It’s encouraging to see a community come out in opposition to police. Why does it take extreme tactics like kettling and choke holds to produce this kind of response? Speaking for myself, I feel that school conditioned me to not stand out. When I stood out for intelligence, I was put down by fellow students. When I stood out for leadership, I was punished by teachers as a troublemaker or ringleader. I also learned not to organize directly with my peers. There might be a couple who were interested but the rest didn’t care, were too scared or were prepared to rat me out. I learned to deal with others through third parties, such as the government or some private authority. Working together directly with other people outside of work was uncomfortable. Absent a higher controlling authority, something seemed wrong about it. It is precisely these kinds of barriers that we must overcome in order to fix our world.
I notice this problem more among the rich. Among the poor of third-world countries, I witness spontaneous, direct organization all the time. Some kind of artificial limits were inculcated into me that these people lack. For that I admire them. Their culture is an atavism. We libertarians need to learn these old ways. Peer-to-peer organization is the foundation of a free society. But how shall we do it?
