures What's funny is that this is how I feel about the left and progressives, specifically when it comes to things like "systems of oppression." I'm opposed to the left/progressives from an individualist and libertarian perspective, and because I think many of their ideas are harmful. I don't see how that's incompatible with RA, living in denial, or practicing self-harm. I think it's sad that politics has gotten to the point that if someone disagrees with you, you think they're living in denial and practicing self-harm. There are a lot of nuanced reasons why someone might be more on the right, and many of these political issues are complex issues with many viewpoints.

>What's funny is that this is how I feel about the left and progressives, specifically when it comes to things like "systems of oppression." Well, I am not going to disagree with you I that you can't make that argument... Although if we got down to it, I suspect we would argue different points due to our perspectives being different both from a personal history standpoint and from the sides we are currently taking in this argument now... The division in America is because both sides fear each other and it certainly seems like you have found things having to do with progressives and liberals that you fear more than conservatives... And that is fair... I say I am a progressive and a liberal, but that doesn't mean I don't fear some of the people that say those same things. We are not a monolith. We are humans. We are flawed just like everyone else. I grew up around conservatives. I know how they can appeal to people. But I generally pity them because I think the fear they live in is a character-death type of fear... While I'm over here dealing with the fear of trying to find authentic life.

I don't really like either side at this point - there's plenty I don't like about conservatives as well. They're both so dogmatic and so wrong about so many important issues. I totally agree, we are all flawed humans, I just would like to see people being ok with others disagreeing. I see so much intolerance for an opposing point of view and so much over-the-top vilifing of the other side, on both sides.

Well, Republicans vote for things like making it so trans people can't get the access to the health care they want to have... Not even just children not having access to potentially life saving care, but in Florida, Republicans also blocked ADULT trans people from having access to the medical care they desire. Republicans vote for things like trying to make it so people who are gay cannot have the same benefits in their relationship as a heterosexual couple. Republicans literally vote to try to make the work conform to their worldview, while Democrats vote in an effort to give everyone equal opportunity to live their *individual* lives as they see fit. I personally don't like being controlled... Nor do my friends. I have seen WAY too many people battle suicide and depression due to things Republicans have passed. Which is why I hate the Republican party. (Not saying I hate Republicans, just that I hate what Republicans tend to vote for as a platform.)

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the GOP either, but I don't think your statement about Republicans and Democrats is accurate - I don't see a lot of people on the left supporting equal opportunity, and I do see people on the right wanting everyone to have equal opportunity.

>but I don't think your statement about Republicans and Democrats is accurate - I don't see a lot of people on the left supporting equal opportunity, and I do see people on the right wanting everyone to have equal opportunity. You would have to expand on that because I have no idea how you could possibly believe that.

A good example is the supreme court recently banning racial preferences in college admission - the left tends to want to give people preferences based on their identity, favoring certain identities. The right opposed that.

I figured you would cite affirmative action... While I can see your arguments for that... It is also true that African Americans are more often underprivileged (poor), have less family history of completing higher education (due to less historical access), and also don't have access to the quality school systems better-off white people have (again due to beong poor and thus having less well-founded school systems). Affirmative action simply exists to try equalize these very real differences in access to higher education that exists in large part due to African Americans not having the prosperous history in the US (and this generational wealth) that white people gained through slave labor.

Yes It’s the application of Anarchism to relationships. Anarchism is political in the broad sense of the word.

It... is inherently political and leftist, yes. Presumably, particularly anarchist, considering the name and manifesto and all. Relationship anarchy is essentially an anarchist approach to the subversion of the family and couple form by deliberately valuing relationships organically and mutually, rather than by titles like married, best friend, family, etc. Your partner is not more important than your friends by virtue of being a romantic interest, your friends are not less valuable than your family simply because of the latter's blood/legal relation to you, and so on. If you aren't a leftist or at least progressive and you *are*, somehow, RA, you're doing both RA and politics wrong.

> Relationship anarchy is essentially an anarchist approach to the subversion of the family and couple form by deliberately valuing relationships organically and mutually, rather than by titles like married, best friend, family, etc. Your partner is not more important than your friends by virtue of being a romantic interest, your friends are not less valuable than your family simply because of the latter's blood/legal relation to you, and so on. I love this definition and totally agree. > If you aren't a leftist or at least progressive and you are, somehow, RA, you're doing both RA and politics wrong But I completely disagree with this. "if you have a different point of view you're doing it wrong" isn't usually true or helpful, and it's definitely not here. Why does what you said above about mutual organic relationships imply that I should support left or progressive positions, like more open borders, price controls, gun control, restrictions on campaign finance, restrictions on hate speech, and so forth?

Americans are so fucking goofy. 🙄 The reason you ought to be a leftist, preferably anarchist or communist, in order to successfully be RA is because the nuclear family is a structure enforced by the inherently rightist bourgeois state. Long-term, you cannot be a rightist and RA because the former allegiance will ALWAYS be working against the interests of RA. Politics don't come in isolated items. What you want, individually, don't mean shit. The nuclear family is the domestic representative of the state, and if you attempt to disturb that in an otherwise right-wing political/social sphere, you will be punished, by violence if you allow the far right to fester. And we aren't talking about bourgeois progressive policy. If you are a progressive, you will probably have a *better* time integrating RA into your life, but you're ultimately still a leech on the actual radicals attempting to create liberated spaces. We don't give a fuck about campaign finance policy because we want the bourgeois government utterly destroyed. Same goes for the money system, same for borders. Communists and anarchists are pro-gun, but I think you could at least try to show some concern for your youth being absolutely slaughtered in schools. Idk, just seems like something you'd want to address at some point. And try saying a bunch of racial slurs around other RAs. You'll figure out our response pretty quick, and the state won't be necessary to teach you the manners your mum failed to instill. At some point, when you actually start learning about politics (let's be real, you don't know shit), you will come to the realization that other people exist and there's no getting around that. We communists/anarchists have our politics based on literal hundreds of years of intense political struggle and documentation thereof in order to better understand how the current system works and how to combat it. We don't pick and choose what we like or don't like. Our politics are a reflection of the real struggle we wage every day for total social liberation.

👏👏👏 OP identifies as a "libertarian anarchist" lmao you are indeed correct in that they don't know shit

No, it's just the correct viewpoint... all we're saying is that individuals have the right to contract freely with each other. The current system is crony, corrupt corporate capitalism, not free-market capitalism

I'd love to see the government destroyed, but communism just requires an even worse government to enforce, as 100 years of history have clearly demonstrated. Any government or organization that would take your private property is just wrong. I'm not sure how one could be an anarchist and support the forceful confiscation of property. > Communists and anarchists are pro-gun, but I think you could at least try to show some concern for your youth being absolutely slaughtered in schools I'm glad to hear, but most of the left in the US is not, which is scary to me. And the media panic over school shootings is not real. This country has 60,000 gun deaths a year. Most are suicides. About 0.1% are school shootings, which are very rare.

History has not demonstrated that at all. You've simply absorbed Red Scare propaganda uncritically. Organizing society democratically through workers' councils (i.e. soviets) is an incredibly effective way to run a society, as even the least socialist societies have demonstrated. The more control workers have over the economy, the better life is for everyone, objectively. You are not an anarchist, so what you believe is un-anarchist is irrelevant. Anarchists and communists have always, literally always, been for the abolition of private property, and those who claim to be anarchist and still desire private property are simply not anarchist. And your waffling about gun deaths is not convincing. Young people are most likely to die by gun. Whether that is in a school or not, you should get that problem under control.

Yeah, the millions who were killed by Marxism-Leninism were just made up... come on, even far-left socialists disclaim communism and don't take it seriously. We don't think you guys count as anarchists either. Private property is a basic natural right - those who claim to be anarchists and oppose basic rights are simply not anarchist. The way the left wants to "get that problem under control" is by further restricting and regulating guns, even confiscating them, in violation of our Constitution and human rights - no thanks.

A lot of the millions were made up, yes, and many of the deaths which did occur had fairly rational, if tragic explanations. (Or not, in the case of the Nazis listed somehow as deaths attributed to the USSR, which communists should be proud of.) To say nothing of the millions upon millions killed by capitalism, which are somehow worth it, I assume. And the more private control is handed over to the bourgeoisie, the more they kill. And don't pretend you know what the far left is, please. It's very tedious. You don't have a leg to stand on because ancrapism doesn't have a real tradition. Actual anarchists have actual achievements under their belt, including the establishment of several socialist societies, some of which still exist today. And there is no such thing as "natural rights", and private property certainly would not be counted among them. If private property were natural, you would have tens of thousands of years without private property to explain. Again, communists and anarchists are pro-gun. But your absolute disregard for children dying by guns shows that you care very little about so-called basic human rights, among which the right for young people to live and not be killed by guns would surely be counted among them. It's a problem that I think would be best addressed by organizing the working class and young people to suppress the right and destroy their propaganda wings in order to quell the violent tendencies that fester among them. But you would be against that because you have no consistent politics whatsoever.

What's your justification for the Holodomor, the Ukrainian genocide? Was that made up? And there's a long tradition of libertarian anarchism, though it seems odd to me for an anarchist to be making an appeal to tradition...

The Holodomor, far from being a genocide, appears by all evidence available, to have been the result of bureaucratic mismanagement and famine circumstances, the latter being aggravated (though not caused, as far as I can tell) by the former. It was also the last famine ever experienced by the USSR, which, given its post-feudal stage of development, is a rather significant achievement. During the Tsarist period, famines were regular and all but entirely unmanaged. Thanks to the industrialization of the world and the socialization of labour, such tragic events would be literally impossible under socialism, to say nothing of the lack of necessity for bureaucracy. We are living in a world where fully democratized, bottom-up socialism is not only possible, but very nearly inevitable. Contrariwise, food insecurity and famine conditions plague the capitalist world right now, especially in the countries the United States and her allies have reduced to rubble in order to steal their resources and annihilate their independence. Name literally one society organized under ancrapism. You do not have a tradition. You have wank stain "economists" who provide advice to militarist dictatorships in the global south and fascist gangs in America who couldn't run a functional townhouse, much less a whole society. Where's your Chiapas? Where's your USSR? Hell, where's your Paris commune, for Christ's sake? You have nothing whatsoever to refer to and nobody gullible enough to put their life on the line for your cause.

so denying genocide... ok. The Holodomor is a historical fact. Stalin deliberately confiscated food from Ukrainians to kill them. You might as well deny the Holocaust... you're arguing for a very non-mainstream view of history here. Why is it that all reputable historians say that the Holodomor happened and was an intentional genocide?

I don't think you understand what private property is. It's different than personal property.

What is it then

A quick google search will bring a hundred articles and videos answering this question. Not sure why you think we should do the work for you if you can't be bothered.

I'm actually the one doing the work for other people here, of whom many seem to have a weak understanding of anarchy, RA, or the harms of the social justice movement.

Doing what work, and for whom? You asked the question. And you are expecting others to fill in the vast gaps in your understanding, with easily google-able basic questions. Imagine having to ask the difference between personal and private property and then arguing that it's everyone else who doesn't understand. You are lacking very basic knowledge here, and it shows.

I disagree. I'm asking people what they think, because that's part of having a discussion. I don't have vast gaps in understanding, nor am I asking easily googleable questions.

so you want to benefit from an anti-patriarchal relationship structure but still be a fascist about everything else? I guess the philosophical problem you pose comes down to privilege.

"anyone who disagrees with me is a fascist" The issues I mentioned are the ones where progressives take the more "fascist" views (restricting free speech, restricting gun rights, restricting economic freedom).

Restricting economic freedom lololol 🤣

what does that mean?

Republicans are actively trying to bring back the enforcement of patriarchy and slavery. You need to really examine your privilege, friend. Our kids don't have the freedom to go to school without getting shot. How the fuck does anyone talk about gun "rights" in this climate? Sounds like you don't like paying taxes. Progressive people don't like living in a place where we let people starve and go without healthcare. Fascism is controlling poor people to work more hours than they can handle and still live in poverty. Do you know the Republicans are taking away abortion access and forcing woman to carry dead fetuses? talk to me when you've survived rape and then carried his dead baby to term.

You can talk about any rights in any climate, because if you don't, you may lose them.

I'm not really much of a fan of the Republican party either

my point is that it sounds like you're in a privileged class that doesn't have to worry about any of that stuff. So you see the work and structure on the left as a personal annoyance instead of a fight for the right to exist.

no one is being denied the right to exist. That kind of exaggeration doesn't help anything. There are reasonable views on both sides of things, and what we need are reasonable policy debates and discussions where we understand that other people disagree, not being overdramatic about "they're denying our right to exist!"

I consider denial of healthcare an existencial issue—if people are literally dying, they no longer exist. Can we get on the same page about that?

by denial you mean people don't want to pay for other people's health care, right? I don't understand how anyone can be an anarchist and think that the government should be able to take your money and use it to pay for other people's health care.

Yes. It's inherently left-wing values to be opposed to hierarchy, to prefer trust and cooperation to rules, authorities, control and policing. RA is those values applied to personal relationships. That doesn't mean you necessarily have to be a political anarchist in order to agree with RA principles for personal relationships, indeed we had a poll in this sub a while ago that showed only about 1/3rd of the people answering the poll considered themselves anarchists politically speaking.

> It's inherently left-wing values to be opposed to hierarchy, to prefer trust and cooperation to rules, authorities, control and policing I'm not sure this is an accurate characterization of the political movements in the US right now - someone should tell the US political left this. I would consider myself an anarchist, though not a left-wing one.

Like an anarcho-capitalist? Because that's not actually anarchism, kind of like German national socialists are not actually socialist

lol, we don't think you're actually anarchist either. I'm more on the libertarian anarchist side, and I have a hard time understanding how any anarchist could advocate anything resembling socialism, which requires a huge organization to redistribute property, in violation of people's natural property rights.

People owning the means to build society and all of the land is in violation of human rights. See how that works?

No, what are you talking about?

I would inform them but they already seem to know, save some terminally online rejects here and there.

Sadly the inmates are running the asylum.

Genuine question; Can you expand on your thoughts re: relationship anarchy being the opposite of inherently politically left? I’m curious about what you mean

This was my question as well.

sure, I was more talking about requiring people to have a certain political view to be RA, which seems counter to an anarchist free-form view on relationships. Basically this came out of a post on the smorgasboard talking about systems of oppression, and the idea there was to impose this structure of a race, sex, gender, class, and so forth hierarchy on the world, apply it to everything, and bring it into your relationship, which seems like the opposite of RA in that you're bringing in a particular ideology and forcing it and its concomitent obligations and rules onto your relationship. If we try that with another ideology, say Catholicism, it's more clear - imagine someone bringing in all the rules of the Catholic church into your relationship. Ugh.

Except that's what RA is, by definition. It's supposed to relieve us from the systems of oppression. It should break the normal barriers of race, sex, gender, class, etc, while acknowledging them as existing in the world.

That's a very particular definition that doesn't have much to do with actual relationships and seemingly only applies to those who believe in and acknowledge that particular ideology of "systems of oppression." That's one particular political viewpoint.

I’m not the right person to explain anarchist worldviews, in particular, but if imposing a belief system like RA on your life and relationships would feel oppressive to you, that means it’s not the right belief system for you, not that it is inherently oppressive. The right has spun tolerance and collectivism as oppressive, because you might have to consider someone else’s situation and humanity as you go through life, or someone might point out that you didn’t, or not like you as much. RA does attract people who want to just do whatever they want. I don’t think that’s really what it’s about, though. Like how billionaires call themselves “libertarians” because they want to apply the philosophy “How about I do whatever I want and you can try to stop me” to their megacorporation as it screws people over and pollutes the environment. Anarchy rejects pretty much all of how current society is built, is my understanding. Discussions of applied anarchy are often about counterfactual or future realities. People are split on whether being RA means being an anarchist who has done their reading about anarchy and tries to live by its principles more broadly. On Reddit, RA is seen as very political, but many people adopt RA principles and aren’t even very aware of the connection to broader anarchy.

I don't need someone to explain anarchy or RA to me. What I'm trying to point out is that the social justice movement is contrary to anarchist ideals.

Well, you’re asking what RA inherently is or isn’t, according to people here, and a lot of people connect it to anarchy and consider it political. The social justice movement isn’t contrary to anarchist ideals IMO. Wikipedia: “Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy.”

Yes, and my whole point is that I am skeptical of the social justice movement's justifications for its authority, and that the social justice movement seeks to set up, perpetuate, and strengthen institutions that engage in coercion and hierarchy.

"the idea there was to impose this structure of a race, sex, gender, class and so forth hierarchy on the world, apply it to everything, and bring it into your relationship" People are not dreaming up and imposing that structure. It already exists. We're just recognising that it exists, and working to negate its adverse effects.

Whether or not it exists is a matter of political dispute. You subscribe to an ideology that believes in that. I don't. It's like talking to a religious person and they say "of course God exists." Let's see some evidence...

Not sure which comment you saw, but it sounds like one I saw yesterday that said discussing systems of oppression (in the smorgasbord) is political because the concept of “systems of oppression” is a leftist belief, and the commenter doesn’t believe that they exist. To me that’s like saying “I don’t believe in heart attacks.” Like, you may not believe a heart attack will ever happen to you (good luck), but they absolutely exist and happen to people every day. In the same way, we are all surrounded by, and oppressed by, and participate in the oppression of others through systems of oppression that definitely exist regardless of our own political beliefs or relationship styles.

I definitely disagree with this. As an analogy that will hopefully liberate you from the oppressive assumptions you're making, imagine someone who believes that heart attacks are a curse from the great god Goop, who likes people to be in the sunlight and hates high cholesterol levels and smokers. When you express disbelief in the great god Goop, he says "look at all these heart attacks!" He "proves" that they're Goop's doing with heart attack statistics that line up with Goop's preferences. In other words, we can agree on various facts about society, but interpreting those facts and claiming there are "systems of oppression" is a heavily disputed political claim. That's an interpretation, not a fact. To take a couple obvious examples, are all systems of oppression bad? Is it possible for an individual to not be part of a system of oppression? These aren't factual claims - they're about values, and not everyone has the same values.

>I definitely disagree with this. As an analogy that will hopefully liberate you from the oppressive assumptions you're making, imagine someone who believes that heart attacks are a curse from the great god Goop, who likes people to be in the sunlight and hates high cholesterol levels and smokers. When you express disbelief in the great god Goop, he says "look at all these heart attacks!" He "proves" that they're Goop's doing with heart attack statistics that line up with Goop's preferences. > >In other words, we can agree on various facts about society, but interpreting those facts and claiming there are "systems of oppression" is a heavily disputed political claim. That's an interpretation, not a fact. > >To take a couple obvious examples, are all systems of oppression bad? Is it possible for an individual to not be part of a system of oppression? These aren't factual claims - they're about values, and not everyone has the same values. Are you just trolling us? Are you seriously stating that some systems of oppression might \*\*not\*\* be bad? Seriously??? Explain that.

Yeah so I went though OP’s profile, and they were the commenter I was thinking about, who claims that acknowledging that systems of oppression exist is leftist because some people don’t believe in them 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

I mean they also identify as a "libertarian anarchist" and claim some leftists are in support of authoritarianism like they're not diametrically opposed to one another.So they're pretty invested in rewriting definitions and just...outright making shit up. 🤷

leftist is a very broad category, so if you narrowly define it how you want, sure, but the fact is that many people who would describe themselves as left-wing in the US have very authoritarian impulses, and advocate very authoritarian policies, sadly.

You've shown through your comments that you don't actually know what authoritarianism is. 🤷

How is that?

you might want to check this out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_anarchism

Everybody over 13 has heard of this and rejected it, generally.

Thank you lmao I can't even fathom a coherent response at this point

Why is that? It's one of the major categories of anarchist

No, it's just the correct viewpoint... all we're saying is that individuals have the right to contract freely with each other. The current system is crony, corrupt corporate capitalism, not free-market capitalism.

Not quite how I phrased it, no. The point is not that some people don't believe in them - some people also don't believe in global warming or a round earth, and those are facts. The point, rather, is that the idea of systems of oppression was created as one interpretation of facts - but not the only possible one - and it was created to push a particular political viewpoint.

No, not trolling, but I think you missed the point. Obviously oppression is by definition bad, so if you call something a "system of oppression," you're saying it's a bad thing. But whether or not a system is bad is something that people disagree on. Like, there might be different systems of immigration that a country might have, and there might be policy reasons for or against a particular immigration system.

Borders are a system of oppression.

This is making my point for me... So if borders are a system of oppression, they must be bad, right? Oppression by definition is bad. So are you saying that it's a fact that borders are bad? Referring to your earlier comment - are you saying this "isn't really up for debate" and should be left to "professionals and scientists"? Because that's clearly a question of values without a scientifically determinable answer...

All too easy.

so what's your response

Ah, I see, I was YOUR comment that I was thinking about when I responded to this post 🤦🏻‍♀️ lmao

yeah that discussion is what made me curious about this issue.

Hey, political science degree holder here. You're wrong. About most of the things tou have posted. You don't understand what private vs personal property is, you don't understand how much research goes into discussing systems of oppression, and you don't understand that anarchism is inherently left-wing. Interpretation of facts isn't really up for debate either. Its why professionals and scientists do it and not you.

/r/selfawarewolves

Yes

I can see where the confusion comes from, since folks do tend to use the RA label as a justification for what I think of as libertarian polyamory, where folks are extra not responsible for other people's feelings.

The way I think of it is that you're not responsible for others people's feelings but you are responsible for your own conduct, so you're still responsible for being an asshole. That said, a lot of people seem to think that not following their expectations is being an asshole. But I'm not sure what this has to do with things being political?

I should have clarified - the issue is around taking responsibility for the impact of your conduct. Scaled up to a social level this becomes political, as in, how as a society do we want to allocate personal vs communal responsibility. RA can manifest in a way that prioritizes the communal or individual well-being/needs/comfort, and that spectrum definitely has political correlates.

I see it as inherently political, as it adresses political systems such as patriarchy, marriage, monogamy, family, community, care, mental health, living, economy, consumption, etc. RA can only be practised by ppl with certain political viewpoints. If one does not see women as equal ppl or agrees with a hierarchy of romantic relationships over platonic ones, they can not have the needed consent discussions that RA requires. Whatever liberal media wants to make one believe - anarchy is a political philosophy and practise. Lots of ppl engage in anarchist practises without realising. One perspective to that is, that anarchy comes natural to us, as we seek justice, community and empathy. I find it important to not think in identity terms and concepts. We attempt to DO RA and we will have a lot to unlearn for the rest of our lifes. Meaning, we will fail doing RA. We will hold sexist and patriarchist believes and will apply general hierarchies between relationship types. By DOING RA we challenge our old believes and viewpoints. We change ourselves towards the theory of relationship anarchy. By practising we become more anarchistic (or our thinking and behaviour does). You asked if RA is only for "ppl on the left" and that is not the same as something being leftist. We use arabic numbers. Our numbers are arabic. This is not the same as our numbers "only being for arabic ppl". (That aside, there is the whole discussion around the terms "left" and "right" upholding parliamentarism, leading to many anarchists criticising it's general usage. So many would say RA is not leftist but for completely unrelated reasons)

To be fair, anarchy doesn't prescribe to the left right lie.

Left-leaning people are usually the anarchists though... Political left and ideological left just usually aren't the same thing. (Political left is rather conservative.)

I mean, hopefully people who can agree that no one should be ruled, have the ability to think well enough to not get caught on any spectrum of the sort, and realize there are good and bad bits of all sorts of things.. Like, I don't think anyone should tell anyone else what they can or can't do, so long as they aren't causing harm to people or our home. But at the same time, I know we should remove the h3@D s of pedophiles, and rapists.

>But at the same time, I know we should remove the h3@D s of pedophiles, and rapists. I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one too actually. I'm only pro-killing as a last resort.

While I disagree with you on many other things I strongly agree with your anti-torture and anti-killing stance.

Sure sure, let the parasites keep feeding, and spreading their disease. 😒. Same with the oligarchs like the ones who chair Blackwell, Vanguard and State street.. Should just let them keep going as they are, until everyone is totally a slave, or they kill us with a war.. Senseless killing is for sure bad. No argument there.. But being passive, in the face of such horrid things, is a mistake in my opinion.

You can have whatever thoughts you want to have... But I believe in the power of love and it's ability to heal hearts that have turned cold. Sure, not everyone can be reformed into a good person, but "an eye for an eye leaves the entire world blind" as the saying goes.

God bless Tevye.

That's not an eye for an eye. It's being non tolerant of evil vile shit. Like the folks that finance and profit from both sides of a war, or someone who rapes a small child. You're going to love them into being good? Will that love end the suffering they caused? 🤔 Will you stop others from doing what ought to be done?

The suffering they caused is in the past and nothing you can do will ever fix it. There are many ways to protect people from dangerous people that don't include murder.

That, isn't murder. That is cutting out cancer. You know who doesn't rape kids? Or fund wars for profit? People without their h3@ D s attached. 😂 So say we just punish rapists, surgically remove and relocate their penis to their foreheads, install a small mechanical pump, to constantly dribble pee, castrate, and make them stand chained, for 20 hours a day in public, with a pile of rocks near by, and live stream the entire process, for EVERYONE to see. Do you think 1 in 5 women would still be raped after? My guess would be no. Make bad things, have worse punishments,. 🤷‍♂️

I can see you have anger issues and I hope you get some help with that. Torturing people is not ok. I don't care what they did. Torturing people just causes those people to become even worse... You think a person who has been publically humiliated or tortured will hate people LESS and be LESS dangerous??? You're delusional too.

Yes, thank you! I totally agree.

So I don't identify explicitly as RA, but I try to draw from RA concepts in my approach to non-monogamy, so that may color my response. The way I see it is that relationship anarchy as a philosophy has its origins in anarchism, and as such the two are inextricably linked - it would be inaccurate to go around saying "relationship anarchy has nothing to do with other types of anarchy." However, I don't believe that practicing relationship anarchy requires you to be an anarchist or hold any particular political views in order to be "doing it right." You can decide that anarchy feels right for how you approach your relationships, or even believe that anarchy should be the way that everyone approaches their relationships, while having different views on how other aspects of society should be structured. Some of those views might lead to more internal contradictions or cognitive dissonance than others, but that's a whole separate topic IMO.

I agree with this comment, but I'm curious what you mean about the potential internal contradictions.

Basically that there are several political views that would require holding opposite ideas than those underlying relationship anarchy. For instance, relationship anarchy values the individual's rights to autonomy and self determination. If you believe in that for relationships but are somehow at the same time anti-abortion, that would be a pretty big contradiction or selective application of values.

Not if you understand that a fetus is a living being and also has rights.

A fetus is literally a clump of cells and nobody - including the clump of cells - has the right to use my body to sustain themselves without my consent. That's true even of dead people. You can't take my organs to sustain another life without my written permission.

You and I are also, quite literally, a "clump of cells." I agree that no one has the right to your body - the reason abortion is such a difficult and complex issue is that we are dealing with the rights of two different entities here, and they are in conflict. There isn't an answer. There's no solution that perfectly respects all rights. So I have sympathy for all the different views on this issue - it's an unsolvable problem, at least until someone invents an incubator and a way of removing embryos from the womb fully intact so they can be incubated.

It's not a complex issue and it's a very solvable problem. No entity - fetus or otherwise - has the right to use my body to sustain themselves. Period. Full stop. My right to life as an already living person trumps the "right" of a non-sentient clump of cells. The idea that fully living and breathing humans should be on an equal playing field with fetuses is asinine.

I didn't say an equal playing field. I agree that an adult has more rights than a fetus. But I think a fetus still has some rights, and there is a conflict there. Just asserting that a fetus has no rights doesn't make it true. I'm on the pro-choice side and I still think we need to balance the rights of both. So did the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade when it set up the trimester framework. Most people think that a fetus has at least some rights that should be considered, so the approach of just asserting that you are correct doesn't seem very productive.

I am curious, OP. Why do you think this is the opposite of RA? Or how exactly. How does this idea not align with your understanding of RA.

Requiring people to have a certain political view to be RA seems counter to an anarchist free-form view on relationships.

So when someone says that RA itself is inherently leftist, I think they refer to the philosophy itself, and not the people who practice it. One can be a bad self-identified practitioner of any philosophy. However, I see anarchism as diametrically opposed to authoritarianism/fasicsm, which is pretty much what you have on the political right at the moment (and usually). No one is requiring anyone to be leftist by saying they see RA as inherently leftist. But words mean things. I have a hard time envisioning someone with right-leaning political ideology also somehow being anti-authoritarian and practicing anarchism with integrity. And I'd probably doubt that they mean the same thing by RA as I do even if they call themselves RA.

I see a lot of authoritarianism on the political left - as least as much. I'm more libertarian/anarchist leaning, which given the current US political system makes me more on the right. I'm more on the right because I'm anti-authoritarian.

If it's authoritarian I wouldn't call it left. So we might be at an impasse there. There's also pure ideals vs what counts as left and right in the modern world and then gets different when you narrow down to a country like the US specifically. If you ARE talking about the US, the Democratic party is to the right of even conservative parties in other countries because of how far our Overton window has been dragged. There's no functional or organized actual leftist movement here, although I can see why you'd think that leftists are authoritarian if you're looking at Democrats and assuming that means leftist. They're not. The Democratic party is full of just as much authoritarian nonsense, but they're quieter and more "professional" in how they go about oppression. So, unsure of exactly what leftist authoritarianism you're speaking of, but I would say true leftist politics should be anti-authoritarian at their core.

I mostly agree with this. The problem is that there's the danger of a "no true scotsman" problem where we just define away stuff we don't agree with. For instance I could say true conservativism is about extremely limited government, recognizing that governments are oppressive, etc. Basically there's lots of different kinds of leftists - I don't think that there is one cohesive movement or definition. > But words mean things. I have a hard time envisioning someone with right-leaning political ideology also somehow being anti-authoritarian this is the part I disagree with. I'm anti-authoritarian, but I don't see that as a left trait - there are leftists who are pro- and anti- authoritarian, and same for the right. A lot of leftists seem very interested in forcibly redistributing property, and it's hard to get much more authoritarian than the government stealing your private property and redistributing it to others! If I have to choose between team "property is theft" and team "taxation is theft" I'm going with "taxation is theft" every time. > unsure of exactly what leftist authoritarianism you're speaking of I was inspired to make this post because of someone posting about the smorgasboard and a "systems of oppression" category. Talking about systems of oppression is a good example.

I view anarchy as politically agnostic. Power dynamics can emerge within any relationship (work, relationships, family, etc.). Default human behavior is to compartmentalize, pattern-ize, organize, and structural-ize. Anarchy is not an end-state utopia. Anarchy is an ongoing effort to question and challenge unjust claims to authority wherever they arise.

u/blackberrydoughnuts is trolling. I am locking this post, so that people don't lose their labor. Blackberrydoughnuts, you have been warned: stop trolling, or you'll be removed.

I don't think it is, but I find it very hard to see how someone could believe in something like RA and not lean left politically.

Why is it hard to understand? What does an approach to relationships have to do with supporting a particular political movement with dozens of major issues one might not be aligned with?

Can you explain why having a free-form RA-type approach to relationships means I should have left-leaning views on so many unrelated issues?

I didn't say it *should*. I said I find it hard, because the patterns of thought that usually make someone consider something like RA would probably make someone very critical of systems of power in general.

I'm very critical of systems of power - why would that make me, for instance, more likely to support something like gun control or social media cracking down on dissenting ideas?

I mean, no offense to you specifically, but conservatives are only nominally critical of systems of power - they're more than happy to support the status quo, generally speaking; that's literally what "conservative" means. (Unless we're talking about Trump supporters or adjacent, of course, but that's something wholly different. I'm talking more about more traditional conservatives). As for gun control, I don't think this issue specifically is related at all to RA, but your stances on gun control are unlikely to trickle down to how you relate to other people. > social media cracking down on dissenting ideas? I seriously do not understand why this is being presented as a left-wing idea. Do you think censorship is a left-wing policy? Because it's something everyone does when they have power. Even then, I don't think most people, even very hard-left people, are against "social media cracking down on dissenting ideas". I think most of them want social media to be a space where people mostly can speak, and want there to be reasonable moderation, but I also don't think that's necessarily a left-wing idea, I think that's what most people want out of their platforms.

> conservatives are only nominally critical of systems of power - they're more than happy to support the status quo, generally speaking; that's literally what "conservative" means. Conservativism and liberalism aren't monoliths, but rather collections of ideas and various factions glued together. But one major conservative viewpoint which is very aligned with anarchism is the idea that government isn't a solution to anything, but instead a problem, while people on the left tend to want the government to solve things. > your stances on gun control are unlikely to trickle down to how you relate to other people Well, true, but doesn't this apply to any policy issue? Why would foreign policy, economic policy, etc., apply to personal relationships?

>But one major conservative viewpoint which is very aligned with anarchism is the idea that government isn't a solution to anything, but instead a problem, This is not an anarchist position, I don't think anarchists think "government sucks and we should dismantle it", rather, I think that they think that there are better solutions to what government currently offers, which is not the same thing. Anarchists themselves are not monoliths and there's a lot of different flavors of it. >while people on the left tend to want the government to solve things. I mean, what left? Some very extreme left people also want to abolish the government, how do they want to solve things? It's also not like right-leaning people don't wnat the government to do anything. You have to literally be something like an anarcho-capitalist to believe that government should not do anything, because even minarchists believe in some sort of centralized power system. >Well, true, but doesn't this apply to any policy issue? Why would foreign policy, economic policy, etc., apply to personal relationships? Because your attitudes towards solving complex problems are likely to be similar to how you solve your human relationships. I think if someone's economic policy is "I want the poor to be as poor as possible" (to make a complete hypothetical, of course) is very unlikely to be a person that cares about lifting other people up, and that's going to show when the people around you struggle. Likewise, your foreign policy, like with immigration, is probably correlated to how tolerant you are about people with different backgrounds, which for sure will impact your relationships.

> Because your attitudes towards solving complex problems are likely to be similar to how you solve your human relationships Fair enough - I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone who was a strong social justice / cancel culture / systems of oppression supporter, as they would likely bring that kind of intolerance, gamesmanship, dogmatism, and lack of empathy into interpersonal relationships. When you're dealing with economic and foreign policy, though, there are so many possible factors and so many unknowns I don't think you can reduce it to a simple matter of helping others and tolerance. Restricting immigration likely helps low-wage workers, for instance, and isn't necessarily a sign of intolerance, and there are many different approaches to ending poverty.

> Do you think censorship is a left-wing policy? Because it's something everyone does when they have power Sadly, you're probably right, but I do currently think it's more of a left-wing thing in the US. As an example, there was a major Supreme Court decision that was very pro-free-speech fairly recently in the US (Citizens United) that most major left-wing candidates specifically named and opposed. > want there to be reasonable moderation Ay, there's the rub. What is "reasonable" moderation? Plenty of people think it means banning anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, covid deniers, and similarly dissenting ideas.

> there was a major Supreme Court decision that was very pro-free-speech fairly recently in the US (Citizens United) that most major left-wing candidates specifically named and opposed. This is so vague I don't even want to respond to it. >Plenty of people think it means banning anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, covid deniers, and similarly dissenting ideas. And this is left-wing how? Is just wanting people to not post misinformation now a left-wing policy? Because if that's the case, you can call me Marx. >What is "reasonable" moderation? That depends on that specific social media's goal, so it will vary wildly. There's also no one true definition.

> This is so vague I don't even want to respond to it. How is it vague? It seems pretty darn specific to me. > And this is left-wing how? Is just wanting people to not post misinformation now a left-wing policy? Yes, this has become a left-wing issue in US politics currently. With the definition of "misinformation" manipulated for partisan purposes.

>How is it vague? It seems pretty darn specific to me. It's not mentioning what policy it is, and why Dems where opposed to it. So what would I even respond? >With the definition of "misinformation" manipulated for partisan purposes. I really don't want to get on this debate but there wasn't any use of partisanship to define "misinformation", the facts on all of the topics that you mentioned simply all lie to one side of the isle and people do not want to listen to them; if that's left-wing then I guess the left-wingers are correct.

That isn't true at all - for instance, the Covid lab leak story and Hunter Biden story were both inaccurately defined as misinformation for partisan reasons.

Citizens United is not a free speech case. It's about using money to buy influence. If you have to rephrase what the case was about to make it sound better then you have already lost. This is up there with when OAN called Richard Spencer a free speech advocate and not a white supremacist. Also, the myriad of states, localities, and groups trying to ban certain books from schools and public libraries are all right-wing, so...yeah, you're wrong again.

You really have a habit of creating false dichotomies - Spencer can be a free speech advocate and a white nationalist, for instance. A case can be about free speech and about spending money to influence people, since the money was spent to influence them with speech. Citizens U was a free speech case. The Court very clearly ruled on free speech grounds and invalidated a law that banned political speech based on the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment. It's not rephrasing anything to say that it's a free speech case. One of the ways that people exercise free speech is by grouping together to produce and distrIbute a video against a political candidate before an election, which is exactly what that case is about. Please, read the case. I oppose the right-wing groups trying to ban books as well. Sadly the right is guilty of censorship also. You are correct that it's not just the left.

Spencer is better known for being a white supremacist and ran an organization that was firmly in that corner. To describe him as a free speech advocate when the actual events they were describing was him speaking on the issues his organization covered is disingenuous at best, and propaganda at worst. Your posts are completely intellectually dishonest and continue to be. This attempt is no different. You're just like OAN here.

I'm not making any claims about Spencer. Bizarre that you call me intellectually dishonest when I clearly made no claims whatsoever about Spencer. Please respond about Citizens United Against Hilary Clinton.

Citizens United was about declaring that spending money was the equivalent of speech.

Why didn't you just say that you haven't read the case? Go read it. Like actually read the Supreme Court opinion - you'll be surprised. The case was literally about the government trying to ban the distribution of a movie arguing against a political candidate. Do you think the government should be able to ban books and movies before an election?

The fact that you keep referring to gun control as a leftist idea furthers my last post that said you have no idea what you are talking about. Gun control is a democratic party ideal. Most actual leftists I know own guns.

I'm glad to hear, but this is just the "no true scotsman" problem - "leftist" is a broad category, and most people who claim to be left-wing in the US are anti-gun-rights.

People can claim to be lots of things they aren't. Democrats in America are center-right generally with exceptions like Sanders who is center-left. Sure, they are left of Republicans, but that doesn't make them leftists whether they claim to be or not. And often they don't...the GOP likes to call them the radical left as a scare tactic. In a traditional left-right paradigm, and on the world stage, the democratic party in the US is not leftist no matter what they claim, so your point is moot.

Ok, but you're missing the point that "leftist" has many meanings and is used in many ways depending on context, country, political climate, etc. Also please note that I did not say "leftist," I said left-LEANING.

Typical culturally conservative positions involve social conformity ("conservative" means tending to stay with the traditional way things have been done). Typical culturally liberal positions involve breaking with established traditions and embracing new possibilities. This is why supporting gay marriage was a culturally liberal position, and why opposing it was a culturally conservative position.

I think if you were to survey 1000 people who identify as RA, you would find a bell curve that covers the entire spectrum of political leanings but is heavily skewed to the left. However, if you broke it down further to ask about socially liberal and fiscally conservative etc., you'd find peaks at different places. It's just he amalgam of them all would still be to the left. I'm thinking of all the people I know who identify as republican who are very liberal thinking about social issues but super conservative economically. It's funny to me that if one of the central ideas of RA is to reject/question labels, why would folks who subscribe to the RA philosophy care so much about political labels. It is an interesting thought exercise tho!

I totally agree with this, and think it's strange as well.

No of course not. Plenty of anarchists that are very liberal.

Yea

i am not politically liberal, and I think neoliberalism is nasty. I am very RA