For the anarch, little has changed; flags have meaning for him, but not sense. I have seen them in the air and on the ground like leaves in May and November; and I have done so as a contemporary and not just as a historian. The May Day celebration will survive, but with a different meaning. New portraits will head up the processions. A date devoted to the Great Mother is re-profaned. A pair of lovers in the wood pays more homage to it. I mean the forest as something undivided, where every tree is still a liberty tree. For the anarch, little is changed when he strips off a uniform that he wore partly as fool’s motley, partly as camouflage. It covers his spiritual freedom, which he will objectivate during such transitions. This distinguishes him from the anarchist, who, objectively unfree, starts raging until he is thrust into a more rigorous straitjacket. . Anonymous
About This Quote

It is unfortunate that the passage, "For the anarch, little has changed; flags have meaning for him, but not sense" does not apply to many anarchists today. The allusion to the use of uniforms in an anarchist context is interesting because it points out how much our contemporary institution of militancy has changed. The way that people are recruited into our milieu is very different from years ago. No longer do we have volunteers coming to us who are interested in our ideas and want to participate in a social movement.

Instead, we now have people who expect that they will be paid for their participation in the movement. Those who are interested in promoting anarchist ideas are now forced to become marketers and recruiting agents. This means that the milieu has changed dramatically over the last twenty years or so.

The way that many anarchists dress, talk, walk, and act also reflects these changes.

Source: Eumeswil

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