Anarchism Without Hyphens (Karl Hess)

There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind,as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person onopposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. Theonly expansion of this that seems to me reasonable is to say that an anarchist standsin opposition to any imposed authority. An anarchist is a voluntarist.Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billion facetedvarieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily,to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communesof beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establishthe syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntaryseek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who,voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association withother people; the hermits. Some are anarchists who will deal, voluntarily, only ingold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily,worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play thedulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strangegames, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who see only the stars.Some are anarchists who see only the mud. They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It isnot a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can befree. After that it’s all choice and chance. Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacityto make the arrangements. Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only thatfreedom, liberty, can exist. Recently, in a libertarian journal, I read the statement that libertarianism is anideological movement. It may well be. In a concept of freedom it, they, you, or we,anyone, has the liberty to engage in ideology or anything else that does not coerceothers, denying their liberty. But anarchism is not an ideological movement. It is anideological statement. It says that all people have a capacity for liberty. It says thatall anarchists want liberty. And then it is silent. After the pause of that silence, anarchiststhen mount the stages of their own communities and history and proclaimtheir, not anarchism’s, ideologies—they say how they, how they as anarchists, willmake arrangements, describe events, celebrate life, work. Anarchism is the hammer-idea, smashing the chains. Liberty is what results and, in liberty, everything else is up to people and their ideologies. It is not up to THE ideology. Anarchism says, in effect, there is no such upper case, dominating ideology.It says that people who live in liberty make their own histories and their owndeals with and within it. A person who describes a world in which everyone must or should behave in asingle way, marching to a single way, marching to a single drummer, is simply notan anarchist. A person who says that they prefer this way, even wishing that allwould prefer that way, but who then says that all must decide, may certainly be ananarchist. Probably is. Liberty is liberty. Anarchism is anarchism. Neither is Swiss cheese or anythingelse. They are not property. They are not copyrighted. They are old, available ideas,part of human culture. They may be hyphenated but they are not in fact hyphenated. They exist on their own. People add hyphens, and supplemental ideologies. I am an anarchist. I need to know that, and you should know it. After that, I am a writer and a welder who lives in a certain place, by certain lights, and with certain people. And that you may know also. But there is no hyphen after the anarchist.Liberty, finally, is not a box into which people are to be forced. Liberty is a spacein which people may live. It does not tell you how they will live. It says, eternally,only that we can.The dandelion, Spring 1980 by Karl Hess