The Met calls for you to dob in anarchists.

5 min read

Deviation Actions

Pylo's avatar
By
Published:
1.7K Views
The Metropolitan Police, that august group who's probity is beyond question, have called for upright citizens of our great nation to inform upon those insidious underminers of all that is good, anarchists.

[REFERENCE]

and

[REFERENCE]

They have since changed the "badly worded" call but the fact that this was ever done at all, plus the fact that being asked to report symbology of supporters of Al Qaeda came after the above shows just how shaken they were by the recent civil disturbance in the UK.  Also, it shows a complete lack of understanding of the concept of anarchy and the perilous nature of being an official of a state.

Anarchy had and has nothing to do with the riots of recent weeks.  Anarchy is a rejection of the state and of leadership, not of rules, laws or (even) policemen.  Rules are a natural and appropriate response to civil society.  The behaviour of recent days was not anarchy, it was chaos.  It was not people organising their own lives with individual responsibility it was a real live zombie film with tracksuited criminals playing the eponymous amoral consumers.  To quote Alan Moore:

"This is only the land of take-what-you-want. Anarchy means 'without leaders' not 'without order.' With anarchy comes an age of ORDNUNG, of true order, which is to say voluntary order. This age...will begin when the mad & incoherent cycle of VERWIRRUNG that these bulletins reveal has run its course. This is not anarchy...this is chaos." (V for Vendetta.)

Of course, V was wanting the corrupt society of his fictional Britain to be pulled down in flames and much as sometimes we may  want this, we probably know it would be an unpleasantness best avoided here in what I smilingly think of as the real world.  

Anarchy cannot be imposed (especially by over privileged young people in leather jackets who have a beef with the police about their over-rigorous interpretation of the law regarding hemp.)  Imposition requires leaders, after all, and leaders require led.  Anarchy is what can happen after politics.  When each individual is free to look around them and absorb, or not, the values and culture they see.  More importantly, they then have the responsibility to accept the consequences of their actions.  

When we see children and youths and morally bankrupt adults behaving like The Walking Dead we are not seeing anarchy or even verwirrung .  Nor, when we watch mad max with it's feathers and face paint are we seeing anarchy.  Nor in Somalia or in Congo.  We are seiing chaos.  A complete rejection of personal responsibility and the adoption of state power (usually through liberal applications of lethal force and criminal policing of individuals who hold that lethal force.)  Just because, as we are often told, Somalia or Congo "lack an effective government" doesnt mean it's people are not being governed.  They are being controlled (governed) by the most adept thug with the most weapons.   Interestingly, *our* govenment then often invites them to dinner parties at Buck House...  It seems that the only difference between an elected leader and a despot is that despots usually have better suits.

But back to my soapbox!  ;)  It *did* occur to me to question the difference in moral and ethical terms between the behaviours of the Walking Dead of recent riots and those of the financial speculators of the international money markets.  This isn't about Anarchy, by the way, this is a genuine question I want to find an answer to.  

Obviously rioting and commercial damage/theft = illegal.  Equally obviously, market speculation =(usually) legal.  Legality is not my question.  I am trying to identify why the wanton damage of property, business and the destruction of social infrastructure should be considered imoral and unethical when it is done (on a pretty small even if spectacular and nauseating scale) in the streets and yet moral and ethical when it is done to whole industries, communities or even nations from an office in The City or New York or Hong Kong?  Whole nations are being described as bankrupt, and yet there are just as many individual citizens living and making and buying and working as there was before the headless chicken panic of financiers.  Someone decides that a nation is not  "a good bet" (hedged or otherwise) and hundreds, thousands become unemployed.  They stop producing, consuming, to all intents (and the purposes of the markets) existing.  This is morally and ethically unquestioned.  I sincerely don't understand the difference.  It seems, from my obviously ill educated viewpoint, to be simply that a rioter is a victim of insufficient hubris.  Do give me your thoughts, but please dont be offensive or I shall  be upset.

Anyway...

Anarchy in the UK?  No.  Not yet.

Phill

PS:  If this should be read by any agent of the civil authorities, please dont feel the need to track me down using hi-tech toys.  Just send me a note and I will get back to you.  I am an anarchist and I would be happy to come and talk to you about it.  _P_
© 2011 - 2024 Pylo
Comments5
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
TheHiddenPhoenix's avatar
My head hurts Phil, I have not read this much since dooiing my dissertation research, but I agree with you on the whole thing