Why i am a Far-left "Radical": Empathy and Diplomacy Required
I get bombarded from questions from Right-Wingers usually borderline Fascists saying shit like "Don't you know the [Insert oppressed minority or Ideology here] want you to think/do that". This line of "questioning" is usually rhetorical and answering such rhetorical questions will usually land you in a weird cycle of more irrational rhetorical questioning that as a leftist we are typically taught quite quickly to avoid answering since they are expecting you to say the same thing to other people which acts as a podium for them to get their message out. However, i'll be the flaming war bus for taking this one on, but i want to direct this at not the Fascists, but the Ancaps and Free-Market Capitalists since generally speaking they do have an empathetic bone in their body, rather than just being overly aggressive nutjobs whose "arguments" are short enough to become sound bites on TV shows and stupid enough to become internet memes.
We generally see someone's political views as an extension of one's personality and upbringing, we all have different upbringings and personalities so its normal to expect a vast plethora of Political views especially in large countries like the United States. We typically see the left as free love hippies who want to see the world living peacefully and are generally in favour of non-conformist ideas and practicalities like Free healthcare and third-genders. The right on the other hand are seen to be either one of two extremes; fascists who want to live in an isolationist ethnostate OR Fairly Socially Liberal Free-marketeers who want to live within as little state regulation as possible.
These views develop out of emotions and experiences, one persons experience can be just as valid as another person's but it depends on if it is Rational or Irrational. Whether there is actually observable correlation between what they have experienced and felt, not to mention whether what they call the enemy is actually the enemy that led to that experience in the first place. But i digress, my experience growing up is like so many people, but also like no other person's. Because to get socratic, there is no one else like me, there is only one you out there and thus your experience is not other people's, that would be utterly impractical.
I am an Anarcho-Communist with Synthesis Praxis, i see the point in pacifism, insurrection and platform, but i think there is a time and a place for each. They should work together in unison if possible. But how i came to this point wasn't just from the centrist to a beeline towards anarcho-communism. I did have stages before i got here, In high school i was a kind of Free-market Centrist, not an absolutist but not a complete Communist yet. I was Socially Liberal, i was and still am in Favour of Same-sex marriage, Drug Reform and so on. But there were a few things that changed my perception Economically.
My father was a massive influence on my economic views from that point on, and arguably not in the most inspirational sense. My father was an addict, he had an addiction to gambling, he ended up in roughly £25,000 worth of debt by the time he passed away 3 years ago. The hammer of debt hadn't hit my family until my dad died and we had to spend £25k of the £30k life insurance just on paying off his debts. My dad acted as though money was no object, and it wasn't from a man with money, it was from a man who never had any money to give away in the first place. He was also in and out of hospital because of neurological issues stemming from a rare form of Brain Tumour, if it weren't for the NHS in Scotland we would've been in even more debt leaving us critically bankrupt and homeless. My dad did try to get his debts paid off but it was impossible, because even when the debt was paid off at one area another one popped up at the various money loan services we used to pay off the main debt. This constant battering back and forth between various debts forced me as a young man to take an interest in Economics, specifically the history of debt. Coincidentally, i started spending more time at my Aunt and Uncles house in Dundee, and they were Economists and Bankers, my Uncle being a very affluent man with more money than sense, through my talks with him, i came to the conclusion with what in-depth, first hand knowledge he passed onto me that Capitalism will always result in debts that no one can pay off, especially the working classes. From that point on, i was a Marxist.
I was a Marxist for about 2 years, and much of my views today still stand with those at the time, just from a narrowly different aspect of it. I started getting involved in Political Philosophy, and took a great interest in Vladimir Lenin's History as an individual not just as a Revolutionary, after much reading into Lenin's works i turned from a Classical Marxist to Marxist-Leninist. I strongly agreed with the philosophy that a small group of individuals could lead a revolution and have a transition to communism if the circumstance was at the right time and place. I believed that the state should be benevolent and strict at the same time to ensure its legitimacy. But after a few months, i started getting involved in small groups, college started and i met an Anarcho-communist named Conall, Conall is only a few years older than me and had went through much of the same political transition that i had.
I started to go to rallies that Conall had told me about, starting to realise that the idea of "the few politically enlightened could lead a revolution" wasn't sticking the the very real reality that in the real world the amount of politically enlightened individuals is not few, not many, but almost everyone in some span of things. Marx himself was right about Class Consciousness in that if the Working class realised how they were being exploited they wouldn't stand for it. At the rallies i was witnessing a rally against the top 1% by the majority of those who had experience class consciousness, these people weren't Marxist-Leninists, They weren't Social Democrats, they were Anarchists. I developed a strong fondness of Anarchists, but this fondness wasn't sticking to the unspoken conduct of Marxist-Leninists, to be against Anarchists because they were undermine the revolution, by talking to Anarchists i realised that. Anarchists don't want an overnight revolution like many MLs had told me about, but instead wanted an ongoing series of revolutions and changes that occurred without Capitalism and without the state, let the people govern themselves and stop the system that stops class consciousness from occurring in the first place.
I've been an Anarcho-Communist for about 5 years now, i'm still learning and still philosophising about how an Anarchist society could occur and function. But the key thing is, Anarchism is not just a governable society like today, but self-governable. It is designed to take into consideration the differences of every individual and let those with difference have a say in how their community is run, and helps the person come to the conclusion if that view is rational and practical or Irrational and ridiculous. I don't see my self as a radical, because radical implies that there is no logic to what you believe, there are people in small communities that function to anarchist principles despite not even having a word for the society they live in. To those people, that's not anarchy, that's a normality that has worked and stopped in-fighting. It's stopped ridiculous situations like my father's of financial debts he could never ever pay back. If my dad existed in an Anarchist society, he wouldn't have been seen as a burden on the community but a voice of wisdom of why Capitalism is bad and ends in death of normal living. In the words of Rudolf Rocker:
"I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal."