The Patient Anarchist
In the proper and precise meaning of the term, I am an anarchist. I’m not interesting in overthrowing anything, I think breaking and burning are criminal and barbaric, and I’m very certainly not a communist. I simply recognize the fact that living beneath rulers has not been a blessing to mankind.
I almost never use the term anarchist, simply because it has been abused for so long, by both enemies and supposed friends. Voluntaryist is a better word, coming as it does from the base of philosophy rather than politics, but I don’t much use that one either; I dislike tags.
Nor do I wish to place the blame for all human problems upon rulers and rulership; that’s false and unfair. We have plenty of undeveloped virtues and plenty of issues to be resolved quite separate from government, and there are in fact a few people wandering around who would be rotten with or without governments. It’s both false and misleading to blame it all on rulers.
Impatient anarchists are very often looking for someone to blame, for something to steal, or for some type of recognition. The world will someday leave rulers behind, but only once most people are ready for it, and that time must come organically, not by force. The necessary recognition and fortitude must grow into place.
The arguments people make to defend rulership – explanations of why a few must rule over millions – are really very thin and reactionary. That is, they’re not intended to find the truth, but rather to make any slander on the state go away... to shut down the questioning.
All the defenses of the state can be countered, of course. Myself and a surprising number of others have dealt with them for decades and I’ve yet to hear one that actually stood up. Arguing about such things, however, is mostly a waste. Everyone knows governments are deeply problematic; in fact they complain about them almost daily. They’re just stuck within an assumption that nothing else is possible.
In reality this fixation on rulership is a fixation on hierarchies and the safe slots they promise. The great illustration of this is the Exodus story. After the Israelites were miraculously delivered from harsh slavery, they soon began complaining that Moses was uncertain and unreliable: As for this man, Moses, we know not what has become of him.
The real issue was safety within a hierarchy. The Hebrews saw Egypt and its ways as solid. Moses had given them actual freedom, but it was deeply troubling to them: Egypt provided fixed positions within a rigid structure; Moses and his God did not.
This remains the core issue even today. In the view of the free-floating Israelites and in the feelings of most of our neighbors, the promise of certainty, even a painful certainty, was preferable to standing apart from structure… is preferable to being without a slot in a structure.
Leo Tolstoy made an important point when he wrote this:
The Anarchists are right in everything... They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power… There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.
That’s where the real action is; the moral upgrading of us all is the path forward. And somewhere along that path, people will realize that governments are merely variations on primate troops and that their fundamentals are badly askew; then they will take a direct look at the facts and decide that they can do better.
That’s when a vountaryist world – a decentralized world centered on the golden rule – will take shape, and not before.
We humans are organisms rather than machines; our path forward must likewise be organic and not forced. We must be patient. Sorry.
Hi Tim,
I don't particularly avoid libertarian, I just don't have much need for it these days. It's a lot less specific than it used to be, since the younger and less rigid libertarians are often on the anarchist side. Old joke:
Q: What's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist?
A: About six years, if you're paying attention.
A goodly number have also shifted toward MAGA.
On getting there: I didn't get into this in the post, but getting there is an incremental thing, and we're already there in large areas of life: A healthy family lives decentralized and by the golden rule. Lots of clubs, Little Leagues and so on do similarly. Lot s of small businesses are pretty close. And so on.
As for predatory types grabbing the reigns, well... that's been here for a long, long time... it's the situation we're trying to exit from.
Cheers!
That all make perfect sense to me. Thanks for expressing it so well.
You don't use the word libertarian. I have some idea of why not, but if you have a sec, I'd like to read why you avoided that word.
You write: "Everyone knows governments are deeply problematic; in fact they complain about them almost daily. They’re just stuck within an assumption that nothing else is possible." That is very true. But you also write, "The world will someday leave rulers behind, but only once most people are ready for it, and that time must come organically, not by force." The second quote expresses succinctly where you are at, I'm assuming. But really, when you compare the 2 quotes, aren't you, as exemplified by the second quote, in the same space as the people described in the first quote? You are looking forward to a better day, a freer day, but you agree we are not ready for it yet, not without a spiritual upgrade which will come only in time. What you've expressed is exactly where I am at. I'm thinking and definitely hoping we can get by someday without governments because we will all respect one another's freedom and agency, and will all be willing to help people who fall into bad circumstances and need a helping hand. But I don't think we're there yet, and if we try to do it before we're there, some more predatory types, who have not organically evolved enough, will be glad to step in and assume the reins.