After reading George Orwell’s 1984 it struck me that our government in which we function within is strikingly similar. If we aren’t careful in recognizing this, we will be overtaken and soon America will be completely totalitarian, if we aren’t already.
Let me tell you a sad story to better relay this potentially stoppable but otherwise inevitable fact. The other day it was raining. I wanted to be rained on as little as possible. Instead of walking to the library, I rode my 1994 Nishiki road bike (of which I’ve pumped more than $400 into). Okay, well, the campus police was with the librarian unlocking Marian’s library. I walked my bike inside to keep her dry. He said, “You can’t keep your bike in here. It’s not a bike shop. Take it outside.” This is a direct quotation as I remember it as if it were yesterday. Note his directness, lack of politeness, unwillingness to make a deal. In response I said, “I understand. Can I keep it in vestibule area, out of the rain, and out of everybody’s way?” He said, “What did I just say? This isn’t a bike shop and I said to take it outside-outside, not partially inside-outside.” First, what in the world does that mean? Second, notice, again, his lack of words like ‘please’, ‘thank you for understanding’, ‘Sorry but I don’t make the rules’, or other consoling and reconcilable words. Finally, I said to myself under my breath and as I was walking away, “Thanks asshole.” Boosh. He overheard me talking to myself. He ends up writing me a ticket for $50 for “using abusive language towards an officer.” This is an absolutely true story. Nothing in any way has been fabricated. My boss, the dean of students, catches wind of this and fires me on account of representing the school poorly. This is an example, in my opinion, of power and authority being used in an improper way. This experience mixed with 1984 caused me to rethink the System in which I uncomfortably live. And this is how I attempt to do it....
Allow me to state my conclusion first to give you an idea of where I am progressing: “All I want is complete freedom and to live in a world, a world of perfect peace and justice which leads to progressive thought and universal happiness.”
First, I must state a few axioms under which I am working. Perfect justice allows perfect freedom. God is perfect justice. God allows perfect freedom by giving us our very essence and existence as we are able to perfectly and freely practice our free will. God does this in His sovereignty. Because of this, I answer to no one but God. A State does not have any authority over me as it does not possesses any sovereignty (Maritain, Man and the State). Perfect justice (or as close as we can come to and know it while still having free will) is an absolutely freeing idea. And to practice this idea is to make it a reality. If the State can be a manifestation of this justice/God then I would encourage it to function intimately in my day to day life. To get this kind of justice, though, is exponentially more likely to happen individually. I do not think that any State can ever provide me with the best possible method of choosing the good. I believe that there is a more likely chance for the individual to choose the good on his own rather than the individual choose the good because the State says it’s so. My solution and proposition for this will come in a minute. Keep the above in mind.
Additionally, the above fits in with the statement, "I am able to best/most trust somebody or something the more responsibly it acts." How can I trust a government with my money if they do not use it responsibly? How do I trust a police officer if he turns on his lights and siren just to get through the red light? How do I trust my dad if he is going out and partying and drinking four nights a week? How am I supposed to trust a politician that doesn’t achieve what he promised time and time again? How do I trust anybody who does not act responsibly? The answer: I do not. I do not trust a group of men to argue over laws or rights that will give me freedom x but restrict freedoms j, k, and l. Or better yet, a law to give me freedom x but restrict freedom j. But I most trust God as He is supremely responsible. However, it's not likely that He'll come rule the world tomorrow so I have more faith and trust in the individual to act in right manner especially if socially 'constructed' to have devout feelings and strong tendencies toward justice or at least love and compassion. *Cue my point from a paragraph ago.*
This ‘social construction’ that I speak of is very important. It is very easy to imagine a world of without rules where people eat the faces off of despicable men that ravenously go on killing rampages. I am suggesting this but with an inherent feeling of justice. Listen, some may say, “Josh, you’re off your rocker.” To which I would respond quoting Alice Kingsley in Alice in Wonderland in her response to the Mad Hatter, “Have I gone mad?” [Alice checks Hatter's temperature] Alice says, “I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
This social construction is completely possible. Let me crudely define a couple of things. ‘Construction’-to build something. ‘Social’-relating to a group of people. ‘Social construction’-building a system of thought within the minds of the people that will be passed on so long as it is perpetuated. I would like to illustrate the overwhelming strength and effectiveness of social construction through several examples:
- We Americans are incredibly proud of our country. I would make the point to say that this patriotism comes at a very very young age from advertisement and the media and national holidays on the 4th of July, Labor day, and Veteran's Day. With the national anthem played all the time and everywhere at fairs and festivals during the summer, the portrayal of Plymouth Rock and the pilgrims on Thanksgiving, it is no wonder that the majority of Americans have been so patriotic throughout the history of this country. We’ve won wars, we’ve grown rich, we’ve controlled a lot of the world, we set standards, etc. Of course we are going to be patriotic and proud of this. This is the best example of socially constructed mindsets even though there are unbelievably unspeakable things going on behind closed doors that nobody would be proud of if they just picked up a newspaper or were semi-educated. We are proud of our country despite the undeclared wars, the Vietnam incident, the trillion(+) dollar deficit, etc.
- When you started reading this were you already in opposition? Yes. Of course you were. You’ve been socially constructed to think that Anarchy is a horrible thing. You’ve been taught to believe that a world without rule would be chaos. What is this based on though? This is a question that ought to be taken seriously. Is it based on the fact that you’ve seen (on the news!!) other countries in anarchy and the masses were destroying each other? Of course the media is going to look down on anarchy and show you a certain view of it. Of course the government is going to look down on revolts. They don’t want their power stripped. A democracy lies in what the populus wants! In this sense, a democracy is near anarchy. Why don’t we practice this part of our right?? We can revolt and go on strike and protest the heck out of the obvious injustices that are going on then why don’t we?! It’s obvious. We aren’t encouraged to because if we did then there would be an uprooting of power...and, of course, nobody wants that. ‘Anarchy’ has become a bad word because of these very social constructions.
- The loyalty to the Church that most Catholics have is a social construction. I realize that this may be a little risque to say and that’s why I say it lightly. However, a lot of Catholics love the Church for no reasons of their own. Many cannot explain what the Church’s function is. Not many people know what their ecclesiology is. They are loyal to the institution of the Church because the Holy Father has that authority, they are told to love her, and it’s a mechanism by which the faith is taught. (Obviously this does not hold true for all Catholics. This is merely an example.)
- Most Americans threw parties in the streets celebrating the death of bin Laden. We have no sense of human dignity for somebody who has been painted as the world’s most wanted individual, the worst human person to have walked the earth, the scum of a butt crack. The media, the government, my parents (and everybody else who has been immersed in this culture), the ignorant, etc. have socially constructed the whole to believe that this death is the best thing to have ever happened. And so we ditch all morals and abandon all civility and celebrate the death of a person. This is the result of social construction.
- American views of communism. Generally (particularly anybody over the age of 30), absolutely despise the idea of communism. Why? Because we’ve been socially constructed to hate the enemy.
Again, look into Europe during World War II. The majority of Europeans and Americans hated Hitler for obvious reasons. So they, in turn, supported Stalin because he was the force that could stop Hitler. But I might argue that Stalin was worse than Hitler. It’s not the point of who was worse as they were both men who were focused on inherently evil ideas but the point is that outsiders accepted, supported, and allowed Stalin to do what he did. I’m calling this a case of ‘artificial social construction’. Social construction is an active process of molding a group of people into thinking a certain way. In this case of artificial social construction, people are molded because they are forced to make a choice between certain things.
- My favorite: it is a psychological phenomenon that has been peer reviewed and published in journals that ‘the wave’ in a stadium requires a minimum of five people to start. Five people can determine the course of entertainment for 55,000 people in a college football stadium. This isn’t social construction but it expresses an equally valuable point that a few people can shape the crowd.
Essentially, the result of feeling a certain way about a certain thing or event but not knowing exactly why you feel that way is because of these social constructions. There are millions of them and they are incredibly powerful and work even without conscious thought of them.
The point I have illustrated is, people can be taught to have deeply rooted passionate feelings toward a situation or thought without their knowledge of it. This is what I want to do in my Anarchy. I know that a true government-less State would burn down in roughly three hours (or at least would become dangerously totalitarian very quickly). This is why I’m proposing a modified anarchy, an Organized Anarchy. I recognize that this society cannot be implemented tomorrow or else there will be terrible chaos because people will have no idea what to do without rules and our borders would inevitably be breached. However, I am proposing that this society be enacted over several generations. My grandparents see the world much differently than I do. My parents see it a little less differently but nonetheless see it distinctly different than I do (particularly because of the technological revolution). And my children will see the world differently than I do. And my grandkids will see the world radically different than I do today. This is just a natural progression that can be attributed to the progress of science, media, technology, economics, wars, etc. Why can’t we make a positive progression happen, namely creating inherent feelings toward justice, love, etc? I would, over the course of generations, breed a social construction of strong feelings for justice. Every parent would teach their child of justice from day one. The result: in my Anarchy I could kill you but I would not want to because I have this sense of justice in me telling me not to kill you. (There would also be the function of fear keeping me from killing you. If I did, presuming that it was for an unjust reason, I would fear your buddies, parents, or siblings that are seeking a ‘just’ revenge to seek out my death. I would fear this and not want to kill you also.)
Anyway, let me paint the ideal picture of my society in several generations from now. Everyone would possess this innate sense of justice, love, compassion, and self-giving-ness that has resulted from the Church teaching a devout love for these qualities, families teaching these ideals, schools enforcing this good behavior, the transitional government stressing this importance, media supporting this, etc. After a transition period and after power and authority has gradually been eliminated as the sense of justice has become more apparent to the people, anarchy will be in place. (‘Transitional government’ meaning a system that leads from the current State to anarchy as a safe and efficient movement. I have no idea what this transitional government would be but there needs to be one.) (Also, the Church, family structures, and other institutions could completely function within this Anarchy. This is an organized anarchy. Things don’t have to be chaotic.)
Let’s take a bad case scenario: somebody steps on my property and I don’t like it. What am I going to do? Well, I wouldn’t want to kill him (even though there are no legal repercussions) because I have such a strong feeling of justice, love and compassion. I know it would be wrong to eliminate his life, and my community would potentially abandoned me because they know it’s a terrible deed to kill somebody, and I would be in fear of his parent’s or his buddies that have the right to kill me. I don’t think that I’m going to shoot this man who walked onto my property. Instead, I think that because it is embedded in our nature as humans, I would reason with him. If this didn’t work, I would get a third party to listen to my case, then listen to his case and make a judgement or give us advice or propose a deal between the two of us in order to right the situation.
An easy argument against anarchy is, “Well there is already horrible activity (i.e. drugs, hate crime, homicides, thievery, etc) going on even with the law in place, what makes you think it won’t get worse without the laws?!” See my above scenario. People wouldn’t want to be abandoned by their loved ones, friends, neighborhood, schools, etc. People would be afraid that somebody will have revenge on them. People have this inherent sense of justice and love embedded in their actions. People naturally want to avoid confrontation or at least want to reason through confrontation. Secondly, Ron Paul was asked in a debate in 2008 that if weed (or heroin!! God forbid.) was legalized does he think that it would be a rampant. His response, “First, it’s the state’s responsibility to make legalize or illegalize drugs. Second, if heroine was legal, would that compel you to use it? No. You wouldn’t.” This is a man that works in and for the government saying this. Also, I believe it to be true in my Anarchy, especially if medicine and science was to advance and preach out against it and everybody is just.
The ultimate goals of my anarchy are twofold and cannot happen without the other: 1) Complete freedom. Complete freedom is the ability to perfectly exercise my free choice toward the good. 2) Perfect justice. Perfect justice (or nearly perfect justice allows for the individual to have organized priority over morals, actions, thoughts, feelings, pursuits in thought such as science, medicine, philosophy, war, politics, etc. If there is too much ambiguity for you in the word “justice” as there is for many people, perhaps I can narrow the meaning or the goal down by saying that there not only needs to be socially enacted justice but also love and compassion which all fit into the general idea of justice.
All I want is complete freedom and to live in a world, a world of perfect peace and justice which leads to progressive thought and universal happiness. The system outlined above is the best way that I have come up with to allow for this best to happen.
My only glitches that I am willing to acknowledge and work through:
- The transition stage from the current system to my Anarchy. I'm not sure how I would transition from our current State to a state-less society.
- If one country is anarchist, the world must be anarchist. Or else we would be exposed to attacks from outside countries which they would obviously implement totalitarianism and take us over quite easily. Karl Marx had this same problem. If communism were to truly work, the entire world would need to be communist.
---In this regard, it might be easier for me to defend libertarianism as they have a very limited government, one that protects them in foreign affairs. Which brings me to another point: Legalize freedom. Vote Ron Paul.
A very brief cliff notes version of my compendium of thoughts:
- I want complete freedom and perfect justice.
- Nobody has power over me because God is ultimately sovereign. And even if somebody had power over me they don’t act responsibly so I can’t adequately trust them if they had this power over me.
- The individual is more likely to arrive at acting nobly over the entirety of the State. The best way to allow for this to happen is to allow him to be completely free to achieve this.
- Before the individual is completely free, through generations and generations of social construction, we design a society that values justice, love and compassion higher than other thing. These become the ultimately valued set of morals or laws or virtues.
- Once this is achieved and justice, love and compassion are ways of life then we can successfully release the hold of government very slowly by some transition to anarchy.
- Badda bing, badda boom. Organized Anarchy.
Here are some things that I would highly recommend reading to know more about what I’m saying here:
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Man and the State by Jacques Maritain (look into his definitions of sovereignty, state, man, and education) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1950275
- Albert Meltzer’s Anarchism: Arguments for and against http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001500.html --very legitimate
- Catholicism and Anarchy. Anarchism in the Catholic Worker Tradition by Tom Cornell http://www.catholicworker.org/roundtable/essaytext.cfm?Number=91
- The Guest by Albert Camus
Here are a couple of quotations that bring awareness to the issues at hand and that are very interesting:
“He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.” -George Orwell
"How fortunate for governments that people do not think. There is no thinking except in giving and executing commands." - Adolf Hitler
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein
"Mankind is at its best when it is most free.
This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty.
We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice,
which saying many have on their lips, but few in their mind." -Dante Alighieri
"In Washington, D.C. it costs $7,000 in city fees to open a pushcart. In
California, up to eighty federal and state licenses are required to open a
small business. In New York, a medallion to operate a taxicab costs $150,000.
More than 700 occupations in the United States require a government license.
Throughout the country, church soup kitchens for the homeless are being closed
by departments of health. No wonder so many people turn to crime and violence
to survive.” - Jarret Wollstein
"Freedom of thought is the only guarantee
against an infection of people by mass myths,
which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues,
can be transformed into bloody dictatorships." - Andrei Sakharov
"The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it."- Woodrow Wilson
“I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”-Ayn Rand
“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” -Mark Twain
