Anarchism and Humanism
Anarchism
I feel that it's time for a change. I’ve had quite enough of partisanship and pettiness and bickering. I’m tired of politics. I’m tired of the angst and bravado with which people argue about politics. I wish we were all a little more concerned with the art of being a good human being, with the work of building communities, with the study of morality. These pursuits are creative, productive, positive. As politics becomes more and more divisive, it is also increasingly destructive and negative: the political energy of the people is spent mostly in opposition to other groups, other ideas, other parties. In other words, it is squandered.
The reason for this immense waste of energy is that every modern political ideology is built upon the same tragic premise: that the State is the vehicle of change and must be captured by the right people. The corollary of this premise is that only one group of people gets to change society at any given time, and the rest then retreat to lick their wounds and plot how to be the winning group next time.
If these people and these ideologies realized that individuals and communities are a more important vehicle of change, and of more lasting and meaningful change at that, things would be different. Rather than the winner of a democratic contest becoming the temporary curator of change to the exclusion of all others, each group could enact its own philosophy, separately or in cooperation. Rather than change being something which comes from the top, something which is unilateral, it would come from the bottom up. Different parts of the society would change in their own ways, and different methods could be tried at the same time; the best methods could be identified, and the process would begin to look like the organic evolution which, before the State, determined the changing nature of all creatures and plants including humans
This would be anarchism. Anarchism is the only political ideology which does not aim to exist to the exclusion of others. In fact, it provides a framework within which any ideology can operate fruitfully and peacefully provided only that it finally accepts that it has no right to demand that anybody adhere to it, or to tell others what they can or cannot do based on its tenets.
The essence of anarchism is this: do what you like, so long as it doesn't stop others from doing what they like. The obvious follow up question for somebody who lives in such a society is, ‘what is it that I’d like to do?’. And I put it to you that most people can find satisfying answers to this question. The politically-inclined who presently compete for control of the State apparatus can also find satisfying answers if they remove the state-centric aspect of their ideologies and think instead about how their goals can be achieved through peaceful cooperation in civil society. Instinctive authoritarians may struggle, but fuck ‘em.
Take, for instance, the environmentalists. In a State-centric society, their program consists of laws to protect endangered species, punitive or disincentivizing taxes on pollution and emissions, quotas, and so on. And maybe these work, but if they take the wheel of government in a state-centric society, our potential for progress is limited to these measures, and all the other good ideas which might lead to progress in other areas suffer as a result.
Could progress on the environmental front not be made within civil society where it is not to the exclusion of all else? In fact there is a multitude of things that could be done.
On the individual level, people could put solar panels on their roofs and grow vegetables in their garden. They could plant daisies and lavender bushes on their land to help sustain the very important bee population. They could research sustainable food options and invest in the sustainable companies and/or buy their products; they could even share their findings with like-minded friends through social media. There are plenty of lists and articles online about how to live a more environmentally friendly life, and their are even phone apps to help you be an environmentally conscious shopper. Firstly, if all the energy environmentalists expend on politics were channelled into these pursuits instead, they might make a far greater impact. Secondly, the people who make these lists, articles and apps are a great demonstration of how people can pursue their goals in civil society.
On the collective or community level, there is probably even more to be done and a greater impact to be made. People could form conservation societies. There are groups and individuals who breed fish and animals with dwindling populations and release them into the wild. There are groups devoted to reforestation. Perhaps most importantly, people could compete with those businesses which use unsustainable and damaging processes. For instance, companies providing sustainable energy on a mass scale, companies providing sustainably grown lumber, and so on. The fact that these businesses would not be run on the profit motive would also give them a significant edge in the market. They could essentially operate as not-for-profit’s allowing them to undercut the environmentally damaging competition.
There is undoubtedly many more (and probably much better) ideas than these, I’m just trying to briefly demonstrate that a group's aims can be pursued outside of the State-centric system; that is not necessary to seize national governments in order to start making a difference in the world. In fact, for most of us, if seizing the State apparatus is a precondition of progress then we shall never get anywhere.
But it will not, of course, suffice to demonstrate that it can be done. It is also necessary to explain why it should be done.
In a nutshell, you can be more effective when you work productively in civil society than when you spend all your energies trying to capture the State. In my country (Australia), there are 59 political parties registered for Federal elections. Of those, 56 are minor parties, and of those 56, only 7 have a member elected to parliament. Not only does this demonstrate the sheer absurdity of thinking well-intentioned people can take control of the State (it is owned by the power elite and probably always will be), it also demonstrates the extent to which society is now dominates by State-centric ideology. We live in a society where rather than create a bullet train system people found a political party and call it ‘Bullet Train for Australia’. We have been taught that everything must be achieved by an act of government.
It also helps to consider the morality of the system. Even if you could take control of the system and achieve your goals through force, would it be right to institute your own views to the exclusion of everyone else? Consider the warning of anarchist and British parliamentarian of the 19th century, Auberon Herbert:
“Think carefully what this conflict and what the possession of unlimited power in plainest matter of fact means…If I win, I can deal with you and yours as I please…if you win, you in the same way can deal with me and mine, just as you please.
...Ought we to wonder that, with so vast a stake flung down on the table, even good men forget and disregard all the restraints of their higher nature, and in the excitement of the great game become utterly unscrupulous?”
Give me peaceful cooperation any day. Give me the peaceful evolutionary contest between competing ideas and ideologies. I have no interest in power or control.
Anarchism means that everybody may live according to their beliefs. Democratic governance at a national level means we will have regular competitions to decide whose beliefs everybody will be forced to live by. Anarchism is diversity, pluralism. National Democracy is uniformity, monotony.
Anarchism means that every person, every idea, every peaceful ideology may seek its fullest flowering. Anarchism provides a context within which we can be creative and productive. It allows for organic growth and a constantly evolving society. It would allow us to live in a society which is richly, profoundly diverse, where humanities thousand varieties can live and breath and grow. It is beautiful.
The system we have now stamps out diversity, and inherently whistles down this natural diversity to a handful of bland populist forms which are given hegemony, and we never get to see the incredible variety of cultures, communities, and institutions which might exist and thrive if given half a chance.
Humanism and the Tragedy of State Worship
This is why I am an anarchist. But I am not only an anarchist; that would be absurd. As I’ve said, anarchism gives us the freedom to pursue our own visions, which poses the question: what is my vision. I am a humanist. And I will try to explain what that means, what visions it inspires for me, and the kinds of communities I would dearly love to build in a free society.
Kurt Vonnegut summed up humanism as, “[trying] to behave decently without expectation of reward.” It is a philosophy based not only on reason, but on empathy and compassion as well. As Kurt Vonnegut also wrote, “a purpose for human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved,” a most beautiful dictum by which I try to live my life. Finally, he believed that one of the most important things young people can do with their lives is to “create stable communities where the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
Much of my humanist dream does not necessarily require anarchism to flourish, of course. The first thing I want to do is to preach love to the masses. The world is so hysterical and full of hate, even amongst comfortable Westerners with petty squabbles about minor cultural and political differences. I see this in the political debates which rage every day in my Facebook feed and in major publications. I want to talk to these people. I want to convince them to calm down, take a step back, and see things without jaundice. I want to remind them of the shared humanity of their debate partners and ideological opponents. Oftentimes I see fierce arguments between two or more essentially well-meaning people who disagree on the best way to help the unfortunate, and too often this causes them to hate one another. It is sad, silly, and absurd.
But the greater part of my dreams will require anarchism, or at least a widespread belief in anarchism. I want to see communities and institutions which provide for the welfare of the underprivileged, including their emotional welfare. This will require the hard work and cooperation of a lot of people.
Sadly, the single biggest obstacle to this ever happening is the pervasive worship of the State in our society. Like I said above, everything must be done through an act of government. In the case of welfare, this has emotionally and ideologically poisoned people. They no longer see the care of their fellow human beings as their responsibility. They are no longer personally invested in the welfare of the underprivileged. The government automatically takes a percentage of their income without them having to do anything, and uses it to fund and administer a cold and ineffective welfare bureaucracy. It’s not their responsibility. They have been absolved. Everything important will be done by the leviathan State. And if there is something that needs to be done or somebody who needs to be helped, they will simply complain that the leviathan isn’t doing it. And this is what we call civic mindedness.
I’d like to see a society where people help one another out of the goodness of their heart, rather than lazily bitching about the failings of the State. Which is to say, I want to see a society where people have their compassion and their creativity back; where if they think something should be done, they fucking do it, and enlist others if necessary; where we remember that we all have certain responsibilities and we all have to do our bit in improving the world. No more relying on a corrupt State.
I’m not saying that a welfare system is a bad thing. Given that our corrupt political economy dwindles the masses on an unprecedented scale, it is quite necessary to have a safety net in place. But the generosity of our society needn’t be restricted to the government’s welfare system. If we all learned to care for each other again, this welfare system might even become redundant.
But this won’t happen until people see through the farce that is our new morality. In a society where the State is the national religion, we have entirely different standards. To be generous means merely to be in favour of government welfare. And so much more of how we judge a person now comes down to what they believe the State should do for them, rather than what they actually do.
This is not conducive to humanism. For humanism to thrive, people need to be genuinely compassionate and prepared to do what's necessary for their fellow humans. So anarchism and humanism go hand in hand. People need to stop worshipping the State. They need to take control of their own lives and their own communities.