GonzoTimes | I’m an anti-authoritarian and I always have been. I’ve labelled myself in different ways as I went through different intellectual/political stages but a common vein has always been anti-authoritarianism; I cannot accept authority easily or lightly, most especially from those that would declare authority for themselves. And while I can (and have) come up with many intellectual descriptions and justifications for why I’m an anti-authoritarian; while I can intellectualize it and explain it and put it in terms that academics and armchair philosophers (I’m one of them, I’m not excusing myself) can nod their heads to and agree with, in the end there is a primary source, the well that I draw from, the fuel that I burn in the fire of anti-authoritarianism.
Raw. Fucking. Rage.
My anti-authoritarian attitude comes down to burning seething anger at every cop who harassed my friends and I when we were kids for the simple crime of being kids.
It’s for every teacher who tried to beat me down intellectually and emotionally, to make me conform and be the same as every other fucking drone they’d ever manufactured.
It’s for every time I’m considered ‘fringe’ because I don’t immediately buy the bullshit that I see on TV or hear on the radio.
It’s easy to dismiss all of the raw emotion, or to try to suppress it. There are great treatises written on anti-authoritarian thought, absolutely crystal and logical essays regarding the role relationship between the authoritarian and the subjugated. There are many, many reasons why those of us who call ourselves anarchists, anti-authoritarians, antifa, etc think the way we do.
And a good portion of people out there seem to think there’s something WRONG with raw emotion driving anti-authoritarianism, like it’s a BAD thing that my rage against authority drives me.
Again, bullshit. Intellectualism without emotional context is simply mental masturbation. To deny the rage that drives most anti-authoritarianism is to devalue the very philosophies that we claim to represent.
In the end, I find just as much inspiration through the expression of rage and contempt for authority in art, music, literature as I do for the logical reasoning by anarchist and other philosophers. Read More
