it’s the same with communism - in theory it is about the same things: community and equality and freedom through lack of competition. anarchists, communists, and socialists all have very much in common in this sense. just like anarchy, the label has been misused by groups and regimes and it’s gotten a bad rap, and so the idea is always dismissed.

i think we could use a little anarchy around here.

I agree with this 100%. It’s why most revolutions fail; because most aim to replace the old bosses with new bosses without dissolving the roots of the whole dominant structure. On topic, there’s a terrific transcription of a speech by Derrick Jensen, an author I highly recommend, called “Why Revolutions Fail”. From it, I love this line: “There is another kind of revolution, one that doesn’t emerge from the culture, from philosophy, from theory, from thought abstracted from sense, but instead from our bodies, and from the land.”

Oh, and I’m not sure if the Quinn quote is in Ishmael. I got it from the article about the class.

On your point about deconstructing systems, I’ve been recently re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which says something about that…if I may quote:

“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effecs only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematick thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.”

I’m not entirely sure right now (because it’s quarter to 3 in the morning, and I can’t just can’t sleep) what this quote might mean in terms of the class, since I don’t know the details of the class. It’s just some food for thought. If you haven’t read this book then I suggest it. If you have, it’s always worth a re-read if it’s been awhile.

Interesting how the (insert word for fate, cosmos, god(s) here) sometimes throws one down a certain path…especially on the internet, b/c I probably wouldn’t have thought about that passage or it’s relation to your post had I not been reading this lately.