Yeah, the argument around the definition is like…what’s the point of this? Either it is authority, which is okay sometimes, or it’s not, but it’s still okay sometimes, and outside of that, we should avoid it where possible. It’s just a poorly-constructed semantic argument.
I’ve been disappointed with the (admittedly few) anarchist texts I’ve read thus far, which sucks because I know a few anarchists irl who are super cool and committed to the work! I’ll keep reading whatever anarchists recommend me because I want to understand, but thus far every text I’ve read has had a significant portion dedicated to shitting on MLs. And to be totally fair, if I thought a tendency was actively harmful to the movement I would want to expend energy combating it, but…history has, I think, shown that its not by now, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks for the critique!
I absolutely agree that the biggest issue with the anarchist critiques I’m familiar with is that history has consistently proved them wrong, and doubly so that it’s a propaganda issue. In the people I’ve spoken with or heard from (and speaking from my own experience having had to combat propaganda I’d consumed), it’s really, really hard to move past some of this stuff-- accepting that everyone who’s ever taught you any history has been giving you just the most baseless and egregious lies for however long you’ve been learning about or passively hearing about history is…a lot of work! It’s like false vacuum theory-- it’s so easy to stay here in this little divot on the side of a mountain, and it would take a lot of work to get moving far enough to actually make it down the rest of the mountain.
Also agree with your strategy point-- it’s super easy for us now to look back at past socialist experiments (or earlier states of still-existing ones) and say what they should have done, or say you would have done differently, but that’s with several decades of space to contemplate and a lot more information than might have been available at the time, Material conditions, gotta analyze 'em.