What the hell is an Anarchist anyway?

ANARCHY


Anarchy means without dominance. It is a state of freedom or the ultimate liberatory experience. Simply put, it means living free, working together cooperatively, practicing mutual aid, and not being exploitative or authoritative

It is not a economic system or a political platform. Anarchy is thinking for yourself. It is an individual orientation towards yourself and others - a personal approach to life. Anarchy is the decision to think for yourself rather than following blindly. It is the rejection of hierarchy, a refusal to accept the "god given" authority of any nation, law, or other force as being more significant than your own authority over yourself. It would be an instinctive distrust of those who claim to have some sort of rank or status above the others around them, and an unwillingness to claim such status over others for yourself. Most of all, it would be a refusal to place responsibility for yourself in the hands of others: it would be the demand that each of us be able to choose our own destiny.

According to this definition, there are a great deal more anarchists than it seems, though most wouldn't refer to themselves as such. For most people, when they think about it, want to have the right to live their own lives, to think and act as they see fit. Most people trust themselves to figure out what they should do more than they trust any authority to dictate it to them. Almost everyone is frustrated when they find themselves pushing against faceless, impersonal power.

You don't want to be at the mercy of governments, bureaucracies, police, or other outside forces, do you? Surely you don't let them dictate your entire life. Don't you do what you want to, what you believe in, at least whenever you can get away with it? In our everyday lives, we all are anarchists. Whenever we make decisions for ourselves, whenever we take responsibility for our own actions rather than deferring to some higher power, we are putting anarchy into practice. So if we are all anarchists by nature, why do we always end up accepting the domination of others, even creating forces to rule over us? Wouldn't you rather figure out how to coexist with your fellow human beings by working it out directly between yourselves, rather than depending on some external set of rules? Remember, the system they accept is the one you must live under: if you want your freedom, you can't afford to not be concerned about whether those around you demand control of their lives or not.

We should put the anarchist "ideal" (no masters, no slaves) into effect in our daily lives however we can. Every time one of us remembers not to accept the authority of the powers that be at face value, each time one of us is able to escape the system of domination for a moment, that is a victory for the individual and a blow against hierarchy.

Do you still believe that a hierarchy-free society is impossible? There are plenty of examples throughout human history: the bushmen of the Kalahari desert still live together without authorities, never trying to force or command each other to do things, but working together and granting each other freedom and autonomy. Sure, their society is being destroyed by our more warlike one—but that isn't to say that an egalitarian society could not exist that was extremely hostile to, and well-defended against, the encroachments of external power! William Burroughs writes about an anarchist pirates' stronghold a hundred years ago that was just that.

If you need an example closer to your daily life, remember the last time you gathered with your friends to relax on a Friday night. Some of you brought beer, some of you brought entertainment, some provided other things, but nobody kept track of who owed what to whom. You did things as a group and enjoyed yourselves; things actually got done, but nobody was forced to do anything, and nobody assumed the position of chief. We have these moments of non-capitalist, non-coercive, non-hierarchical interaction in our lives constantly, and these are the times when we most enjoy the company of others, when we get the most out of other people, but somehow it doesn't occur to us to demand that our society work this way, as well as our friendships and love affairs. Sure, it's a lofty goal to ask that it does—but let's dare to reach for high goals, let's not fucking settle for anything less than the best in our lives! Each of us only gets a few years on this planet to enjoy life; let's do it.

Anarchy is the revolutionary idea that no one is more qualified than you are to decide what your life will be.


—It means not valuing any system or ideology above the people it purports to serve, not valuing anything theoretical above the real things in this world. It means fighting for ourselves and for each other, not out of "responsibility," not for "causes" or other intangible concepts.

—It means not trying to force yourself to abide by any external laws, not trying to restrict your emotions to the predictable or the practical, not pushing your instincts and desires on others.

—It means refusing to put the responsibility for your happiness in anyone else's hands. It means taking the pursuit of meaning and joy in your life upon your own shoulders.

For what else should we pursue, if not happiness? If something isn't valuable because we find meaning and joy in it, then what could possibly make it important? Should we serve employers, the State, God, capitalism, moral law before ourselves? Who was it that taught you we should, anyway?

This is not about theories or formulas, heroes or biographies, it's about your life. Anarchy is what matters, everywhere it appears, not armchair anarchism, the specialists' study of freedom! There are self-proclaimed anarchists who never experienced a day of anarchy in their lives and we should know how much to trust them on the subject!

So how will the anarchist utopia work? That's a question we'll never again be duped into disputing over, a red herring if there ever was one! This isn't a Utopian vision, or a program or ideal to serve; it's simply a way of proceeding, of approaching relationships, of dealing with problems now, surely we'll never be entirely through dealing with problems! Being an anarchist doesn't mean believing that anarchy, let alone anarchism, can fix everything it just means acknowledging it's up to us to work things out, that no one and nothing else can do this for us, admitting that, like it or not, our lives are in our hands!

Anarchism can serve as an important historical reference point from which to draw inspiration and lessons.

Most anarchists and "revolutionaries" spend a significant portion of their time developing schemes and mechanisms for production, distribution, adjudication, and communication between large numbers of people, in other words, the functioning of a complex society. But not all anarchists accept the premise of global (or even regional) social, political, and economic coordination and interdependence, or the organization needed for their administration. We reject mass society for practical and philosophical reasons. We do not wish to run society, or organize a different society, we want a completely different frame of reference. We want a world where each group is autonomous and decides on its own terms how to live, with all interactions based on affinity, free and open, and non-coercive. We want a life which we live, not one which is run. Mass society brutally collides not only with autonomy and the individual, but also with the earth. It is simply not sustainable (in terms of the resource extraction, transportation, and communication systems necessary for any global economic system) to continue on with, or to provide alternative plans for a mass society. Again, radical de-centralization seems key to autonomy and providing non-hierarchical and sustainable methods of subsistence.