Re: "Anarchist" as like "protestant"

Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:56:25 -0500 (EST)


At 09:22 PM 1/16/98 -0400, Steve Witham <sw@tiac.net> wrote:
>This is not meant to explain or protest on behalf of anarchism, just to
>present an interesting analogy:
>
>There is no Protestant party line. Different types of protestants
>believe different sorts of things. The one thing they have in common is
>a belief that an intermediary between God and People isn't needed. There
>is no protestant alternative to the Pope except personal prayer and good
>living, variously defined.

The problem with this analogy is that statists are like Protestants too. They
all have different ideas on what to do with government once they are in
power. They might seem similar to us looking it, but that's like someone
who doesn't like Techno saying, "All Techno sounds alike to me."

One might even blast the analogy further. Even though Catholics believe
in a united front -- one Pope, one code of beliefs for all Christians -- they
are factionalized too. The history of Catholicism seems to be a history
of heretics taking over. Granted, not all heretics gained power, but it
is interesting to see how the usual progression is whichever idea gains
power was previously thought heretical. See _A History of Heresy_
(1976) by David Christie-Murray for more on this.

In fact, it is usually those who argue for ideological unity wherein one
person or group rules all others that create such factions.

For example, the World Communist movement, because each faction
believed only one could be the vanguard, splintered into many
antagonist groups, starting long before the Sino-Soviet split. See
_The Origins of Alliances_ (1987) by Kenneth M. Walt for more and
more detailed examples of this phenomena.

Daniel Ust