Ironically, but not surprisingly, in describing his alternative to hierarchy, the video essentially re-invents hierarchy. Anarchy is so fragile that even in a thought experiment by an anarchist, it can't even last 20 minutes.
If you're not clear on this (Engels certainly wasn't, as his infamous essay "On Authority" demonstrates) here's a video from Anark specifically addressing that concept and how it is to be understood in most of Anarchist theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFZZiRmZxoU
If you think the video "re-invents hierarchy" maybe you can spell out where you think it does that. It won't be a snappy one-liner that makes you sound witty but it might be conducive to an actual conversation.
Possibly.
I've changed some minds in the past. I don't have it handy right now, but one of my most cherished results of discussing this stuff online is a Reddit message I got from someone years ago. I was arguing against compulsory taxation. The person I was arguing with didn't agree with me in the least, but that's OK; I just continued to share my views and was clear that sharing was my only goal. I didn't expect them to "convert" and see things my way. Many months later they sent me a DM to let me know that they had in fact come to see things the way I'd described, and credited that conversation as the beginning of that transformation.
To be blunt: hostility and name-calling is no way to change someone's mind. It's counterproductive, and I wish people who call themselves anarchists would stop doing it. It makes my approach more difficult.
> Ironically, but not surprisingly, in describing his alternative to hierarchy, the video essentially re-invents hierarchy.
Anarchism isn't a single, unified ideology. Not all forms of anarchism is anti-hierarchy.
Anarcho-capitalism boils down to the abolition of violent coercion. Anarcho-Socialism and -Syndicalism boils down to the decentralization of authoritarian hierarchy to the level of a well-defined community that is small enough for an individual to have an effective voice yet large enough that that community has a voice in the affairs of the larger society within which it exists.
Bear in mind that the above are my syntheses, not some sort of "official" defition.
My point is that it's no more fair to lump all forms of anarchism - and all anarchists - into a single group than it would be to lump republicans together with monarchists.
Hierarchy is not necessarily antithetical to anarchism.
> Anarchy is so fragile that even in a thought experiment by an anarchist, it can't even last 20 minutes.
I think a lot of people - including a lot of self-described anarchists - confuse the political philosophy with practical application thereof.
In my own view, anarchism is a set of beliefs about how things should be. It's a way of viewing the world and a set of negative guidelines governing how people should interact with one another (e.g. "A person should not use of threaten force to get what they want")
The political and social institutions that would arise from a society founded on the precepts of anarchism needn't be stable, or even predictable.
If you change your mind, I'm happy to discuss. Otherwise, I hope your day is productive and fulfilling.