An Eastern Orthodox conservative challenges the anarchist position.

By Jay Dyer

The appeal of anarchism is understandable, especially in our day of what seems to be spectacular corruption on the part of members of the establishment.  In the online-fueled furor of Ron Paul’s libertarian surge in 2008, those left hanging in the wake of Campaign for Liberty’s ability to change nothing were looking for more.  And, after the failure of the libertarian surge to obtain anything from Rand Paul, the Daily Paul types clicked and googled around to find names like Larken Rose or Adam Kokesh (and now Ken O’Keefe – and his veganism!), arguing the necessity of political logic dictated the “small state” position was not enough.

In fact, the problem was precisely the state itself – something to be obliterated to bring about the long sought freedom of the individual.  Seeing the absurdity of the left/right dialectic in American so-called politics, this line of reasoning has a semblance of wisdom about it, yet, in my view, still operates under the guise of a number of absurd presuppositions and flaws that leave anarcho-libertarian fellow travelers well-prepared for the next stage of carnival troupe honey pot duping to coming along.  Since the online trend of “anarchism” seems to be on the rise, and since many ask if I am an anarchist, I want to offer my analysis.  As we shall see (and as Chris Kendall of Hoax Buster’s has perceptively noted, these movements appear to be intended to steer followers in a certain direction – yes, even anarchism).

Anarchism cannot be separated from its historical milieu, which, depending on how far back one wants to go, can extend back to the origins of revolutionary movements in general (in the West), to the Franciscan spiritualist movement of Joachim of Fiore, whose bizarre metaphysical historicization of the Trinity predicted a coming “Age of the Holy Spirit,” characterized by an age of revival, piety and communal poverty, ushering in some version or preliminary stage of the eschaton.  From there, medieval gnostic movements (which I have analyzed here) carried on the revolutionary fervor, up to the Munzter Rebellion in Germany), into the radical vision of the Jacobins in France.  However, what all these movements shared in common was their communal, collectivist aspects.  The supposed revelation of the individual’s atomistic liberty was something yet to be seen (so the mythology goes).Concurrent with these religious, political and social movements, was a tremendous revolution in the realm of thought – the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, all of which were reflected in the revolutionary political and social zeitgeist.  The Declaration of Human-

Rights (a Masonic document) of the French Revolutionaries purported to offer a list of “natural rights” accorded to the individual, and from Rousseau’s notion of the “moral centrality of freedom” arose modern anarchism.  Simultaneous with these developments were also their dialectical opposite – radical collectivism, such as is found in Hobbes’ Leviathan or Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Right (where the state is the march of God on earth).  As I wrote previously on this matter – equally applicable here:

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