These are all non-issues under anarchy, which is a worldful of autonomous, communal peoples. If there were no ruling class, then there would be no pressure on local peoples to give up their own languages, ethnicities, and cultures in favor of those of the ruling class. There would be no King's English to be imposed on the lower orders to facilitate more efficient administration. There would be no national religion. There would be no hegemonic culture. Under the communists in China, distinct ethnic groups have been disappearing faster than ever before, as a national, homogenous culture is imposed from Beijing. Regional dialects are disappearing from an already fairly homogenous country like the United States. Similarly the world over.

      But if every neighborhood, village, or small town were self-governing and autonomous, then what reason could there be for them to give up their own language and culture? Unless they just wanted to, because they wanted to assimilate for example (but to what?), or simply to learn a second language, or adopt certain items (ideas or things) because they liked them. But they would be under no compulsion to do so. They could change or stay the same, as they chose. Under such conditions, it would even become possible again for new ethnicities and cultures to emerge, rather than disappear, which is about all they've been doing lately.

      But wouldn't essentially the same problems reappear on the neighborhood level? They would, but with a difference. It's unlikely after all that every neighborhood or village will be homogeneous (or stay homogenous). Even if they begin homogenous, new identities can emerge almost overnight to split them. A good example was the emergence in the late sixties of gender as the primary identity for millions of young women the world over. An identity which had not been especially salient suddenly became so. I suppose something similar could happen in a decentralized world.

      But on the neighborhood level, in self-governing free communities, the question of identity takes on an entirely different cast. How so? Because of the already achieved equality of power and wealth. Much of the struggle of blacks has been to get the same civil rights everyone else had. Women have sought equal rights under the law and equity in pay and work loads. Old people have wanted to live in dignity and independence, and not be shoved off to die in some holding pen. In autonomous neighborhoods based on democratic decision-making, cooperative labor, and shared wealth, all these things would be theirs as a matter of course. It's hard to see how identity politics, as we have known it this past quarter century, could even exist under anarchy. Identities that would exist, would surely exist, would devolve into the standard difficulty of majority/minority relations. There will be minorities on just about every issue. But will these minorities be based on race, gender, age, or language? I doubt it. They will be political or philosophical minorities.

      Nevertheless, there may well still be intractable conflicts. The current dispute between the christian right and homosexuals might provide an example. Christian conservatives believe that homosexuality is a sin, unnatural, and a violation of human nature and the laws of God. You can argue with them until the cows come home and not get anywhere. You can point out that there have always been homosexuals in human societies throughout history. They reply that there have always been murderers, thieves, and prostitutes too, but that doesn't make them morally acceptable or socially tolerable. You can point out that homosexuality was considered entirely normal in some periods, like in the Roman Empire. They reply that this only proves how decadent that empire was. And so forth and so on. (Of course, slavery was justified with comparable beliefs, namely that blacks were inferior creatures and not really human.)

      What if a few homosexuals were living in a democratic, autonomous neighborhood where everyone else was a christian conservative? Well, could they be denied participation in projects, households, and the assembly? Could they be denied their fair share of the cooperatively produced wealth? They couldn't. Not and have the neighborhood still remain a member of the association. Could they be expelled from the neighborhood? Probably. Freedom to associate implies the freedom not to associate. Otherwise this freedom is meaningless. I don't see how the right to expel persons from a neighborhood could be abolished and still have a social arrangement based on free association. And remember, there is no higher authority to impose laws to resolve the conflict in favor of one or the other side.

      I don't deny that this is a very thorny issue. Naturally, we hope that the horizons of human tolerance for difference will keep expanding. But where intractable conflicts still exist, I believe the solution lies with the principle of free association and shows the beauty and genius of this way of arranging our social life. The long running debate in Israel over "Who is a Jew?" has made this clear. Certain orthodox Jews want a Jewish state peopled by Jews like themselves. This certainly excludes Palestinians and Christians. It also excludes even secular Israelis, that is, citizens of the present state of Israel, who may once have been practicing Jews, in the religious sense, but no longer are. Are these secular Israelis Jews? Does Jewishness spring from citizenship in a Jewish state or from religious beliefs and practices only?

      There is no solution to this dilemma within the framework of a territorial nation-state. Those who insist that a secular Israeli state solves the problem are simply missing the point and opting for one side in the dispute, for citizens rather than Jews. The problem is the state itself, with its citizens, and not its particular definition, whether secular or religious. The Jewish question can only be solved under anarchism, as the late-nineteenth century socialist Bundists in the Ukraine and the Polish Pale, who were opposed to Zionism, realized. Unlike Marx, who thought the solution to the Jewish Question was the disappearance of the Jewish identity in favor of a more universal human identity, these Jewish communists knew that their freedom could never be achieved by the ownership and control of a territory. They knew that they had to be free to live as they pleased - no matter where, and no matter what their identity - even as Jews.

      True communism (that is, anarchism) can never be geographically defined, but only socially. It has no territorial boundaries. Getting rid of the state of Israel (and all states everywhere) would free up the whole region (and the whole world) for an abundance of diverse, democratic, autonomous communities. Jews and Palestinians could live side by side, in their neighborhoods and villages, peacefully, as they had done for hundreds of years before Zionism and the State of Israel came along.

      Under anarchism, diversity rules, not sameness. But diversity does not mean that every tradition will exist side by side in every neighborhood (although many neighborhoods might move a ways in this direction), but only that there is room enough for every tradition to exist somewhere. People who speak the same language will tend to live together. People with strict religious practices and eating regimens will tend to live together. People who share a history and a culture will tend to live together. Families will tend to live together. In this, there is sameness. But that the world will continue to possess thousands of languages and identities, rather than one imperial language and identity, is diversity.

      So if christian conservatives find homosexuals morally repugnant, they have a right not to associate with them. They do not have a right to pass laws forcing their views on everyone else, as they have been trying to do lately in the United States (an option that would not even be available in a decentralized world without nation-states). But neither do homosexuals have the right to pass laws forcing the toleration of their sexual practices on christian conservatives.

      The struggle by homosexuals to alter the general beliefs, so that homosexuality would not be seen as morally repugnant by anyone - just as the prevailing view, among Caucasians, that Negroes were not really people, was eventually overridden by the belief that they were - is of course a useful strategy, but one not likely to succeed as long as christian conservatives exist, because theirs are deeply rooted beliefs which have persisted for hundreds of years, and cannot be expected to disappear anytime soon (a remarkable assessment considering that forty years ago many people, myself included, thought that christianity was gasping for its last breath). Christianity will undoubtedly outlast capitalism. And under anarchism (assuming that we win the battle for succession), who will give a damn what they believe (unless they keep proselytizing me, waking me up early Sunday mornings with door to door evangelizing, and then I will certainly give a damn; and I guess homosexuals will give a damn if they are expelled from their neighborhoods).

      This is perhaps just wishful thinking on my part. Christians are not likely to leave us alone to live as we please. Have they ever? Christians, as a rule, are aggressively proselytizing people. They are not noted for their tolerance. And they have this compulsion to save other people. Although there is room for them in my scheme, there is not room for me in theirs. But under free conditions, will any group be able to impose its way of life on others? I suppose some majorities in some neighborhoods might try. But how far will they get? Wouldn't they need bureaucrats, police, superintendents, and lawyers? And where are they going to get these?

      Nor is this strategy homosexuals have of altering the culture in general one that can be universally applied to all other identity conflicts. What if a community of people emerged with the conscious identity of murderers and thieves, as perhaps has actually happened with the Mafia (and has certainly happened with the capitalist ruling class, muted only by its absurdly transparent ideological dissimulation)? Is anyone going to argue that killing and stealing are really okay and that this identity has a right to exist? Would any community tolerate murderers and thieves in their projects, households, and assemblies? Wouldn't they take steps to constrain such people or expel them from their ranks?

      Free association provides a way out of this muddle for many identity conflicts short of outright crime. New identities and lifestyles are emerging all the time. Identities are not fixed, immutable, eternal. They appear and disappear like everything else. So people with shared beliefs and practices can form communities and live together, and leave others alone to live as they please. No one is stopping them. The world is a big place. There is room for everyone. It is only as the cancer of imperialism, and the nationalism that it has spawned, has metastasized to all corners of the globe, that the world has started to seem crowded.

      We cannot expect, though, that every time a serious disagreement emerges in a neighborhood, a bunch of people will just pack up and leave and establish a new neighborhood elsewhere or move into another neighborhood where people already share their beliefs, or at least tolerate them. This kind of split will be feasible only in rare cases. Gender conflicts, for example, obviously cannot be solved, on the social level, by one sex moving out and forming a new neighborhood, not if the human species is to survive that is. Living in distinct neighborhoods is certainly a solution for many existing differences though, since for the most part we already do. So we're back to the recognition that disagreements are inherent in the human situation, and to the unending contest, therefore, over whose values, perceptions, and projects will win acceptance and prevail, and whose will be rejected and fade away.