disclaimer: I’m just a random demon on the internet and I have no idea what I’m talking about. this post is worded the way that it is because it would get really wordy if I added phrases like “from what I can tell” or “in my opinion” before every statement. I’ve just started to notice what I think are patterns when reading about resistance movements and especially the history of anarchism so that’s why I made this post - but please take everything with an entire shaker of salt

anyway, I’ve been reading about the history of anarchism in the US which seems to have reached the height of its popularity (not including today; I’m not sure how today stacks up) around the 19th and early 20th centuries and it’s been really eye-opening to me. from what I’ve read it was heavily suppressed by the government after that point (hence why it hasn’t really been a part of discourse since then, until recently) and I think a lot of things are starting to make more sense now that I’m reading about anarchism’s history in this country

there were several high-profile anarchist (or suspected anarchist) bombings or other acts of political violence that ended up killing civilians (and often not even killing their intended target(s) at all - just causing horrific collateral damage), which obviously made anarchism extremely unpopular with even working-class people, and gave the government exactly what it needed to demonize anarchists and labor organizers, and to pass draconian laws that let them - for example - forcefully deport “undesirables”

so first of all this explains the American conflation of anarchism with indiscriminate bombing and other acts of almost pointless violence. it also explains - I think - why so few people wanted to support the anarchists. since they looked like they didn’t even value the lives of the people they claimed they were trying to save

I think modern-day anarchism is doing a drastically better job of this, where acts of political violence are rare and generally very targeted, and bombs aren’t used at all because they cause so much collateral damage

I think for any movement to succeed, it needs to reach a certain critical mass of direct action. and if any movement’s most visible tool is political violence, the movement is going to implode sooner or later because:

• it’s extremely easy for the media to demonize and fear-monger about political violence, making the movement look like dangerous aggressors, which creates distorted perceptions of the movement and allows the government to forcefully dissolve whoever is left supporting the movement by that point
• even someone who is sympathetic to the movement is not going to be interested in joining or helping if their perception is that the primary way to resist is through violence, because the vast majority of people have a very low risk-tolerance for political actions, and are squeamish about violence. people need to understand how subtle and effective acts of nonviolent sabotage, passive resistance, etc. can be

so for anarchism to succeed in any century, I think it needs to mostly be a nonviolent resistance movement for those two reasons. when people think of anarchism, they need to think of an unstoppable wave of small, decentralized acts of nonviolent resistance. “freedom is a pure idea”, and all that