This is a transcript of a piece of graffiti that I found while walking home from uni this afternoon.
Ⓐ=peace.
First of all, before you ask, Ⓐ is the international symbol for anarchy, along with a black flag. The black flag refers to the non nationalist, non united nature of anarchy, that they don't fit don't go together in a national sense and so therefore don't use a identifiable flag. The Ⓐ itself comes from a quote, Anarchy Is Order, so it is an A inside an O and is the most well known symbol of the anarchist movement. So I thought it would be a good time to discuss anarchy as a movement and as a concept.
Anarchy as a movement is defined by the belief that a compulsory government is unnecessary, undesirable, but more than that, it is harmful. Anarchy has also become synonymous with chaos, although, the two are not mutually inclusive. Chaos may be a method that an anarchist uses to achieve his or her goals, but it is not the explicit aim of the anarchist. Instead, anarchy, is intended to both challenge repressive power and promote freedom and self-autonomy. These seem like admirable goals, and indeed, I agree with the concept to an extent. The problem comes when the goals are achieved. With self-autonomy comes complete self-governance which means that the only things that are required of you are what you require of yourself. This leads to sociopathy, which is considered a serious mental illness. Sociopathy is where you do what amuses you, when it pleases you, regardless of the consequences. Fortunately there aren't many true sociopaths, and many of those who have some sociopathic tendencies are either too scared to do what they want, or to dumb to be able to do anything with any level of intelligence and get caught quickly. With the removal of external governance, everyone becomes a sociopath, maybe not in the accepted meaning of the word, but none the less, people will do what they want, when they want - sociopathy.
Before I go on, I had better clarify something. I believe that a certain amount of true anarchy is required in any well functioning government system. To some extent, the job of the opposition party is to be anarchists. At some level, someone needs to challange what the government says so that thought will be applied to the decision that is being made. If there is no thought, and the government simply does what it thinks is best, then bad decisions are guaranteed to be made. Bad decisions will still be made, but there will be less of them, and the mistakes will be smaller. However, this does not mean that I condone anarchy as a system. It has its place, but its place is not as the majority rule (or unrule) or a nation. Its place is in challenging the government, good or bad.
Now that I've said that, Ⓐ≠Peace. Lets take a very basic definition of peace - the absence of war (although I have in the past said that this is not an accurate definition, check here for details, especially at the end of the post). The achieved goal of anarchy has been documented in history. The bible (and I'm using it as a historic text, not for any other purpose. The happenings here have been confirmed by other historical documents of the time) describes what happens when there is no established rule. Judges continually says that "In those days, Israel had no king." Then we read about things like genocide, rape, mutilation, fratricide, murder, kidnapping, wholesale slaughter, and the list goes on. "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit" are the last words in the book. It doesn't sound like peace to me. Even with our basic definition of peace, when we aren't reading about these exploits, we are reading about pitched battles and armies lining up to fight. Ⓐ≠Peace. It can help in leading to peace, but it of itself is not peace. It can help to challenge the established order of things where war is a past-time for the men of high command, or an economic boost for a country, but even there, the main work needs to be done by an established government. We can see anarchy at work in countries like Afghanistan or Iraq where the established government, as brutal or evil as in may have been (I am not passing judgement, merely passing on the views of many people) was removed and a power vacuum put in its place. These two countries went from having law and order to nothing in a matter of weeks or months. Now Afghanistan may be a lot better than it was, but it still isn't great, and Iraq is definitely not anything to be proud of.
If we want to take a less basic and more accurate definition of peace, I would put forward that it is probably more about stability and strength combined. Anarchy of itself requires either an absence of strength or a weakness from the upper echelons of society, especially in the rule of society. So there peace and anarchy are opposed, but what about the stability. Yes I will grant that anarchy used well can assist stability in either a region or a group, but it requires more finesse than most people possess.
In a way, the anarchist movement is like a dog that chases cars. It chases and chases, the knowledge that it won't achieve anything always in the back of its mind, but it keeps trying regardless. Then one day, it does make a victory, and then it doesn't know what do to with it.
Anarchy as a movement is defined by the belief that a compulsory government is unnecessary, undesirable, but more than that, it is harmful. Anarchy has also become synonymous with chaos, although, the two are not mutually inclusive. Chaos may be a method that an anarchist uses to achieve his or her goals, but it is not the explicit aim of the anarchist. Instead, anarchy, is intended to both challenge repressive power and promote freedom and self-autonomy. These seem like admirable goals, and indeed, I agree with the concept to an extent. The problem comes when the goals are achieved. With self-autonomy comes complete self-governance which means that the only things that are required of you are what you require of yourself. This leads to sociopathy, which is considered a serious mental illness. Sociopathy is where you do what amuses you, when it pleases you, regardless of the consequences. Fortunately there aren't many true sociopaths, and many of those who have some sociopathic tendencies are either too scared to do what they want, or to dumb to be able to do anything with any level of intelligence and get caught quickly. With the removal of external governance, everyone becomes a sociopath, maybe not in the accepted meaning of the word, but none the less, people will do what they want, when they want - sociopathy.
Before I go on, I had better clarify something. I believe that a certain amount of true anarchy is required in any well functioning government system. To some extent, the job of the opposition party is to be anarchists. At some level, someone needs to challange what the government says so that thought will be applied to the decision that is being made. If there is no thought, and the government simply does what it thinks is best, then bad decisions are guaranteed to be made. Bad decisions will still be made, but there will be less of them, and the mistakes will be smaller. However, this does not mean that I condone anarchy as a system. It has its place, but its place is not as the majority rule (or unrule) or a nation. Its place is in challenging the government, good or bad.
Now that I've said that, Ⓐ≠Peace. Lets take a very basic definition of peace - the absence of war (although I have in the past said that this is not an accurate definition, check here for details, especially at the end of the post). The achieved goal of anarchy has been documented in history. The bible (and I'm using it as a historic text, not for any other purpose. The happenings here have been confirmed by other historical documents of the time) describes what happens when there is no established rule. Judges continually says that "In those days, Israel had no king." Then we read about things like genocide, rape, mutilation, fratricide, murder, kidnapping, wholesale slaughter, and the list goes on. "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit" are the last words in the book. It doesn't sound like peace to me. Even with our basic definition of peace, when we aren't reading about these exploits, we are reading about pitched battles and armies lining up to fight. Ⓐ≠Peace. It can help in leading to peace, but it of itself is not peace. It can help to challenge the established order of things where war is a past-time for the men of high command, or an economic boost for a country, but even there, the main work needs to be done by an established government. We can see anarchy at work in countries like Afghanistan or Iraq where the established government, as brutal or evil as in may have been (I am not passing judgement, merely passing on the views of many people) was removed and a power vacuum put in its place. These two countries went from having law and order to nothing in a matter of weeks or months. Now Afghanistan may be a lot better than it was, but it still isn't great, and Iraq is definitely not anything to be proud of.
If we want to take a less basic and more accurate definition of peace, I would put forward that it is probably more about stability and strength combined. Anarchy of itself requires either an absence of strength or a weakness from the upper echelons of society, especially in the rule of society. So there peace and anarchy are opposed, but what about the stability. Yes I will grant that anarchy used well can assist stability in either a region or a group, but it requires more finesse than most people possess.
In a way, the anarchist movement is like a dog that chases cars. It chases and chases, the knowledge that it won't achieve anything always in the back of its mind, but it keeps trying regardless. Then one day, it does make a victory, and then it doesn't know what do to with it.
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