                            ANARCHISM AND CIVILITY
                               BAD Broadside #6

         A generally accepted anarchist tenet is that the State can only be
     effectively dismantled by a voluntary, cooperative and spontaneous
     insurrection by the people. Authoritarian revolutions gotten up by
     manipulative vanguardists are rejected as inconsistent with the
     anarchist belief that the means must be consistent with the ends.
     History has plenty of examples to show that seizure of power through
     elitist revolt, rather than furthering the goals of the revolution,
     actually becomes a process for the strengthening of the State in a new
     and more vicious form. From an evanescent moment of exultant freedom
     one inevitably wakes up to the hangover of a Napoleon or a Lenin or a
     Mao.

         Nevertheless, contemporary anarchists are often still mesmerized
     by the call to arms, even when the chance of such a romantic gesture
     succeeding is nil. The only real revolutions occur when popular
     discontent causes the state to collapse under the weight of its own
     folly, not when some bloody vanguard, following whatever destructive
     fantasy its leaders concoct, meets the modern state head-on. This
     inevitably results in meaningless hardship for the people involved,
     with the greatest misery reserved for innocents who gets in the way of
     either side's fallacious ideology. Being a "rebel" and antagonizing
     the flatulent powers-that-be in a modern state can be an exciting
     game, but it is only bluster and puerile self-gratification when
     genuine revolt is implausible. In the end the most radical
     "revolutionaries" either end up as bitter, dead-end martyrs or become
     the next generations' "born-again" capitalists. Having had their
     fling, they come to believe in their new "realism" as solipstically as
     they embraced rebellion. None of this brings us any closer to a
     solution to the problem of the State.

         The fallacy of revolutionary adventurism is mirrored on a personal
     level by the intolerant and abusive discourse of identity politics.
     Everyone is pre-judged by their race, gender, sexual or religious
     affiliation, and socially compartmentalized in some politically
     correct egg basket. The goal of the anarchist movement is to establish
     a free, tolerant and cooperative society which will embrace diversity
     and celebrate difference. If the means are to be consistent with the
     ends, then how can such a abrasive and bigoted practice as identity
     politics possibly achieve that end? Identifying the "enemy" by birth
     or predilection, regardless of an individual's actual beliefs or
     actions, is simple bigotry. Awarding moral virtue on the same grounds
     is simple stupidity. Similarly, essaying to act as a unwarranted
     spokesperson for a diverse grouping of individuals who by chance share
     a single basic characteristic is the most arrogantsort of elitism.
     Real people, stripped of their individual identities, are thus
     subsumed in some hypothetical single-dimensional construct that
     effectively denies them any complexity of character. This isn't an
     answer to institutionalized racism and bigotry, but rather its mirror
     image.

         This sort of prejudicial activity has appeal for the simpleminded.
     It's easy to either attack or adulate a stranger on the grounds of
     appearance. A similar anxiety powered the old Sumptuary laws which
     punished anyone who dressed above their social class -- it was too
     unnerving for the elite to think they might make a mistake and treat
     an inferior as an equal, thanks to illicit appearances. Political
     prejudice makes it simple to get through the difficulty of rootless
     modern life where there are no clear cut exterior indications of what
     a person might really be like.  All white males (unless, perhaps, gay)
     are dangerous, power-driven and bigoted.  All women (unless, perhaps,
     Republican) are intuitive, nurturing and empathetic with Nature.
     Members of minorities (take your pick) are morally superior to members
     of majorities.  Classifications and labels which assist us in making
     such decisions are more real (and more important) than the people they
     describe. Et cetera. Bullshit.

         The goal of a tolerant and cooperative society of free individuals
     can only be achieved by those very means -- by being tolerant,
     cooperative and free. We must be better companions to our fellow
     mortals, whatever their outward characteristics. Civility, which
     facilitates cooperation, is imperative if anarchy is to really work.
     Pigheaded and self-important aggressiveness, hypercriticism and easy
     intolerance is a recipe for the status quo. We don't mean to suggest
     some sort of all accepting, "turn-the-other-cheek" bourgeois crap,
     either. Once you get beyond the labels, there are still unfortunately
     plenty of folks that it makes sense to despise. Arrogant, violent,
     intolerant, fanatical, bigoted, manipulative, rapacious... individuals
     with these characteristics must be guarded against, but they are not
     all found in one easily recognized group identity. These adjectives
     equally describe individual men, women, blacks, whites, handicapped
     people -- the whole gamut of the human race. Nor is anyone as morally
     pure as some of our new puritan idealists would insist that they be. A
     person is the sum of their character traits, not a distillation of the
     most pronounced ones. Radicals are just as prone to frailties of
     character as industrialists. It is by their actual effect on their
     community and environment that we should evaluate our fellow beings,
     not by some dominant virtue or fault which particularly excites us. It
     would be far preferable to tolerate a insensitive verbal bigot who in
     practice actually helped people than a pious hypocrite who mouthed
     politically correct platitudes and then went home and beat his lover.

         Anarchism involves conscientious and responsible judgement, and
     the effort to see through the shucks, facades and hype of our
     unregenerate society. One of the most virulent traps for the
     contemporary Left is the aping of the knee-jerk bigotry of the Right,
     which involves a mean-spirited "us-and-them" prejudice through group
     identity. There are plenty of actual villains out there, some easily
     identifiable, others hidden in hypocrisy. There are equally many good
     people obscured by the accidents of their birth, uprearing or
     situation. Let us therefore focus on the individual rather than the
     group, and recognize that the only way we will ever really achieve the
     goals of Anarchy is through living those difficult precepts in the
     here and now, and treat each other civilly. There can be no other
     effective preparation for Anarchy's ultimate realization in the
     future.


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                                 June, 1992
