To the editor:

The letter headed “Anti-anarchy,” which ran April 4, illustrates an unfortunate but common misconception about anarchists and the philosophy of anarchism. The writer equates anarchism with violent action, which is an unfair assumption. Anarchism is a social philosophy based on cooperation, with goals being achieved by people working together and associating freely with one another as equals, rather than having masses of disadvantaged unfortunates doing the dirty work for the prosperous few.

Anarchism is not the absence of rules, resulting in chaos, as many assume, but rather the absence of a defined ruling class (the root “arkhos” means “ruler,” not “rules”), as such a class is theoretically contrary to the idea of equality. I personally am against violence and agree that it is a shame when a peaceful movement is “hijacked” by violent individuals, especially since the media does love to jump on these occasions as being representative of the movement as a whole, but I don’t think that it is fair to blame such things on anarchists in general.

Many anarchists feel that violence, in itself, is directly oppressive and therefore un-anarchist, though this is a topic of much debate. A short letter can hardly do justice to such a complex philosophy, but to oversimplify, anarchism is based on equality, freedom and cooperation and should be judged by these underlying principles. Also, we must keep in mind that just as easily as a few violent individuals can misrepresent the peace movement, anarchism can be misrepresented.

Josiah Legler,

Lawrence