From its Greek root word, anarchia, anarchy simply means without ruler. That’s looking pretty good right now. From Joel Bowman at joelbowman.substack.com:
Leo Tolstoy, beyond War and Peace…
(Leo Tolstoy at work. Oil on canvas, by Ilya Repin, 1844–1930)
“The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power. There can be only one permanent revolution – a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.”
~ Leo Tolstoy, On Anarchy (1900)
Were he still alive today, Leo Tolstoy, a self-described “spiritualist anarchist,” would be 195 years old. The modern world of A.I. (Alleged Intelligence) could learn a lot from this towering, 19th Century intellectual. For one thing, Tolstoy understood well the anarchist attitude of “live and let live,” and he spent a good many words railing against The State and its brutal, oppressive nature.
Tolstoy’s ideas on civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
He saw The State for what it really is, “an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.” And he understood the “conspicuous compassion” of the collectivist class, who affected love for humanity, all the while burdening others with their meddlesome ideologies.
I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back. (From Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence, 1886)
The never let a crisis go to waste can be applied to anarchy.
Or just be ready and prepared for on your own with no cavalry and no restock.
Bleached an anarchy sign on my Chuck Taylors back in junior high and one person thought it was Satanic and tried to get me in trouble as I laughed and explained what it is.
A system/society based on trust is going to wipe right out because it wasn’t meant to be fundamentally transformed.
This just in from Average White Band:
Pick Up The Pieces (Disco Cat Remix)