In your own words, define Anarchy.
Anarchy is life without dominance or submission. There are a lot of forms of domination in the world right now--governments, capitalist economies and systems of property, patriarchy, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia. Anarchists believe we shouldn't have any of them. ("Government" is any political system where a centralized group of decision makers pass laws that are enforced by violence and the threat of violence--i.e. police, prisons, militaries. "Capitalism" is an economic system where the rich gain social and material power by owning the property the rest of us need to survive. "Patriarchy" means male dominance of society in general. "White supremacy" means white control of society in general. "Homophobia" is fear and hatred of homosexuality. "Transphobia" is fear and hatred of people who do not identify with the gender they were assigned by society. Do a google search for any of these terms to learn more about them.) The anarchist project is to construct a world without enforced hierarchy, to the greatest extent possible. This project has many components. Some of the components are more traditionally and recognizably "political": demonstrations, strikes, tree sits, breaking stuff, people defending themselves from or attacking the police. Some of the anarchist project is still publicly visible to some extent, but may not be recognized as something being done by anarchists or in ways inspired by anarchist principles: opening radical community centers and music venues, feeding people for free, running community bike shops. Other parts of the anarchist project are not publicly visible at all: learning some of the ways that living in a patriarchal and white supremacist society negatively affects how I treat people, trying to treat people in a less sexist and racist manner as time goes on, and talking to the people in my life about those things. I consider all of those things (and others I am not thinking of or aware of right now) to be ways that different anarchists are moving towards anarchy in the best way they know how. Some anarchists would emphasize some pieces of that picture as being "really" anarchist or reject others as being "not" anarchist, but I think it's all important. (As you might guess, anarchists tend to disagree with each other about almost everything. Ha!) Why do you feel Anarchy is important or the best form of government? Anarchy is important because it speaks to the part of the human spirit that holds freedom as the highest value. Anarchy is not a form of government, though. Anarchy is society without government. It may or may not be the "best" society, depending on what you think makes a society "good." By some measures, anarchy could be the worst form of society. If variety of consumer goods is extremely important to you, for example, it seems very possible to me that anarchy would be the worst society. If there were no police, we would have to directly handle some of the dangerous situations currently handled by the police, either alone or with our communities. That sounds scary to me, but it is an implication of what anarchy would be like. I personally think freedom is the most important thing. That's why I'm an anarchist. Anarchy is freedom without restraint; by that measure I think it is "the best." But a lot of people don't think that freedom is the most important thing, for good reasons. To them, anarchy could not possibly be the best form of society, because it requires great risk to reject so entirely the way we live now in order to try something largely unknown. You would only take that risk if you think freedom is worth any cost, or if you think you have little or nothing to lose from the collapse of what exists now. What is the overall message of your music? I hope the music I write doesn't serve a single overall narrative. On a personal level, I think a lot about what I am doing in light of what I say I claim to believe. Most of my songs are probably about that, either directly or indirectly. If you ran this country, what would you do? I'm an anarchist. I wouldn't run the country.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Jack OgilvieNow that my cynicism has balanced out I'd rather explain myself as an Anarchist with a passion for writing about, well, my passions. Enjoy the stuff I write but please don't be offended by the stuff I post. Archives
February 2013
Categories |