Sunday, November 24, 2013

Why I Am Not An Anarchist?

Bertrand Russell's famous essay "Why I am Not a Christian?" was not sensational. It was only a way to express his disagreement with people adopting a Christian lifestyle. Likewise, my short essay will only encourage an attitude of opposition against anarchism as ideology, although not against anarchism as a way of life. Arthur Rimbaud was an anarchist. Tristan Tzara was an anarchist. Jackson Pollock was an anarchist. Albert Einstein was an anarchist. There's nothing wrong about them. It gets wrong when you try to impose others your own ideology by claiming that you're "anti-authoritarian". I will take as starting-point the arguments pleading for an anarchic society exposed HERE.

The first big tenet put forth by anarchists is the "anti-authoritarian" attitude. Surely there are ways and ways of posing as "anti-authoritarian". One thing that comes into my mind is the authority of "anti-authoritarians". Yes, you can't be anti-authoritarian unless you have some sort of authority. If you're devoid of any authority, don't expect authorities to listen to you and do what you ask them to. No. You're just a dude or a dudette who wastes his/her time. You need to have authority to fight back against authoritarian people. Now, you might say that pamphlets are a good example of embodied authority fighting against authoritarian/ dictatorial figures. They are, inasmuch as they cause authorities to bow themselves. Hacktivism, the highly blamed hacktivism, is another method, although I'm not on that side. Having studied for years, having felt the magic and power of words, I'm not a big fan of violence. However, "symbolic violence" is prosperous nowadays. We are bombed with subliminal messages and our organic methods of resisting such kind of violence are low-leveled as if an unknown biocatalyst were merged with our metabolic system in order to shut it down slowly. Now, the anarchist "anti-authoritarian" attitude doesn't make any sense: to be "anti-authoritarian" is to be authoritarian in your turn. Anarchists see in "anti-authoritary" the only brave attitude towards authority. It's not like that. Not listening to authorities doesn't make one an "anti-authoritarian". Not at all. You just don't give a crap about authorities. You don't need to be "anti-authoritarian". Being like that, "anti-authoritarian", you leave authorities the chance to refresh their power to punish you. Therefore, the idea of an "anti-authorian" society in an anarchistic ideological sense is dumb-funded. Ignoring authority doesn't make one anti-authorian, not in my view at least. 
Anarchists think that professional expertise is not "authoritarian". I beg your pardon, but in most of the cases, it is. And anarchists prove wrong again: many people invoke professional expertise to commit fraud. But, yeah, that's not "authoritarian", right?
Anarchists think that mutual aid is not "authoritarian". Oh, really? What about companies that ask you to donate for children suffering from cancer or AIDS? It's some sort of mutual aid, isn't it? Have you ever wondered what's the amount of money that those companies subtract from your aid? You should, there's a good reason for that. You should know that nothing's for free, and if companies want to do it "for the best of the community", they include themselves in the community. There's another idea that bears on this mutual aid thingy. Why would we help each other? We don't do it "for free", we expect some satisfaction out of our actions. We do it because we feel better to help others. But why wouldn't we help "authorities" as well? You might state that being "anti-authoritarian" is of big help to them, to the authorities. No, it isn't. It just makes reality more crappy than it is, by provoking authorities to become more powerful and more stringent. If you call on "mutual aid", than help authorities to see they are wrong in a smart manner that can't be cataloged as "anti-authoritarian", because you risk being punished and made incapable of doing anything (see the imprisoned hacktivists, for instance).
Anarchists encourage the "Do It Yourself" attitude. Well, that's typical of the anarchist ideology, which is itself anarchic: you first lay stress on mutual aid, then go on and develop on individualism. Not very mentally safe, what can I say? So you want to be together with others, to believe in mutual values, but everyone should have a "Do It Yourself" attitude. Anarchists believe in "Direct Action" based on the "DIY" attitude. It's hard to imagine a society in which individualism and communitarian values are shared perfectly equally. Wow! I'd love to see this in reality! Unfortunately, anarchism is as utopian as Marxism and other fake ideologies. I agree that protest is required to stop abuses of any kind, but it shouldn't be "anti-authoritarian". It should help authorities understand they are wrong in what they do.

Maybe my brief essay was "anti-authoritarian", against the authority of anarchists. I don't know. But one can label Government's actions to punish terrorists as "anti-authoritarian". Is the Government anarchic because of that? No. However,  I'm not the Government, I'm a writer who doesn't believe that anarchism is more than a way of life...The "Anarchist Party" will never be a dominant one and I don't think anarchism will ever become a powerful and viable ideology. Transforming a way of life into a form of government is not really wise.

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