That this charge should be brought against anarchists now, at a time when they are the few people who are not throwing bombs or assisting bomb throwers, shows a curious purblindness among its champions. It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos. It is not robbery or murder. It is not a war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarianism or to the wild state of man.
Anarchism is the very opposite of all that.
These refutations of stereotypes associated with anarchism are sometimes trampled by the popular misuse of the word anarchism. Modern anarchists still work hard to help anarchism maintain its validity and history. Anarchists such as L. Susan Brown have introduced ideas such as existential individualism, while other anarchists remain loyal to anarcho-syndicalism and class struggle. Other anarchists such as Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, an ex-Black Panther, are introducing new means of organizing and directly challenging racism. Also, we see anarchists working to keep anarchism, in theory and practice, alive and well around the world with anarchist newspapers such as Love and Rage in Mexico and the United States, anarchist book publishers such as AK Press in the U.S. and the U.K., and political prisoner support groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross.