this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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Anarchism and Social Ecology

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Anarchism

Anarchism is a social and political theory and practice that works for a free society without domination and hierarchy.

Social Ecology

Social Ecology, developed from green anarchism, is the idea that our ecological problems have their ultimate roots in our social problems. This is because the domination of nature and our ecology by humanity has its ultimate roots in the domination humanity by humans. Therefore, the solutions to our ecological problems are found by addressing our social and ecological problems simultaneously.

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Poetry and imagination must be integrated with science and technology, for we have evolved beyond an innocence that can be nourished exclusively by myths and dreams.

~ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom

People want to treat ‘we’ll figure it out by working to get there’ as some sort of rhetorical evasion instead of being a fundamental expression of trust in the power of conscious collective effort.

~Anonymous, but quoted by Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.

~Murray Bookchin, "A Politics for the Twenty-First Century"

There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society based on self-administration must be achieved by means of self-administration.

~Murray Bookchin, Post Scarcity Anarchism

In modern times humans have become a wolf not only to humans, but to all nature.

~Abdullah Öcalan

The ecological question is fundamentally solved as the system is repressed and a socialist social system develops. That does not mean you cannot do something for the environment right away. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine the fight for the environment with the struggle for a general social revolution...

~Abdullah Öcalan

Social ecology advances a message that calls not only for a society free of hierarchy and hierarchical sensibilities, but for an ethics that places humanity in the natural world as an agent for rendering evolution social and natural fully self-conscious.

~ Murray Bookchin

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I like to use the analogy of dreaming and painting when I think about movements.

The painter

The painter wants to communicate with himself or an audience through a language culture. The language culture is the medium in which something is communicated. Languages has strengths and weaknesses based on what is deemed as important by the language users. Based on the language culture, some ideas will be easier to communicate, whilst other ideas will be harder. The language culture is what set's the framing before an idea is being shaped.

Particularily we can say that the architect has a different language culture than a farmer. Their awareness is different. So if you have the language culture of the architect, you can paint something that the farmer might not able able to fully appreciate.

In a farement context, we can say that the language culture is democratic confederalism or solar punk.

The painter has an idea which is the cloud, and expresses something in the given language culture. Using the juggling language culture, one can say "doing a windmill while doing siteswap 531". The cloud is an abstract idea that the painter want to realize.

The cloud in democratic confederalism could be "mining away asphalt to give space for gardening" or "collaborative work".

From the cloud we can sketch the structure. With juggling it would be to get the conceptual understand the internal workings of a "windmill while doing siteswap 531". With "mining away asphalt to give space for gardeninig", it would be understanding how to do it safely, with as little conflict as possible. Sketching is the skeleton which we can put meat upon.

After sketching comes painting which is where we take all the research and describes a story that takes in all the elements. With "mining away the asphalt to give space for gardening" it would be do perhaps, make a short story of how the neighborhood came to concent about mining up majority of the asphalt to plant valuable foods.

Dream

Dreaming is like painting. You start from a language culture, make a cloud, sketch and paint. By working on all steps, we make distant utopias become real in our heads.

In particular, it is the painting process that makes stuff feel real. It is when we can read books or watch movies in vivid details and realism, that it feels real.

The thing about dreams is that the bigger and more vivid they are, the more people are going to feel invested in them. It shows that somebody put in the effort in making something they believed in, or at least that's what it seems like.

Dragments and dreaming

A dragment is the attempt to drag a dream into reality. It is to realize a dream.

It's easier to drag vivid dreams into reality, because then it has become reality in our minds. It's like taking a painting and saying: "I want my town to be like this". And then coordinate with neighbors about the vision.

Analysis of cyberpunk

We can see this in cyberpunk. A lot of people has invested louds of time painting a future where humans and technology goes together. Some are utopias and some are distopias, but they agree that this is the future. They paint cyberpunk wonders, and changes how we interact with society. Their worlds are painted forth in details such that their world feels real.

By making it real in our heads, technology companies can use these stories to drag elements of them into reality.

Cyberpunk can therefore be described as a dragment.

Analysis of Solarpunk

When we see beautiful towns filled with small scale energy production, gardening, childrens playing, a sailboat in the distance, we can't help but feel like we want to be there.

By doing this, we sow a seed into somebodies head, that it is possible to move away from the machine, because how else would that town exist?

dream drag analogy

The dream drag analogy makes us appreciate the role of culture in dragging for a better future.

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[–] foxymochakitten@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is a great way of explaining why solarpunk artworks and books are not just wonderful but necessary

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

Thank you:)

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Had to read it twice to really get it but well said. Drsgments are an interesting concept...

Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like one of the implied theses here that solarpunk needs more expansive, vivid paintings, before drsgments will be successful?

After all we can all very easily picture an entire cyberpunk world made real, in large part because we're all intimately familiar with all the aspects that make it terrifying and awe inspiring (multinational corporations, limitless capitalism, super-scaling IPOs held up by vibes, share holders who seem to have faith that dystopia is coming, etc).

I guess successful drsgments lead to even more vivid paintings in a circular way, so I guess the idea is either pick up a paintbrush or a shovel?

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Maybe I’m wrong but I feel like one of the implied theses here that solarpunk needs more expensive, vivid paintings, before drsgments will be successful?

The way I look at it, it is not about getting the machine to support solar punk fiction. If they were to fund solarpunk projects, then surely, it will be compromized. Instead, what I think we should be aiming for, is to inspire horizontal culture. That we appreciate and normalize personal expression.

This could take shape in that we normalize singing, performing poetry, sharing good fairytales.

I guess successful drsgments lead to even more vivid paintings in a circular way, so I guess the idea is either pick up a paintbrush or a shovel?

A strong dragment is defined by it's cultural expression and entering reality. This in turn will sprout new draggers whom join the dragment and makes it even stronger.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks. Good answers.

Also, I noticed I wrote "expensive" rather than "expansive" (as in complete, much-encompassing, or otherwise convincing) which kind of muddied my question.

I agree the current machine (financial automation, etc) is anathema to the solarpunk ethos. And your answer stands: we shouldn't try to make a world-encompassing uniform version of like solar-cyberpunk, because yeah, it's not (just) a visual aesthetic but like you said, solarpunk is horizontal/pluralistic/collaborative.

Apologies for the word dump, I'm on my second tea and I did actually consult the thesaurus 🙊

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

It didn't feel like a word dump, so no need to apologize :)

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I feel like the post ended a little bit like this:

A lovely horse

But I hope the message about the role of dreaming and dragments came accross.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is a bit abrupt as far as endings go. Feels like maybe there will be part 2 one day?

[–] vegafjord@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

I don't want to say no. I'll think about it :)

Otherwise, I have loads of ideas that I want to share.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Afterthoughts did a good video with some similar ideas, such as Collective Dreaming. The concept definitely has merit.