Anarchic Living
by Doug Ogilvie (e-mail: [email protected]) [January 25th, 2004]Most people dislike being typed, even though typologies are essential for any understanding.
To be human is to classify particulars according to a general value-system, and to then behave accordingly.
“Despite our personal peculiarities, all anarchists share the one common, core, belief; that consensual diversity is good and social engineering (i.e. the violation of the citizen's right to self-sovereign decision-making) is not.” The challenge is to learn to classify correctly. In fact, the quality of our living is determined by the value system we are using, for deciding, at the time.
Unfortunately, most of us still think parochially, in terms of good-bad stereotypes, such as management versus labour, terrorists versus patriots, greenies versus developers, theists versus atheists and/or royalists versus republicans, In that way we cut across the grain of mankind's key difference and so make no significant improvement to the way the genus lives.
Although this has not yet have been reported by the pundits, the division that divides mankind, irreconcilably, into its two, contradictory, species, is the one that differentiates the meek (aka the consensus-seeking anarchists) from the self-righteous (aka the corporate managerialists, of church, academe, commerce, media, state and multi-state). When we think in terms of this radical dichotomy we begin to slice along the grain of mankind's great, qualitative, division and begin to differentiate, correctly, between the age-old qualities that troubled Eve and Adam and their bossy-booted God; "good" and "evil".
Members of the ruling-classes, of church and state, normally denigrate the idea of anarchy by defining it as lawlessness. However, genuine anarchists are self-disciplined adults who believe in obeying the anarchic code of good behaviour; "from each according to inherited and developed talent and to each according to expressed need, for the welfare of the whole community."
It is because anarchists think of themselves, holistically, as tenants-in-common of one homeland, the living earth, that they believe in this "golden rule" of voluntary mutual-aid within a global family of self-sovereign peers.
Some who exemplify this faith are gnostics, like Jesus really was. Others are scientists, like Bakunin and Kropotkin were. Others are artists, like Picasso. All are pro-free choice, as either sovereign individuals or consensually-consenting adults, concerning matters of ideological disagreement such as diet, drugs, abortion, religion, euthanasia, birth control, commercial sex, homosexuality, monogamy, nudity and wankery.
My guess is that half of us are capable of sharing the earth, and her resources, and our talents, in this good anarchic way.
Despite our personal peculiarities, all anarchists share the one common, core, belief; that consensual diversity is good and social engineering (i.e. the violation of the citizen's right to self-sovereign decision-making) is not; which is why we are rubbished by the dogmatists who belong to political parties, pressure groups and religious sects. They think, deludedly, that human progress is caused by those in roles of government who, when elected, selected or self-appointed, are entitled to violate citizen autonomy in order to "do good", as they define the term in their particular typology.
As long as we ignore this irreconcilable difference between these two ideological species of generic man, we are missing the point of it all, a bit like bullocks in a brothel.
So it is informative to ascertain who benefits most from censoring, from the public psyche, this notion of a "great divide"; and to understand both how they operate and how they are to be undone.
But don't look for father-figures to give you patronizing guidance and detailed direction. If we decide to travel up this narrow track, past the apocalyptic change in consciousness, to a better way of being human, then we have to work out, and implement, the particulars ourselves, self-responsibly but hopefully cooperatively, in our own everyday lives.
As we come now to the end of capitalism's 200 years cycle, wherein "greed and growth are classed as good", and the beginning of a better type of global order, good-willed anarchists are interconnecting as one global family; relying as little as possible on the institutionalised world outside their informal network, especially its governments, media and money, while perfecting the craft of mutual-aid among themselves.
The anarchistic world-wide-web is an invaluable tool for doing this.
Eventually, after attracting hostile attention from the authorities in charge of man-made institutions, and their agents, this extended family can be expected to reach a critical mass that will subvert the corporate bodies, and the values, of the governing class(es). Without resort of aggressive violence, as distinct from self-defence and civil-disobedience, we will make their world untenable, and enable the new world order of Consensual Diversity to emerge, instead. The only other option is illustrated by the New World Order that's envisaged by the suits, such as Bush, Howard and Blair, i.e. more and worse of the same old silly shit.
Anarchists are gathering, both in numbers and in strength, and you'll meet a lot of them, and their adversaries, wherever mankind's old elite next meets, as the W.T.O., W.E.F., G-8, O.P.E.C., I.M.F. or World Bank.
How this ideological confrontation ends, comrades and others, will be the big news of this decade.
Resources and Avenues for Further Study
Strike The Root: Taoism and Anarchy: The Ancient Way to a Modern Freedom Google Directory: Society: Politics: Liberalism: Libertarianism: Anarcho-Capitalism