Why do anarchists attack the Left?

Question

Don't most proletarians ally themselves with either the Left or the Right? I understand a critique of Leftist forms of organizing...

If most of society thinks of itself as either Left or Right (and yeah binaries are dumb) don't anarchists come off as just wanting to attack society?

Answer 1

Because the organizational forms of the left are nearly always counter-revolutionary.  The organizations and their management should be destroyed  and we should reach out to their supporters, members, or rank and file.

In the left I see a lot of people with no institutional power trying to do something they think is good, and an elite managing and channeling that feeling to amass power to themselves for their own purposes.  The organizational forms of the left are about controlling the righteous indignation of a dominated population.

'Society' is not synonymous with a population.  Society is a thing that you are accepted to or rejected from.  Something with an inside and an outside, a center and a margin.  Under the social relations of Capitalism, society is a part of the problem.  It should be attacked, disrupted, subverted, and ruined.

I see myself as being on the left, but I recognize that there are a lot of pissed off proles out there who aren't left or right because they know that no one is talking any sense for how to get out of this current bullshit.

Answer 2

I don't think most of "society" actually does explicitly identify with "the Left" or "the Right", but regardless anarchists seek to critique and dismantle hierarchical power regardless of name or direction. Anarchists I know recognize in the dominant society various institutionalized and everyday forms of domination, exploitation and alienation, which we actively oppose, which one could interpret as us "wanting to attack society".

In case anyone wants to re-hash post-left anarchist critique:
1 - http://anarchy101.org/1312/what-are-some-definitive-post-left-texts
2 - http://anarchy101.org/1347/according-to-post-leftists-what-defines-the-left