Anarchism got the Teen Vogue treatment with an article called “Anarchy: What It Is and Why Pop Culture Loves It” by a self-proclaimed New York City anarchist Friday.
“Anarchism as a philosophy lends itself to many ideas,” wrote article author Kim Kelly. “There is no one way to be an anarchist. … Anarchism and anarchists are everywhere.”
Kelly’s Twitter bio says she is Teen Vogue’s labor columnist, and her bio in the article lists her as “an organizer with the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC).”
Kelly laid out the roots of anarchism, which she called “a fully global, intersectional philosophy,” and she also described its relationships with communism and anti-fascism in the explainer piece.
“Anarchism is a radical, revolutionary leftist political philosophy that advocates for the abolition of government, hierarchy, and all other unequal systems of power,” Kelly wrote.
Anarchism is all about “nonhierarchical, horizontal structures powered by voluntary associations between people,” Kelly wrote.
Much of anarchism is standing against certain things, though.
“Anarchism is inherently antifascist (much like all anarchists are by necessity anti-police and anti-prison),” Kelly wrote.
Kelly also explained the difference between pure communism and pure anarchism — they can never truly coexist because communists view the state as neutral, while anarchists see it as evil because it is “inherently hierarchical.”
“Anarchists oppose the state as much as they oppose capitalism,” Kelly wrote.
Kelly described a laundry list of variations on anarchism: anarcha-feminism, black anarchism, queer anarchism, green or eco-anarchism, anarcho-pacifism and more.
Her organization, MACC, made the following statement on its website: “With the present atmosphere of hatred, bigotry and greed, we seek to seed resistance to an emboldened right-wing through an alternative, radical form of participatory politics.”
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Evie Fordham is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Evie on Twitter @eviefordham.
