Anarchy
Anarchy is or could be a state
of affairs advocated by anarchists in which individuals acting separately
but with expedient consideration for each other, acting together only
when absolutely necessary (voluntarily and cooperatively rather than
under any leader), but usually acting alone, could theoretically make
a better life than is likely under the authority of any special interest
group masquerading as a benign government.
That's MY definition, and I'm quite sure it's a good
one, though, of course, I know that it bears little resemblance to the
very negative definitions of anarchy and anarchism found
in most dictionaries, written by philologists who don't seem to have
much respect for anarchists, It may not perfectly correlate, either,
with the actually respectable theory held by anarchists themselves of
ideal (what I'd call south-sea-island) anarchism. And it isn't even
relevant to the real-world, not very ideal but almost all-pervasive,
existing state of ("Look, Ma, no hands!") anarchy, for which no definition
or theory is needed; all you have to do is look around you.
In the 50's, when I was very young, I enjoyed
the company of several other young men who called themselves anarchists
in the ideal sense or (if they didn't know the word) at least professed
an outlook that amounted to anarchism. So did I. And I still do in a
way, but only as qualified below.
As a civilized person, I view the voluntary restraint
of anarchic or natural impulse in favor of a commitment to a social
contract or a rationally contrived civil state as the best course. But
I acknowledge that anarchy not only came first, it's still our most
basic nature and acknowledgement of that fact is a necessary starting
point for realistic philosophy. Furthermore, in the existing world,
anarchic tendencies are not voluntarily but forcefully restrained
by semi-civil mechanisms called countries which aren't in fact rationally
contrived civil states (see Civil State).
But even though those existing mechanisms are so clumsily and dishonestly
contrived (actually to control everyone BUT a few greedy and cynical
insider anarchists) that THEY (the countries) may be the worst of all
options, mature philosophy has to hold well organized civilization (if
we could achieve it) as preferable to anarchy.
My own concept of Enclavismo
may smack of anarchy, but it's not. It's only a psychological strategy
of individual escape not from the civilization of my dreams but from
the existing mess. Generally, I don't think of anarchy as an ideal anymore,
and it dismays me to encounter men my age who still call themselves
anarchists.
AGAIN; Anarchy (or rather anarchism) is the theory
that individuals acting separately but with expedient consideration
for each other, acting together only when absolutely necessary (voluntarily
and cooperatively rather than under any leader), but usually acting
alone, will make a better life than they will under the authority of
any special interest group masquerading as a benign government.
That DOES make sense, and anarchy could work
just as anarchists wishfully think it could on an ecologically healthy
island, preferably semi-tropical, with a human population of a very
few habitually inoffensive (i.e. temperamentally civilized) but tough
minded intellectuals all well rounded in survival skills. It might even
work with a hundred or more such people (depending on the size of the
island), though I doubt it. But the difficulties of transitioning INTO
and maintaining such a situation would definitely increase with the
numbers, and any mix of uncivilized types into the population would
probably fatally undermine it. In fact, with something less than a hundred
people on an average island of, say, less than a hundred square miles,
some contradictory ground rules would be needed and an at least initial
conceptual clarification and acceptance (i.e. tacitly contractual, i.e.
tacitly organizational) phase would be unavoidable, and the number requiring
a prohibitively difficult initial conceptual consensus achievement AND
an insidious semi-secret (strenuously denied) ongoing control mechanism
wouldn't be very large at all.
Of course, the fewer participants there were and the
more naturally civilized all the participants were, the easier it would
be. But this is all just interesting theoretical reflection because,
as it actually stands, there are billions of people on this ruined planet
(ruined as much by capitalist anarchy as by overcrowding by the way)
and most of them are philosophically deprived and enough are prone to
barbarism or cunning conspiracies to ensure that, without wise leadership
and very effective organization, barbarism and opportunism of all sorts
will prevail - including exploitation and slavery. In fact, that's the
way it is. If an ideal anarchic colony springs up in the midst of things
as they are, it must be impossibly isolated, or it must immediately
go into a defensive communal mode and start waging a war of extermination
on the rest of humanity, a course that would certainly obscure the virtues
of anarchism and would probably cancel its principles.
I can easily envision a desirable anarchic situation
(words like state or arrangement or maybe even community
are contradictory to the concept of anarchism), but I can also easily
imagine it going astray, since naturally barbaric and stupid individuals
cannot be prevented from violating the rules (hmm) of anarchy except
through some organized means, and it's inevitable that undesirable special
interest groups would come together who could wield organization against
pure anarchists like a WMD against primitives. This was all proven in
the small political pudding of Pitcairn Island, and there's plenty of
proof in the general, world-sized pudding.
My own concept of enclavismo is as close
as I'm willing to go to the principles of anarchy, and it's not anarchy.
It's what other realists have called a separate peace. I and my friends
avoid the rules of society when we can and follow them without necessarily
respecting them when we have to, but we have rules of our own which
often duplicate society's rules. And we do not foolishly disavow the
value of organization. Anarchists have no example of their theory working
out. Meanwhile, the best example I know of in which millions of people
live a good life is the very well organized (not at all anarchic) island
of Cuba.
-Glen Roberts
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