Mutuality feat. Andrew

Andrew and Mia discuss how an anarchist society functions, how people can relate to each other, and how our current society conspires to keep us from being free.

Links:

Debt by David Graeber: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/glossary/a-new-glossary/

Antinomies of Democracy by Shawn Wilbur: https://humaniterations.net/2016/12/28/the-distinct-radicalism-of-anarchism/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Agree. This is Andrew Sage bringing yet another episode of
it could happen here? As my granny us to say
when she answered the phone, what's happening? And the answer
in this case is anarchy. Last episode, I gave a
definition of anarchism. The anarchism is the political philosophy and
practice that opposes all authority along with his justifying dogmas,

(00:26):
and proposes the unend in pursuit of anarchy, a world
without rule where selfterimation, mutuality, and free association form the
basis of our society. And then we took that definition
and we broke it down a bit further. You go
back to the episode if you want to hear how
but I left my explanation a bit incomplete. I didn't
get into the positive side of the definition. So today
I am joined once again.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
By Miir Wong also who does this podcast and who
was excited to talk about building the new world in
Michelle the.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Old Let's go. So anarchism proposes the unending pursuit of anarchy,
a world without rule where self determination, mutuality, and free
association from the basis of our society. See unin pursuit
element is another important part of the definition. You know,
it's ongoing. It's a strive. It's not something some perfect
utopia that we reached and staggering with it. In fact,

(01:17):
it's not even a suman of when people become perfect anarchists.
It's about currently and constantly pushing to be better, to
create systems that produce better outcomes and greater anarchy. It's
a continuous redevelopment of the value is necessary to maintain anarchy.
To never get complacent and understand that this is a
species level project. The idea of anarchy being a world

(01:39):
without rule is actually something that gets some pushback from
some anarchists as well. There's this sort of rules not rulers,
a version of anarchism that has a lot of sway
in some circles.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
The Inarco Constitution is.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
The anarcho constitutionalists. You know, it was popularized, but the
sort of direct democracy libertarian Marxist crow that kind of
got their popularity needs these to mageties. But it's not
something that I consider an accurate representation of what anarchism
strives for. You know, now that we have access to
more historical anarchist literature than ever. If you dive into

(02:16):
any of it and you get to the root of
what anarche is. It becomes very clear that anarchists, we're
not into this whole theraph democracy thing. They want to
really into any form of democracy, as in the rule
by majority or the rule by some abstraction called the people.
Anarchism is really about. It's not just no rulers, also
no rule. I've been brought into this understanding by the

(02:39):
efforts of the translator and sort of scholar of anarchist
history Sean Wilbill, who, in my opinion, is putting forward
some of the best historical analysis of anarchism today. He's
actually who inspired a lot of my definition of authority
and anarchism, and so I'll have his work links in
the show notes, of course. But in this get into

(03:00):
this sort of no rules staff A SHAVANARKI, A lot
of people might ask, you know, but we still need rules.
But of course enforceable rules are just really a full
of laws that are backed by authorities, which I guess
what I pose is, and unenforceable rules are not really
rules at all. They're close. It's a norms of behavior.

(03:23):
And if living in a society tells you anything, you
should know that norms should be as open to question
as the most rigidive rules. In fact, norms can be
even more dangerous if we let them slide. It's just
the way that things are and the way we do
things around here.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, like patriarchy, for example, something that is I mean
yet like obviously, yes, pre chacuation enforced by the state
and by like explicit violence, but it's also really really
enforced by norms. Yeah, in a way that like you know,
requires you to like reckon with norms as a concept theoretically.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, there's a concept of authority that is inherent in patriarchy.
That is also the set of norms that exist to
aid and to reinforce, you know, that authority. We tend
to speak a lot of you know, the people in
the community and stuff and anarchist circles, but I think
it's important to make sure it's clear that something special
about quote unquote the people or quote unquote the community.

(04:19):
You know, what the people of the community thinks is
right and wrong should not be all litmust test and
what is right and wrong. There's no virtue in being
a majority, and there's also no virtue in being a minority,
because you can see within instances where there are minorities
such as the elite, the rich, who obviously have asvo
all the time and their instances, the majority is that

(04:43):
does exist to reinforce a lot of the rules and
norms and authorities that are keeping all of us down.
So oligmus test is not a majority use what a
majority votes for, what the majority wants, or what minority
use desire. It's really the absence of authority, the sons
of this sort of power over others at all. And

(05:04):
it's also inevitably the absence of permission and probisu the
ability to permit things, the ability to prohibit things. When
a thing is allowed and the thing is disallowed. Yes,
people can do what they want, but every el khols
do what they want, and so that creates the incentive
to be thoughtful and responsible in what you do, and

(05:27):
to be thoughtful and responsible in how what you do
affects other people. You do things, and your things are
open to any number of consequences, and so if you
want to avoid negative consequences, you can't get informed. You
have to learn about how your actions might affect others
through communication with individuals and groups, and you have to
find compromises and solutions to points of conflict. You're not

(05:49):
an island. Your part of a web of mutually interdependent relationships,
and that's something that exists in every kind of society
at mutual independence. The problem with hierarchy is in a
hierarchy society, to access that web of mutual independence, you
have to obey authority, you have to take part in
the authoritaian systems, so we have access to human community.

(06:11):
So in anarchic society, you don't have as well be
an authority, but our behavior is still regulated quote unquote
in a sense that we are dependent on other people
and we want to have as much as possible a
harmonious relationship with those other people. Perhaps controversially, I could
say that it's actually the absence of rules and rulers

(06:31):
that makes anarchism work, because, for one, harm can ever
be fully captured by rules and rules cand of capture
all the possible circumstances where harm could occur. Because of
the two, the existence of rule often provides protections for authority.
This is something we talked about in our definition of
authority in the last episode. This idea that the authority

(06:51):
is there's a right that grants it privileges and protections.
You know, the idea that the police officer can beat
you up, but you cannot raise a hand in defense
of yourself. You know, the bank can evict you from
your home, but you can't be throwing all its alveaus
into the bank. You know, that sort of thing is
a very unequal relationship that is enforced and defended by rules,

(07:13):
by the rights granted by those rules. And so rather
than approaching society with a one size fits all approach
to rules that are enforced by some type of authority,
we can instead create solutions that are tield specific problems.
And yes, you might approach concepts like best practice and
solving problems in conflicts, but I'll be different from rules.

(07:33):
You know, that's something that that's not enforced, and then
that's constantly in in negotiation. So then it's constantly taken
into practice and developed and shifted, and it's far more flexible.
And I know that it can be difficult to break
away from the idea that we need rules and that
the rulers are essential, but it's necessary that we can

(07:53):
conceptualize anarchy from that angle. With that implication. It's difficult
because of how we've been socialized how we tend to
view human nature. You know, it take time to develop
these ideas, to join them food that I'm still grasping
some of these things and trying to understand them. But
you know, between this episode and the next, and all
the books and all the work that is being put

(08:14):
out there to sort of develop anarchism, to bring it
to more people, and of course through practice, we can
get a clearer sense of how anarchist organization can work
in all of its harmonious complexity. And I say organization
and complexity specifically, because it is often assumed that the
presence of anarch is the absence of organization or the

(08:35):
absence of complexity, because those terms are often associated with
are synonymized with hierarchy and authority. But you can have
organization and complexity without them. So on the next part

(08:57):
of the definition, we get into the idea of anarcheb
You know, well, where self determination, mutuality, and free association
form the basis of our society. Self attimination is probably
the easiest to explain it for three terms that I
use to define such a society, because it's just the
idea that individuals can define and pursue their own paths
is the belief that people individually and collectively have the

(09:18):
capacity to live and organize themselves in ways to reflect
their own needs, desires, and values. It rejects the notion
that others, whether they be states, corporations, religious institutions, or
other elites, should have the power to dictate the lives
of individuals or impose structures exploitation and control. Self detimination
is the basis of autonomy, which is necessarily followed by

(09:39):
free association. The first and foremost I want to get
into the idea of mutuality. Mutuality is feeling an action
in a relationship that is based on shape benefit between
individuals and groups in a society. There is reciprocity and
its communication. It's a shar enough sentiment and an exchange
of positive actions, and it's not unique to anarchy. Weutral

(10:01):
into dependence, which is a component of mutuality, is also
not unique to anarchy. It can be free found in
pretty much every society because we rely on neutrality to
survive and progress through our day to day life, whether
we're working together to clean the house for Christmas or
troubleshooting a problem in the workplace, or taking part in
a club or sport, or sharing resources follow in a
natural disaster. Mutuality happens constantly, informally and often without recognition.

(10:27):
This is something that Creator talks about in Debt of
First five thousand Years. He says, this is the glue
that who will society together? Not contracts or power, but solidarity, empathy,
and the natural human inclination to care for others. All
world is so divided, and we still find ways to care.
Are there obstacles that care? Of course, you know the

(10:48):
various presuences, propagandized mindsets, socio economic systems, and material conditions
that limit our practice of mutuality. But these are problems
that he seeks to rectify. Obviously, it's used like cluialism
and white supremacy are fractured societies along racial lines and
create a distress and competition where mutuality could flourish. The

(11:08):
propaganda perpetuated by states and corporations also limits our capacity
to imagine mutuality and create this sense of ssty in
this competitive mindset that creates an unnecessary dichotomy between the
success of the individual and success of the collective. Because
of the very nature these hierarchical systems are forcing us
intexplosive relationships. Things like mutual aid and are being replaced

(11:32):
by transactional exchanges. Care and community become commodities, basic human
needs become profit driven markets, and the state takes on
a lot of the role that was formerly filled by mutuality.
Just the idea of disaster response, for example, is dominated
by bureaucratic agencies that monobilize and direct the resources that

(11:53):
could be used and more effectively used by people addressing
their own needs locally. And of course, with the implementation
of the property regime, with privatization fencing off the commons
that once supports at communal life, it creates that sort
of scarcity that the limits or interpersonal practice of neutrality.
And when people are poor, when they're struggling intermediate will needs,

(12:14):
they often lack the resources or energy to extend help
to others. Food and secure families may not have the
capacity to engage in community support networks. Or you know,
if you look at how cities are often designed their
structure to isolate people, they make it harder people to
form balance of trust. The existence of all these non
places like highways, the absence of third places, and the

(12:37):
prevalence of civil and sprawl or make it more difficult
for us to form bonds of trust and solidarity. And then,
of course you have the intervention of the state into
people's efforts to engage in mutual aid. You know, the
states punishes and criminalizes mutual aid efforts for migrants or
for homeless people. You will often see the police or

(12:59):
border authority is preventing people from helping those people, charging
them with criminal penalties just for trying to help their
fellow humor and all these are things that limits the
free and full flourishing of mutuality. Or we shouldn't look
to the limits of mutuality in our current system as
an indication of how it might be limited in another system.

(13:20):
In fact, we can look at these limits and see
what ways mutuality could flourish even further when they no
longer exist. So by taking the time to dismantle prejudices,
to challenge propaganda, to build alternatives, and to create abundance,
we can start to recognize the potential of our mutuality.
And so really getting from zero point A to point B,

(13:41):
it becomes a matter of expanding our solidarity, which would
expand our capacity for mutuality to drive our social organizations.
Solidarity is about establishing and recognizing the bond between all people,
understanding that I center gain from you doing well and
vice versa rememother. Our system incentivized selfishness that acts to
the detriment of others. So anarchy doesn't need perfect people,

(14:06):
it just needs systems to have better incentives. So anarchic
systems would incentivize generosity and selflessness, of course, But the
real trick is really in creating systems that utilize selfishness
to the benefit of others, making it so that even
the most self interested and self absorbed people are a
net positive or at least a net zero on the

(14:26):
impacts of the rest of society, because they will find
themselves acting in ways that are generous and that are
selfless in order to get the gains that they desire
for themselves. You can call it to kind of a
selfish selflessness.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, And it's funny because like that's the sort of
justification that capitalism uses, that like, oh, if everyone that
purely acts into self interest and everything will get better
for everyone, you know. But it's effectively just like a
code of paint that's been put on a system that
people use their self interest to make things better for
egas exactly them.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, So clearly the system of capitalism has these systemic
incentives and structures that allow for selfishness that not only
expand and propagate and be reinforced, there also ensures that
that impulse that in inclination has an extraordinary impact on
the lives of millions of people. An individual selfish person

(15:26):
cannot do that much to impact others, but put them
in a position of power, and all of a sudden
their decisions can impact the lives of thousands, millions, even billions.
So the practice of anarchy is a way of creating
a society where no one stands above another, and where
lives are built in cooperation instead of domination. Reshape and

(15:46):
how we practice mutuality why building new habits of cooperation
that work without rulers. And that's what social revolution is
all about. It's an ongoing and intentional transformation of our
society for economy and culture and philosophy and technology and
relationship and politics. It's the ongoing indication of all forms
of authority and prejudice and the ongoing affirmation of freely

(16:06):
associated equals. There is, in many ways a reconstitution of
our natural initiative or capacity of mutuality and our responsibility
for ourselves and each other. And that starts here and now,
not at some distant points in the future. It won't
be easy, but it's necessary to unshackle our mutuality to
create a society where it can flourish. And this is

(16:26):
where we get into things like mutual aid. It's confused
with charity very often, but it's a manifestation of our mutuality.
It's a voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange of services and
resources in a society. And so it's not about tit
for tat peedback or measuring each person's contributions. It's what
taking responsibility for one another as members of a society
and building social relations that sharpen our ability to collaborate

(16:50):
and share. To part phrase Peter Creputkin, practice and mutual
aid is the surest means forgiving each other into all
of the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and
progress bodily, intellectually, and morally, but mutually. Like I said earlier,
it derives its basis from our interdependence, which is another
component of mutuality. Mutual independence is the very basic idea

(17:12):
that we rely on each other for various aspects of
our lives. In every kind of society and an he
our mutual interdependence is unrestricted by authority and instead guided
by complementarity, so we are all approached and appreciated as
unique equals cooperated on that basis. Mutual responsibility is another
manifestation of mutuality, as the idea that in the absence

(17:34):
of legal order, in the absence of authority, when society
is no longer guided by laws that are binding and
enforceable by some authority, we must be guided instead by responsibility.
But actions are pre authorized or pre judged by an
external rules, but that each action is undertaken freely and
subject to any number of responses positive and negative. Are

(17:57):
you curious about this idea of legal order and permission,
prohibition and unusual responsibility? I recommend Sean Wilber's and new
glossary on the Libertarian Labyrinth, as it offers the exploration
of that concept and a lot more to synthetic anarchism.
So anarchy demands a high degree of self awareness, care,

(18:18):
and reciprocity from individuals and communities, not through coercion or enforcement,
but through voluntary continue us and conscious negotiation. Incentivized by
the nature of the system itself, with its basis in
cooperation and the desire to prevent annecessary conflict. In hierarchical systems,
humans of justice often escalates conflict. Imprisonment, for example, tends

(18:40):
to breed resentment and resistance and further criminalization. In anarchy,
the absence of preauthorized retaliation encourages us to find that
dialogue and to create restorative practices. If a conflict arises
over a resource, people have an interest in reachion and
resolution that benefits both rather than escalates and things and

(19:00):
prolonged disputes. So, such as society, you will necessarily require responsibility.
They're both responsibility for the environment and responsibility for other people.
You know, if you are costing the ecosystem its resources,
it can just offload that cost onto everybody else, As

(19:22):
it's common in captive systems. You have to be in
dialogue with other people to ensure your actions are balanced
by replenishing the resource, by mitigating harm, or by securing
so kind of collective agreement. And if somebody is creating
a disruptive situation, if they're blasting out music at night,
we kind oft rely on an external authority to mediate,

(19:43):
but we have to mediate in some way. We have
to find ways to ensure that they bear the costs
of disturbing others, whether involves apologizing or making amends or
just in their behavior, or if they don't want to
take on other people facing other consequences as necessary. So
social revolution really aims to prepare us for that responsibility. It's,

(20:05):
as Wilber describes, a basic principle for encountering, recognizing, and
engaging with others. It's our beefed up and extremely demanded
version of the Golden rule. The organic emergence of this
responsibility and the incentives of this system could create a
sort of a mutual understanding, which is another aspect of neutrality.

(20:27):
As people will necessarily form norms of behavior that will
guide the interactions between them. They'll facilitate consultation and negotiation
to restrain the escalation of conflict. They'll maintain the viability
of shared commons and libraries of thiths, and similarly, our
desire to prevent the escalation of conflict, to prevent threat
to our being and prevent threats to our social harmony

(20:47):
or society's integrity with thus developed a sense of mutual
defense it's in all of our interests to minimize the
potential Hoever, our actions to proctively seek out solutions to
potential and actual conflict ensure that we won't get flack
and pushback and negative consequences to the things that we
do and threats to the sustainability of our society and

(21:07):
our lives I. Thinyet. Another manifestation of mutuality become to
the idea of mutual interests, which are what make free
association as the basis of an arctic social organization possible.

(21:29):
Free association is the founding principle of an archic social organization,
and it refers the ability of each person to move
around to association disassociated with others as they so choose,
without being subject to authority. Free association is free from
the impositions of wage labor, from the boundaries of citizenship,

(21:51):
and from all other hierarchical relationships. This is different from
the sort of liberal idea of freedom of association, where
under capitalists that freedom of association is the freedom that
comes with signing contracts and control in private property. So
being free from authority, we still have to do what
we have to do, because we're still muchly interdependent, but

(22:13):
that free association empowers people to connect with others and
to form groups based around shared interests or as add
actions to pursue those interests. Of actions. So interest maypy
as broad as onet and to eat, or as niche
as wanting to maintain the traditional Japanese art of wood joinery.
Or they might span the globe or whatever unique to
a particular interest, such as those who are interested in

(22:36):
the mantia and the cleanliness of a local river. So
groups don't just exist for the sake of existing. They
don't exist to perpetuate on existence. They exist with a
particular goal in mind, whether that is mintian roads, producing
a distributing food, or building housing. And then such groups
may exist for a long time, or they may dissolve frequently.

(22:56):
They may split, or they may emerge. They may overlap
or come into conflict, and the spaces where they interact
could be called spaces of encounter, taken place in factories
or in gardens, specifically to at online platforms or some
sort of community center. So free association may occur on
the level of networks of individuals or federations of groups.

(23:18):
But I need to explain the commune and the federation,
because those are things that can be interpreted in a
few different ways. You know, federations people who might think
of government, communes people might think of well, local government
or con geese or something of that nature. Yeah, be
cult too. So i'm a key is about funding ways

(23:38):
to cooperate in ways that are not bound by the
traditional boundaries of authority, and that includes didditional boundaries of
shared territory. The Anech's commune has been confused very often
with things like intentional communities or administrative divisions. But if
we're going by Kropotkin's description in Words of a Rebel
Chapters Tend to eleven, he makes it clear that commune

(24:01):
describes any group forming on the basis of free association.
In fact, he juxtaposes the free commune with traditional conceptions
of the commune. He says, for us quote, commune no
longer means a territorial agglomeration. It is rather a generic name,
a synonym for the grouping of equals, which knows neither
frontiers nor walls. The social commune soon cease to be

(24:23):
a clearly defined entity. Each group in the commune necessarily
be drawn towards similar groups and other communes. They'll come together,
and the things that federate them will be as solid
as those that attach them to their fellow citizens, And
this way they will emerge a commune of interests whose
members are scattered in a thousand towns and villagious. Each
individual find the full satisfaction of his needs only by

(24:44):
grouping with other individuals who have the same tastes but
inhabits one hundred other communes end quote. Scropotkin's commune is
essentially a fluid collective of individuals and groups wherever they
find themselves, coming together their own volition and according to
their shared interests, projects, and activity, without being bound to
territorial designations. So I expect to see a bunch of

(25:06):
like mini governments all over a bunch of mini community
governments or over energy. Because an abstract group in the
community may not even necessarily share many real interests in common,
as trying to put them all into one body, one
polity that is responsible for identifying and enacting their will,

(25:27):
it tends to be dominated by the group's most dominant voices.
It tends to subordinate individuals to the will of a
nebulous collective nebulous majority as The alternative to this sort
of polity form, as Willard describes it is the federative
principle understood in its most radical anarchic sensus, So not

(25:48):
in the sense of networking conventional static polities like a
confederation of city states, but instead bringing together the information
and perspectives necessary to facilitate the dynamic process of free association.
We could look to antionomies of democracy. Another bit of
writing by Wilbur which fud explains how the federative organization
is the process by which we identify specific social cells

(26:10):
as an interests or needs and establish the involvement in
large scale collectivities that are formed on the basis of
those conversion interests. So these collectivities might exist on a
sort of a consultative basis as they seek out and
disseminate information or advice. It relates to interests, but the
recognition we're relevant of expertise, so there might be such

(26:32):
associations based on armed defense or cohousing construction or agro forestry.
The RepU consultative associations with a journalistic focus or with
a rewildin focus or an accessibility focus. They may exist
on any scale, depending on the specificity of the information needed,
from as the locals an apartment building to as far

(26:54):
reaching as a consonant or even the entire globe. Consultative
associations could create bluepference. They could document the viewable label
and expertise, They can source resources, and they can share feedback.
Also that interested and affected individuals and groups can easily
access everything they need to make informed decisions. So in anarchy,

(27:14):
we'll see a variety of individuals grouping together and interacted
in ways that are perhaps illegible from our top down
view of society, but in ways that work to accomplish
their goals, resolve their conflicts, and maintain social harmony. It
can be difficult to imagine this possibility due to how
thoroughly our disempowerment in dovestigation has been We live under

(27:36):
a global order that seems to deny any alternatives and
extors its understanding of human nature as the only valid interpretation.
The propaganda of our education on mass media and our
inherited understanding as subjects in hierarchical society has limited our
consciousness of our situation and thus our drives and powers
to transform our situation. There are those of us who

(27:57):
can overcome this through theoretical and historical study. But there
are others who can only overcome this condition through demonstration.
Some are not convinced by intellectual anarchist arguments. They have
to be transformed through experiences. So to borrow the terminology
of innovation adoption, it is up to us early adopters,

(28:18):
those who are into the revolution before it becomes cool,
to convince the majority of the possibility of freedom by example.
And furthermore, as William Gillis wrote in The Distinct Radicalism
of Anarchism, quote, to reach a moment where we sit
back entirely satisfied would be to abandon anarchism to the

(28:39):
radical of It is no alitmus for due diligence, no
final finish line, no moment where we pat ourselves on
the back. The vigilance of the radical is never as satiated.
End quote. And that's it for me today. We'll get
more into revolution, powers, drives, and consciousness and more in
future episodes. In the meantime, you can check out my
channel Andraism on YouTube. I took all things like this

(29:02):
all the time I've been ondre siege. This is it
could happen here. All power to all the people peace.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
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