Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.
Interpretation
Anarchists emphasize the need for education before societal change, valuing self-thought over political campaigning.
In this quote, Lucy Parsons highlights the belief that significant and lasting changes in society require a deep level of education and critical thinking among individuals rather than mere participation in political processes. Anarchists advocate for the cultivation of self-thinking individuals who can challenge the status quo and drive meaningful change from the ground up, rather than relying on traditional political methods that may not lead to genuine transformation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of education in social movements.
Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.
Dreams have consequences. There is no turning back. A revolution is not a painless march to the gates of freedom and justice. It is a struggle between rage and hope, between the temptation to destroy and the desire to build. Its temperament is desperate. It is a tormented response to the past, to all that has happened, the recalled and unrecalled injustices - for the memory of a revolution reaches much further back than the memory of its protagonists.
We demand in the Reconstruction suffrage for all the citizens of the Republic. I would not talk of Negroes or women, but of citizens.
You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.
The moment of change is the only poem.
Everything changes but change itself. Everything flows and nothing remains the same... You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go flowing ever on.
When the fabric of society is so rigid that it cannot change quickly enough, adjustments are achieved by social unrest and revolutions.
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