The ATS masthead contains the slogan “Pan-Anarchism Against, Pan-Secessionism Against the Empire” which is merely an expression of a very simple concept, and which is predictably misunderstood by many people (because many people are dumbasses).

Pan-anarchism (which I also call “anarcho-pluralism”) is an umbrella term for all forms of hyphenated-anarchism, plus cousin ideologies philosophies (from council communism to Molinarians to Nietzcheans), historical trajectories of the kind outlined by anarchist historians like Max Nettlau and Peter Marshall plus some peripheral extraneous concepts, with a recognition of the legitimacy of all forms of voluntary, organic forms of social organization, from hunter-gather indigenous tribes in the Amazon to proposals for seasteads and space colonies.

Pan-secessionism is merely an idea where the local breaks away from the central, and the small breaks away from the large. This could certainly include territorial secession, but it could also include non-territorial “panarchist” governments, general strikes, counter-economics, dual power, startup societies, intentional communities, alternative infrastructure, temporary autonomous zones, bolo’bolos, cryto-currencies, illegalism, and other concepts that are already popular with many anarchists.

But given the pathetic state of the intellectual quality and character of the anarchist and general libertarian and anti-authoritarian milieus, it seems we need an additional concept that I will call “Pan-Socratism Against Dogma.” Clearly, many if not most people in these milieus, and other forms of fringe politics or alternative culture, not to mention the mainstream, have no concept of what it means to be a Socratic thinker. Instead, most of these sub tendencies are merely modern variations of the sectarian religious tendencies that battled for hegemony in Europe during the early modern period before the necessity of separation of religion and state (or at least religious toleration) came to be comprehensively recognized in the West. For the most part, the Western world has religion/state separation and/or religious toleration (the East and the Global South are a different story). What we now need is separation of politics, culture, and state.