“Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.” Damn, that’s powerful.

This was a really good take. Also thanks for calling out transphobia.

Thanks for the little an-cap sidenote

It influenced a lot of egalitarian revolutionary thoughts, but it sadly inspired many far-right wing ideological movements as well. People who wear V masks and talk about fighting tyranny can fall under the Alex Jones AnCap hyper-tea party group quite often. I'm not sure whose fault that is, the filmmakers adaptation or the far-right searcing for justification or even Alan Moore himself, but I tend to think it was just the pieces falling together at the right time. History is weird like that.

Excellent stuff Leon, I was raised in a very right wing household that more or less treated fascism as being the norm and the 'proper way of things.' As such, I have often found your material both here and in Word Funk very challenging for the world view I've been raised with. You've really helped shine a light on the problems in the system I was raised to think of as 'normal.' UwU

As someone with Anarchist leanings, I have to thank you for doing some good research (as usual!) and presenting the ideas in an interesting way. It's a shame the film left out so much of those ideas as it loses some of it's moral depth and become more of a good vs evil story. Ehh Hollywood

The thing that really makes V an ambiguous character is how he tortures Evey and exposes her to the real diary in the fake prison to change her. V is not just an avatar of a principle of Anarchism. He's a damaged and very angry survivor of medical experiments and a death camp. To the extent V puts his goal of destruction and replacement of the current government (and the enlistment of Evey to that cause) above respect for Evey's rights and value as a person, he contradicts part what he says he stands for.

So, Anarchism is kind of like a direct democracy?

I showed this to my son after he looked shocked when I told him I am in favour of anarchism (with the goal of creating true communism). I'm not trying to indoctrinate him (maybe just plant a few seeds), but I do want him to know what anarchism means and what it hopes to achieve and how.

Who watching this during the 2020 George Floyd Protests?

Watching the film V for Vendetta makes me completely understand why Alan Moore hates film adaptations.

I tried to explain anarchism to a friend at work once.

To note an example of modern-day anarchism, the territories of Kurdish Rojava have a society built around the principles of democratic confederalism. Partially taken from the ideas of the anarchist theorist Murray Bookchin, Rojava has autonomous municipalities in which everyone in that municipality gets to decide how they want their communities to want to organize, what issues need to be addressed, all decided along with a completely democratic platform. The results of this change in democracy has resulted in one the friendliest places in the Middle East toward the LGBT community, as well as towards secular ideologies, and differing religions. This anarchism did create order out of chaos, because the ones who were actually causing the chaos were the Islamo-fascists of ISIS, who, thanks to the help of the Kurdish army (who are mostly made up of women, btw) have now been defeated. The military is also organized along democratic lines. Before any male participants become a member of the Kurdish military, they must go through a Gender studies course so they can more effectively communicate with their female comrades. The Kurdish army does have leaders, but soldiers are able to choose to follow orders if they want to, and are able to make tactical suggestions. As with the defeat ISIS, this has proven to be an extremely effective way of passing communication without going through the bureaucracy of military hierarchies. Another world is possible, and you should learn more at the

5:30

Glad to see someone that understands the concept of anarchist movement as oppose to the many who believe in the misconception

This is hands down one of the most important video's and channels I have yet to encounter anywhere. Thank you so much for this.

This may have been one of the early essays that got me interested into anarchism

Very interesting. didnt know most of this about anarchism

that actually cleared things up quite a bit

Ursula K. LeGuin constructed two societies in her book The Dispossessed back 1976. One society was ultra-capitalist/fascist and the other was anarchist. Because, it came out during the cold war, most people, including myself, mistook the anarchist society for communist. The ultra-capitalist society was not as violent and it used the soft power of fame and wealth to gain its advantage. Although the two societies are at war (though, I believe there was an armistice in place), the thrust of the novel was about the inner human conflict about wanting recognition for one's work and the good of society.