In the second part of Tarquin O’Flaherty’s examination of the life, times and writings of William Godwin Anarchy is touched upon.
It is impossible here to do justice to Godwin’s work. His essays and novels were so highly regarded at the time, and so in demand, that there was a growing and constant clamour for them to be translated, at first into French, then German and finally Russian. His essays, and particularly his ‘Enquiry Concerning Political Justice’ and his novel, ‘Caleb Williams’, remained highly influential throughout the 19th century.
Basically, if I have the right of it, Godwin believed that the principles of justice, equality and private judgement should be applied to all of the institutions we surround ourselves with. If this is done in a properly critical manner, with justice and equality as essential criteria, then, quite quickly these bodies will be discovered to be corrupted and unfit for purpose. They are, time and time again, found to be more interested in their own well being, their own survival, than the well-being of the population at large. These institutions include the government, the church, freedom of speech and toleration Societies, the law and any other institution or group within society which impinges on our private right to judgement. This judgement, according to Godwin, will of course be based on reason, and reason, in the ‘cogito ergo sum’ sense, is based on justice. Any conglomeration, or agglomeration of persons, even in marriage, on examination, becomes questionable.
(A perfect example of this institutionalised corruption in modern times, is the absolute refusal, by governments in the West to give countenance or credence to any form of government other than the existing ‘democratic’ one. Godwin’s beliefs were based around Anarchism, ‘…a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than on submission to law and authority…’ (OED). Anarchy nowadays has come to mean disorder and lawlessness. Cuba, where an infinitely more humane form of communism has been practised, has been brought to its economic knees by Western sanctions simply beause their version of justice and equality is more equal and just than ours. Without these sanctions, the Cuban alternative to our ‘democracy’, a communism based on justice and equality, might have provided a really successful alternative to our patently corrupt, multinational driven form of government. It might have brought the level of Western governmental corruption to the public’s attention. The West could not could not allow this to happen, so we’ve had 60 grinding years of shameful, pitiless sanctions against a tiny country which, for half a century at least, has not been a conceivable threat to anyone. ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ however, just like ‘Anarchy’, have passed into the American language as dirty ‘commie’ words)