Once upon a time, I was a dedicated
anarchist. I did much
independent research on the
cause to make sure it was a
decent fit for my
beliefs, and, for the most part,
anarchy matched up well with my personal
reality tunnel. Then I made the
mistake of reading recent writings by anarchists, particularly in
Anarchy magazine. Some of it was very
good stuff: I felt it was
important to read about recent
books on the topic, general
history of the movement, and
news updates covering everything from
demonstrations to
government crackdowns. I read the
magazine for a couple of years before finally giving up on them in
disgust.
First, they devoted far too much
space to
pedantic arguments about
obscure anarchist terms that I didn't understand. While that may be
fun for long-time anarchists, it
bored me to tears and surely scared off potential anarchists. Wouldn't a short
review of
general anarchist philosophies for the
benefit of
newbies help swell the anarchism
ranks?
Second, they spent too much time beating up on both the
newbies and the
old-timers. Sure, a bunch of the newbies had no real
idea what anarchism was about and were just
supporting the cause to
shock their
parents, but the
authors and
editors were often fairly
vicious in their
vilification of new anarchists. And their treatment of the
old-school anarchists was far
worse. Some was
justified -- they jumped on an
old-timer who had just written a
self-congratulatory autobiography that
denounced everyone else in the
movement -- but they also
ridiculed a
respected anarchist solely because he was
active in the
1970s.
Next, the magazine started a pro-
Unabomber campaign, claiming that, as a
bomb-throwing
liberal eco-anarchist, he was a
model we should all
emulate. The fact that the only
people he
targeted were
college professors and
aviation engineers -- not the
Army, not the
CIA, not
Congress -- apparently meant nothing.
The
final blow was when the
editor started claiming that anarchists should start working with
right-wing fringe militia groups.
Hello? Last I heard, the
militias wanted to
destroy the
federal government and replace it with their own preferred form of
government -- in no way does that translate to
anarchy.
So I
gave up on them. If a
worthwhile anarchist movement ever pops its
head up, I'd go for it; otherwise, I think I'd prefer to remain
outside the
political system.