"anarcho"-monarchism

Question

Can anyone tell me what this even is? It makes no sense to me. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but it sounds like "anarcho"-capitalism, conservatism,  fascism, liberalism, nationalism...etc.

Comments

hardly anything privileged, a-historical, sheltered, white dudes living off an inheritance makes any sense... except that they're scared to take off the leash of domestication in addition to being scared of that image of swarthy figures approaching them from the south coming to take their shit.

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yeah, this is a nope. Perhaps a fan of Stirner took things just a little wrong?

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i doubt these people actually read stirner past the american-translated title of his major work, if even that. their beliefs are far too spooky...

Answer 1

someone who considers himself an anarcho-monarchist tried to explain himself to me (and some other people).

he's not the clearest explainer, but what i understood is that he (not speaking for all AMs) considers "king" to be a social metaphor. so the way that some people encourage us to see ourselves as gods (i guess as a way to encourage autonomy and nietzschean willfulness), AMs (or at least this person) use "king" instead of "god." (i actually have some sympathy for the desire to use a more human example than god, but king is not what i would go for... i don't know what i would go for though.)

he also said in this context, "what if instead of 'no gods, no masters' we said 'all gods, all masters' " (or something like that--i am probably not remembering totally correctly).  he's an interesting guy. :)

Comments

at least your interlocutor sounds more interesting than author of the page(s) i encountered and based my earliest snide-ish comment.

http://anarcho-monarchism.com/about/

Answer 2

I recently listened to an entertaining segment on Free Radical Radio, episode 71 about anarcho-monarchism. Turns out it traces itself back to the venerable J.R.R. Tolkien, and this is from the private letter the anarcho-monarchists now treat as a foundational treatise:

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inaminate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate!  […] Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any many, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. [...] Grant me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you dare call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. […] There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamating factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal”

For the record, I consider this to be a wonderful bit of cookiness and am willing to defend it not politically but aesthetically. Anyway I take it that, in classic Internet fashion, some nerds from 4chan or reddit have latched onto this (overlooking the whimsy and the word unconstitutional), and determined to treat it as if it were a viable political philosophy, even basing a kind of constitution on it.

It's tragic what the limelight will do a funny idea transcribed in a private letter.

All this has little to do with anarchy as politics, but the fact that this exists, even on some remote corner of the Internet, does attest to the anarchy-as-chaos of the world.

Comments

To put my last comment in bolo-bolo terms, I am fairly convinced there would be at least one monarcho-bolo per thousand bolos.

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Thanks for digging that out of the aether's dustbin.

Funny, given that i had never heard of the term before, that the first thought i had was that the prancing fools are the least of our worries.  After we burn the parli'ments and prisons and the courts, the banks and factories, the churchs and the ...;  then we can turn our attention to the vestigal organs of authority - monarchs and nobility.  Whether the sad little inbred fools would be worth the effort at that point is doubtful; 'keep your mansions and palaces, so long as you allow us the freedom of our lives outside your gates, and so long as no one else is compelled to sweep your floors or larder your table.'  (paraphrased from kropotkin's Conquest of Bread.)

In constitutional monarchies, the vestigal monarchs often enjoy a sentimental popularity - the blood of the actions of the state spots the hands of the political class and their uniformed hirelings, the ceremonial figureheads sit above such soiling.