What Is Idealist Anarchism?

What Is Idealist Anarchism?

Traditionally, anarchism has been to most part a materialist - often a very heavily materialist - political philosophy. Idealist anarchism on the other hand sides with idealism, and tries to set the anarchist ideas and principles on an idealist basis.
The idealist part of idealist anarchism claims that life, human nature, human behavior, society, the political world - is defined by ideals. And that all traditional governmental or economic, religious etc authoritarian organizations fail to live up to these ideals; the only way that people could live in a society of these ideals - an ideal society, is by the lack of (i.e. the abolishment of) these authoritarian and hierarchical organizations.
Ideals are ideas, thoughts, concepts, such as freedom, heroism, liberty, equality, individuality, compassion, mutual aid, solidarity. The highest ideals are the truth, rationality and "the good", i.e. the ideal of all goodness.

Hierarchical organizations claim that they represent ideals. But they fail these ideals and usually represent the opposite. The military says it protects freedom, but it serves tyranny; the government says it further progress, but it fuels societal regression; the capitalist press says it spreads knowledge, but it spreads lies and deceit.
The statist or "common" answer to this problem is to say the institutions need to be renewed or replaced; but the new institutions will just be as corrupt and vile, as history showed plenty of times (think of the Russian Revolution).
The only solution to this problem is get away with these authoritarian institutions completely. This will pave a way for humans to truly live with these ideals.

Idealist anarchism has some core ideas, and these are three of them:

Society is not based on or defined by economic or political relations. It is defined by ideals, thoughts, concepts. The economic structure and political structure follows these ideas. The economic or political structure *does not* shape these ideas. Not the ruling class, not the priests, not the military, police or workers are the strongest force in society; but the ideals and those that define them; the artists, poets, philosophers, 'wise men', theorists. Therefore, if you change the ideals of society, you can change society.

Likewise, the strongest force in human nature is rationality. It is not the subconscious, or instincts, or primitive emotions that are the strongest forces. The psychoanalytical theory of the "power" of the subconscious is one of the most vile materialist theories around and total nonsense. There might indeed be *some* humans that in the current state rather follow their instincts than rationality; but even with these: if their rational aspirations would be inspired, rationality would become the strongest factor in their minds.
Therefore, if you inspire the rationality of humans, you will have the most influence. And a society that inspires rationality the most would be an ideal society; and such society would be an anarchist society.

Likewise, idealist action is preferable over "direct" action. Every "action", every move that inspires and furthers rationality, ideals, wisdom, knowledge, enlightenment will shape and steer society and help humans and lead the way to true anarchism.
The pen is mightier than the sword - by a million times. Any "activism" based on violence, guns, bombs, fighting will fail in the end. A movement that spreads ideals by creating art, movies, music, manifestos, poems, critical articles will win over any force that exists in society or human nature.
Anarchists of the past indeed failed because they trusted "materialist" violence and action more than the power of art, of wisdom and knowledge.

Rationality is the strongest force in both society and humans. And idealism is rational. The way to a real free and just anarchist society.

Footnote: [1] I used the word ideals in more than one sense in this text. For most part, I talked about ideals in the real sense; but when I said society follows ideals there is something that should be noted: in the end, society follows *real* ideals; but in our current time, it also follows corrupted ideals like money or power that are far away from the real ideals but are still linked to it in a very imperfect way; people desire money to get human respect by others, which in a sense *would be* an ideal. But even these corrupted ideals are far away from the "materialist" forces of which the materialists philosophers say that they are the motors of society.