For obvious reasons we take the word “anarchist” pretty seriously, and to us it basically means one who seriously challenges the existing rule, norms or customs. A lot of people do a lot of talking about things like radical change and revolution and transformation, but for most people it is just talk.
If you are only loudly challenging the things that are safe to challenge (bad managers suck! / bad companies suck! / bad customer service sucks!) you are not really serious about changing anything and you certainly are not an anarchist. Anarchists have to be willing to challenge institutions and in-groups from time to time…anarchist have to be willing to challenge one another and themselves from time to time as well. If you cannot do any of this you are simply championing new sacred cows.
I knew that Mr. Seiden had some anarchist tendencies after I read his first book, How to Self-Destruct, but I was reminded of those tendencies recently after reading a recent blog post. We proudly fly the Gen X flag here at Talent Anarchy and I know that Mr. Seiden is “one of us”, but this post called us Xers out on some of our own stuff. We have some issues with “bosses” and “organizations” and we might not be building the kinds of relationships that we need to because of some of our own assumptions and beliefs.
Its good stuff and a good reminder to me that we cannot just point out what other folks need to do differently, but we also need to take care of our own side of the street. Regardless of the issue, the opportunity or the problem…we all have a roll to play, and it is important to have truth-tellers and anarchist to remind us of that from time to time.
So. Might it be time to name our first honorary anarchist?
-joe