Thursday, July 01, 2004


Misunderstanding Anarchy
One of the most surprising moments of my academic education occurred outside of my formal education a few years back, when I discovered that anarchy was a coherent and progressive political movement, dedicated to promoting freedom and truly democratic ideals. My prior misconceptions about the concept were informed by people equally uninformed: the token few (and sometimes many) in any local punk scene that use anti-establishment views as an excuse to wreak general and undirected havoc. Nice people they were, but misguided in their use of 'anarchy' as a concept.

As you, perceptive reader, are undoubtedly aware, this is in no way an isolated phenomenon, peculiar to adolescents within the punk subculture. Anarchy has to be the most misunderstood of political theories today. Our society scoffs at it, thinking it calls for the end of order in a Hobbesian state of nature: a war of all against all, and the streets are filled with throngs of kids sporting the ragged-A-in-a-circle, believing it's an emblem of chaos and destruction.

If I can be presumptuous for a moment, let me say that this is at best reductive and at worst incorrect, from an historical perspective anyway....