Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:43:03 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: reply to Shawn


I've been laying off this debate a bit - lack of time and some
desire to see if anyone else wants to get their oar in - but,
early on, i at least waved my hands at the practical difficulty
of 'voluntary disassociation.' So far, Andrew and i have been
wrestling largely with questions of what is *possible* - working
gradually towards all of the specific issues that are at stake.
A great deal depends on whether or not you agree that folks can
voluntarily and mutually create relatively durable associations.

I'm not attempting to make guarantees that such associations
will remain properly anarchist. I don't think such guarantees
are possible. I think anarchism in practice will be a continual
process of experimentation, as we learn what sorts of practices
and relationships are good for maintaining freedom, and which
sorts aren't - with a strong possibility that the answers will
change over time as the contexts change.

At the moment, we don't have the basic prerequisite for anarchism
in even that sense, which is universal access to the resources
necessary for subsistance (or access that is 'universal' within
a given territory, etc...) That doesn't prevent the sorts of
associations i've been talking about from taking place, and in
perfectly anarchist fashion. What it *does* mean is that *other*
sorts of anarchist association and disassociation may be blocked -
specifically those that involve access to real property. If the
consequence of disassociation is "you can't be here - *and* that
means you have to starve" then we're dealing with another kettle
of fish. If we're trying to create truly anarchist societies,
and to universalize anarchist principles, then some consideration
of the survival of the excluded has to be made. This is the
hardest thing about the "Zapatistas and drugs" question, since a
certain amount of coercion is almost necessarily going to be
involved in the sort of process by which one decides who can and
cannot be a part of a physical community. Because most of the
EZLN communities involve some sort of secession from other
communities - in at least some sense the creation of "new"
communities - some of the principles i've laid out already come
into play. If the process by which the terms of membership in the
"good government" communities is relatively inclusive, i figure
we have relatively little room to interfere. But that's the
$64,000 question....

To be honest, when it comes right down to it, i am more
concerned with intent than anything else. I think very little
progress will be made towards an anarchist society until quite
a number of us commit ourselves to some practical experiments
in freedom. We're going to need to be vigilant about how much of
the bad old authoritarian stuff we drag along with us - but we'll
also probably need to give ourselves some credit, and our neighbors
some credit as well, for really *wanting* to be free, and then
we'll have to dig in, muddle along, fuck up, get over it, move on,
try again - all that good stuff. If we get ourselves paralyzed by
some abstract crusade or fundamentalism, we won't do squat. If we
go at it with the idea that we're somehow better than the folks
around us, we're never going to get a chance to show what we can
do on any scale.

We don't know what it takes to make a free society. Any attempt
to be "purist" about any of this is going to end up putting some
speculative ideology ahead of any actual practice we undertake.
Right now, there's a lot of fuzzy "pomo" nonsense - largely half-
digested Foucault - giving folks excuses for not rolling up their
sleeves and getting on with something. Murray Bookchin doesn't
really understand "anti-humanism," but he doesn't seem to be too
far off in his assessment of its effects in *some* quarters. OK.
The human subject wasn't what we thought it was - although some
of "us" (including some prominant anarchists) sensed some of that
at least a hundred years ago. There still appears to be *something*
that says "I" and does stuff. I don't see that we have much choice
but to either roll over and die with "the author" or accept that
we don't get any permission slips and get on with the dirty,
uncertain work of freedom.

fw that's w,

-shawn

On Thu, 16 Sep 2004, babeuf-AT-comcast.net wrote:

> Shawn said:
>
> >I've said it already, i think, but i don't define my anarchism in
> >terms of opposition to "the state." States are certainly one thing
> >worth opposing, but there are plenty of other things - capitalism,
> >patriarchy, unfortunate ideas about the relationship between human
> >beings and the rest of the natural world, etc - that are not simply
> >reducible to "the state" and which i oppose as well. I'm more
> >attached to the positive principles of mutual aid and voluntary
> >association than i am to any of these oppositions.
> >
> this is an interesting point, as is the point that you made, Shawn, when you talked about voluntary association and you also mentioned the idea of voluntary 'disassociation' (i don't have the post so i hope i'm not too far off what you said).  it reminds me of an older civil rights veteran who once said to me that he saw a massive difference between desegregation on the one hand and integration (especially forced) on the other.
> but the usual criticism of this approach is that very few of us are in any real position to 'dis-associate' ourselves from the many communities (work, school, etc.) in which we find ourselves emeshed.  most of the time, we're stuck with the society that we inhabit and that's that.  so the conundrum boils down to two strategies:  activist efforts to effect macro-change on society or elements of society, or else an attempt to separate oneself or a small group and to isolate it from the coercive forces that you mention (state, capital, gramscian hegemony, or what have you).  history is repleat with examples of both, but i honestly don't know which strategy (Revolution or TAZ) is most effective, either individually or collectively.
> of course, even if we reclaim all or part of our social world from the forces of control and intimidation, it still leaves the issue that Andrew is chipping away at:  how do we stop or at least slow the development of these coersive institutions, practices, etc., even in our new Eden?  i think i agree with you, Shawn, that norms as such are not inimical to the development of a free and open community.  but i'm honest enough to realize that this is more of a hope on my part rather than a real conviction.  but i'm ready and willing to be convinced.
> cheers,
> roger