Anarchism is Counter Intuitive, I Understand

Online discussions always reap inspiration:

“Your mecca does exist. There is a place where the government is basically nonexistent. The few police have no power, whatsoever. People rule and are in charge of their own well being. It's called the DR Congo. I mean, sure, it's rape and murder capital of the world. Cannibalism is kind of a problem. Guerrilla warfare, sexual mutilation and kidnapping are pretty rampant, but the important thing is: they love anarchy, too! I think it's working well for them.”

How many years of religious (both ancient African and Christian religion) and colonial oppression have the people of Africa suffered? I don't suppose any of that has anything to do with the state if the Congo. As far as all the crime examples and violence, Detroit and Chicago are far more dangerous than certain parts of Africa. Do you know that in 1982, in Miami, Florida, USA, the entire police academy graduating class was dead or in prison a decade later? The majority of it the result of a drug war declared by...? You guessed it: US government. You can't blame crime and violence on lack of police or laws. In fact, logic says, if you don't pass laws, there is no crime.

“So your solution is decriminalize things such as murder and rape and then all of our problems are solved? That's logic? That's great. We can all escape murders and rapes on our unicorns. There was violence long before there were laws. That's human nature.”

I believe in consensus. Has law stopped murder and rape? Law has had roughly 150,000 years to prove it is a worthy of saving us from rape and murder... how's that working out for you? You know what has slowed ALL violence over its entire tenure? Education. Education creates empathy. Empathy leads to the realization of an idea that Buddha uttered over a thousand years before Christ: “Treat one another as you wish to be treated,” a simple idea wrapped around education and empathy. We live in a world becoming less and less violent. That is a fact. And the reasons are education and understanding. Human nature has nothing to do with violence. Human nature is anchored in survival and once we all abandon punishment (because science is learning that we really have no control over ourselves) and denial of resources due to lack of capital, we will be a better people.

I understand that to most folks who haven’t taken the time to study it at length, anarchy seems as ridiculous as evolution seems to those have yet to study and understand it. We generally consider ignorance pejorative. Please don’t look at it as such. Educate yourself.

Suggested reading: 


In Defense of Anarchism by Robert Paul Wolff This is the quintessential introduction to the arguments against all other forms of governance and the ultimate defense of anarchism as personal philosophy.   

Demanding the Impossible by Peter Marshall (not to be confused with an equally brilliant book by Slavoj Žižek) 

Mutual Aid by Pyotr Kropotkin

Chomsky On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky, Barry Pateman

Anarchism by Daniel Guérin, Noam Chomsky