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Time blunts the keenest knife and changes the meaning of words and the thoughts in human minds, so that finally the firmest knot must be retied, and the sincerest word spoken once again.

— Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin

Conflict with the police must not be something that we reserve for demos (though it certainly should occur there as well). It needs to be integrated in how we move through the world, how we talk with our neighbors, how we walk down the sidewalk, how we breathe. We must break open space, with whatever means we have at our disposal, for resistance to become ingrained in daily life. We must embolden each other to fight back.

— Fist Full of Concrete by Ignatius

it is my old ignorance, in itself valueless, that is valuable, useful, and powerful. We have to learn what we can, but remain mindful that our knowledge not close the circle, closing out the void, so that we forget that what we do not know remains boundless, without limit or bottom, and that what we know may have to share the quality of being known with what denies it. What is seen with one eye has no depth.

— Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin

Because our nursing infants are at the top of the food chain, they inherit a body burden of industrial contaminants from our blood by way of our milk; thus are we part of the landfill, colonized.

— Original Instructions by Melissa K. Nelson

While there are certainly societies less free than the United States, what makes life difficult for U.S. anti-authoritarians are the mixed messages that they receive. From the Declaration of Independence, to the Bill of Rights, to the Statue of Liberty, the United States gives the appearance of welcoming those who resist illegitimate authority. Moreover, the United States is a place where immigrant anti-authoritarians such as Thomas Paine and Emma Goldman became celebrities. However, when anti-authoritarian resistance truly threatens powerful U.S. authoritarians, the rug is pulled out—often violently so.

Some U.S. anti-authoritarians have been punished with prison and deportation for merely exercising their First Amendment right of “free speech.” However, U.S. anti-authoritarians are not routinely marginalized in these ways. Authoritarians need only ensure that anti-authoritarians not be heard in order to marginalize them.

Authoritarians realize that simply ignoring opposition is often an effective way to marginalize it, whether that opposition comes from the voice of a single anti-authoritarian or the majority of the people. In 2014, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, in a study published in Perspectives on Politics, empirically established how average U.S. citizens are almost completely ignored by U.S. governmental authorities in terms of public policies. Reviewing U.S. public opinions of policy issues, along with examining 1,779 different enacted public policies between 1981 and 2002, they determined that “even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.” They conclude, “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass- based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

When dissent—be it through public opinion polls, protest demonstrations, or otherwise—becomes impotent in changing policy, this is an indicator of living under authoritarian rule. If a society is not authoritarian, then the tension that dissent creates is resolved so that dissenters experience their grievances being taken seriously, as evidenced by policy changes. In an authoritarian society, dissenters—even when in the majority—routinely feel impotent and helpless.

Dissent without disobedience is essentially no threat to authoritarians in power. Clever authoritarians welcome dissent without disobedience, since it can be easily ignored and provides the illusion of a free and democratic society. Only disobedience can threaten authoritarians.

If anti-authoritarian voices prove difficult to ignore, authoritarians will resort to overt assaults. For such assaults, authoritarians will often rely on the work of “professional authorities,” including the legal system to criminalize disobedience; mental health professionals to pathologize anti- authoritarian behavior; and teachers and the media, who label disobedience as immature.

It is no wonder that people who disobey illegitimate authority often feel such intense anger. Anti-authoritarians cannot be understood if we deny, water down, or pathologize their anger. This anger may be a result of their dissent being ignored. Or it may be a result of overt assaults on them for challenging and resisting illegitimate authority. Or it may be caused by witnessing such assaults on their anti-authoritarian friends. Or their anger may come from resentment over being forced into constant vigilance against authoritarian assault. The manner in which anti-authoritarians deal with their anger—and how others who care about them deal with it—is critical to tragedy or triumph.

Today, anti-authoritarians with unconventional behaviors who create tension are often marginalized as mentally ill. That makes these modern anti-authoritarians especially angry, so angry that they are likely to create even more tension for others.

Stanley Milgram, reporting on his research about obedience to authority, concluded that humanity’s “fatal flaw” is our capacity to abandon our humanity so as to comply with abusive authority. Those human beings least afflicted with that flaw have, sadly, been marginalized in U.S. society—including psychiatrically marginalized.

While U.S. society has honored some famous anti-authoritarians long after they are dead, these figures have often been marginalized in their own lifetimes. Throughout U.S. history, anti-authoritarians have usually been able to rely only on each other for mutual aid.

— Resisting Illegitimate Authority by Bruce E. Levine

the non-coercive nature of a mutual-aid group can be so satisfying that it becomes a vehicle to build community, including career contacts, friends, and lovers.

Mutual-aid groups are a threat to authoritarians, and so authoritarians will attempt to co-opt them, diverting them from their original role and adopting them for their own purposes. What makes AA attractive as a mutual-aid group is voluntary participation, but when court systems coerce people to attend meetings, the non-coercive culture is destroyed....

Authoritarians in power and their like-minded subordinates believe that hierarchy is the only way that human beings can be organized, and that without such hierarchy there is only chaos. And so, if authoritarians cannot eliminate mutual aid, they will attempt to co-opt it to maintain their own control. For this reason, anti-authoritarians should always be prepared for rejection by authoritarians of any true mutual aid. And if mutual-aid efforts prove successful, anti-authoritarians should always be watchful against authoritarian subversion or co-optation.

— Resisting Illegitimate Authority by Bruce E. Levine

many AA participants might be shocked to discover that AA co-founder Bill W. esteemed the “gentle Russian prince” Kropotkin and saw value in nonviolent anarchism.

In Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill W. pointed out how attractive the noncoercive nature and freedom of AA is for newcomers, “We cannot be compelled to do anything. In that sense this society is a benign anarchy. The word ‘anarchy’ has a bad meaning to most of us. . . . . But I think that the gentle Russian prince who so strongly advocated the idea felt that if men were granted absolute liberty and were compelled to obey no one in person, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in a common interest. Alcoholics Anonymous is an association of the benign sort the prince envisioned.” Anarchist writer Logan Marie Glitterbomb points out that AA’s Twelve Traditions are replete with anarchist mutual-aid principles: stressing unity and solidarity; no governing leaders; and self-supporting and autonomous groups. Anti-authoritarian George Carlin embraced AA but added, “I can do without that Higher Power stuff.” Many anti-authoritarians agree, and Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age recounts AA founders’ consideration of not using the word God in AA’s “Twelve Traditions” and their “Twelve Steps.” They ultimately chose to use God but to make clear that the term was open to individual interpretation.

— Resisting Illegitimate Authority by Bruce E. Levine