"When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists"
About this Quote
Nothing exposes the authoritarian reflex like a call to “kill all the anarchists” delivered at the very moment anarchy is supposedly “declared.” Craig Bruce’s line is built as a trap: it lures you in with the fantasy of total freedom, then snaps shut with the oldest move in the political playbook - define a disorderly enemy and purge them in the name of restoring order. The joke is that “anarchy,” here, isn’t a condition of society so much as a label power uses when it feels threatened.
The phrasing matters. “The first thing we do” mimics the language of committees and crisis-management plans, the bureaucratic calm of people who think violence is just another administrative lever. It’s not a chaotic mob speaking; it’s the voice of someone who believes they’re being sensible. That’s the subtext: repression often arrives wearing a rational face.
Bruce, writing from a late-20th-century tradition of cynical, violence-aware genre fiction, understands how revolutions get packaged. Even anti-authoritarian movements can be co-opted by those eager to seize the megaphone and decide who counts as “too extreme.” The line also pokes at the hypocrisy of people who flirt with radical aesthetics while still craving the security of a strong hand. “Anarchy” becomes a costume party until it requires tolerating actual anarchists - the ones who refuse hierarchy, refuse policing, refuse the comforting lie that someone is in charge.
It works because it’s blunt enough to be funny and precise enough to sting: the instant you announce freedom, somebody starts drafting the kill list.
The phrasing matters. “The first thing we do” mimics the language of committees and crisis-management plans, the bureaucratic calm of people who think violence is just another administrative lever. It’s not a chaotic mob speaking; it’s the voice of someone who believes they’re being sensible. That’s the subtext: repression often arrives wearing a rational face.
Bruce, writing from a late-20th-century tradition of cynical, violence-aware genre fiction, understands how revolutions get packaged. Even anti-authoritarian movements can be co-opted by those eager to seize the megaphone and decide who counts as “too extreme.” The line also pokes at the hypocrisy of people who flirt with radical aesthetics while still craving the security of a strong hand. “Anarchy” becomes a costume party until it requires tolerating actual anarchists - the ones who refuse hierarchy, refuse policing, refuse the comforting lie that someone is in charge.
It works because it’s blunt enough to be funny and precise enough to sting: the instant you announce freedom, somebody starts drafting the kill list.
Quote Details
| Topic | Dark Humor |
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