A.B.C. OF ANARCHISM or that people naturally seeking the same objects insisted on making life hard and miserable by mutual strife. They will refuse to.believe that the whole existence of man was a continuous struggle for food in a world rich with luxuries, a struggle that left the great majority neither time nor strength for the higher quest of the heart and mind. " But will not life under Anarchy, in economic and social equality mean general levelling?" you ask. · No, my dear friend, quite the contrary. Because ~quality does not mean an equal amount but equal opportunity. It does not mean, for instance, that if Smith needs five meals a day, Johnson also must have as many. If Johnson wants only three meals while Smith requires five, the .quantity each consumes may be unequal, but both men are perfectly equal in -the opportunity each has to consume as much as he needs, as 'much as -his particular nature demands. Do not make the mistake of identifying equality in liberty with the forced equality of the convict camp. True Anarchist equality impli,es freedom, not quantity. • It does not mean that every one must eat, drink, or wear the same things, do the same work, or live in the same manner. Far from it; the very reverse, in fact. Individual needs and tastes differ, as appetites differ. It is equal opportunity to satisfy them that constitutes true equality. Far from levelling, such equality opens the door for the greatest possible variety of activity and development. For human character is diverse, and only the repression o~ this diversity results in levelling, in uniformity and sameness. Free 9pportunity of expressing and acting out your individuality means_ development of natural dissimilarities and variations. · . It is said that no two blades of grass are alike. · Much less so are human beings. In the whole wide world no two persons are exactly similar even in physical appearance; still more dissimilar are they in their physiological, mental, and physical make-up., Yet in spite of this diversity and of a thousand and one differentiations of character we compel people to be alike tci-day. Our life and habits, our behaviour and manners, even our thoughts and feelings are pressed into a uniform mould and fashioned· into sameness. The spirit of authority, law, written and unwritten, tradition and custom force us into a common groove and make a man a will-less automaton without independence or individuality. This moral and , intellectual bondage is more compelling·than any physical coercion, more devastating to our manhood and development. All of us are its victims, and only the exceptionally strong succeed in breaking its chains, and that only partly. 36 B1blioteca Gino Bianco
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