📝Comment Highlights - Zaheer and Anarchism

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

Next 2 video coming down the pipe, aiming to get another one out by March probably. The idea here is being able to have a visible place where I can make corrections, and also point out comments with good points. Also just acknowledge failings and omissions of the original video/my presentation. So theres a straightforward way to hold myself accountable. This video is extremely rudimentary, but I have some long term plans for the comment response videos I hope to show y'all. Will be more polished over time, going to get some animated puppetry going and script them out more. Hope y'all can forgive this more sloppy first outing. Thank you all. Now back to reading an opaque philosophy textbooks for a tiny section of an upcoming video. - Zag Also, heres a baby discord I'm gonna start workin from discord.gg/WHhzAHkW

[@aqueercommunist]

looking forward to it

[@corneliusdwyer1824]

"something from an AnCap but they're not anarchist so I'm moving on" 💜

[@SecondhandMousse]

Lmao loved this

[@CosmicJubatus]

16:52

[@marcperez2598]

As an Anarchist, one of my biggest issues with Zaheer is that he claims positions of power disempower the population (I agree) and implies that hierarchy is corrosive (I agree). However, he doesn't empower the public. Instead he literally does the opposite, claiming he is there to save them (creating a position of social power above them which disempowers them) and almost worships a philosopher, thereby creating a hierarchy which is corrosive and blinds him. Furthermore, I dont think its a stretch to argue that his lack of empowering society is part of what enables Kuvira (though I attribute a LOTof her power rise to the Republic). Its not a tyrant thst replaces a vacuum, but rather its organization that replaces instability. Assassinating the power who holds monarchical power creates instability, but without social organization it can and will be exploited by opportunitistic powers. However when social counterorganization exists, there is something to catch a population and for them to cling to (namely the self organization of each other) to stop exploitation. The system of the state requires the consolidation of Anarchic territory, and so Anarchic territories and intermediate periods after social upheaval must be defended by organized community. Zaheer, for all of his supposed enlightenment, fails are understanding not just how oppression forms, but how it is prevented from forming.

[@andrewmirror4611]

I actually don't blame the Republic, in canon they didn't have any frame of reference, it was the first time in centuries a thing like that happened, and probably just the first time ever it was even possible

[@space1546]

Hey, I'm really glad you liked my comments! My pronouns are she/her and I'd be glad to help out with any questions you might have in the future. I spend a lot of time in contexts in my community where anarchist analysis is useful, but using words like anarchism or communism would do more harm than good which meant that I've just been able to get a lot of practice in on explaining the "why" of anarchist critiques, more than being particularly smart. As you can probably imagine, "it's anarchist," is not the greatest way to convince city government to expand bus routes lmao. Also, I'm really glad you're doing these comment response videos. I think that it adds a lot of charm while also being great for adding context to how you think about things rather than building up a facade of things being perfect. I think you have a lot less to worry about than you think you do and I can't wait to see what you make next. As a side note, trying reading Stirner as the same type of economic analysis as Kropotkin or Proudhon is probably where you're getting the disconnect from the quotes and beliefs. Stirner's work was primarily building a consistent moral framework for anarchism in response to the Calvinists who were all the rage in 1800s Germany. He's a better read for learning to combat the ideas of others than to build up on your own. Egoism is kinda like salt, it can improve things significantly in moderation, but having it as your main belief system is the ideological equivalent of trying to take a bite out of rock salt.

[@hopedefiant]

> As you can probably imagine, "it's anarchist," is not the greatest way to convince city government to expand bus routes lmao. This made me laugh so hard. If asked to sort new urbanists of the Strong Towns school into a political box, where would you put them? Also, I'm glad that you're engaging with interesting anarchist channels like this one. It helps very much to have folks that are well-read and practiced in communication being able to drive these conversations forward.

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

Could you DM me on my discord? discord.gg/WHhzAHkW

[@space1546]

@@hopedefiant most new urbanism can be classified into the category of direct action. It is not something that is, necessarily, political, however, by virtue of removing barriers for the disenfranchised, paves the way for leftist movements. The best comparison would be the Spanish CNT. It is, on the surface, apolitical. It's just a collection of unions acting in the best interest of their union members. That changed with scale, however. Eventually, the CNT became large enough that more actions to do things that benefited their members more were available. That meant that, in a time of crisis, anarchism became not just a possibility but a necessity. New urbanists just want better city design, however, the obsticals and benefits mean that, at scale, it will become more leftist, and maybe even anarchist.

[@snapgab]

I don't think it's really fair to call the airbenders in book 4 a "world police". Wasn't the main thing they were initially doing just trying to distribute food? They wound up fighting bandits, but that was because the bandits disrupted their aid network, not because they were being world police.

[@mr.medina9836]

Nice comment video. I really liked your first video. As both a leftist and an Avatar fan, I found that analysis really interesting. Can't wait for your future videos. I'm already subscribed 🙂

[@zyfigamer]

You should read “The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy” by Murray Bookchin. TLDR: it describes a system of federated cities (small ones) in lieu of having regional republics as we do today.

[@joefization]

The ruling class are those who presume to have the right to do things to others which are rightly considered to be violence when those not vested with "authority" preform them. For example, if an average person were to demand one's money, compliance in taking experimental medicine, staying in house arrest, closing one's business, censoring of speech or be threatened with violence, everyone would understand that person is a violent psychopath but when a that person is vested with authority, that wrong supposedly becomes a right. The ruling class is the group who pretends to be the arbiter of truth and master of the people they rule.

[@Ash-Winchester]

Your comment reminds me of something that russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin said: (For reasons of the state) Black becomes white and white becomes black, the horrible becomes the humane and the most dastardly felonies and atrocious crimes become meritorious acts.

[@Redster3]

You actually pinned my comment in the Zaheer and Anarchism video about how I agreed with you and Kuvira and how the bandits and villages was handled and how it seemed like a wasted potential for a political story arc along with the prison camps. I changed and edited a grammar mistake and it removed the pin. I am mad at myself for being a perfectionist. I pretty much said how it felt like there was way more to it and intended that was never disclosed or discussed. Like how it could have been revealed Kuvira or another officer under her authority coerced and cohered the bandits into forcing villages to join the regime and those that do not, including the villages and towns are sent to prison camps, which were also neglected to be shown on how actually tormenting they were. But nothing was done or expressed, just vaguely communicated then dropped.

[@oddjam]

I was going to leave this on the original video but this one came on before I finished. The video was phenomenal btw and I'm so happy I found it; it's a topic I've been talking about for a long time. Thank you! The shows representation of anarchism is better than most things Ive seem, despite a few fairly significant flaws. For example: Zaheer's praxis is not really praxis to an anarchist - a small group of insurgents orchestrating the revolution is not going to create anarchy, that's literally one of anarchism' biggest critiques of the Soviet union and Marxist Leninist ideology. Also propaganda by the deed (high level assassinations) has been rejected outright by anarchists as a form of meaningful praxis. He's a revolutionary first, and an anarchist second and modern anarchists would see his one-track mind as antithetical to anarchism imo. It's almost like Zaheer never read the most notable book in anarchist theory, the conquest of bread - in this book Kropotkin makes the argument that a revolution needs to have it's needs and structures prefigured if you want to build something after the revolution. So Zaheer seems to miss a couple of the most crucial elements of anarchism. I hope this is an oversight by the show creators, and not a deliberate omission. My biggest problem is that the show misunderstands the world itself. You can try to excuse this by saying "well this is the avatar world" but they are still humans, and humans do not behave in the way the show often shows us. I'm not that mad about this, but the message of the show seems to say "look anarchism has some real problems and naivete" but that's really only because the show misunderstands both reality AND the ideologies they represent. I do agree that they creators are probably soc Dems, but that's exactly why they seem to have a blind spot for more left leaning ideologies and exactly why they are compared to literal fascism; it's borderline horseshoe theory AT BEST. So they are liberals, and this explains why they don't get politics despite having a fairly good dictionary understanding of it.

[@corneliusdwyer1824]

Oh good! I was watching the first one and it just stopped and I was worried it was some kind of fever dream...

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

heh, the audio mixing was even worse in that version as was immediately pointed out to me, so i had to boost it some.

[@spencernaugle]

Skip to 0:52 to avoid getting a headache from confusion. 😵😆

[@lukefuller8282]

no critiques or big notes just wanted to say i loved the first video. It recontextualized my viewing of Korra as i was just watching it as an awesome show. Please keep it up. Zaheer is my fav but his inability to witness his harm of the people he's claiming to free ultimately makes it impossible to justify his actions.

[@hopedefiant]

Great vid! It is incredibly charming having Zag's derpy face on screen.

[@Mcwoven]

I love both videos, great work. I have a few comments. Re: Not being able to afford the books. Do you have access to a library? If you aren’t able to get to a library you should be able get a library card online which would allow you to use apps (hoopla and Libby) to borrow ebooks and audio books for free. That’s how I read the books and comics. I think Korra suffered from Nickelodeon interference and limitations and a lack of focus on a central idea like atla had. I wish they had spent the whole series focusing on the equalist movement and/or Zaheer. I’d also push back on your comment that atla endorsed monarchy. I interpreted zuko becoming the fire lord instead of abolishing it as acknowledging that historically it took a long time to abolish monarchies. They still exist today in our world. It would have felt unrealistic to have some teenagers abolish the monarchy without any kind of the situation that lead to the anti-monarch revolutions in our world. I think it’s worth noting that, with the exception of airbending, bending is a hereditary trait. In the avatar world some people are literally born with more powers than others. I think that would reinforce the power of the idea of the divine right of kings. One of the problems I had with zaheer is that while he points out that the avatar has inherited power and therefore is inherently oppressive, he doesn’t acknowledge that benders have the same power over nonbenders, iirc.

[@gingervald8601]

I'm really happy to see another video from you (and more to come!). Here's to you growing to boost other leftist content creators! (side note: there's more people coming in with insightful comments on previous video. It's awesome to see )

[@gardenradioTV]

Good job guy. You're doing it!

[@nunbeam]

I LOVE YOUR STYLE OF ANALYSIS! Can I make a request/offer a video idea? I'd love to see a "Detail Diatribe" style breakdown by you of various types of anarchism with visible media examples of any characters/decisions by characters that are a good example.

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

The primary hurdle for that is the vast swath of anarchism has effectively no media representation done in good faith. This has been a problem I've run into with a lot of video concepts exploring leftist ideas. - Zag

[@valmid5069]

*Great comment analysis! Cant wait for more content!*

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

Glad you enjoyed! - Zag

[@inazuma-fulgur]

Ancaps are so weird, did they try to argue Zaheer shouldda just built capitalism as the ultimate anti hierarchical social system?

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

nah, they weren't even rude or anything either. But the ones I saw who tried to articulate a point weren't very coherent to me. Mostly I was surprised that they identified as An-caps, I thought even they understood they weren't anarchists except in the most etymologically literalist definitions.

[@elka1720]

Do you think it's possible that the reason Zaheer is Like This (by which I mean not articulating a vision of a better world, doing seemingly counterproductive things like capturing the air nomads, lying and betraying people, etc) is that part of him is just out for personal revenge and catharsis and he's built up all this ideological justification in order to avoid having to admit that after 13 years of incarceration he just wants the people responsible and also a bunch of other people to suffer? I think this is a much more boring writing choice if it is the case but that's always how I read his character - as an ideologue whose ideology is conveniently what's most cathartic at the time, but because he's emulating Guru Lahima, it's buried under 10 layers of stoicism. It also brings him much closer to Korra's other villains, whose ideologies have these interpersonal revenge or proving oneself-style dimensions (thinking especially of seasons 1 and 4 here) that make the underlying ideology kind of hard to detach and analyze

[@Lastofthemohaggens]

1:51 to skip the intro

[@ericgabrielbautistajaimes9187]

I love this channel

[@LillyAnarkitty]

When you come out with your next video you should get yourself featured on the Eyeball Zone!

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

Heh I wish! I hope to make something I think is worthwhile to be featured there.

[@DEML91]

People over criticise TLOK specially on the political themes but almost only through the lens of a western view without taking in account that Avatar is very eastern influenced , things are not seen in the same way trough out the world , you can especially see this on the views people have about Vaatu and Raava where they are instantly compared to God and the Devil or Good and Evil but this is never the case even in the show, there is also the issue where Mick and Brian had limited time and resources to work with with limited the stories they wanted to tell , so simplifying this themes was necessary , especially with how much Nickelodeon sabotaged the show.

[@antarath517]

Raava and Vaatu struck me poorly for fitting too neatly into "Raava is good and everything she does is good and Vaatu is bad and everything he does is bad", it started to feel more like a God/Satan dichotomy We've never seen Raava's influence cause, say, stagnancy. We could have seen her trying to push Korra to uphold the Earth Kingdom's monarchy. Vice versa, anything Vaatu's done that was not portrayed as objectively bad was done as a byproduct of other intentions (such as the spirit portals being opened)

[@andrewmirror4611]

Also, a reminder, West did not invent Good vs Evil or even God vs Devil. In fact Christian devil is not even an equal to God. It's likely that the Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism is the baseline for Christianity, and the good/evil dichotomy there is actually very clear

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

Agreed. They seem to want it to be morally neutral with a "positive/negative energy in balance" metaphor. But can't decide if dark = negative energy, or dark = imbalance itself.

[@space1546]

I agree with you for most of the themes of TLOK, but assuming Asian influence makes Zaheer make even less sense. If we look at anarchists in the societies that the ATLA universe takes inspiration from, the role of anarchists have been completely different from Zaheer. If we go for the Earth Kingdom is China, Fire Nation is Japan, Air Nomads are Tibet, and Water Tribes are Inuit, Zaheer would be representative of the Korean People's Association in Manchuria, or KPAM. The KPAM formed because the Chinese Civil War left a power vacuum and people were starving, which lead to an autonomous region that followed anarchist ideals, but was sadly eventually wiped out because they bore the brunt of Japanese attacks on the region. If we say that the Earth Kingdom is broadly allegorical for East-Asia as a whole, then an argument could be made that Zaheer represents the Japanese Anarchist Federation, or JAF. This makes slightly more sense by virtue of them existing to oppose fascism and monarchism, but they were largely non-violent, were often victims of unjust executions, and informally disbanded once the threat of fascism was no longer an issue. Now that we've established that East-Asian influence makes almost no sense, I'd like to point to some uncanny similarities to an anarchist that I doubt we're intentional but show how bad TLOK portrayed anarchism. The indigenous people's of Mexico, in particular the Mayan people, have been under attack by the Mexican government for a long time. Many treaties we're broken, and their sovereignty was at risk. This resulted in the formation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, or EZLN, named after Emilliano Zapata, a general from the Mexican Civil War. Enter Subcomandate Marcos. Marcos was originally a Maoist and when he went to the EZLN in an attempt to help apply his Maosit ideals, he was met with firm rejection because those ideals did not match those of the indigenous tribes. Rather than giving up however, Marcos decided to take a different approach. He listened to the people and learned the beliefs and practices of the indigenous Maya and restructured his own belief system accordingly. As a result, he stumbled upon the works of anarchists, who's ideals of decentralized governance were one to one with the practices of the Maya people in many ways. This allowed for a new frame of reference and centuries of practical application and tactics to be applied. This culminated in 1994, when the passing of NAFTA, a bill that threatened the sovereignty of all indigenous peoples and lands in the country, resulted in the Zapatista uprising and successful establishment of the Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities. Though not without strife, this organization has successfully defended rights and autonomy within an ever growing collection of anarchist communities. The parallels to Zaheer are obvious. Man sees an unjust system and seeks out an oppressed group of indigenous people to help fight a corrupt and dangerous government using anarchism as a framework to do so. Even the assassination part is not entirely untrue, as the EZLN has on multiple occasions had to use the threat of assassinating Mexican government officials as a way to prevent harm on their people. Literally the same situation as what happens in TLOK happened in real life and the anarchists were, not only the good guys, but even won.

[@freyamiles3718]

Your video reminded me of spice8rack's videos which I really enjoy

[@erisstewart4236]

Comment for the algorithm gods.

[@nolongeranobody869]

chilliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

[@hassankhan-jg1dx]

Don’t have much to say. I just wanted to say I really enjoyed your last video and if you decided to continue making video I’d really enjoy it.

[@ZagTheRaccoon]

Thank you, I will! -Zag

[@animecatalog9194]

Do this for all main villains, and you’ll easily get 50k subs

[@spencernaugle]

I guess it's a *little* impractical to react to all 529 comments on the previous video. 🤔 Jk

[@LillyAnarkitty]

And that’s why anarchism is an infeasible pipe dream KEKW /s

[@nehriim3748]

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