There exist different kinds of democracy, with the anarchist direct democracy by a community deciding together being the best form of it :3

i wrote a whole paragraph but then fat-fingered and deleted it :(

i guess i will literally go touch grass then

I've been enjoying the writing of Zoe Baker recently. Specifically Means and Ends about the historical origins of anarchism. While looking for that, I also saw an essay on Anarchism and Democracy that references more recent thinkers. Might check that out too.

Anyway, one of the takeaways for me was this: the fundamental opposition to parlamentary democracy entered the (european) anarchist canon in a time, when firstly parliaments were typically created as concessions by monarchs to stave off revolution, and by design ineffectual. And secondly violent revolution was still very much on the table. In this context participation in state democracy was opposed categorily as a strategic error.

If you live in a country where these two facts are no longer accurate (okay #1 is debatable, but #2 generally no), the strategic conclusions should also be different. Even if you have a post-state vision of democracy, some level of involvement in state democracy (or at least not torpedoing those efforts on principle) is non-optional in my opinion. Not least because fascists are trying to capture those systems to suppress all of our movements even harder.

Everybody up in here all having serious conversations and, I'm just like obsessed with the fact the fourth panel is artistically so much different than the first three lol

The fact that existing democracies (like all human endeavours) are flawed doesn't mean that democracy is a bad idea.

Personally I am more into sortition as a form of democracy.

Thanks for your ramble on anarchism, it's a good read, but there are some things that always puzzle me with this ideal:

that is one definition of anarchy but it is not the anarchy that anarchists desire ;3

How does a society prevent, or at least reduce the chance of, tipping into "everyone just does whatever they want and fucks everyone else over"?

I can see how this works when the society is small enough that everyone knows everyone else, and can get together to self-correct. Once you get past that size limit though, which is around 150 from the studies I've seen IIRC, you're going to tend to get cliques and factions forming, who may well work against each other, especially if some resource is constrained.

Capitalism and, what I shall generously call, "representative" democracy as systems seem less at risk as they sort of rely on that behaviour to function. I'm not saying that's good, but it's resilient up to a very high level of inequality.

we believe that it is a better way of living and organizing and we can start building it here and now by just doing those things

Absolutely! I see so many people talking about other systems, but comparatively few actually making them happen. In most places there is enough space in the current system to build small examples of different approaches and show how they work better.