i believe that anarchism is the absoulte freedom, so why should we label our comrades? if you want to get on my back for mixing the two feel free.

discussion please, no flaming.

Are you a lifestyle anarchist?

no. im an anarchist. i believe in living your own life free, but fighting the state, and i believe in class war.

Absolute freedom? Even for the capitalist? I mean, wouldn't you (as a lifestyle anarchist) allow capitalists to exploit, as long as people were willing to be exploited by them?

And by the way, crimethinc is the stupidist organisation ever. Allow me to quote the pamphlet "Fighting for our Lives":

So, what, everybody is free to define what anarchy means to them?

yup.. stupidist.

no. if you read my second post i said i believe in class war.

are you fucking rediculus. read... and read it again. i didnt say i was a lifestyle anarchist.

again, your not paying attention to my point of view.. you trying to tell me what my point of view is. a part of anarchist thought is that no body should have control over another.

i like crimethinc, but im not a slave to crimethinc ideals, so dont try and insult me by insulting an organization i like.

many anarchists are good communist comrades, although they are a pretty idealistic

Allright, hahaha, you got me there. :P

I assumed you were a lifestyle anarchist fro myour other posts. Especially those in the revolution thread. Where you encourage the living of a certain lifestyle as being revolutionary and a viable way to destroy the system (i.e. a revolution).

Do you consider this only a plausible tactic when combined with a traditional "revolution" i.e. in the manner of class struggle anarchists?

If so then I suppose I might agree with you. Withdrawing from society can set positive examples of demonstrating how to live outside capitalism, but living a lifestyle alone will not bring the downfall of capitalism and the state.

no, i dont think that people should just abandon everyone.

I don't think it's really a matter of "labelling" in any negative sense of the word. It's no different than saying "That person is a Marxist-Leninist" or "This person is a DeLeonist". Lifestyle anarchism is, I think, seperate from social anarchism, so it's silly not to refer to them as seperate. Doing so is just a good way of confusing people.

Ok well, lifestyle anarchism, as I have experienced, has always been "just start living a revolution and that will be the revolution". So it would seem reactionary if that was what you believe, because you're not trying to advance forward in human development, you're just side-stepping.

i try to live revolution in my everyday life, because what can you do, sit around and talk about how bad capitalism is and then help it survive?

Well it is not always 'us' labelling 'them' lifestyle anarchists, some people identify as such (or as individualist anarchists). Regardless, a distinction should be made between what i would called anarchists (social/class war anarchists) and individualists. A lifestyle anarchist is not my comrade, nor is an individualist, nor is an 'anarcho'-capitalist.
These groups are not focused on the class war aspect of anarchist philosophy, making social emancipation, smashing the bourgeois state, and destroying class and capital. As such, i think they hurt the anarchist movement as a whole, providing ammunition for Marxists to ply their sectarian shite, and continue the fracture amongst working class people/communists.

Quoted for truth.

Crimethinc isn't that bad. Easy to bag out though...

But on the point on defining anarchism, what it really means is that anarchist thought is not like other political theories in that they are rigid. That is why "anarchism" per se doesn't really exist. It is thus a deliberately vague system.

Essentially all this is referring to the situationist influence on anarchism.

If you're a member of the working class you have no choice but to "help it survive." But don't forget that capitalism makes it's own gravediggers.

And do you really think things like boycotting McDonalds are somehow undercutting the system? Its a market system, it makes up for it.

I don't drink Coke, eat from McDonalds, etc. but it's not a part of some grand illusion that I'm some how contributing to capitalisms downfall [I do that by existing, as a worker], it's because I personally choose not to use these products.

If you boycott because you don't like what a certain company does, sells, or standsfor, that's fine. But don't think it's revolutionary.

But anarchist thought and theory is defined. We have Bakunin and Prodhoun and Kropotkin and Goldman and Berkman. If you say that there is no anarchist theory then anybody is an anarchist so long as they are doing what they want. A fascist could call himself and anarchist.

I think what Cthenthar is saying is that 'anarchism' is used a 'foundation' for a variety of philosophies, each with different goals and methodologies, but all each (supposedly) sharing a common root, the 'basic principles of anarchy/anarchism'.

Like Anarchism is a base-set, an open-source piece of software. It comes in a pre-set, 'basic' form, and then people take that, and add things to it, creating a new or at least different piece of 'anarchist' software. This is then released to the online community (ie. into society as idea, as people and as movements), where people who find it and like it, download it and start using it, manipulating it, or spreading it around, sharing it friends and so forth. Anarchism becomes a kind of philosophical open-source, open to any and all modification.

I don't like that, it just makes language more complex, more loaded. When a word can mean a myriad of things, then it becomes meaningless.

*emphasis in original text

They are clearly stating that we need to reject anarchist theory in favor of just "living how we want". And furthermore, they accuse all class struggle anarchists of being "armchair anarchists". I detest such an accusation, members of the IWW are doing far more to further revolution than train-hopping crust punk crimethinc-ers.

Could it be that some anarchists reject the idea of the Dialetical Method and others support it? I think the different sorts of anarchisim are based on their evaluation of how society works, rather than how they themselves work. Sort of like hows theirs hundreds of Christian chruches that belive in the same god, but understand him differently.

Dialectical analysis doesn't make you either lifestylist or class struggle anarchist. The difference between the two is that lifestyle anarchists believe in "living anarchy" that we should all do what makes us free, and that will destroy capitalism and the state. And class struggle anarchists believe in organizing worker power in order to physically sieze the means of production and to supplement state control with community decision making (in the form of direct democracy).