The idea of “self-rule” is fundamental to an understanding of how humanity has been enslaved for its long history, and what principle we must embrace to evolve past that point.
The interaction with a power-seeking leader is a great example, in microcosm, of the problem, and the solution. A self-aggrandizing individual decides s/he has some intrinsic value to add by dominating a group. When that individual is gently reminded of the general welfare of the group, the dissenting voice is silenced (turn off the mic/send to reeducation camp, etc). Then, a second voice strips away the hypocrisy and delusion by describing what is really going on. Most of the others in the group are silent during these exchanges, i.e., like most people, waiting for things to shake out to see who to follow next.
Anarchy has made a very bad name for itself because in the past, it has generally resorted to bombing/sabotaging people and places it feels is the systemic representation of the repression of the individual. This is crazy counterproductive: it drives the majority of sheep further into the arms of the “protecting authority.”
What should be done (if I may prescribe a cure) is simply SELF-RULE. The idea that no one has a better idea than you do as to what is appropriate for you at the moment, and that you have an inherent right to exercise that right as long as you don’t impinge on others, that is, exercise AUTHORITY over them by denying their right to express. This is Non-Coercion 101. There is simply no room in all that to find a logical justification to blow up things, because things are just symbols of what the problem is. It is more treatment of symptoms, not causes. As long as people as willing to accept the authority of others over their own thoughtful choices, there will never be enough external violence to overcome it, it is self-generating, like an autoimmune condition.
The most effective path forward to SELF-RULE is simply, self-rule. The freeing of oneself from the shackles of the idea that someone 2000/200/2 years ago decided something that, even though it makes no sense, should be followed stringently. Much better to disobey but understand WHY it was originally given, WHY you disagree, and leave open the objective room to decide that it is a good rule to follow after all, but now digested through the concept of self-rule, which should never refuse good advice, just because it comes from “authority.”
Finally, the key to this, at least it seems so at this moment: we must make freedom, our self-rule, paramount in all our actions. The total enemy of this is the calculating mind we have that weighs what can go wrong, what will it cost us, how we may be persecuted or shunned, how much easier it would be to slide by things and not create waves. The base line, foundational Ground Zero has to be self-rule, and every other consideration be damned, just fodder to plan for, work around, ignore, or nobly suffer for, if that is the final outcome.
When we make self-rule in ALL its ramifications manifest, we empower ourselves like never before to move through walls, to walk on water, to fly like a bird, over what used to be impenetrable objects of social dominance. We have looked to others for our species’ entire history to give us freedom, when it is really can only come when we give OURSELVES the authority to do that, a real bootstrapping operation if there ever was one. Because everything we have been taught since infancy is to give it away to someone else.
It is time to meet the enemy at the final bridge crossing and do or die in the effort to become fully human…on our way to something much greater, I believe.