Many people hear the word “collectivism” or “socialism” and see a homogenous mass of uncaring human monsters assimilating or destroying everything before their boots.

Many people hear the word “individualism” or “egoism” and see some hunched unkempt ravenous creature with a recognizable human form that has long been disregarded for a loping powerful frame, blood thirsty teeth and throat ripping claws.

And even more people believe that “anarchism” or “libertarianism” is the unholy marriage of the two, consummated in the bed chambers of extreme poverty or extreme opulence; bombs and dynamite the wedding gifts.

They will not start out with these severe assertions, but as you continue to parry and counter their arguments in favor of statism or diminished liberty they will, eventually, fall back to one of these caricatures.

It is my contention that these “fall back” caricatures are merely a recitation of undigested propaganda.  This propaganda supports a paradigm that makes it hard, sometimes impossible, to see beyond the caricatures.  I have empathy for them and understand that the reevaluation and reflection can be painful.

How do we diminish the effect and power of these caricatures?

We fight back! No matter how small.  As Roderick T. Long said,

“I figure if we want to combat the use of the term “anarchy” to mean violence and chaos, we need to start calling people on it when they so use it.”

He goes on, here, to present a number of “letters to the editor” to pop culture outlets.

Here is how Charles “Radgeek” Johnson responded to commenter who offered another anarcho-caricature:

“Man, an “anarchists can’t get organized” joke. Ho ho ho. Never heard one of those before.

“ANARCHISM … the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” – P.A. Kropotkin

I don’t mean to be an old stick in the mud, but really, this old chestnut involves such a complete misunderstanding of what the overwhelming majority of anarchists in the history of the world (who have tended to assign a lot of importance to freely constituted, participatory associations) have thought, that it really just fails as humor.”

If we are dealing with a paradigm and want to revolve it, then we must point out every incongruence, every discrepancy.  We have to bury them in anomalies.

“What is truth?  Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.”  –Meister Eckhart, Fragments

For further insightful commentary on this subject: Media and Anarchists Violent Reputation, Zinn and the Libertarians and Howard Zinn, RIP.