Why is "anarchy" not taught in school?

[miltonwasfried...man]

Besides the obvious answer of "anarchy aims for the destruction of the state and capitalism" why is anarchist thought not even so much as mentioned in high school or university anywhere? Marxist thought is at least skimmed over in high school and discussed in certain university subjects, so why not thinkers such as Bakunin, Proudhorn or Kropotkin? Bakunin for example reached popularity at or near Marx during the Paris commune from my understanding, yet no one knows about him or his theories.Is this blatant censorship or is anarchist thought just widely viewed as unattainable/undesirable? Thanks

[jake williams]

It's a combination of things. Mainly, anarchism just hasn't done much beyond things which are rarely talked about in school anyway - specifically, early 20th century labour organizing. High school history talks about Marxism in the context of the Cold War. It's recognized as the official ideology of the official enemy. But anarchism has no such status.

If I were more sympathetic to anarchism I could argue that it's because the state is friendlier to Marxism than it is to anarchism. And there may be some tiny element of truth to that insofar as it's easier to concoct a fictitious Marxism - for example, the skilled econometrician in the British classical tradition that one sometimes hears about in university economics class - than it is to concoct a fictitious anarchism which is amenable to bourgeois concerns. But I don't think that's really what's behind it, and for that matter, one sometimes does see a limited engagement with a sort of anarchism in the form of, for example, Thoreau.

[Skammunist]

I don't think it's blatant censorship as much as it is that we don't see anarchism influencing any countries today, (maybe Spain). Throughout the 20th century, we have seen the rise of the Soviet Union, The PR of China, the Cuban Revolution, the DPR of Korea, and the victory of the CP of Vietnam. So history classes in the US have a reason to make reference to Marx and socialism, as if saying that some of these countries are fully communist, rather than state capitalist. We don't see any anarchist countries, just communist (of course, you can't even have an "anarchist" state in the first place).

In my AP Euro class, we actually learned about Bakunin and the First International as well as Proudhon. However, it was very rushed and there wasn't an emphasis on them as there was on Marx. To be honest though, socialism and socialist theory has had a larger impact on history and the present day than anarchism. Many labor unions were rooted in socialist tendencies, not anarchist. Can you kind of see where I'm getting at? Not to knock off anarchism by any means of course.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

I agree with what other have said in regards to Anarchism not accomplishing so much in terms of historical world politics. An American friend of mine did say however they mentioned Bill Haywood, the Haymarket massacre, Leon Czolgosz and the assassination of McKinley and perhaps a few others. What I got from that is that American public education (atleast when she was in school) did give 'Anarchism' a cursory look over. I think it could be perhaps intentional censorship and framing of things, can't have students admiring the USSR or Fidel now so it probably is the same for all hostile labour struggles throughout American history. But, what do you expect honestly?

[Die Rote Fahne]

Imagine them having to mention Anarchist Spain...they have no great villain to paint in that area. No Stalin, Mao, Hitler or Mussolini.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Imagine them having to mention Anarchist Spain...they have no great villain to paint in that area. No Stalin, Mao, Hitler or Mussolini.

I think that would be interesting, I'm curious as to how they would paint that whole affair.

[Veovis]

I think most high school text books, if they mention anarchists at all, try to give the impression that their goal is simply chaos and lawlessness.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Most social teachers acknowledge that textbooks are more or less bullshit, though. Right?

That is, I can't recall ever having a social teacher that didn't have a few choice insults for whatever textbook they had to work with.

[Susurrus]

Leon Czolgosz was the only mention of anarchism I got in mine, and he as portrayed as a mental case trying to kill decent, kind, caring McKinley. I think there was a brief mention of Berkman, as in "anarchist Alexander Berkman tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick."

[Skammunist]

Originally Posted by Dzerzhinsky's Ghost http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2236895#post2236895)
I think that would be interesting, I'm curious as to how they would paint that whole affair.

I think that would be interesting, I'm curious as to how they would paint that whole affair.

Similar to Bakunin and Proudhon, I also learned about this in my AP Euro class so perhaps I can give you some insight. We learned about the Spanish civil war much more extensively than the anarchist figures. However, we were not taught that anarchists led the revolution. Workers were mentioned, but again, nothing about the CNT-FAI as far as I remember. One thing I did like about what we learned was that the teacher heavily stressed that the civil war was the precursor to fascism. My teacher also emphasized that WWII was rooted in the Spanish civil war. We used Robert Palmer's "A History of the Modern World" by the way.



I can't recall ever having a social teacher that didn't have a few choice insults for whatever textbook they had to work with.

In my experience, I have found this to be very true. With the exception of one conservative teacher (who was fresh-out-of-college new), all of my history teachers have been pretty sympathetic to the left.

[Magón]

One thing I did like about what we learned was that the teacher heavily stressed that the civil war was the precursor to fascism.

Uh, by the start of the civil war, Fascism had already take control of Italy, and had been in control since the early-mid 20s.

[o well this is ok I guess]

In my experience, I have found this to be very true. With the exception of one conservative teacher (who was fresh-out-of-college new), all of my history teachers have been pretty sympathetic to the left. Shit man my social 30 teacher was an anarcho-syndicalist.

[Skammunist]

My bad, I meant to say that the civil war was the foreshadowing of what would happen as a result of fascism.

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

Not a threat to the upperclass, due to it being largely unheard of

[CommunityBeliever]

I'm curious as to how they would paint that whole affair.

"pure criminality"

[jake williams]

I think that would be interesting, I'm curious as to how they would paint that whole affair.
At one point I tried very specifically to get my high school history teacher to talk about the Spanish Civil War. Of all the things we talked about, and for all his pretensions to academic contrarianism and honesty, he utterly refused, deeming it outside the curriculum of a Canadian history class.

[Susurrus]

At one point I tried very specifically to get my high school history teacher to talk about the Spanish Civil War. Of all the things we talked about, and for all his pretensions to academic contrarianism and honesty, he utterly refused, deeming it outside the curriculum of a Canadian history class.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackenzie%E2%80%93Papineau_Battalion

[jake williams]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackenzie%E2%80%93Papineau_Battalion
Exactly. The story of the Mac-Paps is an interesting one because the Canadian state was mostly furious that Canadians were fighting the fascists. It precipitated in a law banning military recruitment for foreign conflicts, a law never actually enforced in the only two major areas of foreign military recruitment in Canada, for the US army and for the IDF.

[Summerspeaker]

Anarchism does get discussed in certain university classes. For example, unless you're Alan Knight, it's difficult to avoid anarchism when examining the Mexican Revolution.

[bcbm]

history is written by the victors

[Susurrus]

history is written by the victors

They haven't won yet.

[bcbm]

they've won a lot more than the anarchists

[o well this is ok I guess]

Anarchism does get discussed in certain university classes. For example, unless you're Alan Knight, it's difficult to avoid anarchism when examining the Mexican Revolution. A dude I know had to read Property is Theft in one of his film studies classes.
Supposedly all they do in that class is watch episodes of "The Wire"
I don't know what Property is Theft has to do with The Wire.

[bcbm]

if you could drink beers, that would pretty much be the only class worth attending

[Smyg]

My social sciences textbook back in the days had exactly one paragraph devoted to anarchism, which it shared with feminism and environmentalism. I was not amused.

[EvilRedGuy]

Anarchy is taught in school, they call it chaos...

[Dimmu]

Pretty much agree with the previous poster.. Just found an old Finnish schoolbook which basically said that the during the Russian revolution there were Russian troops in Finland who were anarchists and according to the book they wanted to bring "anarchy and chaos to Finland".

[Kiev Communard]

In Ukrainian school textbooks the Makhnovist movement is scarcely mentioned, and they usually treat it as the backward peasants' movement, whose members did not understand the importance of market economy and nation-state :D.

[Luc]

If they did mention Anarchist Spain or the Free Terriotry they would probably focus on the affair with the catholics and the menonites:( and not even mention anything else.

I'm not sure if anything similiar happened in the Mexican Rev. which they would also focus on; I have just found out about Magon a few weeks ago:lol:

[Zav]

Anarchism isn't taught in schools because it has been consistently stereotyped by the media as a violent and immature philosophy (you're lucky if they call it a philosophy), whose adherents would have the world live in chaos, for the past century and more. The fact that Anarchy would involve the end of the State-run schools is also a factor.

[Kornilios Sunshine]

For the same reason they do not teach communsim and socialism.They think that those ideologies are "crimes".(bullshit.)

[Desperado]

It's not conscious censorship that they do not teach anarchism, Marxism or other left-wing theories. But it's certainly not accidental that the school system is narrow-minded and hardly allows for debate in anything much, let alone whole ideologies conflicting the norm.

[RightWinger]

you are too small and unimportant.. no offense but that's why you don't learn about the economy of Angola... its just unimportant

[Luc]

you are too small and unimportant.. no offense but that's why you don't learn about the economy of Angola... its just unimportant

You guys even try reading anymore?