Freedom and Anarchy - America's Co-joined Twins

You have heard of red states and blue states, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal, but this congenital dichotomy mirrors itself exactly, all while seeming as cultural polar opposites.

Freedom and anarchy are etymologically made of the same linguistic DNA. Freedom -- the domain of the free -- has no controller restraining its occupants.  A kingdom has a king.  A dukedom has a duke. Anarchy has ‘no arch’ – overseeing controller or leader demanding obedience. In their simplest meanings, they are the same beast – a two-headed hydra. 

Freedom is a western demi-god today, but this deism has the most permissive and laissez-fare style. On the left hand, anarchy has been slighted -- as if the negative end of a battery was a bad thing that the positive end of the battery could still function without.

Only to confuse matters more, liberty is another head on that hydra and it is often conflated with freedom. To keep things simpler here and at this time, I will merely share that freedom is a most generic state or condition of being without constraints, but a more complicated word (and idea of) liberty came out of the Enlightenment as ‘liberalism.’ It originally meant a state of being free after and because one has been socially responsible to the society/civilization first. In this sense, liberalism meant that you were free to shop carefree and happily at the mall because you, and everyone else there, are respectful of the mall’s atmosphere and the other patrons first.

Liberty begets the ‘first fruits’ of a social democratic society. Freedom is that actual fruit. But the true or pure meaning of freedom -- in the absence of a social responsibility -- is blind to an idea of order just as the fun at a party emerges as people drift away from control and in defiance of their natural and social inhibitions. Maybe then anarchy can be thought of as when the fruit is thrown at actors in a play (or in the government) as an act of defiance of them.

From the end of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century anarchist assassins used handguns to accelerate the elimination of their ‘archos’ leaders – President William McKinley and Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  This era ended with the start of WWI and the final demise and/or marginalization of many monarchies.  Maybe this is the source of anarchy becoming labeled as freedom spoiled or unrestrained. Anarchy did become a prodigal son in its own right as it grew into a political movement which stood vehemently in favor of only/purely voluntary political governance or none at all – a sort of Republic of Pirates with an informal ‘Code of Conduct.’    

In recent decades, these twins seemingly have narrowed their fictional distinctions, but that may only be true to the non-historic eye. Contemporary times fool every generation with the near-sightedness of the now -- blinding them to most of the great intricate frictions of the past. 

We may look into the past with a microscope or into the future with a telescope, but the events we see are ‘freedom fights’ if they side with our views or ‘causes of anarchy’ if they seek to obscure those views. However, it must be noted that there is a small fragment of society that sees anarchy and anarchist(s) with endearing eyes, and even more so because the majority of our society sees them with disdain. ‘Sovereign citizen’ is the preferred label of many of these anarchists today.

Our stories and tales of the past may make that past seem simple and clear today, but in their own times these events they were just as politically loaded with blurred ethical and moral lines for their own contemporary, myopic onlookers to struggle with resolutely. Those who want to advance one’s own cause are ‘freedom-fighters.’ Those who threaten one’s own desired order were “anarchists.” These twins became severed into opposing and loaded labels. 

So how could any political state not immediately burn itself down when it permits these two very hot fires to rage within its borders. Like the power of heat in a furnace or kiln, their strengths are harnessed by their ironic confinement. Today, we have sold ourselves on the idea that freedom is happily increasing the temperature within the furnace, even if only for show.  But the usually maligned anarchy would like to blow it open with an incensed ignobility. Freedom is softer, loved and somewhat harmlessly, playfully juvenile, but anarchy is hard, jaded and an insufferable, uncompromising geriatric curmudgeon. Or is freedom wisely led by founding fathers and anarchy misguided by lawless youths? 

Fiction stores tales in myths that societies call history. Their ‘truths’ are constrained within and by their poetic script. The authenticity of the past faces its greatest threat from selectivity.  In its limited space, only so much can be included in history. The little that makes it into these grand narratives is subservient to the language used to paint its ‘pictures,’ just as visual artists are guided by the limitations of their palettes and their canvas sizes.

Flags don’t fight battles, but they finish them. Labels don’t justify the sides of struggle, but they are cheat sheets by which humans identify friend and foe. Freedom has traditionally been ‘friend’ and anarchist became ‘foe.’ However, just as terms of endearment, hazing nicknames, and indoctrination rituals play with the uncertainty and instability of these states and their relationship(s) within a group, anarchy can ironically be a group’s social bond all while that very same group conversely propagandizes the idea of freedom to the outsiders who observe them from afar. The Hell’s Angels seem to play with just such an oscillating duplicity. 

Many academics or journalists may try to divide these twins, but these words both completely share all of their ‘same’ essential organs, and their acclaimed or apparent separate ‘two sides’ are hardly distinguishable as different at times. Are they co-joined twins or just the natural differences that each of us has between our own right and left sides? On the proverbial two-sided coin, both sides are both unified on the inside and divided on the outside.

Freedom and anarchy may both begin to try to spread their reach at the expense of the other, but this is really a propaganda war. Patriots are upholding their pater/father, so they would of course be loyal to the fatherland? So how can patriots and loyalist come to blows as they fight for who loves their country more? This seemingly imbecilic lovefest gets to the heart of this exploration. How can said persons unite into a people if they are always seeking more self-autonomy for themselves and yet more control of others? Or will our meandering pursuits of happiness just lead to a tranny of anomie?   

If an honest distinction must be made between freedom and anarchy -- as they are prejudicially seen by their users today, freedom is heralded as a sincere request from earnest citizens and anarchy is ‘saga-ed’ as an insatiable and impatient personal coup that subjugates the civic norms for self-sovereign autonomy. Maybe only the Roman god Janus can lead us through a gateway for reunifying these seemingly contrarian quests into a cohesive, coherent and heavenly whole.