I wonder if the fact that no one is willing to give intelligent replies is because the subject is indeed taboo or
because I have no friends. In any case I'll be posting bits of information to break the prejudices some may
have...
While anarchism is defined by what it is against, anarchists also offer differing
positive visions of what they believe to be a truly free society. The word "anarchy," as anarchists use it,
does not imply chaos or anomie, but rather a harmonious stateless society.
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Anarchists have often been portrayed as dangerous and violent, due mainly to a number
of high-profile violent acts including riots, assassinations, insurrections, and terrorism by some communist anarchists.
Some revolutionaries of the late 19th century encouraged acts of political violence, such as bombings and the
assassinations of heads of state to further anarchism. Such actions have sometimes been called 'propaganda by the deed'.
One of the more outspoken advocates of propaganda by deed was Johann Most, who said "The existing system will be
quickest and most radically overthrown by the annihilation of its exponents. Therefore, massacres of the enemies of the
people must be set in motion." Most's preferred method of terrorism, dynamite, earned him the moniker
"Dynamost."
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The use of terrorism and assassination, however, is condemned by most anarchists. Even
anarchists who see acts of violence as justified in a context of insurrection and class war would often view individual
acts of terrorism as ineffective and counter-productive. However, there is no consensus on the legitimacy or utility of
violence; Mikhail Bakunin and Errico Malatesta saw violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force. Other
anarchists share Leo Tolstoy's Christian anarchist belief in nonviolence. These anarcho-pacifists advocate nonviolent
resistance as the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution. They often see violence as the basis of
government and coercion and argue that, as such, violence is illegitimate, no matter who is the target. Some of
Proudhon's French followers even saw strike action as coercive and refused to take part in such traditional socialist
tactics.
Some anarchists make a distinction between "violence" and "property
destruction": they claim that violence is when a person inflicts harm to another person, while property destruction
or property damage is not violence. Others see property destruction as stealing the fruits of someone's labor, thus an
indirect form of slavery.
