Ideological & Political Spectrum of the 19th Century

The last leg of the 19^th century ideologies ended with the discussion of Anarchism in today’s lecture. Springing from the Orthodox-Marxist ideology, Anarchism looks at the conception of man, the State, the Church, and the mechanisms of Social Change at a very different perspective. This ideology believes that man is born good. It also proposes that man’s natural selection is not based on competition but rather on mutual co-operation with nature and other beings. Man also has a natural tendency for obedience on the natural law. Lastly, Anarchism believes that man is not born isolated but, on the contrary, is born a very sociable being. As for the State, the ideology of Anarchism looks down on large and organized institutions. Their aversion to these organizations stems from their belief that nothing good can be expected from institutions that uses compulsion and violence to extract conformity from its constituents. The exercise of compulsion and violence thus results to the destruction of an individual’s God-head or good-naturedness. The existence of the State’s governance over the masses of individuals is in direct contradiction with the Anarchist’s idea on salvation, wherein salvation duly resides inside an individual. It is in this regard that Anarchism adheres for the abolition of the State since the government that represents it is impersonal and is very much detached to the nature of man. Anarchism also has an interesting perspective on the role of history. It states that the hand of the dead past should be forgotten and that the present should not be used as the basis for the future.

The aversion of Anarchism to organized social institutions is also shared with the abhorrence towards the Church or any organized religion. Organized religious institutions are said to suppress and kill an individual’s faculty for reasoning, eventually disabling one’s consciousness along with one’s propensity to access one’s spring of ideas. Like Liberalism, Anarchism greatly values man’s individualism, but, unlike Liberalism, Anarchism believes that the virtue of individualism should not be caged within a social institution and should therefore be allowed to grow outside the constraints of institutions like the State and the Church. Social change is likewise believed to be swift without the existence of large and organized institutions. Perhaps one of the major differences of Anarchism with that of Orthodox-Marxism hinges on general will and an individual’s consciousness. Anarchists believe that the desire of an individual for justice is inherent to one’s own nature. This ideology, in effect, rejects the Proletarian revolution of Marxism and, instead, focuses on the individuality of a being. Alienation is also defined as being aware of what one is and the subsequent feeling that what one is is not what one wants to be.

After all discussions on Conservatism, Liberalism, Orthodox-Marxism, and Anarchism, one should very well ask where Rizal, in all of these ideologies, is. Perhaps, Rizal is in the Conservatives’ aristocracy of the elite class and their emphasis on the collectivism. Or maybe, Rizal is in the Liberals’ thrust for social reform by secular and ethical means. Perhaps, the best means to see Rizal in all of these 19^th century ideologies is to seen him as a Liberal who saw liberation in the light of necessary social reforms staged by intellectuals in the elite class. (02/26/2011)