I learned how to shoot a gun in summer camp. I've never owned a gun, though, and until recently never thought I would. This has given me something to think about.
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
1 points (100.0% liked)
Anarchism and Social Ecology
3528 readers
2 users here now
!anarchism@slrpnk.net
A community about anarchy. anarchism, social ecology, and communalism for SLRPNK! Solarpunk anarchists unite!
Feel free to ask questions here. We aspire to make this space a safe space. SLRPNK.net's basic rules apply here, but generally don't be a dick and don't be an authoritarian.
Anarchism
Anarchism is a social and political theory and practice that works for a free society without domination and hierarchy.
Social Ecology
Social Ecology, developed from green anarchism, is the idea that our ecological problems have their ultimate roots in our social problems. This is because the domination of nature and our ecology by humanity has its ultimate roots in the domination humanity by humans. Therefore, the solutions to our ecological problems are found by addressing our social and ecological problems simultaneously.
Libraries
Audiobooks
- General audiobooks
- LibriVox Public domain book collection where you can find audiobooks from old communist, socialist, and anarchist authors.
- Anarchist audiobooks
- Socialist Audiobooks
- Social Ecology Audiobooks
Quotes
Poetry and imagination must be integrated with science and technology, for we have evolved beyond an innocence that can be nourished exclusively by myths and dreams.
~ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom
People want to treat ‘we’ll figure it out by working to get there’ as some sort of rhetorical evasion instead of being a fundamental expression of trust in the power of conscious collective effort.
~Anonymous, but quoted by Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us
The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.
~Murray Bookchin, "A Politics for the Twenty-First Century"
There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society based on self-administration must be achieved by means of self-administration.
~Murray Bookchin, Post Scarcity Anarchism
In modern times humans have become a wolf not only to humans, but to all nature.
The ecological question is fundamentally solved as the system is repressed and a socialist social system develops. That does not mean you cannot do something for the environment right away. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine the fight for the environment with the struggle for a general social revolution...
~Abdullah Öcalan
Social ecology advances a message that calls not only for a society free of hierarchy and hierarchical sensibilities, but for an ethics that places humanity in the natural world as an agent for rendering evolution social and natural fully self-conscious.
~ Murray Bookchin
Network
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
There's simply not a point to owning a gun specifically as an antifascist tool unless you're working with other people that own guns as antifascist tools.
People tend to buy guns and then do nothing. Buying the gun makes them feel safe and like they have done something. "When they come for me I'll be prepared."
When they come for you, it's already too late. Earlier, far less dangerous, far less provocative, far less illegal (but still illegal) acts of resistance are far superior in what they achieve. Become active to protect the people they go to before they come for you, or else there will be no one left to protect you when they come for you.
Build community, waste their time, waste their resources, make their operations impossible not through armed resistance but through simpler, less flashy means.
They will try to sue you, jail you, hurt you, maybe even kill you... but that's part of the plan anyway, better to resist while the actions you can do still have an impact.
This is not a plea against guns, but for action (even simple and small actions).
also gun ownership and effective gun usage are very different concepts
As are non-violence and peaceful.
You can be non-violent, without being peaceful.
My point is about the idea that our first tool for self-defense absolutely must be human connection.
A whole lotta tripe to get to the single sentence point.
Fr. Wish he'd elaborate beyond platitudes and allegory too but we're all just a doting audience. 🙄
Inara has a very good point.
You already have other skills. You likely have other resources. What is your job in all of this? What are you capable of doing? /.../ You know what is needed in crisis? Lots of people doing the work that they're able to do.
It is very likely that most people can accomplish a lot more peacefully. :)
However, I would like to offer opposition on another point:
Could it potentially become more dangerous to have it than to not have it?
In the time of remote operated weapons stations, not really if used with caution.
There's actually quite a lot that normal people can do to resist authoritarianism, but we culturally value violence because we associate it with masculinity and we live under patriarchy.
https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/the-competitive-masculinity-of-revolutionary-violence
The thing is, if we want to transition to a better world we have to build that world. If we try to end the existing system before building the new one, it will be significantly more challenging.
https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/disaster-anarchism-an-argument-against-insurrection
None of this is to say that militancy isn't useful in it's place, but rather that we miss opportunities if we prioritize it.
Can you not copy the clickbait crap, just say what you mean.