Even though I have been an anarchist for 7 years, the religious quality of statism still manages to surprise me and catch me off guard. A lot of the time, when I am in public, I just observe people in my vicinity.
In many of these situations, people banter ceaselessly about politics, presidential campaigns, voting possibilities, and as many intimate details of their political masters as they can muster. They do it in a Jim-Jones-is-speaking kind of way, and I can tell that they do not even consider their words. Verbiage seeps out of their mouth as if they were speaking in tongues and running on autopilot—like they just drank the Kool-Aid.
It is as if culture has burned itself so far into their soul that it has blotted out their ability to consider alternatives or wonder about the consequences of their political soothsaying.
Combating Zealotry is Difficult
In most of these situations, I am not in a position to justify intervening or feel that it would not be worth my time to engage with this particular audience. I try to pick and choose my battles, and an intelligent individual always selects the high ground if possible.
Nonetheless, combating this kind of zealotry is difficult and time consuming. I have rhetorical methods and processes to help decondition people and see the woofuckery of their ways, but it is always challenging trying to topple someone's worldview and get them to see things in a more realistic fashion.
I guess what I am saying is that I have matured in my approach to tackling the issue of campaigning for anarchism and truth---and not everyone is ready to discard their dogmas, even if I used my most polished arguments and techniques to snap them out of their culture coma.
Statism is a powerful drug.
“The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”― Ludwig von Mises
My name is Sterlin. Follow me @ Psychologic-Anarchist. I also run the Psychologic-Anarchist Facebook page and produce many YouTube videos. My interests lie in the intersection of counseling psychology and anarchism. I write about the depredations of psychiatry, and also the new philosophy of compassionate anarchism. We have a large community devoted to discussing psychology and relational voluntaryism.