Drums on the Beach and Anarchy in the USA

The Venice Beach Drum circle is a good example of how Anarchy works in social organization.

Every Sunday, musicians and dancers assemble to play drum music on Venice Beach.   Twenty years ago, when I started attending, the group was small, about 10 drummers and 20 dancers or other participants.   Now the group can get as large as 200 people with up to 50 drummers and 150 dancers or other participants.

The curious thing is that there is no formal organization.  There is no group membership at all and we don't even know who most of the other people are.   We don't even know their names.  There is no organizing committee, no mailing list, and no advance planning.   

Furthermore, there is no music, no sheet music, no songs, no conductor or formal organization.   There is among humans however, a long cultural tradition of drumming and drum making.  At Venice we do use a common ending pattern to end specific jams, but even this is not required, or followed every time.

And yet, people show up with drums.   They coordinate their activities and manage to create enjoyable drum music every weekend.   They figure out how to play together at the same rhythm in a pleasing manner without anyone telling anyone else what to do (for the most part).   There are even people that clean up the debris and empty cans afterwards, and encourage people to maintain civility while the circle is progressing.

This is a perfect example of how Anarchy actually works in our society.   The group manages to continuously produce a drum experience every weekend.   But the funny thing is that there IS NO GROUP.  This is just ordinary people spontaneously organizing themselves to solve a problem.   In this case the problem is how to have fun playing drum music.

It could be easy to be critical of this type of organization by comparing certain aspects of the performance to other types of group organization, but that is not the purpose of this essay.   The point is to show that this is a viable example of Anarchy in social organization that has continued to work for twenty years.  

Interesting to ponder the thought.   At least in a limited context,  Anarchy can work to allow people to organize themselves, without outside interference, to effectively solve their own problems.

This concept might be generalized by the philosophically brave to say in other words, "Leave people alone and they will figure out what is best for themselves, by themselves."

And all these years at Venice Beach, I just thought that I was learning to play drums better and enjoy my time with people of a similar mindset.   How could I know that I was getting a political education at the same time?!?

(Apologies to the Venice Beach Drum Circle.   This is an avowedly non-political organization where people almost never talk about political issues or events.   People generally do not talk about anything except the most basic issues of sunset, water, garbage bin, and percussion instrument.    People don't talk, because they are not there to talk.  They are there to drum.  Talk is cheap.  Drumming has value.)

~

copyright(c) 2014

William Schaeffer