The paper addresses the problem of studying the state, whether through emic or etic approach, under the conditions of state hegemony. It is based on the experience of studying, doing fieldwork, writing, publishing and living in countries that ranged from benign bureaucratic state to highly oppressive state machineries. The questions addressed, among others, are: academic freedom, alternatives to the state, direct democracy, justification of political anthropology, theories of the emergence and withering of the state, state formation, self-censorship. The paper formulates a general theory of the relationship between the anthropologies and the state.