That things “just go on” is the catastrophe – Walter Benjamin
Have you ever walked down a street in a gentrified neighborhood with your overpriced decaf oat milk latte while munching on a croissant, during daylight on a weekday because you live in a country with great welfare and can afford to work only part-time—only to be struck by the realization that you are actually an anarcho-feminist?
No? Well, then you are not me. (or are you?)
I once read in a Hungarian paper that shit doesn’t explode even when it reaches the critical amount. It was descriptive then, and there was no explosion so it still is now. The article was about the Hungarian healthcare system—how, despite the constant fear that it might collapse, it had, in fact, already collapsed. That phrase captures exactly how I feel about the world: held together by thin strips of duct tape, while the original design was already flawed. There is no bright future in sight, and I have no faith in either the state or the market to resolve inequality. The family structure, to me, is nothing more than the institutionalized oppression of women. A handful of narcissistic man-children hold the controller and want to watch the same old story, but this time in 5K.
I know people who think similarly, but I exist in a bubble of burned-out immigrants—critical, disillusioned, having fled their homelands only to find new disappointments elsewhere. I love them, but are we right about this, or are we just trauma-bonding naysayers, stuck in our own cycle of negativity? How much of our criticism is just a projection of our depression onto world affairs?
“Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion.” — Kierkegaard
Maybe Kierkegaard exaggerates for poetic effect, and an even bigger exaggeration is claiming that I am in the minority. Yet today, I had a moment of clarity—I felt I looked more in-depth into myself and I granted myself a vision of a utopia I long longed for. Despite not having thrown a Molotov cocktail onto a Tesla (they sure are the new BMW), It still feels right to connect the dots of my life on a political level as well. Like why I’ve always condemned hetero-monogamous relationships, why I don’t find any career in this world satisfactory, why I put my small community of friends first. Why I believe that one of the most transformative human experiences must be the loss of the ego, even for a short moment, and feeling one with the world and with others. I seek real equality. If the state has failed us, if the market has failed us, if the family structure has failed us, if the urban jungle is hostile and unproviding—then what utopia remains other than faith in anarchy and the hope of a coming insurrection?
Just my thought between two bites of crispy croissants on Women’s Day.
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