Hi, everyone. My name is the Anarco-Appalachian and I am happy to have a chance to get my thoughts and ideas out to an audience that might appreciate them. Moving forward I plan to start a series of articles on the use of iconoclastic thinking as a way of dispelling the myths and illusions that state, society, and propaganda have firmly embedded into the minds of people in this day and age. In that spirit, I want my first article here to be a primer and explanation on what iconoclastic thinking is and why it should be a major tool in the anarchist’s tool belt.

So, what does iconoclasm mean? The dictionary definition is “The act of attacking cherished beliefs or traditional institutions regarded as based on error or superstition: the doctrine or spirit of one who so attacks.”This does not tell us much, and that is because I have taken the term and bent it to my use.

Traditionally, iconoclasm could be best seen as a fight against icon worship in the church. This is expressed as a distaste or outright aggression against things such as the crucifix or other holy items to the Catholic Church. However, I’m less interested in this historical use of the term and have taken to using it to describe any sort of behavior or mindset that seeks to strip concepts and icons from the reality present.

It could be considered an essentialist way of looking at the world where we disregard any concepts or ideas that are only present in the minds of people and do not have a physical representation. So let’s go through some examples to better get an idea of what I mean. Let’s take a routine traffic stop and describe it in a non-iconoclastic and iconoclastic way.

You are driving your car down the highway when you see flashing lights behind you. You pull over and a police officer walks up to the door of your car. He asks you if you know how fast you were going, and requests to see your identification and insurance. Upon returning, he informs you that you were speeding and now owe a $500 fine to be paid next month at an appointed court date. He then tells you that if you do not show up to the court date a warrant for your arrest could be issued. Finally, he tells you that he hopes you have a good day and that you are free to go.

Now let’s describe it again, but with an iconoclastic lens. You are driving your car down the highway when you see flashing lights behind you on a vehicle that you know is empowered to employ lethal force if you choose not to heed their lights. You pull over and an agent of a group of humans claiming to have sovereign control of the geographic area you find yourself in walks up to the window of your vehicle. He informs you that you were going faster than the group of humans claiming to have sovereign control over this geographic area has allowed for this specific pathway. He requests to see your proof of ownership by the group of humans that claim sovereign control over the geographic area that you live in, and the mandated proof of gambling against the chance of having an accident through the use of an insurance company. Upon returning to the window of your vehicle, he informs you that you are being extorted to the amount of 500 Fiat issued transaction slips to be paid at an official extortion processing building on an appointed date in the future. He then informs you that if you do not pay the extortion you may face violence and forcible imprisonment. You take the extortion slip and drive away at his permission.

These two descriptions of the same series of events may seem inflammatory. That is only because when stripped of all of the concepts and ideas that make it seem palatable, the state’s oppression is obviously and insanely dystopic.

Once you start to practice viewing society in an iconoclastic way, you will find yourself seeing more and more idiosyncrasies that only seem to persist in society due to the previous acceptance of those who were introduced to the idea. Things like corporate licensure, patents, ip laws, and even seemingly benign things like zoning laws and voting drives will be revealed as the unnatural inversions of natural human life that they are.

Man was not meant to live as cattle, he was not meant to be ruler or ruled.

As anarchists it’s important for us to constantly strive to free ourselves of the pre-programmed thinking patterns that our forefathers and their rulers have instilled into the subjects that they rule over. Here at anarchunity we all strive for bottom unity. The only way that we will be able to achieve that goal is through the opening of eyes to the reality of the dystopia that we live in.

This starts with iconoclastic thinking. It must become a conscious practice constantly applied when you see State action in order to derive true reality from the supposed “reality” that we are sold.

As I hope you can see, the use of iconoclastic lenses can be helpful in the discarding of terms and ideas that serve to obfuscate the reality of State life and living under its oppression. Humanity as a whole has spent thousands of years underneath the thumb of the oppressive state, from antiquity to today, and as a result of that pressure most people are constantly thinking about things in unrealistic and almost entirely ideological ways.

I hope through the series to be able to break that conditioning and open people’s eyes to how the world actually is and not just through how they’ve been taught to view and accept it.

Thank you for reading. Hopefully I can get my next article out soon and really get this series started.