From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com>
Subject: RE: primitivism and anarchism
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 21:53:26 -0000




Chuck0 wrote


> Anarchism has has a hostile relationship with the left 
> for over a century. 


Correction.

Anarchism has had a hostile relationship with
the AUTHORITARIAN left.

Anarchism is the LIBERTARIAN left. 


> Iain has explained all of this very well in An Anarchist FAQ. 


Which you see as being a "post-left" document, 
while the author himself apparently disagrees!


> Dave, are you a leftist or an anarchist?


You want me to hang  _labels_  on myself ?????!!!!!

I would never describe myself as a "leftist".
However, if somebody says that my ideas are on
"the left", I won't actively disagree, although 
I might correct them by saying "on the _libertarian_
left". Most of my adult life I have been an anarchist.
Nowadays, well, I don't know. Mostly I avoid
labelling myself. I won't use some description 
like "post-anarchist", though, as I am not actively 
doing very much at all these days, I suppose 
"lapsed anarchist" might be a fair description.


> Surely you understand that leftism versus rightism 
> has mostly to do with how to run governments?


I have already said what, in so far as they have 
any relevance, I think the terms for the seating
arrangements in the French parliament in the late 
18th Century have come to mean nowadays. I don't see 
any need to add anything to what I've already said.


> Leftism continues to bog down anarchism and post-leftism 
> is about getting rid of that parasitical relationship.


I think "post-leftism" is a term dreamed up by somebody
from a privileged upper middle-class background to
disguise the fact that what they are really about 
is throwing out the concept of class struggle.  

Dave C