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Noam Chomsky: Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just. And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency.
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Vs the classical conservative world view in which order, even if it's unjust, is usually better for everyone, even the people on the bottom, than chaos; and that dismantling power structures, if done suddenly or without care, is more likely to result in chaos than in a new, more just, order. I've been wondering lately if there is room for the notion of a conservative anarchist, who questions hierarchy but dismantles carefully and incrementally.
I've been wondering lately if there is room for the notion of a conservative anarchist, who questions hierarchy but dismantles carefully and incrementally.
Sure! Those are the collaborationists, and are the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
I'm only half-joking, see what happened to the Mensheviks in 1917-1921.
Sad but there's a lot of truth to that: if you are fighting against a nation state with an army, you have to have your own army to fight it. And on the day when you are victorious, you'll find yourself sitting on a large plot of land and people and the only intact organization around will be.. your army. And the government you form will closely resemble an army in form and function, and the high ranking members of the army will tend to become high ranking members of the new government. Hardly a blueprint for universal freedom. That's what tends to happen to violent revolutions.
The natural response would be instead of fighting a government with an army, experiment and build the structures that you would like to see, without dogma, learning as you go. When these structures solve enough problems for your community, a democratic country may peacefully transition.
Some strains of Daoist thought could be construed as a conservative anarchism, although such conservatism would be completely at odds with conservatism these days.
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/noam-chomsky-kind-an...