Taylor the Teacher

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The Radical Libertarian says statism is a religion. Defenders of the state will irrationally defend it without regard to logic. I see the reaction he’s talking about all the time.

When I mention that I’m a philosophical anarchist people look at me like I am insane. “Anarchy means chaos!” they say. Whatever. I’m tired of explaining what the word means means. Okay, so meaning isn’t as simple as all that. But those who say anarchy means chaos aren’t talking about the nature of meaning. They’re taking an illegitimate shortcut from “anarchy connotes chaos to many Americans,” to “Anarchy denotes chaos.”

The reason I’m only a philosophical anarchist (which, to some anarchists, means I’m not an anarchist at all) is that statism isn’t only a religion – it’s a disease. Statism incapacitates those infected with it, and spreads through contact. Our people’s self-reliance and capacity for critical thought have been so weakened by the state that, at this point, anarchy would result in chaos (although that isn’t what it means.)

So, essentially the state sets itself up as the treatment for the symptoms of the larger disease: the state itself. Then, like a virus, it replicates itself through the mechanism of the public schools (among other things). Causing further symptoms, requiring further treatment. “My name is Yon Yonsin, I work in Wisconsin.”

While true education is liberating, our schools train citizens in conformity and submission. This habit of submission is the only reason that sudden loss of the state would result in chaos, like an addict in withdrawal. The state is a poison, but losing it would send most of us into shock. Think of school as a methadone clinic.

Smarter people than me have said so:

“[Bertrand] Russell traced the habit of submission in part to coercive educational practices. His views are reminiscent of the 17^th and 18^th century thinkers who held that the mind is not to be filled with knowledge “from without, like a vessel,” but “to be kindled and awaked.” “The growth of knowledge [resembles] the growth of Fruit; however external causes may in some degree cooperate, it is the internal vigour, and virtue of the tree, that must ripen the juices to their just maturity.” Similar conceptions underlie Enlightenment thought on political and intellectual freedom, and on alienated labor, which turns the worker into instrument for other ends instead of a human being fulfilling inner needs – a fundamental principle of classical liberal thought, though long forgotten because of its revolutionary implications.” (emphasis mine)

Chomsky, from Chomsky on Anarchism, Chapter Six, “Containing the Threat of Democracy”