File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2001/anarchy-list.0108, message 117


Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 02:51:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jamal Hannah <jah-AT-iww.org>
Subject: EVERYONE IS AN "ANARCHIST" - BUT WHAT IS REALLY CHANGING?


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 00:36:18 -0000
From: Brian Oliver Sheppard <bakunin-AT-anarcho.zzn.com>

EVERYONE IS AN "ANARCHIST" - BUT WHAT IS REALLY CHANGING?

8-22-2001

1555 words

by Brian Oliver Sheppard (bsheppard-AT-bari.iww.org)

Probably at no other time in history has the word "anarchist," or the
attending noun "anarchism," been seen so much in the US media. Not during
the New Left movement of the 60s, not during the Red Scare, and not even
during the "propaganda by the deed" hysteria at the dawn of the 20th century
( in which a rabid capitalist press called the Republican assassin of
President McKinley an "anarchist") has the term been thrown around so
liberally. In fact, if you do a search on the word "anarchist" on the
Internet, you will get almost as many hits as you would were you to do a
search on "Democrat" or "Republican."

The anarchist movement is now at a crucial point. The path that anarchism
takes from this time on will determine its future history and continuing
revolutionary viability. If the progress of anarchism can be seen as a
slowly churning ocean of ideas and history, ebbing and flowing, our modern
phase of anarchist history might be seen as a cresting tidal wave - a huge
upsurge of energy and action, surpassed only by the past anarchist
revolutions in Spain, the Ukraine, Mexico, and elsewhere. Of course, the
broadening movement against corporate globalization, coupled with the
Internet's ability to disseminate information internationally, is
contributing to this.

But it remains to be seen whether anything  lasting will come of it all.
Unlike the more substantial periods of anarchist activity in the past, which
occurred in countries on the periphery of powerful Western states, or
amongst disenfranchised immigrants brought to America in poverty, the
contemporary anarchist revival has been filtered through the distorting lens
of consumerist commodification, and can claim mostly Anglo-European
participants in privileged nations. The image-oriented pop culture of the US
has also nurtured a trend that is the focus of this essay: the prevalence
nowadays of people claiming to be "anarchist."

You will find, across the racial and economic spectrum, people that say they
have adopted "anarchism" as a guiding ideology. MIT Professor Noam Chomsky,
for example, while undoubtedly one of the most penetrating antiauthoritarian
minds of the past century (or ever), is very comfortable financially, and
even has a secretary - a secretary who can delight in knowing that her boss
is an anarchist. An anarchist boss might seem a counterintuitive thing, but
many others working in more liberal enclaves in the country, in book stores,
bike shops, and coffee houses, might also be employed by self-styled
anarchists. Such employees are in the unusual position of being hired, and
fired, by "anarchists." Likewise, some Hollywood actors and actresses also
claim that they are anarchist.

In an interview given a few years back, Al Pacino claimed that he was
"somewhat of an anarchist." Nirvana's Kurt Cobain said he was a
"Bakuninist." The media has even described some flamboyant CEOs, like Virgin
Atlantic's annoyingly self-absorbed Richard Branson, as "having a bit of an
anarchist streak" in them. Many are the musicians, wealthy and poor, known
and unknown, that adopt the label of anarchist, whether or not they really
fit the mold of classical anarchist in the sense that someone like  Peter
Kropotkin would have meant it. Extrapolating from this, it is not hard to
envision a large workplace where everyone - the secretaries, the men and
women in the cubicles, the copier service people, the supervisors, managers,
the janitors, and the CEO - were all "anarchists."

Indeed, we could all be anarchists, and all have a knowledge of anarchist
ideas - and nothing could change.

This brings to mind an important question: what is anarchist activity? And
what does it really mean to *be* an anarchist? Not think about anarchism,
not claim it as a mantra, not discuss it in literary salons on the
weekends - what does it mean, I want to ask, to make anarchism a living
force, brought out of books and out of the minds of people who, more and
more, begin to think of it regularly or who are made aware of it due to its
growing presence across all kinds of media?

Is an anarchist someone who holds down a normal job and happens to read a
lot of anarchist theory in his spare time? Is an anarchist someone who
merely sympathetically agrees with anarchist ideals but can never be
bothered to organize or put them into practice? Is an anarchist an
antisocial recluse who writes volumes of essays but does not otherwise deal
with people very regularly? Is an anarchist a Nietzschean artist who wants
to buck the system and forge their own path, like a black sheep struggling
against a mass of mediocrity (as they might fashion themselves)? Is an
anarchist someone who pontificates behind a computer screen, or who wears
black and thinks himself above the vulgar herd, or who has anger management
problems and constantly alienates everyone around him, to no real positive
(from an anarchist point of view) effect in the end?

Can everyone lay claim to the title of "anarchist" and have it ring true, or
is anarchism more than something that can simply be adopted after having
read a few tracts here and there, after having debated a right winger once
or twice, or after having memorized a few paragraphs from Alexander Berkman,
or John Zerzan, or anyone else?

I ask this because, while I meet more people than ever who claim they are
anarchist, I am astounded at how little things have changed, and how little
they seem to be changing.

It is possible that creditors who call me late at night might be
anarchists - ordinary people driven to unpleasant work in order to make ends
meet, reading Chomsky in between phone calls. Or the landlord at the place
I'm living at now could very well be an anarchist; I might go to his home
and find that he subscribes to Z Magazine and Covert Action Quarterly. But
there he is, still a landlord; and there I am, still bound to paying him
rent to avoid homelessness. "What can I do?" he could ask. "I have to pay
property tax and maintain upkeep on the place, so I have to charge rent."
And so I would have to say, in return, to people I knew, "What can I do but
keep a job? I have to pay rent and have a place to live." Round and round we
go, all stuck in a "what can we do?" rut.

We could all be anarchists to the core and have amazing book collections by
anarchists, but we would all be stuck in the same class and economic
positions as always. Because what, after all, *can* we do?

It is because of the growing numbers of self-styled anarchists that I think
we need new criteria for just what constitutes "anarchism." That is, we
should be clear that by "anarchism" we mean the regular practice of
anarchist activity. I, for one, do not consider reading volumes of anarchist
literature an anarchist activity (necessarily). Nor do I necessarily think
writing and doing web pages is "anarchist" (though both could be, under
certain conditions). Rather, I believe anarchist *activity* to be the
conscious human activity of working to eliminate hierarchy and patterns of
unjust authority throughout society.

In the workplace, this means challenging the authority of the bosses through
industrial unionism, and in challenging the sets of social preconditions
that necessitate the sort of work we must do in this kind of society. In the
home, it means challenging patriarchy. It also means forming tenants' unions
to wrest control of housing from landlords. In other social affairs it means
challenging racism and ethnocentrism. It means forming organizations and
making active coalitions to do serious work to root out authoritarian
restrictions in everyday life.

If we cannot commit to doing this - if "anarchism" becomes a hobby we engage
in as an intellectual pursuit, to commence when we get off work or when we
go to the next protest - then the modern anti-capitalist, antiauthoritarian
movement will not change anything. We will simply create a farm league for
the next generation of "enlightened" entrepreneurs who will use their past
experience as "anarchist activists" to open up "friendlier" businesses and
to go into office as "friendlier" social democratic politicians. Anarchy is
not a step on a career ladder that a college age person goes through before
moving onto "serious" work in an NGO or non-profit social change agency
somewhere. Anarchy is the necessary precondition for all human freedom (if
not survival), and needs people who are serious about committing to its
goals.

The danger of using the term "anarchist" too liberally, as a rather
deliciously rebellious way to describe oneself, is that it will strip the
growing movement of its potency and lead to co-optation and comfort. If
modern anarchists simply see themselves as radicals who are "getting their
feet wet" by way of anarchism, in preparation for a later, more serious
career with a social NGO, or with an "environmentally friendly"
eco-business, then my claim is that such people are not worthy of being
called "anarchists."

Revolutionists are just that: revolutionists. They are not people who happen
to have a lot of knowledge about what is wrong with this society, but who
never want to use it to engage in the hard work of fundamental social
change.


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