Editor’s Note: Bishop Emeritus Fabian Bruskewitz wrote a series of columns on the history of anarchy in 2004. This is “The Black Flag – I” which was published Oct. 1, 2004.
Anarchism
From news reports in recent years about the meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, often held at the same time and together with meetings of the heads of governments of the largest and economically most influential countries, we learn that not only protests but widespread acts of violence frequently erupt, such as happened in Seattle a few years ago. Sometimes these meetings now are held, to safeguard the participants, in fortified places or on relatively inaccessible islands. The protesters, who come from different parts of the world, but include Americans, are various groups with differing and sometimes contradictory agendas, but one group that is always there, waving the black flag of their movement, are the anarchists, who also appear to be responsible for most of the violence.
The ideology of anarchism continues, as it has for centuries, to lurk relatively unnoticed in some university and intellectual circles, but then it occasionally erupts into startling violence. Periods of quiescence and discussion followed by outbreaks of terror seem to be the pattern of its operation through the centuries. When these outbreaks occur, they often surprise the general public, who usually pay little attention to the ideology of anarchism, which they sometimes consider an historical anachronism or merely an eccentric point of view held by some peculiar intellectuals or by some “wacky” university professors.
Assumptions
Although anarchism as a system of thought in some form or another existed from the time before Christ, being clearly taught, for instance, by the Greek thinker Zeno, as part of his philosophy of Stoicism, it has achieved its zenith in thought and action in our Christian era. It comes in a variety of forms and emphasis, but it has some common themes. Basically, it denies the reality of original sin and its consequences, as these are revealed by God and also have been experienced throughout human history. It denies any moral absolutes. It claims that human beings are perfectible by their own efforts and thus have no need of Jesus Christ or His redeeming grace to reach beatitude in heaven or even to be happy in this world. Most but not all anarchists were and are atheists, materialists, and determinists.
Because, according to the false doctrines of anarchism, men are intrinsically good and altruistic and human nature is not deeply wounded by original sin, the problems of humanity are seen by anarchists to have their origin in all social organizations. For anarchists this means, above all, the state is evil as are all laws, which anarchists consider to be a source of oppression and exploitation. For them all corporations, all businesses, all commerce, etc. should be carried on, if at all, only by voluntary associations and with no enforceable contracts. Most anarchists hate marriage and the family, which they consider an oppressive bourgeois institution of human invention. They promote and foster sexual promiscuity as a part of human liberty as they view it.
Sometimes Allies
Like the Marxists, with whom anarchists are sometimes allied, although authentic Marxists usually despise them, anarchists make a big point of publicly opposing perceived social injustices and various types of economic and moral evils. The ultimate goal of the Communists and other followers of the teachings of Karl Marx and the ultimate goal of the anarchist theorists is the same, to wit, a utopian, classless society in which each person contributes according to his ability and receives according to his need, a sort of parody or caricature of the ideal early Christian community (Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35).
The major difference between those two tragically mistaken ideologies of Marxism and anarchism, of course, is about how this is to be made to happen. For the Marxists this means that at first the state, the government, must be strengthened in an overwhelming way and the individual human being, initially must be submerged even forcibly in the collectivity through socialism, which then will evolve, according to their interpretation of Darwin, into the Communist state, a classless society of human perfection, a sort of heaven on earth. To accomplish this purpose, according to the Marxists, it is legitimate and even necessary to murder and destroy people. Both Lenin and Stalin, as they murdered far more millions of people than Hitler did, liked to recite the proverb that “one cannot make an omelet without breaking the eggs.”
For the anarchists, on the other hand, the way to redeem mankind and to bring about their heaven on earth is to struggle immediately to do away with the state, all governments, all laws, and all human organizations. Each human being, according to them, can only be free if left entirely to himself or herself, with no laws or social controls or pressures, left simply to follow base instincts and be a “rule unto one’s self.” Anarchists, for the most part, agree with the Marxists about the legitimacy of the use of violence and terror to reach their goal. They contend that for them to bring about their vision of human perfection, it is good and necessary to kill and murder people even in great numbers, there being no distinction, according to their theories, between the innocent and the guilty. Communists and anarchists generally hold that because their ends are so noble, any means are justified in achieving them. They maintain that moral laws do not come from God, but are merely inventions of human beings, made throughout all of history simply to promote human selfishness and to enable some persons to exploit other persons.
Hatred
Like Marxism and socialism, anarchism thrives on envy and hatred. It also finds a fertile field in those theoretical or practical atheistic human minds which see real injustices, the practice of greed and selfishness in most human arrangements and relationships, and the often ineffectiveness of government undertakings, but, because of their atheism, find themselves incapable of seeing any suitable instruments with which to confront and overcome them. Most human beings normally find anarchism, if they know about it, to be repulsive and unacceptable. However, anarchistic opinions and principles often infiltrate their way into political and social thinking patterns. For example, certain libertarian views and the acceptance of an incorrect opinion about human autonomy are widespread in our culture. The acceptance as “good” in many places of such evils as euthanasia, abortion, assisted suicide, fornication, homosexual acts, and the like is the consequence of such patterns of anarchistic thought.
