Yes I Called Myself an Anarchist Is There a Problem

Pandora's Box is the classical (literally - it's Greek) story of how "evil" was brought into the world. One wonders what the writer of this story might have called all the nastiness that went on earlier in the Greek "canon" (insofar as such a thing existed) with fathers eating their children and whatnot. At any rate, the story essentially goes like this - the first woman, Pandora (it always has to be the woman, doesn't it?) was created by Hephaestus at the behest of Zeus, and given all sorts of wonderful objects and attributes - clothing, beauty, speech - by the other gods. She was, evidently, such a desirable bride that as part of the punishment of Prometheus, who disobediently gave Fire to humans, she was given over to Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus, with a special jar in her possession, which she was told never to open. And of course, as these stories inevitably go, she totally opened it anyway. Apparently, Zeus, in his infinite wisdom, stuffed that jar full of every evil known to man, so when Pandora opened it, they all escaped into the world. Pandora was afraid she'd be punished, but actually Zeus expected exactly this so he didn't really care.

A note about the jar: Yes, I know the myth is Pandora's box but apparently some Dutch guy in the 16th century named Erasmus of Rotterdamn mistranslated the original story by Hesiod and translated pithos (jar) as if it were pyxis (box).

A pithos

A pyxis

I've struggled throughout my life to gain a conception of what causes the many evils that I encounter in the world. When I was in 8th grade and on my atheist tip, I thought religion was the root of all evil. Later I probably shifted to it being homophobia and other sorts of ignorance. But I think that as I understand it today, evil is most rooted in one central principle - Power. And it is this power that I hope to squelch from the Earth,

When I say power, specifically I refer to the power individuals exercise on one another, and the power groups exercise on other groups. I see these power dynamics in many of the evils I perceive in the world - in racism and queerphobia, in government oppression and genocide, in abuse by corporations, in the day to day struggles of individuals I've known to live happy and fulfilling lives. In previous times, I described myself as a liberal - someone who believes government can be a tool for people to help themselves and others through economic programs and social justice. But now I think that the very concept of government may in fact be the problem - that no matter our best intentions, the existence of a State structure inevitably causes more harm than it generates good. My ideal world is an anarchist society - not, that is to say, a society without order, but a society ordered by people among themselves, not by people who then force it downwards upon those without power. If power must exist, all humans must possess it in equal balance. Power imbalance is, I believe, the greatest evil in the world.