Anarchism or Bust
Anarchy is lawlessness, disorder, and chaos, or so it is portrayed in popular culture. This became abundantly clear to me last night while I was escaping the heat at the movies. At the climax of a mind numbing action thriller, the super evil villain, the Joker, calls himself an anarchist. I immediately turned to my friend, and in a not so quite voice said, “that’s not what anarchism is!?” I was shocked at my own poor movie theatre etiquette and my strong reaction has triggered some reflections.
This seems to be a hot topic word for me this summer. I have recently been submersed in anarchist literature, both locally and internationally published materials. I like what they have to say, they propose more order than the chaotic situations in which we currently find ourselves. likewise, I have found the most kind and accepting people in this city are people I have meet with similar ideas of forming our own system of living. Still, the idea of producing our own food, laws, happiness and a self-authoritarian society in which each persons’ skills are valued and important, seems to be a paradigm that lies just out of the boundaries of everyday thought.
It’s a well known pattern that people fear what they do not understand. Anarchy proposes redistributing power from the few to the many. It is easy to see how the masses could be fed ideas about ‘chaotic potential’ of this ideology and why those in power would like to keep it that way. However, there is hope: my experience with anarchism on the ground here in
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