Yes, that's right; I make my triumphant return to bloggification with a post about anarchy.
You see, recently I entered an internet discussion thread about anarchy. It was one where what seemed like an irrational and unreasonable anarchist was banging on about how evil the establishment was and how swell just being completely free from it would be peachy, while being yelled at by a number of justifiably frustrated debaters.
That's what it seemed like, at any rate.
I joined in, with the latter category of people, for those who haven't spent more than three seconds in my presence and sort of just smugly assumed that.
Then, in a moment of clarity, it occurred to me that maybe just hurling insults at the man wasn't exactly the best method for all involved. So, I decided to try another tone. I asked him politely to explain his vision and ideas in real, concrete, terms.
And he did so. At length.
He divulged the ways that it could work in practice, and answered all the questions I had about the things I thought were bonkers. It turns out I had assumed many quite silly things that he didn't agree with at all to begin with.
I still don't agree with him that anarchy works better than what we have now, but I can suddenly see how it COULD work better.
Thusly endowed with knowledge, the thread seemed entirely different to me; it now looked like a polite man, who never used neither profanities nor personal attacks, being hounded by irate attackers who had made up their own minds what his points were and refused blindly to see whether or not they were right.
I could all of a sudden see why people like the new pope so much; even though he doesn't share everyone's opinions, he favours honest and open discussions between disagreeing people, where actual exchanges of knowledge can occur.
Imagine how many conflicts, ones small like on an internet forum, or ones big like wars, could be helped by people actually doing that.
Hmm...I wonder...
Nope, it'll never work!
