What Is Anarchism?

 There seem to be a great number of conflicting notions of what defines "anarchism". Sadly, the term now carries such massive baggage that it is really become an almost useless instrument for conveying a sound and rational idea. Consider the "anarchists" whose work helped precipitate the onset of the Great War (world war 1). In other quarters there are those who call themselves "anarchist" who are nothing but relabeled communists. Ugh... the horror. Some few years ago I coined "autodiathism" in an attempt to separate what I would like to term "true anarchism" or "pure anarchism" from all those other mangled and rotten notions upon which the label has been plastered over the past century and then some. "Autodiathism" from the Greek for "self determination", the idea there being the freedom to chart one's own path for his life, free from outside interferences, all else equal and in accord with the Principles of Proper Human Relations.

Put succinctly, anarchism is freedom. It is proper freedom in the context of living amid your fellow human beings. Were you the only person left on earth, you would be free to do whatever you pleased, including lighting off a strategic nuke in lower Manhattan, if it pleased you because the only human being effected by your actions would be you. There would be nobody else to feel the effects of any choice you made, nor would there be anyone to call you to account for your actions. Therefore, you would be perfectly free within the limitations that physical reality places on all of us. But you're not alone in this world.

Living among and amid your fellows changes things, if only slightly, such that you become obliged to fulfill an obligation not to violate the equal claims of others... that is, if you hold an expectation of having YOUR rights respected, and I know of nobody who repudiates such claims for themselves. Proper human relations founds centrally and primarily on not acting hypocritically. Want love? Be loving. Want respect? Be respectful... and so on down the list of wishes and wants common to all men. This is the essence of the Principles of Proper Human Relations. Live. Let live. Do no unjust harm. What you want for yourself in terms of your most basic claims, you are behooved to grant and respect for those around you. This is nothing other or less than the Golden Rule itself, and it is perfect as is. There is no other Law of Nature that men need adopt for themselves both literally as individually, and abstractly as societies. It is complete, correct, and clear.

It this that defines anarchism at its heart, it is my definition of "autodiathism". But that's the normative side of the coin. The positive side involves putting such norms into actual practice, which in turn primarily and most significantly involves dealing with those who fail to observe the requirements of those norms. No "government" ("anarchy") does not mean no governance. In an ideal anarchic world, people govern themselves properly in accord with the Principles of Proper Human Relations, thereby obviating any need for third-party governance of any given individual or group thereof.

We do not, however, live in that world and likely never shall, though one can always hope and men can always strive toward that ideal. Therefore, when an individual fails to properly govern himself, and the reasons for such failure are irrelevant, he must then be governed by others until such time as he returns to self-possession and has made whole anyone to whom he has brought injury. Until then, people hold every authority to do what is necessary to ensure that such people are called to account for their transgressions in violation of the Principles of Proper Human Relations, and to further ensure that they are rendered incapable of committing further harms until such time as they are deemed again fit to be released to the company of their fellow humans.

When people govern themselves properly, the world becomes a far happier, healthier, and more prosperous place. When they fail, it becomes necessary that they be governed by others lest they run further amok in violation of their fellow brethren.

Our grand failing as a species lies in the fact that we have allowed things to run this far off the lines of propriety. Equally, it is our fault that we have failed to bring the mean man to proper understandings of what it means to live properly among his fellows. Some of this failing can be excused as matters of ignorance or the presence of mistaken ideas. But some of it is by all means rooted in the corruption of individuals occupying positions of power who, by virtue of their villainy endeavored to ensure that "the people" remained in states of gross ignorance and material poverty such that their susceptibility to criminal corruption would be cultivated and grown, rather than mitigated, thereby superficially convincing the world of the need for that power structure to remain in place, lest the world fall into chaos. It's the Hegelian Dialectic at work as it has been for thousands of years: create a threat real or imagined, present the solution and yourself as the only one capable of delivery, and take over. And it works every time like a charm.

Get a critical mass of humanity on the same page and this problem would likely disappear in near totality, whatever remnants that would exist being easily and readily absorbed and addressed by the greater body of humanity such that the harms that plague us today would be all but eliminated.

Until then, the world as we know it goes on diminishing and disparaging all that is good between men.

We can do it, but as things currently appear, we will choose otherwise because most people cannot see the forest for the trees. It's a tough position in which we find ourselves. Only time will tell whether we will come to choose more wisely.

Mors Tyrannis, and as always please accept my best wishes.