Revolution

I haven’t woodworked in quite a while, therefore I haven’t written a blog post about woodworking for some time either. Yet, life can be strange sometimes, and a friend of mine I hadn’t spoken with in some time called me over the weekend. The first words out of his mouth were “Why are you reading the Anarchists Cookbook!?” I told him that I never read it. Long story short, his wife happened across a review I wrote on Amazon some time ago and misread the title. “It’s a woodworking book.” I said to him. His words after were to the effect “What the F#$% is it about?” I didn’t get into it because I didn’t care to, I had things to do.

Anyway, I don’t believe in Anarchy in any form, big or tiny. The way I look at it: I have a job; I pay taxes, I use the roads, my garbage is picked up once a week, my daughter goes to public school, I have a cell phone, my wife has a cell phone, I have internet service and cable television, I drive a car, my wife drives a car etc. Most anarchists in the woodworking sense, and maybe everywhere else, claim that they are only against big government and large corporations. I say to that: Do you send your kid to school, own a cell phone, own a computer, a car, a house, turn on a table lamp, been to a hospital, have insurance of any kind, put gas in your car, drive on a paved road, eat anything from a supermarket, turn on the water to take a shower or get a drink or cook with? Do you have internet service? Do you have cable television? Have you ever been to a library? Have you ever been to a shopping mall? Do you have electricity in your house? Do you brush your teeth? Do you wash your hair with shampoo? Have you ever taken an aspirin? Have you ever used a paper napkin? Do you drink coffee? Tea? Have you ever flown in an airplane? Have you ever called the fire department or the police department? Did you go to college? Do you own a pair of shoes? Socks? A watch? A hair brush? Have you ever purchased anything that was shipped by rail, plane, truck, or boat? Have you ever been to the Outback Steakhouse? Arby’s? Wendy’s? McDonalds? Have you ever bought dish detergent? Do you have a sink and toilet in your house? Windows? Do you have a furnace? Receptacles and wall plates? Light switches? Do you have band aids in your medicine cabinet? Do you wash your clothes in a washing machine? Do you sleep on a mattress? Have you ever eaten a banana???

I think the vast majority of Americans would answer yes to most of those questions, if not all of them. I think the vast amount of woodworkers, would-be anarchists or not, would likely answer yes to most of those questions, too. If you did answer yes to just about any one of those questions, you have either benefitted from a large government, or supported a large corporation. Now, the would-be anarchist may claim that even though he answers yes to a lot of those questions, it doesn’t mean he has to like it or agree with it, but he is forced to because big government and large corporations control everything. Maybe, but I contend that there is not one item on that short list of questions I put up that is absolutely needed for survival and nearly every one of them can be chalked up to creature comforts. You don’t need running water, or a cell phone or computer or internet service. You don’t need a washing machine or soap. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that just about every item on that list was virtually non existent and the human race managed to go on and survive. So if you answered yes to any one of those questions you aren’t an anarchist, not even a tiny little atom sized fraction of one. Because if you did answer yes you supported a large corporation and you benefitted from the very government that you think is way too bloated and evil to do you any good.

Do governments and large organizations do some rotten things? Sure, sometimes. But so do small groups. I can start that list off with the Nazi party, or how about the Manson Family? Does one man’s really horrible idea make it any less horrible because only one person thought of it? Are only large groups capable of messing up? Maybe the larger the group the larger the mess up? Possibly, but definitely not a guarantee. Governments can be messed up, and individuals can be messed up, because the largest corporation on Earth is made up of a lot of individual people, and people are flawed, and because people are flawed every political, or non political ideology is doomed to failure. If not failure, then at least doomed to never live up to its promises.

So that’s why I’m not an anarchist, and that’s why I believe the vast majority (99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%) of the country aren’t anarchists either.