Here’s a short critique of manarchism
I’d never heard the term manarchism but god yeah this resonates. I have some immediate reactions, as much as I want to sit with this material longer before commenting. All I can think of is all the cis dude activists I’ve seen who just seem to be there to be angry. Like it’s an outlet, like it’s one of those rooms where you pay to go in with a sledgehammer and break junk. The anonyminity is just the fee they pay to rage.
I don’t necessarily want anonyminity. I want connection and humanity. Anonyminity is for safety in a world that criminalises change and protest. Maybe I’m clinging to random threads of thought in that article, but I feel like cis men have a lot less to lose when they shed their identities. They didn’t have to fight for them. On one hand, I’ve had to assert my identity as a trans person to a world that thinks I don’t exist. On the other, if I DO go anonymously, then some cis dude is gonna take credit for my actions. Do I need credit? No, but neither does he.
Anyways, long ramble over, this made me think a lot and I appreciate it.
Yeah, I got the same feeling.
I think there’s also a certain power trip in the fetishism of revolutionary violence too. I think everyone that has practiced some form of combative direct action has felt this power trip. It feels good, but we must not let ourselves confuse the feel good vibes those actions give us with advancing our actual material goals of building a better world.
And we know how frustrated men love feeling powerful through anger.
I want to shove this article on some people’s faces haha
