A Lesson From Good News
I’ve been reading a bunch of Abbey lately. Earlier in the year, I started going through some of the non-fiction works again, and just recently started the fiction. Finished The Monkey Wrench Gang last week.
Probably won’t do Black Sun again, since I’ve already read it about ten times. Most of the others at least twice.
So, why do it? Why read a book three or four, possibly more, times?
I’m always amazed at the little things I notice for the first time with Abbey. Often, things that should have been obvious the first time, but perhaps weren’t for one reason or another. Maybe too much tequila. (I’ve consumed more than my share since late November, 2000)
Abbey’s books provide so many simple truths, lessons and clever observations about the condition of man and how man’s condition seems frequently have a negative affect everything else. I never grow tired of reading them, and I learn something new every time.
Yesterday, I was reading Good News, an under appreciated book that effectively examines two starkly contrasted ideas about society. One, the top-down, hierarchical world of power and tyranny we’re all too familiar with, and two, the anarchistic and egalitarian world many of us (yet too few) hope for.
There’s a scene where the simple beauty of anarchism is played out. Burns has safely delivered the young, wounded Barbara back to the hidden, anarchist safe house, and is asking for his sidearm and horse so he can leave and return to his search in the city for his son.
The leader of the clan is a professor, but the professor is not present.
“Afterward he again requested the return of his weapon and his horse. They tried to dissuade him from his plan but was determined. Stubborn as stone. Red Beard, who seemed the most influential member of the gang-the professor was one and apparently they had no leader; as one explained, ‘We are all leaders’-finally yielded and gave Burns his gun.”
And there you have it. An anarchistic clan where everyone is equal, struggling to survive a city dominated by the Chief and his motorcycle squad comprised of henchmen and murderers. Much the same as the little anarchistic groups and bonds that exist in the shadow of tyranny and oppression today.
The beauty of anarchism illustrated in one simple phrase: “We’re all leaders.”