Welcome
to the rational anarchist. As many of you will recognize, the name comes from
the Robert A Heinlein novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress from when
Wyoming Knot asks Professor de la Paz about his political leanings. His reply
“A
rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and
‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of
self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame,
share blame, distribute blame…as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters
taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational,
he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live
perfectly in an imperfect world…aware that effort will be less than perfect yet
undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.”1 That about sums me up as far as my political philosophy goes. It does not
tell the why of this site.
When I was in seventh grade I was sent to a special class because I could not read. As it turned out I could read albeit not very well, testing at a fifth grade level. I simply had no interest in doing so. This is a case where a teacher can make all the difference. Miss Smith exposed me to a number of different genres finally landing on adventure stories. Amongst these were Sea Quest, Tom Swift and a host of other exciting but ultimately forgettable books, however it started me reading. From there on I became an addict, reading anything available from the school library. At the end of the class I was retested, scoring at a third year college reading level.
I
can’t possibly name or even recall all the books I read during that period,
however I remember that famous day and year of, well, okay, I neither remember
the day or the year, but I do remember the book. Rocket Ship Galileo by
Robert A Heinlein. That was a name I
would come to love. All the books I had read up to that point were diverting,
entertaining, amusing or even engrossing but this was the first time a book had
spoken to me on such a personal level. It taught me the values I would come to
incorporate as a part of myself. These were my formative years and I had found
my teachers, those who would help me understand what was worthwhile in
humanity. As you have no doubt noticed I used the plural, Heinlein was one man
and he was my teachers. No, I am not that grammatically illiterate. Whereas a
book with Heinlein’s name on it was an automatic read it was the characters on
those pages who taught me. As Dr. Cargraves on that rocket ship traveling to
the moon educated those young men, so he taught me.
I did
not know Mr. Heinlein and to speak of what he meant by his works would be beyond
silly, it would be offensive. Joy is in the ear that hears and beauty in the
eye of the beholder and so on. I will however tell you what I took from these
pages. It is my intent to review his works not solely as a synopsis of the stories but
rather as an evaluation of the lessons I learned within.
This
site is dedicated primarily to the works of Robert Heinlein; however I shall
feel free to reference other authors and their works as it seems appropriate.
Sincerely yours
The rational
anarchist
1Quoted directly from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein.
