Blazing Reader,

Anarchy is often said to mean "without rules."

In truth, it means "without rulers."

Nonetheless, the "without rules" deception has led people to wrongly associate anarchism with chaos, immorality, and destruction.

"Ah, yes, anarchism," James Corbett writes in Reportage: Essay on the New World Order. "A word soaked in blood and written in flaming red letters in the imagination of the same people who have been conditioned to believe that voting for their next ruler is their noblest and most sacred duty."

So how did the word get associated with brutal, sadistic criminals? According to Carey Wedler in her short video "Why 'anⒶrchy' is such a dirty word," it was a result of a few so-called anarchists violently rebelling against the government.

"Despite peaceful anarchists' voices condemning such violence," she explains, "popular opinion collectivized and condemned them all as a dangerous threat.

"Yet ruling authorities of the time, and throughout history, and today, inflicted and continue to inflict far more bloodshed across all forms of government than anarchists of any flavour ever could. Yet when cops kill people, it's just a few bad apples. When ruling authorities order atrocities, few condemn all political authority."

In Wedler's three-minute video, she explains why anarchy is really about "self-ownership and voluntary peaceful relationships... [without] outsourcing your agency and morality to violent authoritarians and their beneficiaries who have proven themselves unworthy of running your life or society."

You can watch and share "Why 'anⒶrchy' is such a dirty word" on YouTube, X or Instagram.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.