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Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade 06
ANARCHISM AND CIVILITY
BAD Broadside #6
A generally accepted anarchist tenet is that the State can only be
effectively dismantled by a voluntary, cooperative and spontaneous
insurrection by the people. Authoritarian revolutions gotten up by
manipulative vanguardists are rejected as inconsistent with the
anarchist belief that the means must be consistent with the ends.
History has plenty of examples to show that seizure of power through
elitist revolt, rather than furthering the goals of the revolution,
actually becomes a process for the strengthening of the State in a new
and more vicious form. From an evanescent moment of exultant freedom
one inevitably wakes up to the hangover of a Napoleon or a Lenin or a
Mao.
Nevertheless, contemporary anarchists are often still mesmerized
by the call to arms, even when the chance of such a romantic gesture
succeeding is nil. The only real revolutions occur when popular
discontent causes the state to collapse under the weight of its own
folly, not when some bloody vanguard, following whatever destructive
fantasy its leaders concoct, meets the modern state head-on. This
inevitably results in meaningless hardship for the people involved,
with the greatest misery reserved for innocents who gets in the way of
either side's fallacious ideology. Being a "rebel" and antagonizing
the flatulent powers-that-be in a modern state can be an exciting
game, but it is only bluster and puerile self-gratification when
genuine revolt is implausible. In the end the most radical
"revolutionaries" either end up as bitter, dead-end martyrs or become
the next generations' "born-again" capitalists. Having had their
fling, they come to believe in their new "realism" as solipstically as
they embraced rebellion. None of this brings us any closer to a
solution to the problem of the State.
The fallacy of revolutionary adventurism is mirrored on a personal
level by the intolerant and abusive discourse of identity politics.
Everyone is pre-judged by their race, gender, sexual or religious
affiliation, and socially compartmentalized in some politically
correct egg basket. The goal of the anarchist movement is to establish
a free, tolerant and cooperative society which will embrace diversity
and celebrate difference. If the means are to be consistent with the
ends, then how can such a abrasive and bigoted practice as identity
politics possibly achieve that end? Identifying the "enemy" by birth
or predilection, regardless of an individual's actual beliefs or
actions, is simple bigotry. Awarding moral virtue on the same grounds
is simple stupidity. Similarly, essaying to act as a unwarranted
spokesperson for a diverse grouping of individuals who by chance share
a single basic characteristic is the most arrogantsort of elitism.
Real people, stripped of their individual identities, are thus
subsumed in some hypothetical single-dimensional construct that
effectively denies them any complexity of character. This isn't an
answer to institutionalized racism and bigotry, but rather its mirror
image.
This sort of prejudicial activity has appeal for the simpleminded.
It's easy to either attack or adulate a stranger on the grounds of
appearance. A similar anxiety powered the old Sumptuary laws which
punished anyone who dressed above their social class -- it was too
unnerving for the elite to think they might make a mistake and treat
an inferior as an equal, thanks to illicit appearances. Political
prejudice makes it simple to get through the difficulty of rootless
modern life where there are no clear cut exterior indications of what
a person might really be like. All white males (unless, perhaps, gay)
are dangerous, power-driven and bigoted. All women (unless, perhaps,
Republican) are intuitive, nurturing and empathetic with Nature.
Members of minorities (take your pick) are morally superior to members
of majorities. Classifications and labels which assist us in making
such decisions are more real (and more important) than the people they
describe. Et cetera. Bullshit.
The goal of a tolerant and cooperative society of free individuals
can only be achieved by those very means -- by being tolerant,
cooperative and free. We must be better companions to our fellow
mortals, whatever their outward characteristics. Civility, which
facilitates cooperation, is imperative if anarchy is to really work.
Pigheaded and self-important aggressiveness, hypercriticism and easy
intolerance is a recipe for the status quo. We don't mean to suggest
some sort of all accepting, "turn-the-other-cheek" bourgeois crap,
either. Once you get beyond the labels, there are still unfortunately
plenty of folks that it makes sense to despise. Arrogant, violent,
intolerant, fanatical, bigoted, manipulative, rapacious... individuals
with these characteristics must be guarded against, but they are not
all found in one easily recognized group identity. These adjectives
equally describe individual men, women, blacks, whites, handicapped
people -- the whole gamut of the human race. Nor is anyone as morally
pure as some of our new puritan idealists would insist that they be. A
person is the sum of their character traits, not a distillation of the
most pronounced ones. Radicals are just as prone to frailties of
character as industrialists. It is by their actual effect on their
community and environment that we should evaluate our fellow beings,
not by some dominant virtue or fault which particularly excites us. It
would be far preferable to tolerate a insensitive verbal bigot who in
practice actually helped people than a pious hypocrite who mouthed
politically correct platitudes and then went home and beat his lover.
Anarchism involves conscientious and responsible judgement, and
the effort to see through the shucks, facades and hype of our
unregenerate society. One of the most virulent traps for the
contemporary Left is the aping of the knee-jerk bigotry of the Right,
which involves a mean-spirited "us-and-them" prejudice through group
identity. There are plenty of actual villains out there, some easily
identifiable, others hidden in hypocrisy. There are equally many good
people obscured by the accidents of their birth, uprearing or
situation. Let us therefore focus on the individual rather than the
group, and recognize that the only way we will ever really achieve the
goals of Anarchy is through living those difficult precepts in the
here and now, and treat each other civilly. There can be no other
effective preparation for Anarchy's ultimate realization in the
future.
NO COPYRIGHT
Please send two copies of any review or reprint
of all or part of this to:
Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade
(BAD Brigade)
PO Box 1323
Cambridge, MA 02238
Internet: bbrigade@world.std.com
June, 1992
