File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2004/anarchy-list.0408, message 215


Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 21:29:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mike P <discargarips-AT-yahoo.ca>
Subject: Re: Evolution or Revolution?


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A little late replying here, but i think this is interesting and will say a few things about my perspective.
 
i don't think my anarchist analysis is either evolutionary or revolutionary, but instead an ongoing project. i think anarchy should be considered immanent to the situation, where individuals reevaluate and develop their evolutionary daily life practises and revolutionary struggles. i think anarchist actions against the state require evolution And revolution (in the abstract sense), but more clearly, what i think is needed is a diversity of individuals struggling with their own evolutionary and revolutionary projects.
 
i think it is important for people to get out of the system as much as they can. Certainly, escaping from the clutches of capital and the state as much as one can and developing alternative forms of living spaces are worthwhile projects. However, i don't think this action on its own would significantly weaken the state. Some forms of domination can be removed with evolutionary and lifeways changes, while more penetrating forms need to be toppled. This would leave us with revolutionary action.
 
Of course, as some of you have already pointed out, the forces protecting the state and capital are becoming increasingly powerful and even approach totality; the proletariat will unlikely ever fulfill the revolutionary Marxist myth (and even if this force mobilized it would unlikely be able to keep up with the mobile prostheses of capital); we live in an increasingly precarious and illusionary world etc. It is quite easy to look at this world and proclaim 'we are doomed'.
 
i will again say that i feel the strength of anarchism lies in its immanence and diversity. Anarchy is not a transcendent idea, a doctrine proposed by any group of individuals nor is it contained within the specifics of any one era. As such it is a fluid critique and activity, which may be dissolved and recreated as necessary.
 
So an increasingly widespread system of repression may make it difficult to win out with massive force organized against mass force in protests/insurrections/revolutions, but with a critique of mass we may find it is worthwhile to have smaller, widespread individual actions. It may also become clear that widespread tools of repression become extremely vulnerable.
 
At this point in time it seems impossible to have any sort of syndicalist revolution. Even if workers weren't integrated into the system, what means of production would they seize? The restructuring of capital poses the problem of a non-proletarian revolution, but also the solution that a proletarian revolution won't simply restructure capital. The diverse groups of us dispossessed peoples in destroying this system, will have to create something completely other for ourselves.
 
The increasing precariousness of this world points towards nothing more than its penetrating emptiness. And this devoid offer was formally presented to us in the end of history. (In fact, history has been stalled for some time now.) This was offered to us as the ultimate gift; the gift of the greatest achievement in human history, Our Society. If this is the best offering available to us, what happens when this illusion begins to crumble? Must we not destroy the end of history and begin history completely anew?
 
Anarchy to me is a revolutionary project, but also, because of it's immanent qualities, requires evolutionary projects which tend towards revolution. Anarchy is not some abstraction we will immediately find or simply end up in, but instead a tension in the ways which we live our lives; in this case against the state, capital and domination. A revolutionary tension towards self-determination and an evolutionary tension towards self-realization.



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A little late replying here, but i think this is interesting and will say a few things about my perspective.
 
i don't think my anarchist analysis is either evolutionary or revolutionary, but instead an ongoing project. i think anarchy should be considered immanent to the situation, where individuals reevaluate and develop their evolutionary daily life practises and revolutionary struggles. i think anarchist actions against the state require evolution And revolution (in the abstract sense), but more clearly, what i think is needed is a diversity of individuals struggling with their own evolutionary and revolutionary projects.
 
i think it is important for people to get out of the system as much as they can. Certainly, escaping from the clutches of capital and the state as much as one can and developing alternative forms of living spaces are worthwhile projects. However, i don't think this action on its own would significantly weaken the state. Some forms of domination can be removed with evolutionary and lifeways changes, while more penetrating forms need to be toppled. This would leave us with revolutionary action.
 
Of course, as some of you have already pointed out, the forces protecting the state and capital are becoming increasingly powerful and even approach totality; the proletariat will unlikely ever fulfill the revolutionary Marxist myth (and even if this force mobilized it would unlikely be able to keep up with the mobile prostheses of capital); we live in an increasingly precarious and illusionary world etc. It is quite easy to look at this world and proclaim 'we are doomed'.
 
i will again say that i feel the strength of anarchism lies in its immanence and diversity. Anarchy is not a transcendent idea, a doctrine proposed by any group of individuals nor is it contained within the specifics of any one era. As such it is a fluid critique and activity, which may be dissolved and recreated as necessary.
 
So an increasingly widespread system of repression may make it difficult to win out with massive force organized against mass force in protests/insurrections/revolutions, but with a critique of mass we may find it is worthwhile to have smaller, widespread individual actions. It may also become clear that widespread tools of repression become extremely vulnerable.
 
At this point in time it seems impossible to have any sort of syndicalist revolution. Even if workers weren't integrated into the system, what means of production would they seize? The restructuring of capital poses the problem of a non-proletarian revolution, but also the solution that a proletarian revolution won't simply restructure capital. The diverse groups of us dispossessed peoples in destroying this system, will have to create something completely other for ourselves.
 
The increasing precariousness of this world points towards nothing more than its penetrating emptiness. And this devoid offer was formally presented to us in the end of history. (In fact, history has been stalled for some time now.) This was offered to us as the ultimate gift; the gift of the greatest achievement in human history, Our Society. If this is the best offering available to us, what happens when this illusion begins to crumble? Must we not destroy the end of history and begin history completely anew?
 
Anarchy to me is a revolutionary project, but also, because of it's immanent qualities, requires evolutionary projects which tend towards revolution. Anarchy is not some abstraction we will immediately find or simply end up in, but instead a tension in the ways which we live our lives; in this case against the state, capital and domination. A revolutionary tension towards self-determination and an evolutionary tension towards self-realization.


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