“A literalist walks into a bar and says ‘ouch.’” ~ Joke
This is not a comedy article, as the title might suggest. No, this is a blaring alarm clock. This is a wake-up call of monumental proportions. This is a red flag whipping in a dangerous wind. This is a sincere attempt at helping you realize the gravity of our situation as a species, using a cheeky title as a hook.
You see, the “bar” that the statist, royalist and anarchist are walking into is not a pub. It’s an obstruction, a hindrance, a barrier to our progression as a species. This is a state of emergency, a crisis, a threat to humanity. Indeed, the bar represents a line drawn in the sand, the buck stopping here, the need for us to individually take responsibility for the current unhealthy, unsustainable state of affairs.
The buck stops here, at the bar, at the junction where we and the barrier meet. This is an evolutionary crossroads, as well as a revolutionary one. But only if we don’t pass the buck. Only if we’re able to take responsibility for our participation in the untenable situation of the current zeitgeist.
Who will have the courage to take direct responsibility for matters, rather than pass the responsibility to a higher authority, and who will cowardly absolve themselves of responsibility by denying their influence in the given matter? The statist, the royalist, or the anarchist? Let’s break it down.
A royalist walks into a bar:
“The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they’re still making the corpses dance.” ~ Sue Townsend
A royalist is the epitome of a bootlicker. The boots just happen to belong to whomever happens to be king or queen at the time. Royalists have been conditioned to believe that a single individual, by some miracle of genetic lineage, has the divine right to rule everyone else.
Talk about outdated nonsense and parochial reasoning. And all that power in just one person’s hands? Sickening! –Like dark ages sickening. How is this even still a thing in the 21st century? Are we really that bad at progressive evolution? It’s high time we evolved past this ridiculous show of antiquated ill-logic.
The royalist is running smack into the bar like a special needs kid with a helmet bashing its head into a wall over and over again. Like a horse vainly trying to get back in front of its own cart by ramming it again and again. Like a peasant saying “God save the queen!” out of one side of its obedient mouth and “I’m free!” out of the other side.
But the bar, the barrier, the buck, the obstacle, is non-negotiable. It cannot be moved, only dealt with. It must be faced. In order to get past it, each individual has to take responsibility for their own power. The royalist is incapable of doing this because they give most of their power to a monarch, who they know f^$kall about.
The king or queen is just a symbol, a showy display of ill-founded authority that those who wish to pass the buck can easily pour all their allegiance into. But the negative side-effect is concentrated power, which tends to corrupt and keeps its people in a state of perpetual infancy. Which leads to a stagnant species, a species incapable of progressive evolution. Indeed, a species that will inevitably kill itself and everything else it seeks to “rule” over.
Obviously royalism is a failure as a mode of human governance. It cannot get past the bar in order to leverage progressive evolution for healthy human beings.
A statist walks into a bar:
“In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.” ~ Robert Higgs
Statists are the new status quo junkies. They are the modern day confederacy of dunces. They cater to power being held over them like a dog caters to its master. The misery of it all is that the majority of statist don’t even realize they are statists. They are so thoroughly conditioned into being codependent upon the state that the idea of being a statist is as invisible as the air they breathe. They are so inured by the governmental song and dance that they miss the fact that the music is extremely unhealthy for human beings seeking freedom.
This is because statism is cloaked by the smoke and mirrors of patriotism and nationalism, which plays upon the individual’s ego and pride. It’s also cloaked by the smoke and mirrors of bipartisanship and the illusion of choice, which plays upon the individual’s need to have a voice.
A Statist walks into a bar without even realizing they are doing so, smacking their ignorant head over and over again, yet not having the wherewithal to question why they have a headache. Like Noam Chomsky pinpointed, “The general population doesn’t even know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.” They just ignorantly go about overmedicating their headache and codependently giving their power over to the state, hoping against hope that it gets used wisely.
But what the statist doesn’t realize is that power can only be used wisely by individuals who are being responsible with their own personal power. Groups with concentrated power are incapable of using power wisely, because their soul focus is on maintaining power at all costs, even at the cost of entire ecosystems (ecocide) and entire cultures (genocide).
Statism is the biggest failure of human governance in the history of humankind, propped up by antiquated laws and convoluted reasoning. It’s a cult of ignorance, a cartoon expected to be taken seriously. Its members pass the buck without even realizing they are doing so. They just go about their day being politically unaware and civically illiterate, oblivious to their own participation in the infinite-headed hydra of power that is the diabolical overreaching evil of the state.
Obviously statism is a failure as a mode of human governance. It cannot get past the bar (hell, it can’t even see the bar!) in order to leverage a progressive evolution for healthy human beings.
An anarchist walks into a bar:
“I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.” ~Mikhail Bakunin
Anarchists want to be free of rulers, but they also want everyone else to be free of rulers. A true anarchist, if given rulership over others, would renounce such rulership as unnecessary and move on with their personal power in tow. Thus leading by good example.
As Naseem Nicholas Taleb articulated, “You don’t become completely free by just avoiding being a slave; you also need to avoid becoming a master.” Indeed. In order to be free, we must wish others to be as free as we are. This concept is antithetical to both royalists and statists.
Being an anarchist isn’t easy, because freedom isn’t easy. True autonomy isn’t a given. Liberation is dangerous and risky, especially in a world run roughshod by ignoble royalists and ignorant statists. It takes courage and personal responsibility. It takes compassion and ruthlessness. It takes self-efficiency and self-reliance while also understanding one’s part in the interdependent whole.
It takes civic-mindedness and an acute understanding of how power actually works.
An anarchist walks into a bar and says, “Ouch! That really hurt. Maybe I should duck next time. Or maybe next time I should strategize about ways of getting around the bar in order to get to the bar (pub).” Indeed, the bar can only ever be surpassed when it is recognized for what it is, embraced as a true obstacle, and then reconciled intelligently.
Where the royalist and statist fail to use their power and, instead, decide to pass the buck, the anarchist rises up with their power in full flutter and declares to all, “The buck stops here!” Having not given their power to a false authority, anarchists are in power to be an author of self (self-authority). They are sovereign and self-determining, seeking only to help others realize their own sovereignty by proactively abolishing the outdated notion that we need rulers and masters in order to live humanely.
The bar (barrier, obstacle, blockade) to our healthy evolution as a species is very real. This problem cannot be remedied by kinder, gentler forms of oppression. It cannot be repaired by a system in ill-repair. This cannot be fixed by improving government, or by voting in “better” leaders. Neither king nor queen nor president can do a damn thing about the bar you keep walking into. They are the f#$$%g bar!
They want to keep the bar intact so that you remain a slave to their power and fooled by the illusion of their authority. They –the royalists and their kings; the statists and their presidents– are the barrier, the obstruction, the obstacle between you and a progressive evolution for our species. The question is: what are you going to do about it?
Image source:
Heinlein quote
Black eye queen
Anarchist Jesus
A man walks into a bar
Schrodinger’s cat
Sue Townsend Quote
In my experience, stand 5-10 meter (15 to 20 feet) away from a horse and close your eyes for a minute or two. Let things settle down inside you, as you take few deep breaths from your stomach. Don’t let any thoughts arise.
