Anarchism's laboratory is the whole of life. - Cindy Milstein

This is the essence of a good society: that people are able to feel goodness in themselves and each other as much as possible; that even when things are difficult or life is painful, people have the support of others; that the ways we get things done are also the ways we carve out spaces to fully see and appreciate each other. And have fun.

Anarchists design modest experiments with grand goals to allow people to meet their needs and desires, be ecological, craft new social relations, set up spaces and organizations, and make decisions together—all in nonhierarchical ways. These are partial experiments, sometimes short-lived, especially given the force of the current systems of domination. Yet they form a tangible fabric of horizontalist innovation. [...] The idea is that people establish counterinstitutions as well as lifeways that gain enough force—because they capture the hearts, minds, and participation of enough people—to ultimately exist on a level with, or finally in victorious contestation to, centralized power.

"We're only human," the saying goes, but our humanity is profoundly damaged by the alienated world of control that we inhabit. Anarchism contends that people would be much more humane under nonhierarchical social relations and social arrangements.