Honest question: What does it even mean to be an anarchist these days? What is the default "anarchist"? Because Wikipedia isn't really helping.
“”” Noam Chomsky: Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal famili…
Vs the classical conservative world view in which order, even if it's unjust, is usually better for everyone, even the people on the bottom, than chaos; and that dismantling power structures, if done suddenly or without care, is more likely to result in chaos than in a new, more just, order. I've been wondering lately if there is room for the notion of a conservative anarchist, who questions hierarchy but dismantles carefully and incrementally.