Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 23:11:07 -0500
From: Aaron Micheau <amaarchy-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: How to understand political jargon


Message text written by INTERNET:ubernerd-AT-netzero.net
>
I have an unrelated question, anarchy is all about personal freedom, so
what of people who want to be ruled, people who have been under the
tyrannical rule of capitalism so long they know of nothing else?  They
could be educated, but wouldn't that be somewhat of a forceful act, telling
them that they shouldn't want to be ruled?<

Under what circumstances do you foresee the necessity of converting others
to anarchism?  Historically and conceptually, building an anarchist society
entails a split of an existing society, and not a conversion of all of its
members.  In a revolution in the States, for example, there would be no
anarchist groups taking over Washington and declaring the territory of the
US to be henceforth anarchist.  Rather, it would be small antiauthoritarian
communities more or less consensually declaring themselves autonomous,
like, say Chiapas from Mexico, or Catalonia from Spain.
In such a case, most of the members of the old society would simply remain
in it.  People who crave authority in an anarchist community could simply
leave.  There will probably always be such people, and always be societies
for them.  But there would be fewer such people, even if they never knew
anything but capitalism; (or Islamic law, or big-C Communism, etc) once
they saw an example of an anarchist society working.  How many people
really WANT to be told what to do, and how many just believe there is no
feasible alternative?

-apm