I wanted to be an anarchist when I was a teenager – and I know it’s cheesy. When I grew up, I had an angry-at-the-world/fuck-the-world mentality, and I hated everything about my life. I believed that commercialism, capitalism, superficiality, the government, cops, and any authority figures were everything wrong with society and more.
When I was 16-years-old, I was reading books about the war on drugs, especially Stephen Bennet’s book, Noam Chomsky’s works, and books by Naomi Campbell.
Did I believe any of the shit that I said? I’m not sure.
I expected myself – at 25 – to be living in a building somewhere with ten other anarchists playing shitty folk songs on the guitar talking about our “hatred for the system, man. You know what I mean, ‘mehn?’ It’s because of the capitalist social structure ‘meeeeehn.'”
All jokes aside; It was a phase. Once I got a bit older – around the age of 21-22-years-old – I realized that there were certain things that I wanted out of life and I would need to change to get them.
Not only would I need to change my perspective, but I would need to change everything about my behavior, appearance, and attitude in general.
Nowadays, I look back on that stage in my life, and honestly, I wish I would’ve just enjoyed my life. Why couldn’t I just enjoy being a teenager?
I think a lot of people feel that way though. Like I said in the last article, I met a 30-year-old girl who was a “self-proclaimed” anarchist and her ideological bullshit reminded me of myself.
When she was speaking to me, she had this self-righteous indignation and pretentious way of talking, as if every question she had for me was some brilliant polemic or aphorism.
She asked me if I wanted kids and I said I did. She then proceeds to lecture me on her whole lifestyle of why to have children is bad and how it’s not good for the environment.
Shortly after asking me why I wanted kids, there’s this smug look on her face before she says again, “I bet you no one had ever asked you this question before,” as if it was brilliant, so unique, original, deep, and profound. It made me want to punch her in the face, for real.
It reminded me of a video where Jordan B Peterson talks about environmentalists and how they hate human beings so much. They love the environment but hate other people – it’s utterly bizarre.
If you hate people so much, why would you even be an environmentalist? They talk about “saving the planet,” but for what purpose? It doesn’t matter what we do. Eventually, our species will be extinct, and the world will be just fine. It will go back to the way it was before we were ever here, and on and on it goes.
So why do these people want to “save the environment” if they dislike other people so much? It doesn’t make sense.
If your goal is to have a sustainable approach to the way you live your life, for the sake of other generations, that makes sense. But, these other people who are anarchists and who want to “smash the patriarchy” and all of that nonsense – that doesn’t make sense.
There’s something extraordinary about these people where they love the environment and want to save the rainforest, but don’t want to help their fellow man.
It reminds me of the book by George Orwell, titled, The Road To Wigan Pier. Apparently, in this book, Orwell talks about the temperament and attitude of the left-wing socialists and how they hold the working class in contempt.
Of course, left-wing socialists are always “educated” in the sense that they’re privy to all of the bullshit they peddle in the ideological echo chambers known as universities.
However, – and by the way, this reminds me of what’s going on in the United States at the moment – apparently the socialists all hated the regular blue-collar workers so much.
They thought the workers were stupid, incompetent, uneducated, and in general, held them in contempt.
The uniting force between the working class and the self-proclaimed “intellectuals” who were also socialists, was not their desire for socialism, it was merely hatred for the wealthy.
That’s what the issue is; it’s not that any of these people care about helping anybody out, they just want to see others fail because of their deep resentment of the system and those who succeed within it.
Stop and think about it for a moment. Is Tom Brady an anarchist? No, why would someone like him be a left-wing extremist? He’s competent, hard-working, focused, disciplined, and good looking on top of it, so there’s no reason for him to be an anarchist.
The system rewards people like him. Hierarchies of competence fill the society in which we live, and people like Tom are on top of the pyramid.
If you’re an individual who’s incompetent with zero discipline, of course, you hate the system; it’s because you can’t win.
I guess your only option is to smash the state, isn’t it?
I think it’s important to understand that the products you buy and your actions every day affect others, in some way, all around the world. For example, the drinks, food, and technology you buy all have an impact on someone else in the world.
The Chinese manufactured my phone – I presume – using materials mined in some environmentally disastrous manner; maybe 1-2 people died while doing it.
My shirt is Romanian-made, my pants, in Asia, and the rest of my shit is manufactured somewhere else, again, probably in Asia.
Nevertheless, I think a person should learn to embody the changes they want to see in the world – as the old cliché goes – rather than wave a fucking placard around and trying to convince others to change.
There is still a part of me that gives a shit about the environment, the actions of our government in foreign countries, and the need to be politically motivated to make changes for the greater good. However, lead by example, not through lecturing.
If you want to make an impact on the world, as I said before, take a look at what products you’re consuming on a daily basis and make changes to your general lifestyle.
To be a political activist who waves a placard everywhere, getting involved in protests and what not, is simply a waste of time. Stop worrying about what other people are doing and focus on your craft, your art, your passion, and your business.
I watched an interview with Floyd Mayweather Junior recently where he says one of the integral parts of his success is the fact that he didn’t give a shit about what anyone else was doing. He focused on himself, and himself only. He worked on his career as a boxer and only worried about improving himself.
An anarchist might respond that he’s now a cog in the system which contributes negatively more than ever. However, he just got paid $100,000,000 to fight Conor McGregor, so he can take $75,000,000 and contribute to the world more than an “anarchist” ever could, and ever will.
A person’s time is much better spent working on their craft, rather than getting involved in affairs where a behind-the-scenes bureaucrat made the decision long before you ever got there.
At one point, I worked in a factory that made pre-prepared food for a restaurant as well as grocery stores, and some interesting characters worked there. Among them, plenty of “activist” types who want to “smash the patriarchy” or what have you.
A man there, who was in his mid-forties, told me that back in the 1990’s he was involved with a political activist group who would attend all kinds of events and protest what the government was doing. Primarily, they were protesting the Conservative party – one of the five political organizations we have in Canada.
All throughout his time picketing, no one ever was curious how they had the money to travel around to all of these different functions and never pay for anything.
It turns out, this group of activists – who were made up of a lot of punks too – were, in reality, funded by the NDP, the organization in Canada that is closest to a socialist party.
When you’re a political activist, you’re essentially a puppet in someone else’s show, facilitating some else’s agenda. You’re wasting your time, plain and simple. Your time is much better spent getting your affairs in order, rather than placard-waving. It’s a cliché, but it’s also true; If you want to change the world, change yourself.