Chris GandyEssay

CEP 301B

December 11, 2010

Communism, Anarchism, and Virtue: Concepts Applied to Reality

Communism, anarchism, and the theoretical revolutions of history books they are not
practically inducible over our modern day American community. However, the underlying
doctrines of such theories are necessarily relevant to the end American aim community
progress, grown from the people by the people, their interconnectivity, and their virtue. Bakunin
agrees with this end game goal; society is inspired only by the purest love of truth, it frames
laws in absolute harmony with the latest discoveries of science.1 However, such revolutions are
not practical over our modern community: revolution is only good in the time of action.
Afterwards reality seems to grab people by the ears and pulls them back up or a dictator seems to
push them back down while reality sinks in. When the emotion of revolution is done and gone,
worry sets in. Worry about tomorrow, about security, about quality of life, and about private
interests regarding self and family. The ideas of communist and anarchist revolutions are great,
but they are only ideas; ideas that would require a great deal of sacrifice from the people.
However, we should never neglect the purpose behind the ideas of communism and anarchism;
they should be a building block for our every thought in progressing communities. The only end
social goal we should ever try and achieve in our community is virtue. With virtue comes
excellence, and it must be taught and practiced over a long period of time, as Aristotle says, in
order to truly exist. Once virtue has been applied to our daily life, taught in schools or however,
a community such as the United States can change because the majoritys train of thought has
changed.

1 Michael Bakunin, God and the State, page 130

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Chris GandyEssay
CEP 301B

December 11, 2010

Marx claims that Industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because
there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much
commerce2 Marx proposes that society has become too big for its own good it would seem.
You cant reverse progress, especially by means of a revolution; doing so would make the
progress of those who died before you in vain. The problem isnt the size of our nation, it is how
we deal with it and adapt to it. Legislative changes that require an elaborate amount of time and
planning require patience and competence; virtues the general population will never see or
understand with their current mentality. Guided nationalist virtues as seen in North Korea based
on Confucian ideologies force people into virtuous ways of life; and as a result people tend to
turn against it, because it is oppression under the disguise of goodness. Its hard to follow the
rule of a hypocritical government. As Locke says, God and nature never allowing a man so to
abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his own life,
neither can he give another power to take it.3 People must voluntarily follow the rule of the
nation, which people have done so in the United States. However, people are becoming unhappy
with the current system because the corruption is becoming apparent here now too; the gap is
widening one could say. One cant force people to be good; it must be taught and dealt with
naturally. Immediate changes of pure goodness can inspire change. The here and now is what
interests the masses; immediate, positive changes. If it is a gradual change it must not be known
so that a change can take place naturally without people scrutinizing every step of the plan.
When looking at America, lets follow recent events. For example, take a look at
President Obama. He promised a world of change, but his reforms would take quite some time.
2 Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, page 164
3 John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, page 277
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Chris GandyEssay
CEP 301B

December 11, 2010

Because of this people lost sight of the end goal and focused on the here and now. What did this
result in? None other than people beginning to lose faith in his administration; this can be seen
in his recent approval ratings, which have taken quite the plunder. Change is a concept that
requires the majority to have a virtue non-existent in them currently: patience. No revolution
can add this virtue to the soul; if anything revolution detracts from it. If you are revolting it
means you are impatient with the current system; this is particularly bad in our American society
because things tend to be working for the most part. Immediate changes or revolutionary
movements can be seen when looking at Stalins Russia or any other application of trying to get
society to change drastically in a planned set of time. Human nature it would seem is the stem
of all our problems, not our growth into the civilization we live in today. And the revolutionaries
and Rousseaus who want us to destroy our current, misguided life are wrong. Our nature is to
desire the good life, but the good life comes with a price. Where the private individual succeeds,
the community suffers. A gap becomes apparent between those with power and those who think
they should have power. The problem isnt in our policies, its in our nature. Our nature,
however, can change. Its what needs to change so the policies and legislation can do exactly
what theyre meant to: be good for people as a whole. A world without legislation isnt a world
for today.
Capitalism has shown its corruption, like communism with the creation of a gap; a gap
between classes of people. The problem isnt the gap though; its our sense of entitlement on
either side of this gap. Such things such as the abolition of bourgeois property because 9/10th
of us do not own our property will only lead to strife.4 I say strife because its creating justice
for the majority, the sheep or whatever you want to call them, that want to live their life as sheep.
4 Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, pages 170-172
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Chris GandyEssay
CEP 301B

December 11, 2010

What about the lions? Those leaders of the pack, what do they get? Oh they get to join the
sheep and frolic together happily once they realize that the community is the way to go. How
does Bakunin and Marx realize this ideal? By revolution! We destroy everything with people
not ready to change their selfish way of life for a life that requires selflessness. What about
progress then? How do you appropriate anyone, especially in a mass of equal individuals, to
progress things to the extent that we have? Marx even states that, we only know one science,
the science of history.5 Why is it then that he tries to make such a huge claim like the abolition
of private property in this day and age? Does he want us to devolve into a less advanced culture?
I dont believe so. I believe what Marx and Bakunin are trying to do is good, but as I said earlier
we must either evolve or change our train of thought in order to have this go smoothly. People
are not ready to change as a whole, especially to throw away our mostly comfortable way of life.
What communism is, in my humble opinion, is nothing more than an answer to the past.
I say the past because it isnt an answer for any large, advanced society we live in today. Maybe
in small communities today or in large cultures of the past such as ancient Greece or other
cultures such as the Americas before conquest communism could exist. A small community
where everyone prospered based on each others hard work that each person owned. It is still
possible for people to own their own property but the world has become too complex. Loans
need to be taken out to buy things and the bank owns your property until you pay the loan off.
That is up to the individual to accept that pay off. Its a payoff for our desires to be realized.
Sure you could buy everything you want when you have the money, buy the coffee that the
coffee maker makes, which isnt his property to sell yet he did the labor in making it. It is the
price of convenience that we have settled for. Something people seem to be perfectly unhappily
5 Karl Marx, The German Ideology, page 107
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Chris GandyEssay
CEP 301B

December 11, 2010

content about. The same can be said about anarchism. Anarchy is something I could foresee in
the distant past or post-apocalyptic future, where everything we have today is gone. No more
space ships, big buildings, etc. But even when that time comes, how are people naturally going
to do what Bakunin wants them to do? Be good and realize its in our best interest to help one
another because we just see it as being best? Not everyone sees things that way. The problem
with our society today and the societies proposed by Marx and Bakunin involve a different type
of person to truly succeed; a man governed by a good soul, a virtuous soul.
According to Aristotle, life is combined in two parts, action and leisure, war and
peace.6 So if action is the revolution, the leisure must surely be the peace. However, action
could also mean other things besides war; for example, an act of change. Aristotle believes that
the polis begins at the house as well as well as moral goodness. Marx also shares this important
view of family in his view on communism. The family is always first. If we follow these claims
on family it is easy to see that the family is the easiest place to influence a population as a whole,
not through legislative changes or revolutions. Plato shares a similar view, coincidentally he
advocates education in youth as shown in the quote, these are the kinds of things suitable for
our young people to see and hear.7 If children do not grow up good they will have twisted
morals and beliefs instilled in them. Only courage, temperance, reverence, and freedom should
govern the people.8 When goodness is instilled at a young age it is hard to break it in someone;
this begins with a good education. What should this education consist of? As of now it is mainly

6 Aristotle, The Politics, page 317

7 Plato, The Republic, page 87
8 Plato, The Republic, page 91
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December 11, 2010

acts of learning and acts of inquiring knowledge; we save the virtue and moral part for religion.
The problem with religion though, as Bakunin believes, is it dumbs us down and makes God a
mirage that we can never achieve. What religion does is it places human qualities or virtues into
a non-human and then makes those qualities foreign to our own species; particularly in
Christianity. Our Christ, then, will remain eternally unfinished, which must considerably take
down the pride of his licensed representatives among us.9 Religion is a detriment to society
overall. How can true virtues be achieved through false beliefs? There is no right or wrong
answer in religion, but virtues must be instilled upon us voluntarily, not through the use or fear of
religion and getting into heaven because we are virtuous. A man should be virtuous because it is
in him to be so. It is also in the communitys best interest if men were as such. If everyone was
virtuous, agreement based on logic would become much easier. People would see acts as being
detriments to man and the community easily and not be tempted towards corruption. This must
be instilled in children at a very young age. We cannot achieve this in a non-state led
government. The state needs to be run by the people and for their best interest, but in order for
the people to grow up and do so, the people need to change.
The change I propose is then that we reevaluate our education system and address its core
flaw. We are able to teach children to read, do math, write, and other basic skills but what we do
not teach them are deep morals and values of virtue. People in this day and age like to have their
leisure, their freedom. We cannot force people to do this, but what we can do is set up a system
which helps educate the children better. It would be no more forceful than the current system
that we have. Several things must change in order to reevaluate the system, however. From a
young age, children must be in school. They must go to school in the United States starting at a
9 Michael Bakunin, God and the State, page 134
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Chris GandyEssay
CEP 301B

December 11, 2010

very young age with mandatory pre-school. In this they would be taught basic virtues on how to
share, moderate, love, etc. Planned out events or readings by the teaching faculty would need to
be coordinated well. This education based on virtue would progress into deeper virtues and their
meanings as life goes on for the children. By high school they should be learning stories of selfsacrifice and other deep virtues. A class on such could be created or it could be implemented
into everything that currently exists. But what would not exist is us pawning something such as
virtue off to a religion.
After doing so, a real world with real values begins to emerge. The communism and
anarchy of the dreams suddenly could become a reality for the future. A social revolution if you
will, but a gradual one without people ever knowing it. The problem that has always been
neglected, ever since ancient times, is education. It seems only Plato and Aristotle went into
such detail on how and what we should teach our children; the importance of material we teach
them and why Virtues are good from a non-religious standpoint. Our children are our future, our
tomorrow, and our earthly salvation. Religion, though it does teach and preach virtues, does so
from a non-human stand point. Like Bakunin says is we should work from the ground up and
not backwards from religion. We must work from our children upwards by giving them a
truthful, good education. To be human is to accept ourselves and what we are. Religion gives
too many reasons to separate ourselves from humanity and the problems of here and now.
Though it cannot just be abolished, it must be slowly weeded out of our childrens lives. Logic
and reason would then govern the state and enact virtue into our children as its first step. Hand
and hand with science and logical education, virtue would complement the meaning behind
learning the material. The purpose of things would become clear as to why we learn and do

Chris GandyEssay
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December 11, 2010

them: because it is good for our knowledge as a species to progress. The highest levels of
progression do not come from a single, selfish unit; they come with unification, with community.
Once the community has an education and belief system based on logic and virtuous
reason, the mindset of people will change. A revolution could very well happen, but I think it
would be much different than the proletarians taking up arms and fighting the current leaders of
capitalism. Things arent that bad currently. Most of all, we accept it because we accept our
leisure that has been granted to us in this state. We live in a comfortable society where private
freedoms and interest flourish. Corruption stems from our weak education system and our heavy
reliance of religion to instill virtue into children. Church and state should be separated, but when
you have a Church, which is a state in the world already, placed in our world of the United States
it becomes hard to not have the two overlap sometimes. The choice on how religion is not up for
me to decide, but it must go in order to get everyone on the same mental level. Doing so should
not cause corruption, which is why I feel it should be gradual without the people ever knowing;
where popular belief is crushed gradually with the shift of including values into our education.
Time and planning separate from public knowledge will cause change in society.
Taking everything that has been said, it should be easy to see that it is not in our best
interest to start a needless war of revolution simply because the majority is unhappy with the
current way of things. We must take what we have currently and work with it to make our
community prosper. Starting from the ground up or from revolution onwards would only set our
current progress backwards. We have it within our society and within ourselves to change the
way we see the world and live in it. The system that needs to change is not our government, our
legislation, or anything of that nature; it is us and our lives. However, we cannot achieve this
overnight, it must be gradual and in education. Education is the root of what we are; it is the
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culmination of knowledge of our history, our achievements, and the best of us. The main theory
that must be included in our education to compliment science and knowledge is self-knowledge:
Virtue, the purest human capacity and most just truth to who we can become. Once virtue has
been instilled in every member of our community, societies led for the people, by the people,
communist, freedom of everyone, whatever you want to believe the outcome will be can be
achieved. It is because we will be united, like our country is supposed to be. Our unification
comes hand in hand with the salvation of our species for the good life, for eudaimonia,
happiness, arte, or whatever one prefers to call it. It is our telos, if you will, to unite for the
common good of the people; we can do so only together. Once this has been achieved in the here
and now, then we can theorize about how forms of government and people will rule.