Contemporary Anarchism

Anarchism-literally, a society without government-is less a political philosophy than it is a temperament. Anarchists are defiant people who seek to organize for the purpose of destroying organization. For its adherents, anarchism means a grand struggle against evil, a plea for the &quote;new,&quote; a secular crusade against the debasement of self, a fight against the degradation of mankind that organized society seems to represent. Anarchism is anti-politics, anti-economics, anti-authoritarianism in all forms. Anarchism is a mood of perpetual rebellion.The decade of the sixties witnessed a revival in the anarchist temperament, which Perlin finds evident in such diverse efforts as the women's liberation movement, student demonstrations, civil rights marches, free schools, the &quote;back to the land&quote; movement, demands for birth control and other-usually controversial-causes and activities. This new anarchism had few conscious links with the old anarchism. It was instead a response to changed conditions in the social fabric of American and European life, a reflex to the structural, cultural and psychological tensions that made those years turbulent, strife-filled and rebellious.Perlin concludes that while a revolution was not made in the sixties, a revolutionary life-style became a possibility. The spokesmen for the marginal groups whose interests achieved a new kind of legitimacy during the sixties were anarchists or their sympathizers. A representative cross-section of their writings is included in this volume.