Is Anarchy Ultimate Freedom? A teenage boy’s dream: ultimate freedom with snacks. No parents demanding things. A docile, always-agreeable girlfriend. Starbies his chill job with more snacks. Just vibes liberated from government. Perfect? Actually . . . no.
Not that long ago he didn’t have to work. Mom and Dad provided for him. He could drop himself down at the dining room table in the morning and breakfast would be waiting for him. Beside his plate was an insulated lunch bag containing an onigiri, a can of peanut soup, and boxed grass jelly tea. Dinner was served for him at 6pm daily.
Now the parents wanted him to do chores. Oppressive. The girlfriend complained that he loved playing Hades II more than her. Bro, she’s beefing with a roguelike. He can’t even. The Starbies boss wanted him to show up on time and smile at annoying customers who ordered oat milk and complained that the drink doesn’t taste like dairy. Buzz kill.
Hello Genie
On a cold and stormy December night the matrix glitched. He would be eighteen next month. Mom & Dad wanted to charge him rent. His other choices were to start trade school, college, or move out. Unoriginal. The girlfriend kept asking, “what are we?” Clingy. Starbies boss hit him with a suspension. Coworker said he used the word “transactional.” Apparently, that was violent now— like, anti-trans or something? He meant vibes. She heard war. Literalist.
He didn’t know how to pray. He did know how to fuss and ruminate. So he said to the air, “just glass all of it. Everything. The house, the girlfriend, the job, leave nothing. Dramatic. Then I can be free from oppression.” The sky answered. Wind kicked up like it had been waiting. Rain came sideways. Debris slapped the windows like it had beef. For thirty minutes the world raged. He didn’t flinch. Just pulled the covers over his face and curled tighter. Coward.
It was Saturday morning. 8am. Late. The house was silent. No neighbors were noise polluting with their mowers. Weird. He tried to turn on the shower and it gave him a few seconds of pressure then nothing. He dressed and went downstairs. Everything was off. No power and the faucets were dry. No power so no heat. Suspicious
No Net
He checked his phone. Without power in the house WiFi was off. LTE was off also. His phone is bricked. Next, he walked out the front door. Holy shit. As far as his eyes could see there was destruction. Biblical.
“Be careful what you wish for,” said a voice in his head. He stood on the porch with no words. Kidding. Seriously. JK Ok! He didn’t really wish that the world would be glassed. Or . . . he never imagined glassing could mean this. No cap. Too Late
Where were Mom & Dad, his sister, anybody? Was his girlfriend ok? He just wanted the intensity to stop. The world had glitched, and he was the only player left. The regret began to sink into his stomach. This was too much. Ultimate freedom overload.
It All Begins with Bitterness
That post-apocalyptic dystopia fades into the mists of time as the post 407 intro. It isn’t hopeless for him. In any disaster there is a sunrise. God is good. That boy will encounter the goodness of God and grow to be an old man surrounded by grandchildren and their kittens.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels lit a cultural fire we are still fighting. All five suffered from both personal bitterness and the misery of their times. They answered with intellectual theories on how society and government must behave. We must change so that they could be comforted.
C.S. Lewis’, “The Screwtape Letters” tells the tale of Wormwood. The highlight: Screwtape tells Wormwood we are food. Our bitterness is what Hell eats. Bitterness will never bring ultimate freedom. It becomes a cancer on our soul.
It Ends with God
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life,[a] and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Call it whatever you want—if it traces back to Proudhon, Bakunin, Goldman, Marx, or Engels, it’s built on bitterness. That stuff doesn’t liberate, it devours. Ideologies like that don’t heal, they consume. And no matter how loud the darkness gets, it still can’t touch the light.
Bakunin was like: “Nah, no bosses, no gods, no billionaires.” He believed any kind of hierarchy—government, religion, capitalism—just ends up corrupt and abusive, so real freedom means tearing all that down and building something horizontal, local, and mutual from the ground up.
Saying all hierarchy is bad? That’s a tantrum, not a take. It’s the messy growing pains of a kid trying to make sense of power. Hierarchy’s not the problem. Conflict’s not the problem. Leadership’s not the problem. Abuse is. It’s not the structure—it’s how you use it.
Reliably Unreliable
God’s people got punished, repented, behaved, then wandered off again—on loop for like 2,000 years. The only consistent thing? People are annoying.
We were so annoying God sent his Son to drag sin and death to hell and build a new kingdom on forgiveness. Did we chill out after that? Nah. Still annoying. Grace didn’t fix us—it just refused to leave.
The mission shifted. Help the ones who are trying. Let the rest vibe in their chaos. No more chasing tantrums. No more fixing what refuses to be fixed.
Boss Man
If Bakunin’s “no hierarchy ever” take was bent, then what’s the move? We’ve seen too many leaders turn power into poison—bosses drunk on privilege, pissing on everyone below. Even Bakunin’s own crew booted him. Turns out, no leadership at all is just chaos in a trench coat. So yeah, hierarchy’s not the villain.
Real leaders don’t flex. They speak, and the room goes quiet. They suggest a plan, and people mutter “amen” before the vote even drops. When it does, it’s all “aye.” No nays.
Gifted clerks don’t make noise—they make space. Paperwork lands on time, budgets stay tight, and suddenly we can breathe. No drama. Just flow. The back end is clean, so we get to chase bigger challenges instead of wondering if accounts payable is on fire.
The Room Goes Quiet
There is a crackle in the air when a natural gifted leader speaks. Everyone is a little squirmy. The malcontents start to raise their hands to speak. Then someone calls for a vote. And instead of the room erupting the chair calls, “all in favor say ‘aye'” and the room response with “aye!” “Any nays?” Crickets.
Leadership isn’t just vibes or charisma—it’s a skill. You can have natural talent, sure, but you still need to learn how to use it. There are actual playbooks out there, and two books stand out.
First up:”Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. It dropped in 2002 and still holds. They break down six leadership styles: visionary, affiliative, democratic, coaching, command, and pacesetting. Command and pacesetting can go toxic fast if you lean too hard. Bakunin would’ve hated both. Too much structure, too little chill.
Second: Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf. This one flips the whole power dynamic. Instead of leading from the top, you lead by serving. It’s about moral authority, not control. Greenleaf pushes for collaboration, trust, listening, and actual empowerment. If you’re trying to lead without turning into a tyrant or a burnout case, these two books are a solid start.
Last, Jesus and St. Paul. Jesus redefined leadership by washing feet John 13:3-20, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Leadership is a basin and towel. St. Paul extended this rhythm into the early church. He urged believers to “imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1), modeling a life of integrity, endurance, and grace.
That Boy
Walks toward familiar places and encounters neighbors and family friends who are confused and wondering how to find disaster relief. The same sort of disaster response that happened for the 2025 floods in North Carolina would start. The boy will be ok.
He walks to a charismatic church and finds the parking lot busy with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief workers and supplies. They have bagged lunches of egg salad on white bread, an apple and bottled water.
At the church parking lot there is the usual social work rhythm. Who are you? Where do you live? Where is your family? Do you have power, water, internet? They write a case report and add it to the pile for case workers. The process is slow. But it grinds on and over time the boy is taken care of.
Hurricane Harvey 2017
When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August 2017, mutual aid groups mobilized fast. Locals used social media to coordinate rescues, distribute supplies, and open homes. The energy was raw and powerful—but often rudderless. Volunteers lacked safety training, food handling protocols, and logistical systems. Some efforts stalled. Others created bottlenecks. In one case, a pop-up donation center in Houston became overwhelmed with expired food and unsorted clothing.
Then came the yellow shirts.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Services (SBDR) deployed trained volunteers across Texas. They brought mobile kitchens, chainsaw crews, flood recovery teams, and chaplains. They logged every request, coordinated with FEMA, and followed strict safety protocols. Their volunteers were credentialed, insured, and equipped.
The contrast was stark. Mutual aid groups, once energized, now looked overwhelmed. Some volunteers quietly stepped back. Others asked SBDR for help. A few became victims themselves—injured, exhausted, or emotionally burned out.
Ultimate Surrender
Let’s answer the question: is anarchy ultimate freedom?
Honestly, no. It sounds cool—no rules, no bosses, just vibes—but it doesn’t hold. When you zoom out, the two leadership models that actually stick are imperialism and democracy. Imperialism works great if you’re aligned with whoever’s in charge. Democracy’s messy, but at least there’s a system for pushback when leadership and the people stop vibing. And every time democracy collapses, what shows up next is some power-hungry emperor with zero chill. It’s a pattern.
So, what happens when there’s no structure at all? No hierarchy, no leadership? You get chaos. Or worse—someone steps in and takes over without consent, and now you’ve got bad leadership with no accountability. Anarchy doesn’t prevent tyranny. It just delays it.
We need leaders. But not just anyone who wants the mic. We need people who’ve surrendered to something bigger—leaders who follow Christ’s rhythm, not their own ego. The kind of leadership Jesus modeled when He washed feet. The kind Paul lived when he said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” When leadership is rooted in that kind of surrender, the bitterness, rage, and fear that haunted 19th-century Europe can finally be released. And in that space, the Holy Spirit can actually move.
Bakunin resisted leadership because he feared it would metastasize into dictatorship. His brush was too broad. When leadership is surrendered to Christ, it turns chaos into order, bitterness into grace, and fear into trust. Healthy leadership increases freedom because it removes friction.
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