Hear me out.
TL ; DR –
[[Theory is broken]]. We need something else. Whatever takes the place of theory must be:
- accessible to all and competitively advantageous to none
- simple and straightforward; utilitarian
- flexible, adaptable, extendable, disposed to evolve
- dynamic, “living” and immediately actionable
- capable of uniting people, regardless of differences in priorities and paradigms
- acknowledges and upholds its own necessity pragmatically and practically (this is a fancy philosophical way to say the proof is in the pudding and the answer given must prove itself in practice)
We must also preserve those principles that make anarchism inherently, well, anarchism:
- [[voluntaryism]] – that is, a person’s freedom to participate in society to the fullest extent (or not at all) that they are willing and able
- [[liberation]] from any obligations to state or society and liberty to participate inasmuch (or as little) as one is so inclined
- the disenfranchisement of the state apparatus – this is just [[statelessness with intentionally fucky wording]].
- [[mutualism]] – this is not a revisitation of Proudhon’s ideas (the use of the term is honorary, if anything); this is a philosophy that, at the bare minimum, acknowledges a mutual respect among people to part in peace; some may pursue more market or collectivist oriented routes in their local communities as suits their needs, or in their pursuits of some degree of industrial civilization, but it must never be compulsory (lest it violate the principle of voluntaryism)
- pluralism, democratic confederalism, various forms of collectivism and syndicalism,
This begs the question of what exactly it is that we are looking for. Theories and models are good, but what do we do when the theoretical expectations don’t hold up in practical application? Typically, this creates a division between people who think that theory needs to evolve, or individuals must be more willing to conform to a status quo. The issue is that it’s difficult to evolve a widely-implemented theory, like a political ideology, quickly enough to sustain this kind of social dynamic — look how long it takes legislation to result in measurable social improvement.
But what if change was baked into this solution — maybe even desirable? What if, instead of defining the result, we defined the means? In this way, anarchy ceases to be a theory and becomes a dialectic.
Despite my love for anarcho-syndicalism and the Internationale, I must admit that syndicalism is a rather specific ideology that may not suit everyone. However, the core principles of anarchism (as enumerated above) are no better expressed as the mechanisms of a dialectic (as opposed to being just elements of a theory) than in Proudhon’s original (if not slightly convoluted) Mutualism — to the honor of which the term “Mutualism Dialectic” has been coined.
We’re inclined to think we need something objective, like a theory, that establishes a collection of normative philosophies and paradigms around which society should be structured and against which it can be measured. But this idea that there is such an objective definition neglects a simple truth about our social condition:
Nothing about society is objective. Society is the subjective experience of individuals in a shared objective reality. When we acknowledge only the objective component, and disregard the diversity and variety of life that is our individual subjective experience, we are only addressing a portion of the whole, and the resulting solution will be similarly incomplete.
Every community and social unit will have it’s own version of “normative” (or none at all, as the case may be) that is the composite result of subjective perceptions and objective realities, percolated in the alembic of public forum and filtered through the spheres of community, neighborhood, household, and individual, before materializing as a unique subjective concept refracted back through each stage of the process.
As long as we are willing to cooperate, together — as has always been the nature of humanity — a dialectic in place of theory fills this gap and establishes an equal influential footing for both objective and subjective experience, hopefully leveling the playing field and preserving both personal liberties and collective best interest.
It is anarchic in the truest sense: it recognizes no authority whatsoever — not even that of a theory — to dictate or proscribe what is “right and good” in any situation; rather it aims to be a tool to discover what is right and good for each and every situation, in its full subjective context.