Is "anarchism" a particularly good label to use?
I brought this up before, but I feel I stated it in a way that others felt offensive (due to MY poor portrayal of the sentiment). But to me it seems "anarchism" is a poor label. Especially in regards to Public Relations (I know you probably don't like that phrase, it essentially meaning "propaganda"). But I feel our brothers and sisters who have not realized their slavery are put off by the word "anarchist".
I feel this has 2 main reasons behind it.
One: "Anarchy" as a word has been massively tainted. As soon as you say "I'm an anarchist" to most people they get so many bad images in their heads, you might as well say "I'm a fascist".
You and I both know that anarchism does not mean what people think it means, but THEY don't! And we may not be in agreement on this, but I feel getting more people on our "side" is required to make this a reality. We can't FORCE an anarchist society on people and so our only shot may very well be a massive revolution. This requires a change of thought. The people of anarchist Catalonia were reasonably well-educated on the ideas of Kropotkin and Bakunin before they had a successful revolution.
Two: This is a big one, again assuming we actually want more people to become anarchists. "Anarchism" is a negative label. It expresses what we are against but not what we are for. This is a big issue in the mind of the public. You don't hear about anti-choice or anti-life activists.
So what am I proposing? Well obviously, it's not up to me but us collectively whether or not we do something about it. If I could make a starting place suggestion, as OP, it would be to adopt the term "Libertarian-Socialist". If you look into the history of it, the term "libertarian" was stolen from us by the "anarcho"-capitalists. Let's steal it back. I think it's a good solution because it essentially means the same thing, if you look up "Libertarian Socialist" on wikipedia, you end up reading the same authors as you would if you looked up "anarchist".
It's also good because it's a positive label. We are for liberty and socialism. People may also not be familiar with the phrase, like they think they are with "anarchism", so they'll look it up and, hopefully, like what they see.
Thoughts?
Edit: I accidentally put too too many words
Posted Mar 25, 2012, 12:49 AM UTC