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I saw an article discussing this, which lead to my tracking down the original:
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/anarchy ... e-loves-it

That's right. Teen Vogue online magazine recently included an article on anarchy with this as the take away:

Anarchists organize around a key set of principles, including horizontalism, mutual aid, autonomy, solidarity, direct action, and direct democracy, a form of democracy in which the people make decisions themselves via consensus (as opposed to representative democracy, of which the United States government is an example).

The article then provides a brief, glossy, and largely propagandist history of anarchism in the west. All surrounded by advertisements and a few pop-ups.

I bring it up because, while the article being in Teen Vogue sounds like a joke to my ears, the attractiveness of the sanitized description of anarchist ideals is undeniable in the social media, app-enabled, cult-of-the-amateur modern US. I've heard popular influencers on both sides of the political aisle theorize that modern democratic systems may be antiquated and that modern technology could make true democracy possible where every person could vote on every single issue instead of voting for a representative to do this for them. I wish it could go without saying that this overlooks the need for representative rather than true democracy comes from the effort and time needed to vote informed rather than just from one's gut instinct, though partisanship has largely derailed this and certainly deserves reforming.

The article glosses over the historical reality that anarchy has mostly been destructive and violent, a vehicle for the disenfranchised to attempt to roll the dice on society because they have little else to lose and more to gain by the reshuffling they hope to see. Anyone reading Teen Vogue would hardly qualify as someone who would end up better off than worse off if the world were thrown into chaos and society reshuffled. But setting that aside, black flags and circled As are on trend this fall.

That was interesting Honor, thanks for sharing. I agree that the setting seems a bit odd to me but I'll also admit I don't consume enough Teen Vogue to know if they usually do this kind of stuff . The tone is about what I would expect form an "anarchist organizer" making her case for The Cause™ to a younger audience. I'll be curious to see if next month's issue features a piece extolling the successes and values behind neo-fascism or ethnopluralism.

Teen Vogue has been highly political for a little while now. They occasionally splash the national news because of this.

When I think of anarchists, I have three very distinct associations in my mind.

The first are intellectuals who are anarchists in a dry political science sense. Their views are highly considered, but fringey. They're usually either anarcho-capitalists, which are essentially extreme libertarians or anarcho-syndicalists, which are extreme leftists. David Friedman for the former, Noam Chomsky for the latter.

The second are people who are generically rebellious against power structures and have latched on to anarchy as their banner to express this. These people range from latte anarchists who just have an anarchy symbol on their backpack to black bloc protestors who go to rallies looking to throw bricks.

The Teen Vogue article clearly is combining anarchists in the Chomsky sense with anarchists in this sense and calling that the sum total of what anarchy is. No love for the hardcore libertarians, I guess. This is somewhat misleading as not everyone who dresses in black looking to stick it to the man under the label of anarchy has given even a little thought to collectivist anarchism as a political philosophy.

The third are anarchists in the sense of what anarchism was like in the late 1800's and early 1900's where popular culture treated them approximately similar to how the word "terrorist" is treated today. Anarchism as a self-chosen label in this time had a lot more ideological spread, a genuine revolutionary component, and seems distinct from modern variants for that reason.

EAllusion wrote:The third are anarchists in the sense of what anarchism was like in the late 1800's and early 1900's where popular culture treated them approximately similar to how the word "terrorist" is treated today. Anarchism as a self-chosen in this time had a lot more ideological spread, a genuine revolutionary component, and seems distinct from modern variants for that reason.

Did you ever read The Secret Agent by Conrad?

- Doc

EAllusion wrote:Teen Vogue has been highly political for a little while now.

from where do you draw such a conclusion? Your presentation is clearly "from my experience...", so it is interesting that you find time to read enough Teen Vogue to notice the publication's editorial trend for a little while.

EAllusion wrote:They occasionally splash the national news because of this.

CFR on the whole "because of this".

EAllusion wrote:When I think of anarchists, I have three very distinct associations in my mind.

huh?

EAllusion wrote:The first are intellectuals who are anarchists in a dry political science sense. Their views are highly considered, but fringey. They're usually either anarcho-capitalists, which are essentially extreme libertarians or anarcho-syndicalists, which are extreme leftists. David Friedman for the former, Noam Chomsky for the latter.

The second are people who are generically rebellious against power structures and have latched on to anarchy as their banner to express this. These people range from latte anarchists who just have an anarchy symbol on their backpack to black bloc protestors who go to rallies looking to throw bricks.

The Teen Vogue article clearly is combining anarchists in the Chomsky sense with anarchists in this sense and calling that the sum total of what anarchy is. No love for the hardcore libertarians, I guess. This is somewhat misleading as not everyone who dresses in black looking to stick it to the man under the label of anarchy has given even a little thought to collectivist anarchism as a political philosophy.

The third are anarchists in the sense of what anarchism was like in the late 1800's and early 1900's where popular culture treated them approximately similar to how the word "terrorist" is treated today. Anarchism as a self-chosen label in this time had a lot more ideological spread, a genuine revolutionary component, and seems distinct from modern variants for that reason.

TL:DR
anarchism: belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.

subgenius wrote:

EAllusion wrote:Teen Vogue has been highly political for a little while now.

from where do you draw such a conclusion? Your presentation is clearly "from my experience...", so it is interesting that you find time to read enough Teen Vogue to notice the publication's editorial trend for a little while.

EAllusion wrote:They occasionally splash the national news because of this.

CFR on the whole "because of this".

I was curious about this following Honor's post and EA's comments so I did a little Googling, something you could have very easily done.

"Teen Vogue’s Political Coverage Isn’t Surprising"

"How Teen Vogue Is Tackling Hot Button Issues Without Losing Its Fashion Edge"

"Teen Vogue's evolution from high-fashion magazine to a community of activism"

I'd especially recommend the first link from The Atlantic if you actually are interested and aren't doing your usual CFR calls just to grind down a conversation. The links, given their time frame and also their adding some details to the morphing of the publication also explains how EA could be aware of the trend.

Xenophon wrote:I was curious about this following Honor's post and EA's comments so I did a little Googling, something you could have very easily done.

"Teen Vogue’s Political Coverage Isn’t Surprising"

"How Teen Vogue Is Tackling Hot Button Issues Without Losing Its Fashion Edge"

"Teen Vogue's evolution from high-fashion magazine to a community of activism"

I'd especially recommend the first link from The Atlantic if you actually are interested and aren't doing your usual CFR calls just to grind down a conversation. The links, given their time frame and also their adding some details to the morphing of the publication also explains how EA could be aware of the trend.

Again, googling isn't the point. Its the manner by which EA portrayed his opinion.
Or are you suggesting that EA just happened to google the trend of teen vogue and now wants to come across as if this trend was something his superior intellect had already deduced ? because that is more reasonable than the idjocy of simply posting such a proclamatuon because he happened to read an Atlantic article and figured that must be a solid position.

So yeah, i couldve googled it but i wasn't questioning Teen Vogue's editorial trend, i was questioning EA's appeal to authority.

Whose authority did I appeal to? I shared a comment about what I know to be the case. A person can accept or reject it on my credibility or look it up for themselves. An appeal to authority, as a fallacy, is to argue that something is correct because an authority said so.

I don't need to be an avid Teen Vogue reader to know what I said is true. I just need to pay attention to the news. Subs strikes me as someone who would've gotten into the the right-wing media's various spats with Teen Vogue. That should've also made him aware of the magazine's political coverage as of late. I'm surprised he wasn't aware of the same trend. I would be less surprised if he was only pretending to not know what is going on.

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:

EAllusion wrote:The third are anarchists in the sense of what anarchism was like in the late 1800's and early 1900's where popular culture treated them approximately similar to how the word "terrorist" is treated today. Anarchism as a self-chosen in this time had a lot more ideological spread, a genuine revolutionary component, and seems distinct from modern variants for that reason.

Did you ever read The Secret Agent by Conrad?

- Doc

Nope. I remember it being trendy right after 9/11, but I never picked it up. I assume it's about terrorist anarchists?

Xenophon wrote:That was interesting Honor, thanks for sharing. I agree that the setting seems a bit odd to me but I'll also admit I don't consume enough Teen Vogue to know if they usually do this kind of stuff . The tone is about what I would expect form an "anarchist organizer" making her case for The Cause™ to a younger audience. I'll be curious to see if next month's issue features a piece extolling the successes and values behind neo-fascism or ethnopluralism.

Back in the 60's, Tom Wolfe wrote a book called Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, where the heady combination of black rage and white guilt led to Black Panther soirees at Leonard Bernstein's Manhattan apartment.

I find a whiff of the same thing going on here: dilettantes wanting to feel like they're relevant. I somehow doubt that the readers of Teen Vogue will be the first to throw their bodies against the gears of the machine. I would imagine that Ivanka Trump read Teen Vogue.