ABSTRACT
Anarchism—literally, a society without government—is less a political philosophy than it is a temperament. Anarchists have been defiant men and women who attempt to organize for the purpose of destroying organization. Anarchism means, for its adherents, a grand struggle against evil, a secular crusade against the debasement of self, a fight against social degradation that the idea and the reality of the state seem to represent. Anarchism is anti-politics, anti-authoritarianism: a mood of perpetual rebellion. In the late 1960s and early 1970s anarchism caught the mood of anti-politics. The anarchist impetus can be seen in what has been called the counterculture. Anarchists have always been bohemian in style of dress, family life, sexual mores and public presence. Contemporary "freaks" looked much more like the systematically slovenly Mikhail Bakunin than the neatly bourgeoisified Marx. But more than appearance united the new culture with anarchism. Contemporary anarchism also expresses a disdain for the old, for the traditional and the dated.
