If anarchists are anarchists, they shouldn't be cowed by "top down" rules, they should be able to find a way round them, to suit themselves, without destroying themselves. So that it's "not easy" to change countries shouldn't stop an "anarchist" because they're all about negotiation, personal responsibility and choice, and freedom right? Anarchists shouldn't be people crying in the streets how unfair it is that "big brother" is ruining their pathetic little lives. They should be the men and women of action, calculating and executing their next move for their maximum benefit, and possibly for humankind too.

And if it's voluntary, isn't everything voluntary? I voluntarily accept the social contract, or I end up in jail. I voluntarily accept the laws of physics, or I end up maimed or worse. Voluntary speaks to choice, which everyone has. But negotiated...I don't expect most sharehouses (or workplaces, or schools, or whatever) that you enter as a fresher will make their rules negotiable to you. But to another extent, in "advanced" society, the "law" is negotiable through he courts and lawyers, and blackmail, and in "less developed" society, negotiable through bribes and so on. I don't get where anarchism fits in.

It seems like, either it's something that doesn't make sense (no rules) but people believe it zealotly and use it as disguise for violence, or it's something that can work (rules and choice) but not something that works as some standalone organizing principle of a society that is somehow in opposition to the world today. I mean if anarchism is against society, isn't that oxymoron, because if you're anarchist, you can just exercise your choice and negotiate your way to a better situation for yourself? So you don't have to "change the world" just bend it to how you want it locally.

Am I being too sophist? I don't think so but I seem to be missing some point to anarchism. I might just not get what anarchism is, or maybe I don't want to get it. But it seems like it doesn't make sense to me.

It might be me, but anarchy seems to be having an identity crisis.