anarkhos

Introduction

We enter a new millennium in chains.  Despite centuries of political struggle we remain un-free.  Communism, socialism, and democracy have failed.  At no prior point in the history of man have the inhabitants of this planet been more policed, taxed, imprisoned, contaminated, indoctrinated, infiltrated, monitored, ruled, governed, robbed, denied, conformed, exploited, oppressed, deceived, and denied.  Virtue and ethics have given way to obedience.  Intelligence and reason have given way to orthodoxy.  Television has substituted truth.  Individual experience has been channeled into a unified collective perception, where prefabricated lies are packaged in the trappings of truth, and funneled into the uncritical minds of a passive audience.  We live in an age where critical thought has all but vanished and the mind is left to assimilate the orchestrated interpretations of the powerful.  The instinct for individual action has drowned into the sea of passive entitlements and demands to be protected.  Like a cancer, the State has consumed the population, one by one, and replaced the individual with a collective of snitching parasites.  Victimhood has become a virtue while productivity, strength, and virtue have come vices.  Like a host made docile by the poison of a parasite, the minds of the people have been anesthetized by government.  They lie dormant in an intellectual stupor, smiling like idiots, as their essence is assimilated into the mechanism of their own oppression.  Lifting our heads above the stink of human decay, we survey the landscape of collective amnesia and ask our selves, "What is to be done?"

What is to be done?

We are few in number.  When we speak, they shout.  We are like infidels whispering, "God does not exist," from the middle row of a church.  The words, democracy is dictatorship, so simple and true, offend the ears of the believers.  In their minds, so small but many, we are blasphemers.  They respond with every tangential insult imaginable, unwilling to even permit a questioning voice its due.  Their reaction, as predictable as the workings of a simple machine, is sharp.  In a dark age, even the smallest spark offends the eyes of minds festering in the dank blackness of disuse.

In our quest for change we are like diamonds in an avalanche of coal.  Made of the same substance, but internally organized, we shine through the opaque dust.  We have no chance to fight the inertia, strong as we may be, for our small numbers do not permit us the advantage.  The State is omnipresent.  The apparatus of oppression is finely tuned.  The productive capacity of millions of individuals has been robbed and its weight is applied to the hammer which smashes the anvil of oppression with such force that even a diamond cannot resist.

We hold the truth - the seed of a world to come.  We must guard this seed like the last individual of a species seeking fertile ground.  If we are to seed the future, we cannot squander our seed on impulsive defiance for the sake of momentary release.  We must reason about our struggle and seek our advantage.  Let us begin by stating our cause and lay out the strategy that best leverages our advantage.

Our Cause

The concept of anarchy has fallen to misinterpretation.  Even its literal meaning, "against or without hierarchy", has given way, in modern times, to that of chaos and violence.  The reasons for this misinterpretation are twofold.  On the one hand, the methodology utilized by some anarchists to achieve the absence of hierarchy has bestowed a false interpretation of its goals on the collective mind.  The use of violence and destruction, by these anarchists, has impressed upon the people the notion that violence and destruction is the aim of anarchism.  On the other hand, governments and the establishment media have seized upon this mischaracterization to their advantage, propagating the distorted view that anarchism is not a philosophy with lofty goals, but an activity of miscreants.

What, then, is anarchism?  Anarchism is the belief that individuals are the basis of society.  As the basis of society, anarchism reasons that only by the development and expression of individuality can society develop to its fullest.  Anarchism acknowledges the primacy of the individual.  Society, in the anarchist conception, is merely the epiphenomenon of individuality across the many instances of humankind.  As such, society is not a thing in itself.  It bears no causal relationship to the individual.  As a thing that lacks essence, talk of the needs of society is futile and unproductive.  When society is placed before the individual, the individual, an existing thing, is sacrificed for that which does not essentially exist.

The virtue of anarchism rests in the good itself.  When we consider the good, we consider the ethical conduct of the individual.  The basis of all ethics is reason.  Since reason is the essential defining characteristic of humankind, the practice of ethics is the manifestation of human nature.  Evil, as the absence of good, is the product of the absence of ethics.  Ethics, the practice of reason applied to one's actions, can only exist where individuals are free to choose their actions.  Law - the application of force to govern one's actions - denies the practice of ethics by substituting reason and free will with obedience.  Thus, so long as there exists law, there exists no practice of reason.  Ethics, a product of reason, ceases to exist.  Without ethics, there is no good.  The absence of good is evil.  Therefore, government is, by its very nature, a source of evil.

Fundamentally a rational being, the nature of the human individual can only be expressed through the expression of that nature.  We stand for the free expression of reason in its many forms, the manifestation of which is ethical conduct.  We believe that the ethical life is the good life.  Realizing that obedience is the abnegation of freedom and reason, we call for a world without government.  Democracy and republicanism, the political zeitgeist of our time, are inherently dictatorial.  The irrational fears of those who have been robbed of their reason are ameliorated at the expense of the freedom of those who retain their wits.  The democratic State has become the organized expression of dependency and want of responsibility.  We declare our freedom by asserting the primacy of free will, ethical choice, and responsibility.  Government, a hindrance to these principles, must be dissolved.

Our First Steps

Government, as we have seen above, denies humanity the practice of its nature.  Government, therefore, is unnatural.  No free and ethical individual can endure government.  Free and ethical individuals should, as an expression of ethical conduct, seek to eliminate government.  But how does an ethical individual eliminate government?

In order to address this question, we would be wise to seek our advantage.  If ethics is an expression of reason, it follows that ethical individuals are intelligent.  Unless intelligence is limited to but a few individuals, we must assume that there are many other individuals sufficiently intelligent to live ethically, who, nevertheless, do not live ethically.  These individuals, expressing their lack of ethics, support the existence of government.  Our task, it seems, is to shake these individuals from their slumber.

Having identified our first task, specifically, to shake from their slumber individuals sufficiently intelligent to live ethically, we must now determine how best to pursue our task.  Intelligent individuals, by nature, seek information.  We must be ready to provide them with the information they need to realize that the application of ethical principles is the key to their liberation.  Additionally, we must provide them with the arguments supporting the conclusion that intelligent individuals must oppose government.  Since we are few in numbers and small in relation to the powers who oppose us, we would do well by learning from other small entities that subvert larger entities.  The virus is our metaphor.  The meme is our virus.  Thus, our first task is the propagation of memes supporting the anarchist philosophy.

Various mechanisms, efficient in this task, exist.  One mechanism is the Internet.  Never before has there existed a means so accessible for the economical propagation of memes.  Rational anarchists should take full advantage of the Internet as a vector for subversive distribution of memes.

Another mechanism is personal influence.  By conducting oneself ethically, one teaches others the value of ethics.  The belief that individuals will not conduct themselves ethically in the absence of an external force is easily disproved through example.  The call for government is based on the fear of what would ensue in its absence.  Rational anarchists can use their inherently ethical nature to provide counter examples to this belief.  Additionally, rational anarchists can provide support to other rational anarchists.  An effective means of support is to extend opportunity when it presents itself to other rational anarchists.  By promoting each other we increase our power and thus our ability to use our ethical example as a means to teach others.  Ethics requires the acceptance of responsibility.  By accepting responsibility we increase our contact with others and thus the opportunity to teach by example.

Teaching by example, when practiced individually, can have a great affect.  Even greater is the influence of practicing ethics collectively.  This leads us to the second step.  This step can be taken in parallel to the first.  Our second task is the creation and support of institutions that supplant the perceived need for government.

Rational anarchists should create virtual communities.  These virtual communities could provide services.  For example, we should create collectives to help each other find jobs, share information, and forward our mutual success.  By creating non-governmental sources of mutual support, we can prove, by example, that the practice of ethics replaces the perceived need for government.

Finally, we can provide each other with mutual defense.  There is no better way of teaching others the value of ethics than by standing up against injustice.  If you see someone who needs to be defended, stand up for them!  If you see an injustice happening, oppose it openly!  If you encounter a distortion of the truth, correct it!  Anarchism and ethics require the application of action to principles.

What is not to be done?

Many anarchists delude themselves into believing that uncontrolled outbursts against the forces of oppression will somehow bring about change.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The brick you throw at a police officer during a demonstration will reinforce the idea, within the public mind, that government is necessary.  This is not to argue against the proposition that the government deserves to be met with violence.  Rather, the argument is that the government should not be met with violence when it will strengthen the government's argument for its own necessity, reinforce the belief that violence is the goal of anarchy, and place behind bars yet another anarchist who could be actively working to undermine the concept that government is necessary.

Rational anarchists should not engage in unnecessary activities that  provide greater means of oppression by government against the individual.  Those who equate anarchism with braking the law are foolish.  Anarchism is not about breaking the law, it is about abolishing the government and by this means abolishing law.  There is a difference.  When you break the law unnecessarily, you risk being fined or imprisoned.  If you are fined, your money goes to the government you oppose.  In many jurisdictions, a large portion of your fine goes to fund the police.  Thus, by breaking the law unnecessarily you are strengthening the police.  If you are imprisoned, the government must approriate funds to incarcerate you.  These funds are obtained by robbing from the productive members of society through taxation.  Even worse, these funds pay the salaries of the lowest form of government agent - the prison guard.  Thus, by being imprisoned, you are increasing the employment of evil individuals at the expense of productive individuals.  Even if you do not get caught, you are still increasing the power of the state.  By behaving irresponsibly you increase the belief that government is needed.  By destroying government property, you increase the government's need for income and help to employ government workers to repair your damage.  By destroying private property you make enemies of the very individuals you need to recruit.  Most importantly, if you conduct yourself unethically in the fight for anarchism you harm yourself.

Our position on violence is that violence should be employed only when it is necessary and only when it is the only means available to protect the lives and well being of oneself or others.  This judgment should be made prudently.  An act of violence against a police officer will seldom result in the well being of the individual who employs it, even when done in self defense.  Violence should never be employed as an act of revenge, for acts of revenge occur after the danger has passed.  Violence should never be employed for the sake of itself, for it communicates the wrong message to others.

Conclusion

The road to anarchism is not short.  We must apply our advantage to slowly change the conditions upon which government depends.  These conditions are based primarily in the belief that government is necessary.  Thus, our most important task is to challenge this belief.  Our best weapon is our intelligence.  Intelligence is free.  Ideas can be multiplied.  Let the truths we hold propagate through the minds of individuals!  Be an instigator of thought!  By awakening reason our ranks will swell.  Only when we can effectively communicate the ethical superiority of anarchism can we find fertile ground for the downfall of government.  The solution is not to be found in outbursts of defiance.  The solution rests in the systematic subversion of the conceptual framework upon which government rests.  Rational anarchists, unleash your truth!