Alex Peak
Biography
Alexander Steven Peak is a libertarian anarchist from Baltimore.
Peak was born in New York City in March of 1985. In less than a year, his mother relocated with him to Baltimore, where he was raised by his grandparents, Kitty and Stan Peak.
“The most important lesson I learned as a child,” Peak says, “was that, if you are the one to take the toys out of the box, then you are the one who is to put them back when you are done. I have never forgotten that life lesson.”
Peak went to Fullerton Elementary School, Parkville Middle School, and Eastern Technical High School. He graduated from high school in 2003 in the top 5% of his class.
Being interested at the time in filmmaking, Peak applied to only a single college: Towson University. “I was interested particularly in its Electronic Media & Film programme,” he explains.
However, he ultimately opted to switch majors to political science, and in May of 2010, graduated from Towson University with his bachelor’s degree in that field.
Peak says,
I experienced a great deal of intellectual growth during my college years, and yet, I attribute very little of this growth to the university itself. I learned far more from philosophical discussions with friends and intellectual reading unrelated to the classes I took than I ever learned in the classes themselves. In a very real sense, I believe college is a pointless and futile endeavour.
“And I will readily propagate the claim that college is useless among everyone I meet,” Peak adds, “except among whatever children I should happen to have.”
It was during his college years that Mr. Peak discovered Austrian economics and became a radical libertarian. “When I first started to get interested in politics back in middle school,” reminisces Peak,
my two main issues were my opposition to racism and my opposition to censorship. By high school, I had come up with a novel thought: “Why are homosexuals prohibited from marrying? Why is marriage even regulated?” The sexual inequality repulsed me greatly.
Ultimately, I discovered libertarianism, and by 2004, I was a libertarian. I was particularly attracted to its emphasis on individual human rights, rights that not even a government has any legitimate authority to alienate from the individual. Finally, after a great deal of reflection and internal debate, I became in July of 2007 an individualist anarchist. And I still find myself reanalysing my views almost daily.
In 2005, Peak took over the College Libertarians of Towson (CLT), founded by Amy Triplett in 2002. Although the organisation had become defunct, Peak reactivated it, making it one of the most active College Libertarian organisations in America by 2007.
“I probably spent more time keeping the CLT active than I spent focusing on my school work,” Peak reports. “But looking back, I am honestly glad I did. The opportunity cost was worth it.”
So what does the future hold for Mr. Peak?
“I don’t know,” Peak says. “A friend and I have discussed the idea of writing a book together on libertarian persuasion. I’ve just completed a résumé, which I plan to submit to a few places. Let’s see where this life takes me.”
