Authoritarian notions and hackspaces

Authorianism is according to Wikipedia:

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection
of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve
the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, 
separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law

Let’s take that apart. Authorianism rejects political plurality, that means different opinions about politics are not tolerated. People use force to ensure it stays this way. Then the more minor finer points follow:

• Democracy is reduced or not existent

• Separation of powers, the executing organ in a group or community also declares the rules of the community

• Civil liberties are reduced or not existent, at least the freedom to say what you want, will be severly reduced. Because that already is rejected by authoritarianism itself as there is no political plurality, only what the central authority thinks is right.

• The rule of law is reduced or not existent

But the main ones are that people want that different opinions are not tolerated and they are supressed by force.

Interestingly the article on Wikipedia goes then on about violence, that the violence is a consequence of the sole rule of one allowed opinion, as any mediation attempt in the case of disputes by a third party between the regime, the allies, etc. would question the sole rule of that political idea. Being an independent party, to settle disputes would be a sign of political plurality, which can’t exist in an authoritarian system.

Let’s get back to my current fascination with hackerspaces, which is somewhat the result of my trauma with one ¹.

Ask yourself as an inhabitant of a hackerspace: how are conflicts solved in the community?

If the answer is, that it’s a normal thing, that you deal with small conflicts, middle sized conflicts and big conflicts in a more relaxed way, that in one moment people scream at each other, say things which are abrassive during the conflict, but then a mode of peaceful co-existence can be found and at the end of the day. Everybody goes home and knows that he is respected for who they are as a human being, with all their flaws, then you’ll likely have not an authoritarian community.

But the flipside is the authoritarian community, where you in the first place won’t have the right to speak up as you please. Because that could upset the “rules”, “the awareness team” or simply the chairperson. And if you do say what you did or did something, which you know would annoy other people, maybe even out of protest, then threats will be used against you. “There will be consequences for this” is what you will hear. And sometimes if you just follow with the daily, weekly business of a hackerspace, you will then come along of all kinds of expulsions of people, because they did XY or things errupt out of nowhere and the mailinglists or matrix channels are full of people yelling at each other, then maybe tribunals happen and one of the “bad” party members are expelled, because it’s so hard to deal with them in the first place and everybody is “burnt out”.

But the reward for that is and everybody is not confronted in such communities by different opinions. Everybody has a very similar opinion and everybody supports directly or indirectly the violence of the regime. Thoughts as “yeah, X did something wrong, now we need to punish him for that and not speak with him for one month and not let him into our space. That way he will finally learn!” sound like appropriate way of dealing with misfits.

But why does this happen? I think multiple ways are responsible for that.

On one hand there exist outright “natural” authoritarian people, who think violence and not empathy should be used when people misbehave, that they need to function in a group and if they don’t they need to be punished or need to be manipulated like with rewards or praise to get them back in line.

I have met such people and I find them utterly disgusting. And the sad part is, that they think that they are doing good.

Then authoritarian violence is perceived as the last resort. Why is it perceived as the last resort?

Because people are emotionally burnt out, they may come out of a life where people have not perceived themselves much empathy and humanity, so they see no other options as to be authoritarian to other people as they simply see no other option.

And there are those who tried for years a different approach and learnt through experience that a non-authoritarian approach does not “deliver”, if for example one person uses 90% of the time in a hackerspace which say the board can spend at the space for theirs issues or the situations which are caused by their quirks, then it looks reasonable to use violence more. People simply burn out emotionally, are getting numb and tired over it.

I for example was after more than 7 years in a hackerspace, where I was regularly confronted by the anger outbursts of one diabetic person, who moved the whole responsibility of his anger issues to his condition. Or in other words, the person denied any accountability for his anger outbursts or threatening interactions.

And for many many years that person got away with it and did not change at all, when the person was in the room an atmosphere of danger and fear spread. People were to some degree scared of that person, I was too scared. And in the end I wanted that person too banned for eternity from the space.

So very humane reasons why people get into that state of mind of being emotionally tired. The consequence does not pardon people, that authoritarian thinking and methods seem as the only option. It is not the only option.

Authoritarian violence takes many forms, they can be hidden or open. Hidden violence is expressed through bullying, people bully each other into conformity or members of the board of the hackerspace bullies people into conformity. Or the method of decomposition (german Zersetzung) method ² as practiced in the DDR is applied.

Open violence is more honest. People are screamed at, are thrown out, receive threats, “temporary measures” for compliance, etc. Thus the difference is, that you can point your finger on open violence and say this happened. On hidden you can’t, you just wonder why you are now a mess and why you lie in pain.

Both forms are punishment for what someone did. They are supposed to make people comply and to teach a lesson to everybody else too, so that they comply too. And the authoritarian order is not touched or questioned.

Ask yourself: Is it really reasonable to ban people for one week from a matrix channel, if they make one comment, which annoys people?

Is it not a questionable sign, if a moderator of a channel displays enjoyment when administering punishments like “you did X and Y and therefore you earned your two months ban!”?

All that is an authoritarian attitude at display. People need to suffer, they need to be punished for their wrong-doings, so to make them comply to our rules, which may be ill-defined at best, but everybody in power claims that they are crystal clear. Nobody questions the notion of punishing people at all.

Effects of such a moralized attitude towards people has the consequences that people feel worthless. They are only worthy of respect, if they comply to the rules, not because they are human beings who deserve respect for their existence.

Some people, just so that they can still exist in such spaces, will for minor misdeeds exaggerate their punishment. Say they got kicked out for 48 hours and then they’ll kick themselves out for one week, just to show that they are obedient to the authority and their right to punish themselves at will. Hiddenly they hope, that if they do these misdeeds again, they won’t be punished harder, because they demonstrated that they are even more obedient by punishing themselves.

But punishments don’t work.

They work in the sense of stopping something right now for the moment, but punishment does not change people. And any change by coercion hurt people, damages the community and produces normally resentment in the person who is punished. It’s a toxic blunt tool.