I am in Seattle this week with Worldview Academy, and I stopped by Left Bank Books, a cooperative up Pike Street from Pike Place near the Public Market.
The disheveled shop had small sections with standard bookstore stock-- fiction, literature, biography-- but most of the space was reserved for edgy, "radical" (yet so culturally-hip!) social commentary.
The biggest section was the "Anarchist Books." Apparently, however, a problem for the book co-op is that the anarchists don't cooperate, so to speak. The books keep disappearing. To combat this problem, three signs are posted in the anarchist section. Here are the first two:
In other words:
"Practice what you preach . . . just not in our store!"
"Property is theft! Unless it is 'our property'"!
"We love anarchy! But only in theory!"
The anarchist worldview is apparently worth peddling, but not worth actually practicing.
The final sign read:
IF YOU MUST STEAL,
STEAL
FROM A RICHLY STOCKED
CORPORATE BOOKSTORE
Wow.
Let's face it: we are all hypocrites sometimes. I know that I don't always practice what I preach, and that I am often inconsistent . . . or just plain wrong.
But I don't think I'm ever this funny.
Maybe that is why anarchists often partake in drugs...to subdue any logical thoughts that would contradict their philosophy.
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