My primary experience with existing communities of illiberal ideologues is with some variety of communist, or some variety of traditionalist (including, e.g., monarchists and theocrats, but excluding fascists). At least in their own online spaces, my experience is these groups are frank in their belligerence regarding the capacity for judgement among the vast swathe of people they call ‘liberals’. I haven’t interacted with more exclusively anarchist online spaces as much, but my impression is anarchists, including ancaps, would typically be better at being intellectually respectful of liberals than other illiberal ideologues.
My ideal politics leans towards some kind of anarchism, perhaps inclusive of some varieties of ancap, though I’d be likelier to characterize myself as a left-libertarian. I haven’t yet reconciled these ideals with my politics in practice, which from an anarchist perspective would rightly be described as statist. I think of my personal politics in terms of pragmatic goals and ideal goals, as opposed to theory and praxis. To frame my politics that way, a lot of my theoretical politics is focused on understanding good designs for a stateless society, but in practice my politics are statist. I don’t think this is necessarily a problem, since I see a lot of left-libertarians, including anarchists, participating in left-leaning political parties, and I know right-libertarians, including self-identified ancaps, supporting Trump. So, it seems like there is a tacit social understanding one can have a judgement of what the ideal politics for society is, while currently pursuing some other proximate ends, without that entailing one is a hypocrite. There are lots of anarchists that believe any participation within the state disqualifies one from identifying as an anarchist, but that’s mostly a self-defeating position, since there are scarcely any self-identified anarchists who could say they don’t participate in the state whatsoever.
I don’t know if I would qualify as a liberal. I’ve definitely qualified as a liberal in the past. I definitely don’t want to displace liberal democracies with violent revolution. It doesn’t appear most people are willing to do that. I consider this a litmus test for the public perception of the legitimacy of the current political system among available options. I’m also in favour of exploring options for the practical transition from the current political system to a newer, different, better one. I’m open to the possibility the best next political system would be some variety of ancap. I just feel like I don’t know enough to confidently reach a conclusion one way or another.
That is the place the implications in my post are coming from. Maybe I should have assumed LW would be more tolerant of heterodox politics, though by default I assume most spaces will still be opposed to heterodox politics, which for this post I essentially defined as “anything outside liberal democracy”. It was a loose ending to my post as I was making it quickly, and so to illustrate my point I was writing rhetorically, though I wouldn’t call the implications you’re speaking of beliefs I strongly hold or endorse.
My primary experience with existing communities of illiberal ideologues is with some variety of communist, or some variety of traditionalist (including, e.g., monarchists and theocrats, but excluding fascists). At least in their own online spaces, my experience is these groups are frank in their belligerence regarding the capacity for judgement among the vast swathe of people they call ‘liberals’. I haven’t interacted with more exclusively anarchist online spaces as much, but my impression is anarchists, including ancaps, would typically be better at being intellectually respectful of liberals than other illiberal ideologues.
My ideal politics leans towards some kind of anarchism, perhaps inclusive of some varieties of ancap, though I’d be likelier to characterize myself as a left-libertarian. I haven’t yet reconciled these ideals with my politics in practice, which from an anarchist perspective would rightly be described as statist. I think of my personal politics in terms of pragmatic goals and ideal goals, as opposed to theory and praxis. To frame my politics that way, a lot of my theoretical politics is focused on understanding good designs for a stateless society, but in practice my politics are statist. I don’t think this is necessarily a problem, since I see a lot of left-libertarians, including anarchists, participating in left-leaning political parties, and I know right-libertarians, including self-identified ancaps, supporting Trump. So, it seems like there is a tacit social understanding one can have a judgement of what the ideal politics for society is, while currently pursuing some other proximate ends, without that entailing one is a hypocrite. There are lots of anarchists that believe any participation within the state disqualifies one from identifying as an anarchist, but that’s mostly a self-defeating position, since there are scarcely any self-identified anarchists who could say they don’t participate in the state whatsoever.
I don’t know if I would qualify as a liberal. I’ve definitely qualified as a liberal in the past. I definitely don’t want to displace liberal democracies with violent revolution. It doesn’t appear most people are willing to do that. I consider this a litmus test for the public perception of the legitimacy of the current political system among available options. I’m also in favour of exploring options for the practical transition from the current political system to a newer, different, better one. I’m open to the possibility the best next political system would be some variety of ancap. I just feel like I don’t know enough to confidently reach a conclusion one way or another.
That is the place the implications in my post are coming from. Maybe I should have assumed LW would be more tolerant of heterodox politics, though by default I assume most spaces will still be opposed to heterodox politics, which for this post I essentially defined as “anything outside liberal democracy”. It was a loose ending to my post as I was making it quickly, and so to illustrate my point I was writing rhetorically, though I wouldn’t call the implications you’re speaking of beliefs I strongly hold or endorse.