Chapter 40: Neo-Anarchism
I refer to what I do as Neo-Anarchism.
Human equality and freedom for everyone has been the goal of the Anarchist movement from the very beginning. Planetary biology indicates that human equality and freedom for everyone are crucial for the survival of civilization, our species, and our environment.
The goal of the Neo-Anarchist movement is the success of the traditional Anarchist movement, given the physical limitations of the world we live in. Traditional Anarchism, like every other political ideology, is founded on a set of faulty beliefs, which is why the traditional Anarchist movement hasn’t been more successful. Some goals of the traditional Anarchist movement aren’t physically possible to achieve, but to the extent that traditional Anarchist goals are possible to achieve, the goal of the Neo-Anarchist movement is to achieve them.
One big mistake traditional Anarchists have been making is believing that free will is the cure for all the world’s problems, and that people acting upon what they feel to be true will solve everything. Free will is an illusion for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that most of our decision making takes place subconsciously. Everyone acting upon what they feel to be true about the world can’t possibly solve all the world’s problems, because that’s humanocentricism. Everyone acting upon what they feel to be true is what created all the world’s problems in the first place.
The Neo-Anarchist movement measures success by personal empowerment through informed decision making. Informed decision making depends on people having information. Science is the pursuit of information, and the systematic approach to discovering reliable information.
Anyone who learns what I know can serve as the intellectual military of the anti-Capitalist revolution. The Neo-Anarchist movement functions as the military of the anti-Capitalist revolution, by fighting off the Capitalists, by systematically seeking and destroying the ideology behind their oppressive social structures. The Anarchist movement has already been acting as the Red Cross—or I should say, Black Cross—of the anti-Capitalist revolution, by helping people to get the things they need to function as independent political units and solve their local problems. Traditional Anarchists have been trying to do the jobs of Neo-Anarchists, and there’s no reason Neo-Anarchists couldn’t help do the jobs of traditional Anarchists—because these are just words, after all. The point is, the specific goals of the Neo-Anarchist movement are the scientific defense and scientific facilitation of the anti-Capitalist revolution.
I’m not opposed to governments, I’m opposed to political ideology itself. Neo-Anarchism is the direct application of planetary biology to society. The human race has reached a fork in the road. We have the choice, and we have to make the choice, whether to make the world work in a way that can keep everyone alive, or to make it work in a way that can’t keep everyone alive. You know which side I’m on. The time for political ideologies is over. All that’s left are different approaches people have found to making the world work in a way that can keep everyone alive.
Some people call themselves Anarchists, some call themselves Greens, or Independents, or Socialists, or Communists, or whatever. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all just different ways people have found to try to provide for their needs. No matter what political ideology you’re using, if you do whatever it takes to adapt it to all the science that’s now available—meaning the Functional Outline of a Chemical Formula for the Entire World—you’ll be Neo-Anarchists.
Every group of people has figured out some important things about life. That even includes your worst enemy—because the whole reason he’s able to threaten you so badly is because he’s learned enough about how the world works to be able to threaten you that badly. People of different political ideologies who are trying to make the world work in a way that can keep everyone alive are all trying to reach the same goal from different starting points. By trying to reach the same goal from different starting points, each group has confronted problems that other groups haven’t, so they have gotten practice at solving those problems that other groups haven’t.
The Functional Outline of a Chemical Formula for the Entire World is the most critical thing anyone needs to know to build a political system that’s capable of creating the society people want. But it’s only one piece of information. Whatever political ideology you’ve been using, you’ve gotten practice at making things happen. Now between what you know and what I know, you can figure out how to make your political systems work the way you intended them to work, and to make the world work in a way that can keep everyone alive.
You don’t have to be an Anarchist to be a Neo-Anarchist. You don’t have to call yourself a Neo-Anarchist to do the job of a Neo-Anarchist. I’m not opposed to governments, I’m opposed to oppressive social structures, which all governments currently are. We know enough about how the world works now to build social structures that serve the interests of their people. Whether our current politicians do whatever needs to be done to their current governments to turn them into social structures that serve the interests of their people, or anti-Capitalist revolutionaries build those social structures amidst the burning wreckage of the former Capitalist empire makes no difference to me. Science depends on democracy, and the future of democracy depends on science. The only thing left for politicians to decide is whether they’re going to help or stand in the way.
Winning the global revolution will depend on anti-Capitalist revolutionaries all over the world working together effectively. A lot of anti-Capitalist revolutionaries had figured that out already. Without planetary biology, that wasn’t possible, because—as a lot of revolutionaries could see—no one knew enough about anyone else’s situation to know how all the pieces fit together.
With planetary biology now, that changes everything. Now revolutionaries all over the world can see that even though the most readily tangible details of their situations are different, everyone’s situation is created by the same underlying laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. Still, no one—including me—knows enough about anyone else’s situation to be able to make effective decisions for other people. But now, revolutionaries all over the world can recognize that whatever threats, defeats, or victories happen to revolutionaries elsewhere in the world, happen as a result of the same laws of physics, chemistry, and biology that they themselves are dealing with.
Now you can help each other more and learn more from each other’s experiences. We all live in the same universe, and the universe works the same way for all of us. That means we all have the same economic system, and the same political system. Our economic and political systems only look different from each other because people are using them differently. But among any groups of people who are each acting upon a functional understanding of how the universe works and who don’t want to kill themselves, the similarities among the groups are big, while the differences are only small.
Any group of people, anywhere in the world, who have figured out how to make their livings, know what they need to make their livings. When Capitalists look at whatever people have, all they can see are market values. But no matter where in the world you live, you have to get your food from somewhere, and you need to know where you can get your food. The same is true for everyone, all over the world, no matter how strange they may seem to you. You also need clean drinking water, clothing, shelter, and medicine. Everyone knew that. But you also need to not be threatened by other people, to not feel threatened by other people, to be able to meet romantic partners, have sex with them, have families with them, be respected by people for who you are, have the opportunity to make friends, have the opportunities to put your abilities to use to make a life for yourself, have the opportunity to put your abilities to their fullest use to make a life for yourself, have the opportunity to put all of your abilities to their fullest use to make a life for yourself, and otherwise be able to live in a condition where your long-term happiness is possible, without threatening other people.
Planetary biology gives us a universal language of humanity. Whatever problem a group of people are facing, anywhere in the world, the problem and its solution are contained in planetary biology. Whatever affected them, affects you in some way also. Every time they win a struggle or lose a struggle, the reason they won or lost is contained in planetary biology. If you’re in a similar struggle, you can see how your struggle is similar to theirs and how it’s different. So you can learn how to avoid making the same mistakes and you can learn how to win the same successes.
A small group of people can only rule a larger group of people if they figure out how to divide and conquer. But divide and conquer only works as long as the other people never figure out how to unite and liberate. And if the other people do figure out how to unite and liberate… well, we all make choices in life.
The Functional Outline of a Chemical Formula for the Entire World changes everything for the anti-Capitalist revolution in another important way also.
As everyone keeps saying, we all have to work together. People who live in America or another First World country, live on the labor and exploited resources of foreign peasants. As a result, they have opportunities that Third-World peasants don’t. Everyone working together means everyone taking advantage of whatever opportunities they have.
I meet a lot of people who call themselves progressive activists who disapprove of my thinking I know so much more about life than they do, and who make a big showing of only accepting part of what I have to say just to prove they can think for themselves, or to keep me from thinking I can tell them what to do, or whatever. But if they do that, they’re not progressive activists, because they’re choosing to throw opportunities away, just to try to impress me with how smart they are.
I meet a lot of people who call themselves progressive activists who say that anyone trying to write a universal language for humanity and teach everyone about science is going to corrupt everyone’s thought processes and indoctrinate everyone to one person’s idea of the right way to think. I meet a lot of other people who have various other beliefs they aren’t willing to let go of, because they aren’t willing to accept the fact that they were wrong about something. But if you believe something like that, you’re confusing what I do with political ideology. The fact that I can talk about science and sound like I’m talking about political ideology is proof of just how thoroughly science is understood now. Politicians always act like they know what they’re talking about, any time they talk about anything. But with planetary biology, I can talk about anything and then trace it all the way down the interactions of fundamental laws of science. And I’ve taught you how to do it too—not that you’re as good at it as I am.
As an American, I have access to all the information that went into this book because I live on the labor and exploited resources of foreign peasants. The same is true for anyone who lives in a First-World country. But if they don’t use their access to resources to produce something that’s useful to foreign peasants, they’re calling themselves progressive activists, choosing not to make a fair trade with the people they depend upon for their livelihoods, choosing to be defeated, and then calling that victory because they feel like that’s the right thing to do, because their political ideology says the victory of their revolution depends on people not telling each other what to think. But that means that their feeling like they’re winning their revolution depends on the continued slavery of foreign peasants.
A lot of biologists today are wondering how anyone can ever turn biology into a political movement in time to save our planet from environmental suicide. But it’s really not that difficult. They just don’t know how to think like global revolutionaries.
The average foreign peasant knows more about biology than the average U.S. citizen. Many foreign peasants are farmers, while the vast majority of U.S. citizens aren’t farmers. Peasant farmers who spend their lives working with plants and animals spend their lives making biology happen.
Every farmer is the world is biologist who simply lacks a little education. Farming is the study of how plants and animals work. Biology is the study of why plants and animals work that way. Every time a farmer breeds two plants or animals together because he likes certain characteristics of the plants or animals, he is making evolution happen. He is personally selecting genetic characteristics of the plants or animals and personally passing those genes down to their next generation.
If planetary biology can be taught to peasant farmers all over the world, our government officials will have no excuse not to be able to learn it. I’ve talked about anti-Capitalism as a revolution throughout this book, but all it requires is a revolution in human consciousness. Forced ignorance is not democracy. If educating the public turns out to be an act of revolution, what are the Capitalists so afraid of the public learning about?
We don’t need violence to win the revolution. This is a revolution in human consciousness. We have already won the revolution. All that’s left is for us to make the Capitalists understand that they’ve lost, and to build our new societies in place of the Capitalist empire.
On the other hand, I’m sure a lot of us realize the Capitalists won’t give up without a fight. Before we can build our new political and economic systems, humanity will probably have to cross a river of blood. We are already standing ankle deep in that river of blood. But we can wage our revolutionary struggle with information and education. However wide and however deep the river of blood turns out to be is up to the Capitalists to decide.
I guess I better end this by repeating the first words that were ever spoken in the United States from an activists’ point of view—meaning the point of view of people who turn ideas into events. In the words of Captain John Parker at the Battle of Lexington, just before the first shots in the American Revolution were fired (so the story goes) “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
Personally, I prefer a quote by Dr. King: “When you’re right, you can’t be too radical. When you’re wrong, you can’t be too conservative.”
In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
In the words of Albert Einstein, “There is no problem on Earth that can be solved by the same level of thinking that created it.”
In the words of Ché Guevara, “A revolutionary is motivated by a great love of his people.”
Whatever happens, let it be remembered that every revolutionary is a human who is trying to survive and reproduce in the best way he or she can think of. The revolution is just the symptom of the real problem.