Circles of Control and Freedom

Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.

— The Smashing Pumpkins, Bullet with Butterfly Wings

After listening to the Adam Lanza recordings, I started thinking about different types of anarchism.

For part of his short life, Lanza was a cultural anarchist. He believed that culture was imposed on people during childhood, by a process that he called “bullying”. He believed in liberating the true self, which he called the “feral self”, from culture.

There is some truth to that view. Norms of belief and behavior are imposed on children by a combination of censorship, indoctrination and incentives. Children are not “free” to develop their “own” beliefs, behaviors and identities. Instead, they have beliefs and behaviors imposed on them, and their identities are shaped by the social environment.

However, Lanza’s view of culture was naive. Humans have always had culture (long before Homo sapiens). We need it to survive. Culture is a key part of the human adaptation. We might even need culture simply to think, and to be sane. Lanza saw only the dark side of culture, and he idolized an imaginary pre-cultural self, which doesn’t exist.

To some extent, I can relate to Lanza’s rejection of culture. When I was young, I was very critical of culture. I didn’t reject it entirely, but I believed that there was too much of it. I wanted society to be based more on rationality, and less on unquestioned norms. I rejected big cultural lies, such as religion and morality. I resented arbitrary norms of social interaction. I saw culture as a major source of irrationality and dishonesty.

Lanza’s cultural anarchism evolved into a deeper type of anarchism. He came to view life and value in the same way that he had viewed culture.

This got me thinking about a more general concept of anarchism: the demand to be liberated from some type of control.

We can define different types of anarchism that correspond to different types of control, and thus to different types of freedom:

• Social anarchism: Freedom from some aspect of society, such as the state or the market.
• Cultural anarchism: Freedom from some aspect of culture, or from culture entirely.
• Biological anarchism: Freedom from biology or certain aspects of biology.
• Psychological anarchism: Freedom from desires, values, identity or some other aspect of the psyche.
• Philosophical anarchism: Freedom (of thought) from assumptions.

“Anarchism” normally means rejecting the state, or rejecting coercion in general. Anti-statism is a type of social anarchism. It is based on the moral intuition that coercion is bad. We are taught from an early age that we must not use violence or the threat of violence to get what we want. The anti-statist has internalized this moral principle. He then notices, at some point, that society and authority figures don’t obey it themselves, even though they impose non-violence on others. He starts to view the state as evil.

The anti-statist imagines a utopia without coercion, which he assumes to be man’s natural condition. He believes that humanity was cast out of paradise by some accident of history, and that we could restore paradise by abolishing the state. He wants freedom from coercion, freedom from state control.

The anti-statist is naive. He doesn’t understand that coercion is inevitable. Non-violence can only be imposed by the threat of violence. Coercion by the state is necessary to prevent coercion by individuals. The anarchist utopia cannot exist.

The communist is also a social anarchist, but he rejects the market, not the state. As a child, he received the necessities of life for free. He was taught to be nice and share his toys. In kindergarten, everyone got one cookie. He internalized the moral principle that altruism is good, and also that equality of outcomes is good. Then he notices that society is not based on altruism. People must work to support themselves. Society does not have equal outcomes. Some people are rich, while others are poor. He comes to view society as evil.

The communist imagines a utopia in which people work together for the common good, and share equally in the products of their labor. He assumes this to be man’s natural condition. He believes that humanity was cast out of paradise by some accident of history (the imposition of capitalism), and that we could restore paradise by abolishing the market. In the imaginary utopia, you would not be forced to work to survive. You would be free to do what you really want to do.

The communist is naive. He doesn’t understand that economic incentives are necessary to make people productive, because people are selfish. The communist utopia cannot exist.

Both the anti-statist and the communist reject some necessary aspect of society. The anti-statist rejects the coercion that is necessary to impose law and order. The communist rejects the economic incentives that make people productive. Both are naive utopians.

However, underneath this foolishness (and obscured by it), there are important issues about the relationship between the individual and society. It is true that the individual is highly controlled by society, often in ways that he takes for granted. He might even mistake external pressures for internal desires, because he has internalized the rules and norms of his society.

This raises a question of identity. To what extent is the individual a creation of society? What is the real self?

Post-modern leftism involves a limited form of cultural anarchism. Leftist ideologies view some cultural norms as oppressive, and demand liberation from them. For example, feminism views sex roles and beauty standards as oppressive, and demands liberation from them. It claims that women are oppressed by the existence of these norms — both in their own heads, and in the heads of other people. Other left-wing ideologies make similar claims.

The norms that feminists reject are primarily biological, not cultural. Sex roles and beauty standards do have a cultural component, but they have a deeper biological basis. Also, they are not oppressive. However, feminists believe that these norms are cultural, oppressive and imposed by society. Feminist efforts at liberation are aimed at changing culture, by changing language, “educating” people, eliminating stereotypes, etc.

Primitivism is a more radical type of cultural anarchism. It rejects most modern culture, especially modern technology. Some versions of primitivism simply reject modern civilization, and want to return to the Middle Ages or the Bronze Age. In its purest form, primitivism proposes that we return to a lifestyle based on hunting and gathering. The primitivist believes that agriculture and civilization cast humanity out of a psychological paradise. He believes that a primitive lifestyle was more emotionally fulfilling, and that modern civilization robs us of a meaningful life.

Ted Kaczynski is an example of a primitivist anarchist.

Lanza’s primitivism was even more radical than Kaczynski’s. Lanza believed that all aspects of culture, including language, were harmful impositions on human nature. He believed that the true self (the feral self) is smothered by culture. He imagined a pre-cultural human condition, in which our ancestors were happy. Then culture cast humanity out of paradise, by imposing artificial values, thereby causing suffering. (This was during the first phase of his philosophical journey. See The Ghost of Adam Lanza.)

Like the other types of anarchism, primitivism is naive. It imagines a freedom that never existed and cannot exist. Humans have always had culture, including language and some forms of technology. The ancestral way of life was not a paradise. Our ancestors were not in a superior mental or physical state. There was no primitive utopia.

Anarchism can go even deeper.

Biological anarchism is the rejection of some aspect of biology, or even the rejection of life itself.

Transhumanism is an optimistic version of biological anarchism. The transhumanist wants to escape from certain aspects of the human condition, such as limited intelligence and mortality. He imagines that we could transcend the human condition with technology, and create a utopian transhuman condition. Essentially, he wants to become a god.

Efilism is a pessimistic version of biological anarchism. The efilist believes that life is generally negative, and the only way to escape from our condition is to end life itself. His paradise is a universe devoid of life. The universe was cast out of that paradise by the creation of life, and each individual is cast out of the paradise of non-existence by conception.

There are more limited forms of biological anarchism. The MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) ideology rejects women and reproduction. It views the male desire for women as a kind of deception. Men are deceived by culture and biology into being slaves to women and society. Those who reject this deception have “taken the red pill” and “seen through the matrix”. They can free themselves by rejecting the bad deal that society and women offer them. If enough men “go their own way”, then society will collapse. But the liberation is individual, and it begins with a mental liberation, not only from a cultural deception, but also from one’s own desires.

See The Case Against MGTOW.

Some ideologies and religions promise psychological liberation. Buddhism offers a path to liberation from suffering and the cycle of birth and rebirth. Freudian psychology promised to liberate people from neuroses that were imposed on them by their parents or by culture. Some people seek “ego-death”: the annihilation of subjective identity through psychedelic drugs or meditation. They seek freedom from the self, if that can be understood as anything other than a paradox.

Adam Lanza’s final philosophical destination was radical biological and psychological anarchism. He came to view the self as the ultimate cage. We are created with emotions that cause us to suffer and struggle. Life creates value, and value creates problems. Without value, there are no problems that need to be solved. Because value is the root of all problems, Lanza rejected value and life, just as he had rejected culture. He viewed death as the ultimate liberation.

We are trapped in ourselves, and that trap is only escapable by death. But to be trapped in yourself is a paradox, or maybe just a bad metaphor. You are you. But what are you? Is the social self the “real you”? The cultural self? The biological self? The mind?

Human beings have a biological nature, but the biological self is always situated within culture and society. The biological self can’t function without culture and society. You can’t exist without those external forces, and you are shaped by them. You necessarily adapt to them.

Nihilism, or radical philosophical skepticism, is another type of anarchism. It is liberation from assumptions. Philosophical skepticism brings hidden assumptions into awareness, where they can be examined and questioned. The end result is nihilism: the recognition that subjectivity doesn’t have a foundation.

Unlike anarchist ideologies, there is no promised utopia. But the absence of a foundation is a kind of freedom. Without an objective foundation, the subject is the ultimate authority. Philosophical skepticism is about seizing control of your own mind, by asserting your authority over your beliefs and actions. But that leaves you with the ultimate responsibility for your beliefs and actions. Nihilism frees you from external authority, but it also burdens you with ultimate responsibility.

Life is full of meaning, whether you philosophically believe that anything matters or not. You are forced to care, forced to make choices, forced to act in the world. Nihilism doesn’t relieve you of that burden. It just makes you aware that meaning has no objective foundation, your choices have no objective justification, and your actions have no objective purpose. But you still care, choose and act.

Freedom only exists within a system of constraints: physical, biological, psychological, cultural and social. You are only free within a cage. You are only you within a cage.

And that is why, despite all your rage, you are still just a rat in a cage.