HBO's "The Anarchists" Episode 1

Better than expected.

“The Anarchists,” is a new series on HBO about Voluntaryists building an intentional community in Acapulco, Mexico. The series highlights the convergence of anarchists surrounding the annual Anarchapulco convention and has so far surpassed my expectations. I had pretty high hopes initially, as several of my friends starred in it who I feel are really top notch individuals. I was still cautiously optimistic as it is produced by Blumhouse who typically sticks to horror and thriller genres. The (a)narchists in the series do not seem anywhere as crazy as the trailer or early media reviews depict them to be. In fact, I can understand the motivations and choices of most of the characters in this film series so far, even the ones I disagree with and even as a person who values modern civilization. The documentarians did a fantastic job explaining the barebones meaning of anarchy as well as who anarchists are versus who they ain’t. It’s not what is depicted in the media, even in the media trailer for this film series. The program so far has given a very fair representation of who we are, what we believe and how we, Voluntaryists are all just people.

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I am really happy so far with the commentary from Larken and Amanda Rose who give the philosophy a sensible, relatable, and common sense vibe. They are wonderful ambassadors for Voluntaryism, and they come across as people that most will not only relate to but also, like. Amanda wrapped in her blanket talking about Voluntaryist philosophy seems like someone you’d see in a coffee shop in Sedona or up in Sundance that you wish you could approach and hang out with. You’ll see the couple in the film as confident, regular people you want to get to know.

I admit from the start, I have my own sense of disdain from my experimentation with radical unschooling and the cult-like criticism I received from abandoning it which I shared in this blog. This personal experience is thwarting my feelings of kinship for the unschooling couple, The Freemans. They are front and center throughout this program. Nathan is depicted somewhat accidentally by his own wife, Lisa as being a distant husband and father. She explains his obsession with anarchist podcasts to the point of tuning out his own family with his headphones upon returning from work every day. They are proud of themselves for being the cool parents who let their kids say “fuck,” and they would rather have their kids around Mexican drug lords in Acapulco and on a porn set than in a public school. Um… after the Uvalde incident, I can almost relate, but still, right to say, a completely, false dichotomy. There’s a vast galaxy of possibilities between where the Freemans are and what went down in Uvalde. This galaxy includes normal, sensible unschooling with healthy boundaries and a honest look into where people draw the line around parental responsibilities and children’s autonomy. That’s what I have to say about that. The rest is in that blog I just linked.

Going forward, I hope the NAP is soon touched upon, like immediately. The first episode has covered the no ruler and self-ownership staples of anarchist thought. However, without immediately going into the NAP or Non Aggression Principle with a little nuance, I think viewers will be very confused or else just disbelieving that self-ownership and rejection of authority could work out for people as a harmonizing philosophy. The implausibility of having no rulers absent some unifying code of conduct may lose viewers or have them thinking we’re all just very stupid fanatics. Human nature won’t grasp a philosophy based on a vacancy of a structure of power. So sharing the binding principles of self-rule will help a lot of people pull it all together who have never before considered the implications of anarchist living.

I’m going to be honest. Personally, the idea of intentional communities has always bothered me. I am an introvert and get along with people better if I have space to self-isolate. It seems any intentional community I have ever heard of becomes more and more like a commune, with people far more up in your business than they would otherwise be if we lived in say, a semi-rural suburb in lightly governed Utah. So those several acre communities most Voluntaryists want to purchase and build earthship houses on… I need that much space all to myself. Acapulco looks almost too cramped and crowded for me to even want to visit for a conference. Meet me in the mountains or the forest. That’s just me, though. Many or even most people love sweating together on an overly populated, hot, humid beach in Mexico. More power to them.

There was, however, a place in the hills where Lily and John, two of the main characters in the series, “The Anarchists” were staying which did have a nice secluded feel about it. In this way, an average person watching this program can relate to the draw of living there. The couple were on a balcony looking down over a terrace garden they created, starting their own food forest. A lot of that lifestyle looked idyllic.

However, living amongst the Mexican mafia seems far more dangerous to me on the face of it than living among the Mormon mafia. Say all you want about the infringement of alcohol laws or a bunch of government officials most people in Utah neither like nor vote for. Bitch when they propose to implement some stupid universal ID that the public here will never ultimately go for. I will raise my kids around a community of anti-government, intentionally mind-your-own-business Mormons who show up to government meetings and bind the hands of their elected politicians by camping out day and night in front of their homes to protest (and it works!) over Mexican drug lords all day, any day. Doesn’t even seem like a serious choice to me.

I once left my big, bright, pumpkin orange, flower embellished, Italian, leather purse in the grocery cart in the middle of the Trader Joe’s parking lot in downtown Salt Lake City (the most populated, metropolitan area of the state). After realizing my mistake, I went back to retrieve it an hour later. It still had wallet, phone and everything else in it. Welcome to Utah. For all its flaws, it’s a nice place to raise kids. By the way, there are websites devoted to Trader Joe’s parking lots nationwide because they are typically too small and rife with collisions. The most bustling one in Salt Lake always has ample parking. People in cars waiting to park are never disgruntled, even stopping to smile and wave at your 4 year old as he doddles, scooping up a pebble from the driveway while getting to the entrance of the store. Mormons are generally patient and nice people with strong, conservative family values. There’s a lot more to shared common values and polite, functioning society than just whether or not they believe in the state.

Maybe the key to the (a)narchists’ success in the future will be to start figuring out if the general public in a given location shares more of their core values as an individual rather than merely idealizing having a less active yet more corrupt police force. Masks were all but gone in Utah at least 6 months before that nonsense was done in Mexico or anywhere else-if it even is today. Masks were also never strictly enforced in Utah, and people didn’t bat an eyelash in 99% of the stores and restaurants we visited in the short interim where a mask order- with a gazillion exemption clauses making it virtually non existent- was implemented. That says a lot about the perspective of the people who encompass a given location. Do the majority of the people in a particular culture buy into government bullshit when it requires a shutting down of the entire world economy? Not in Utah, which is why they faired the best of 50 states in weathering the hits from flawed Covid policies enacted elsewhere as I have written about extensively here, talking about my most important revelation as a freedom advocate and here, discussing how the local culture and values positively effect the local policies in Utah.

The more I think of it, the more I realize it all goes back to tribe and culture. No man is an island, even me with my love of unpopulated expanses of woods, valleys and mountains. But it’s important to understand your neighbors, even the ones an acre or more away.

If you are arguing that you will necessarily have less in common with any statist than any self-proclaimed anarchist, I won’t take you seriously. You are collectivizing in a way that doesn’t take into account education, spiritual or economic ideals, which very much play into their beliefs about your property.

And if you argue that all statists are an equal threat to you regardless of left or right paradigms, I also can’t take you seriously. This is more unfounded collectivism. You can’t even call it a stereotype or generalization because it’s just outright wrong.

Rant ensuing:

You are talking ideals unrealized in your head and haven’t ever been in the position of having your neighbors turn you in. I have. I can tell you, left or right, cappy or commie makes a big fucking difference. Whatever they profess to believe, there’s people of a certain mindset that feel almost a euphoric sense of duty to report you to the authorities for not being a good citizen slave. Those people are generally not on the right. Whatever they may think about you, the right is less inclined to act on those thoughts. In that way, they are more… um… conservative, shall we say? The left has been extremely effective in bending the culture because they are active and unafraid of exploding emotionally in. your. face. They are taught that righteous anger and more importantly, the loss of control of it is a virtue. They are unabashed in the signaling of it. Whereas, most people on the right back down to avoid confrontation. It’s a key reason these societies should not be forced upon one another in an unholy union of states. Yep, I’ll keep saying it. Secession is the next step to liberation.

But let’s get back to coming together as a tribe or culture. We can already see in the very first episode of “The Anarchists” where people’s ideals begin to clash with reality. The largest convention of Voluntaryists was exposed for highlighting speakers who weren’t living the principles of Voluntaryism much less Agorism. Lily Forester, a friend of mine and one of the main characters in the new HBO series, points this out in the end of episode 1 by asking if anyone else shares her disappointment coming all this way to find people who are much less like-minded standing on the podium of an anarchy conference. Lily, I have had my same thoughts when seeing a guy who bribed his young child with toxic, carcinogenic chicken nuggets to get her chemotherapy treatments tout the virtues of consent and medical freedom at an anarchy conference. I thought coercion wasn’t consent. Guess I was wrong. I wonder if that parent understands what he would be up against if he supported his daughter had she not accepted the toxic bribe or given her consent. I suspect his dreams of medical freedom would come crashing down. Many of those this particular speaker frequently mocks know the answer very well. Nevertheless, he’s the one on the podium giving the talk about medical freedom and consent. Sums it up.

It’s particularly sad for Lily because initially she and John were headed to Fireweed Universe City in Detroit. It’s an intentional community where she would have likely been living among people who are more culturally similar to herself and John. They wanted to be around others who shared their values. That’s what I believe everyone wants, ultimately. Unfortunately, the couple was pulled over by the police on the way to this like-minded, intentional community and arrested for marijuana “drug” possession charges. In this way, the story of “The Anarchists” accurately depicts the issues with the state and its irrationally arbitrary enforcement of victimless crimes and bogus “drug” laws. Long story longer, to avoid living out the next decade or more of these very young couples’ lives in prison, the two were forced to become fugitives to Acapulco, Mexico where they had hopes their values would be even more equally matched. Maybe, not so much.

Lily has started sharing her reflections of each episode as they are released in her blog. I am glad Lily looks back on her experiences as opportunities for growth with a completely grateful heart. She’s definitely come a long way since the fiasco that the series is focused upon, and she is obviously living a much healthier, more sustainable life since her time in Acapulco. I think everyone that knows Lily is excited about the new direction her life has taken and is somewhat personally invested in the outcomes of her current work and play. At least, that’s how I feel when I see her doing sky ballet on her TikTok channel.

In future weeks, I hope to see the coverage of the “rules” of anarchy and self-governance, the code upon which we all as Voluntaryists try to live in the upcoming weeks of “The Anarchists” because that is the crux of the philosophy. Without this the general public will be left dumbfounded, disbelieving and dissenting.

I guess we will all just have to stay tuned to find out!