Deep inside anyone who’s capable of thinking for themself beats the heart of an anarchist. Robb Johnson, arguably the greatest political songwriter working today, wrote a line that goes “Each child born, is born an anarchist”. Quite so.
Anarchism is one of the many words that’s routinely misused and abused by the mainstream media. If asked what an anarchist is, most people would reflect this misinformation by replying with words suggesting some sort of violent terrorist. This is the image that’s been carefully crafted, polished and maintained by the media. Even highly educated people, who really should know better, routinely misuse the word “anarchy” to mean chaos and disorder. It is, of course, nothing of the kind. Derived from the Greek word anarkhos, meaning “without chiefs”, anarchism could reasonably be defined as meaning a society without leaders. It does not deny the need for society, it denies the need for leaders.
The hard proof of this can be easily found by anyone who can read. It’s there in black and white in the actual words written by real anarchists – people like Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and Chomsky. And although he wasn’t known as an anarchist, possibly because he was active before the word was in common use, the writing of Tom Paine resonates with anarchist values on almost every page. Some people even claim that Jesus Christ was an anarchist because of his allegedly pacifist teaching, but given that no one really knows…