a kind of manifesto about a
utopia
The trouble with
anarchy is it, mostly, doesn't work. The other trouble with anarchy is it is frequently
misunderstood. Most people assume anarchy implies
chaos, and
suffering for
everyone. But any
anarchist will tell you that “
all central control is backed by force” and so any
violence endured in a state of anarchy is less
terrible than the violence you might endure in a state with rigid well-enforced
laws, that by some fluke, kept you from doing as you wished.
So, the
youthful anarchist will hope that by eliminating all forms of
central control:
governments,
churches,
schools and organized
markets, he will, at last, be
free to do as he likes.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that it would work that way. And besides, the true
tyranny anarchists in
America should be concerned with is that of
culture not church or school or
state. Our culture continues to organize itself against anyone who is
different, in order to preserve its
sameness.
So, how can we change the way that people meet each other and the way that
media is distributed so that the centralized control (
television networks, the
music industry, the accepted
journals for
academic publications and the more powerful movie distributors) to institute a kind of
positive cultural anarchy?
In order to prevent cultural
leviathans, like
time-warner, from purveying ideas that may be harmful or merely
annoying to one of the many
minorities (that in fact, together, make up a
majority) I propose a world where some yet unknown technology will give everyone these “magic” powers:
1. anonymity
2. accessibility
3. freedom of expression
anonymity
In the utopia it will be fast and easy to become another person or remain completely
anonymous.
For example, if you wanted to talk with someone you could simply be a
random number and they would have to deduce everything they know about you from what you say, or if you wanted you could appear as a full person and let them know everything about you: you could make all your
records on finance, your
love letters, even, open to them. You can change your name any time you like. You can change the way you look and act and
instantly reinvent yourself.
You can do almost anything you like and
no one would know it was you.
Some bonuses of a
population with the power of anonymity are:
- people will speak more
freely
-
companies,
public figures, the government in general and other
higher ups will be able to be
criticized and
mocked by all who have the desire.
- people won’t need to be
judged by their
heritage,
race,
gender,
appearance or
past
accessibility
In any
community there are
individuals who hold
radical views. But if you look at the
global community there are, in many cases, enough of the
outcasts that they could form their own communities centred around their
interests and
beliefs. Space prevents this from happening. So, this utopia will make it possible for
anyone to be
anywhere they like.
Some bonuses of a population with the power of total accessibility are:
- people will rally around what they like instead of what is convenient
- there will be more
audiences for
avaunt garde woks.
- the
centralized distribution of movies, television, music, magazines will be broken down into tighter more
personalized interest groups that may, in many cases, produce their own content and share it for free, eliminating the
one-to-many model in the
publishing and broadcast
industries.
freedom of expression
This last one is
obvious.
Censorship is not as pervasive as it once was, but there are still remnants of it here and there. In order to preserve this valuable power for everyone we need to let
unpopular and even
ugly voices to be heard.
Some bonuses of a population with the power of free expression are:
- people will be able to show others how they see the world, thus increasing
human understanding.
- people will have access to the full spectrum of ideas not just whoever is
popular in their
home town.
- ideas that seem wrong now, but later may turn out to be right, won’t get lost.
-
crazy people will have an outlet for expression without resorting to
violence.
ok let’s do it! but, how?
I don’t have a good answer. How do you
fund,
build and
maintain such a beast? The only reason there is a
rail network or
highways or
phone lines is because of some sort of government
legislation. Every American has access to
phone service. Every American and (eventually every citizen in the world) will need to have
access to these three powers, or all the notions of
egalitarianism go
out the window. It will take an
action from some central controlling entity to bring this world to life.
Well, it’s a
dream at least.