"But instead I usually say that, though it may surprise them, I too believe in the necessity of organization"
About this Quote
The sentence lands with a gentle feint: the listener expects an anarchist to recoil from structure, yet hears an admission that organization is not only acceptable but necessary. The surprise exposes a persistent confusion between organization and authority. Organization is simply coordination with purpose; authority, as Robert Shea kept pointing out across his work, is the claim to command. Opposition to the latter does not entail hostility to the former. It is precisely because people need to act together, build, defend, and create that free forms of organization are indispensable.
Shea, the libertarian-leaning novelist and essayist who co-authored the countercultural satire "Illuminatus!", spent years skewering the paranoia and stagnation bred by rigid hierarchies. He watched how secret orders and bureaucracies feed on opacity and obedience, and he also saw how loose networks, voluntary associations, and cooperatives can amplify intelligence and initiative. When he says he believes in the necessity of organization, he is reclaiming the term from those who use it to justify domination. He is pointing toward modes of coordination that grow from consent, transparency, and the right to exit, rather than compulsion.
The deeper argument is practical. Without organization, ideals drift into slogans and movements dissipate; without freedom, organizations ossify into machines that grind the people inside them. The task is to design arrangements that are light, revisable, and accountable, so that collective power does not harden into unanswerable power. Rotation of roles, federation rather than centralization, and open information are not abstractions but safeguards against the drift toward hierarchy. Shea’s line invites adversaries and allies alike to stop arguing at the level of caricature and start arguing at the level of form: What structures help humans cooperate without surrendering their agency? What kinds of organization stay answerable to the people they serve? His answer is that organization is a tool, and tools must remain under human control. The necessity is not up for debate; the kind is.
Shea, the libertarian-leaning novelist and essayist who co-authored the countercultural satire "Illuminatus!", spent years skewering the paranoia and stagnation bred by rigid hierarchies. He watched how secret orders and bureaucracies feed on opacity and obedience, and he also saw how loose networks, voluntary associations, and cooperatives can amplify intelligence and initiative. When he says he believes in the necessity of organization, he is reclaiming the term from those who use it to justify domination. He is pointing toward modes of coordination that grow from consent, transparency, and the right to exit, rather than compulsion.
The deeper argument is practical. Without organization, ideals drift into slogans and movements dissipate; without freedom, organizations ossify into machines that grind the people inside them. The task is to design arrangements that are light, revisable, and accountable, so that collective power does not harden into unanswerable power. Rotation of roles, federation rather than centralization, and open information are not abstractions but safeguards against the drift toward hierarchy. Shea’s line invites adversaries and allies alike to stop arguing at the level of caricature and start arguing at the level of form: What structures help humans cooperate without surrendering their agency? What kinds of organization stay answerable to the people they serve? His answer is that organization is a tool, and tools must remain under human control. The necessity is not up for debate; the kind is.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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