If you don’t feel like spending ten minutes learning from a YouTube video the origins and the implications of the term “anarchy” – then you’ve come to the right blog. Anarchy has a long history in the United States as well as internationally, manifested through literature, philosophers, and resistances against the state. Anarchy has had a longstanding negative connotation, implying a chaotic, lawless nation. However, the truth about anarchy lies within the grassroots efforts of small communities not unlike the anarchist community that can be found in Philadelphia.
Anarchy is defined by the Meriam-Webster dictionary as “a situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, organization, etc., are not controlled by rules or laws; a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority.” The phrase, “some men just want to watch the world burn” is brought to mind at the thought. So, is it burning bridges, burning flags, burning capitals, the whole world burning? Is anarchy the complete disintegration of government, a world turned savage, a dog eat dog world?
I think not.
Back to the Meriam-Webster – read the extended definition of the word and you will find this: “a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government.” A utopia? That sounds nice. Freedom? Sounds good to me.
An artist’s rendition of a utopia – doesn’t look too shabby to me.
I suppose I ought to leave my preconceived notions at the door. Perhaps anarchy is not the fearsome doom that it’s cracked up to be. Unfortunately, even as tempting as this freedom loving, community based utopia is, anarchy is simply not a viable way to operate 310 million people. So it seems anarchy’s legacy is lost to the nooks and crannies of culture and society that it at one point occupied.
But wait – perhaps anarchy is right down the block from you. Perhaps your very own neighbor is an anarchist. You think, Tim? Not Tim. It couldn’t be Tim! It’s Tim. Anarchists are not violent, masked thugs with a lust for destruction – rather, they’re individuals who subscribe to the notion that a community of individuals can operate based on the consensus of the members – you know, holding hands, singing Kumbaya, supporting one another – not murdering, stealing, or lying to one another. Maybe just because anarchy can’t exist on a nationwide scale doesn’t mean it can’t, or doesn’t, exist in smaller communities across the United States. Wouldn’t that be something?
Anarchy on South Street
Allow me to introduce you to the Wooden Shoe, an anarchist bookstore on 704 South Street right here in the city of brotherly love.
The Wooden Shoe.
Philadelphians and tourists walk down South Street day after day to get their daily dose of culture. This famed street is home to all sorts of interesting shops, people, and sights ranging from Abyssinia Culture Shop, Atomic City Comics, Condom Kingdom (exactly what you think it is), Mineralistic, and hundreds of other spots. South Street serves as a cultural hub for a culturally diverse city.
The Wooden Shoe, it seems to me, is often overlooked by a large amount of people, for one of two reasons: either because it’s a bookstore or because of its anarchist affiliations. It’s a shop on South Street just like all the others, but it’s unlike it’s neighboring establishments for a multitude of reasons. The Wooden Shoe is a non-profit record store, bookstore, and infoshop – collectively run by a staff made up entirely of volunteers. When you walk in, there is no pressure to purchase anything – just a couple of friendly faces manning the counter, there to greet you as you walk in. You’re left to wander through the store’s impressive collection of records, books, journals, magazines, and other materials. The collection that the Wooden Shoe has is at times, distinctly anarchist, and at other times, indiscernibly mainstream. Their book collection ranges from obscure authors waxing philosophic to popular writers such as Michael Pollan.
The Wooden Shoe.
Beyond the vast collection of liberal and cultural literature, the Wooden Shoe acts as an anarchist safe space. While anarchy is misunderstood and deemed radical and anti-American in popular culture, anyone is welcome here and ideas are allowed to be freely expressed. This is what sets the bookstore apart from other locations.
The Wooden Shoe’s History
So how did the Wooden Shoe end up at 7th and South? The establishment has a rich history that reflects the struggle of a community grasping to an ideal that is not held by the mainstream; so how does a community hold fast to their beliefs when the opposition is so overwhelming? The collective was founded in 1976 in a different location at 112 South 20th Street by a group of labor-oriented libertarian socialists. According to the Wooden Shoe’s history section on its website, “it was just a dark, nasty basement that was really cramped.” The store got its name from “a symbol of workers control, the sabot. French peasants often resisted early industrial capitalism by tossing their wooden shoes into the gears of a factory machine, in order to get a break after extremely long hours.”
A French Sabot, or wooden shoe.
The founding of the Wooden Shoe came just as the Vietnam War had come to an end and the culture of America was one of increased liberalism and opposition to war. The Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights movement, and other social changes heavily influenced the growth of a collective of individuals interested in “something a little more tangible and solid to establish.” The Wooden Shoe did not begin as a strictly anarchist establishment but “sympathized with core principles of anarchism.” Originally, it was more of a socialist/communist group of individuals.
Here is where the story gets a little metaphorical – after two decades of dwindling interest in the store’s core beliefs and values, as well as the services they originally intended on providing, tragedy struck. Or perhaps, a miracle in disguise. On Ash Wednesday, February 12th, 1997 the Wooden Shoe was set ablaze by an electrical fire. According to the Wooden Shoe’s website, “it is almost universally agreed upon that the burning down of the old Wooden Shoe was the best possible thing that could have happened to the declining organization.” Luckily, the store had an insurance policy that awarded them a large sum of money which led to the rebirth of the establishment. The new location, where the Wooden Shoe stands today, played a large role in the moderate success the store accomplished from then on out. South Street, being the cultural hot-spot that it is, attracted many more curious visitors, thus leading to a collective increasing in strength and numbers. So much like the concept of anarchy, the Wooden Shoe was burnt to the ground, and from its ashes rose a stronger community of like-minded people.
Anarchy in 2013
So in the year 2013, what does it even mean to be an anarchist? For a little context, we can reference what anarchy was in the past. In many cases, it manifested as a rebellion against oppressive governments. Anarchy as an idea can be traced to the French Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and even early American colonialists. And as can be seen from the case of the early Americans, anarchy doesn’t need to be specified for it to be a form of anarchy; anarchy, in short, is the desire of a community of people to live without a government that has only served to make their lives worse.
Fast forward to present time and your typical anarchist is not what you would expect. Though the ideology itself is radically different from the system that our country operates under, radical implies a certain craziness to the idea.
Though anarchy is no longer an easy ideology to put into practice, anarchists can make attempts to “buck the system” in a number of ways. Many of the services that the Wooden Shoe provides are in line with an anarchist agenda and help serve the community. On an individual basis, the collective seeks to instill values in its members that are of an anarchist nature, such as questioning “systems of oppression like racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, and ageism within our own collective and in larger society.” The collective understands that there must be strength and unity of virtue within a small group before it can become a widely held belief. Once strength is established at a local level, the group may hope to influence those outside of the collective, such as the patrons who visit the Wooden Shoe on a daily basis.
Beyond helping to foster a larger community of individuals dedicated to the proliferation of fighting powerful forms of systemic oppression, the Wooden Shoe hosts a number of programs monthly of varying topic to enlighten members of the collective as well as interested Philadelphians in important national and worldwide issues, ranging from the rampant stray cat problem in Philadelphia, to the problems of fracking for oil, to Food For All Collective Distros in which ethical food is distributed to those who want it.
An event at the Wooden Shoe.
The anarchist community is not as small as one would think – in Philadelphia alone, there are several locations with anarchist ties, including the LAVA Space, A-Space, the anarchist print publication, Defenstrator, as well as other locations and and groups in the city.
All of these spaces are affiliated with one another and lead to a strengthened community. Anarchy is dependent on a community of likeminded individuals who believe in a common goal. Anarchy doesn’t work without cooperation and the sharing of values.
Community, believe it or not, can, and does, exist throughout the world without a group of individuals at the top moderating the communities’ actions through political or governmental means. In an anarchist community, consensus is king – pun intended. The Wooden Shoe is one part of a larger community that holds a set of values and beliefs that are no longer a part of mainstream American culture. But you can rest assured that with such a tight-knit community that has ties to a larger global network of individuals who believe in the same thing, anarchy will never go away for sure – and let’s hope not. It may become an important ideology to hold to when the world really does burn.
Writing Workshop Fall 2013 