I could not explain the history of the word to you but I personally use it because its a friendly gender neutral term that doesn't sound condescending. Like I could refer to someone as friend but I am from the south and thats disrespectful here at least. Its a also a term that to me atleast implies a sense of connection under an oppresive force but I don't think that meaning is often communicated to the other person.
Anarchism and Social Ecology
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A community about anarchy. anarchism, social ecology, and communalism for SLRPNK! Solarpunk anarchists unite!
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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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Quotes
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.
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
Network
It's someone you feel a sense of comradery with. A comrade.
Goodwill and lighthearted rapport between or among friends; comradeship.
Personally I don't use it and dislike it being used for me, because it has too strong ties for me with statist communism plus it feels like folks are saying we aren't friends then (if we are).
I actually prefer another similar but less contentious term: compeer, that I came across thanks to Star Trek Discovery.
I would say comrade is a mix of different things but mostly, someone you feel solidarity towards/with. Friend and brother (in arms) are good substitutes too I guess.
I mostly use it ironically for false friends that pretend to be leftists 😅
But yeah, that's a bit like giving the term to the tankies, which is a pity, as in theory it is a good way to describe people you feel are allies in the many of today's struggles.
"Mister" and "miss" used to be applied to people of higher status than you. A "comrade" is your equal. A comrade is someone who you fight with. During the revolutions of 1848, the revolutionaries, among them the nascent socialist movement, called each other comrades as a result.
The events of 1848 proved extremely influential for the left.
This was before the International split, so all lefties use the word as a consequence.