A brief word on anarchism
This blog cannot start out without first clearing one of the most common misconception about anarchism. Seeing as this blog is entitled Anarchists in America, it is very important to provide a decent definition of anarchism from the beginning.
The problem with this task, defining a philosophy, is that anarchism cannot simply be defined in a single position. The currents of anarchistic thought are extensive and vary widely based on region, however there is one thing we can dispel right now and that is the popular conception of anarchism in the popular media and contemporary discourse. To illustrate what this position is, a few examples will suffice:
As the government in Haiti crumbled a few years ago, CNN described the state of affairs as “anarchy.”
Throughout this article BBC made the case, even offering philosophical arguments against, the “anarchy” raging Somalia.
An American History textbook warns, ominously, that the early American republic faced several threats which nearly propelled it into “anarchy.” (The American Story, Penguin Academics)
The popular conception of anarchism should be clear then, anarchy equates chaos. It is unfortunate that the word has even entered the dictionary to define “chaos; disorder; confusion.” In fact, anarchism is an economic, social and political philosophy.
It should be stated from the start that the understanding when I used the term “anarchy” is in reference to the rich philosophical history of anarchistic thought. Whole books have been written on the topic, delineating different anarchistic philosophies as they’ve developed and adapted over the generations, so I will not do that in this entry. However, as my future entries as published on this site the reader should eliminate the knee-jerk reaction to consider “anarchism” as being the product as some misanthropic teenage angst. In turn, my entries, whenever they touch on anarchistic thoughts and ideas, will make reference to the philosophies involved. It is my belief that this will effectively take the philosophy out of the abstract and show how anarchism is prevalent in our daily lives, and how it actually makes a lot of sense!
