Date: Fri,  6 Jun 2003 11:18:31 +1000
From: "dr.woooo" <dr.woooo-AT-nomasters.org>
Subject: Re: Crosscontamination in the Postanarchism List Description


COOL,  perhaps some more leaning to autonomist-marxist authors, council 
communists, ultra-leftists etc. anarchy is better than Anarchy the big brand, 
but i would be more inclined to stress autonomist left, or better still 
something like hybrid antI-authoritarian. I started with the Anarchist 
tradition and still have affinity for anarchism, but i know cool folx who call 
themselves communist or autonomist who will have a knee jerk to the word 
anarchy in any sense.  This knee jerk reaction to anything with a reference to 
leftism or marxism even in the anti-state/anti-authoritarian varieties seems 
common in the north american movement.

more later.


Quoting "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com>:

> Thanks for bringing this up Dr. Wooo as I have been
> trying to think about how exactly to word the list
> description - maybe we could have a discussion about
> this as well. It is quite clear that there is a very
> broad diversity of perspectives that find the concept
> of postanarchism to be of interest; this list has
> attracted people who range all the way from what I
> personally would characterize as a sort of Nietzschean
> Donna Harawian (can we say this yet?) enthusiasism of
> achieving the dream of the Overman by melding humanity
> with machines and nature to more or less
> autonomist-Marxist, post-Leftist insurrectionary
> anarchists (who often use bits and pieces of Foucault
> and Deleuze and Guattari) to
> quasi-Habermasian/Kropotkinist/Bakuninist/Proudhonian
> anarchist rescuers of science, causality, essentialism
> and reason (and maybe the list membership is even
> broader than that for all I know). Coming up with a
> list description that allows for all of this to exist
> in the same space is extremely difficult but I have
> made an attempt below and perhaps we could discuss it
> a little bit - in short I think for a list like this
> the emphasis has to be against any kind of ideological
> normalization or taming of what is or can be meant by
> the term anarchism or postanarchism - I figured by
> focusing on the concept of "small-a anarchism" and
> then just giving postanarchism as an example of this
> it would allow for those who do not wish to identify
> as "postanarchist" yet who are still interested in the
> list, to maintain their presence.
> 
> *** 
> 
> [List Description]
> This group has been organized in the hopes of
> maintaining and hopefully even furthering the
> relevance of anarchism in a world that is in a
> constant process of intellectual, cultural, social and
> political transformation, as has become particularly
> clear in the past couple of years. Thus this list will
> discuss the possibility of moving beyond the many
> limitations inherent within so-called "big-A"
> Anarchism, which is that anarchism that is most often
> understood as a more or less consistent, coherent and
> unchanging ideological tradition that transcends the
> ongoing transformations of time and space and thus
> maintains every bit of the relevance today that it has
> "always" had. Contrary to this, this list will discuss
> the possibilities of what might be called a "living
> and breathing" anarchist theory and practice, one
> which would consciously work toward the furthering of
> so-called "small-a" anarchy; this is that anarchism
> that is most often understood as the very diverse 
> plurality of manifestations of the antiauthoritarian
> tendency that can be seen to run throughout all of
> human history. This small-a anarchism, or
> "postanarchism" as some of its champions of our own
> time might or might not call it, certainly could
> include elements of the thought of "classical"
> anarchists such as Bakunin and Kropotkin but is not in
> any way limited to the "canonical" texts, to any
> particular interpretation of them, much less to a
> wholesale acceptance of any aspect of them. In short,
> it is a way of thinking about anarchism that is just
> as open to including elements of "green" anarchist
> thought such as that of thinkers as diverse as John
> Zerzan, Cindy Milstein or Hakim Bey as it is open to
> including elements of poststructuralist thought, such
> as that of thinkers as diverse as Deleuze and
> Guattari, Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida; and just
> as it seeks to consider the works of contemporary
> thinkers it may just as well seek to reclaim elements
> of anarchist and antiauthoritarian discourses of times
> or places that have been largely ignored such as that
> of the Chinese anarchists Shifu and Osugi Sakae or the
> idea of "panarchism" devised by De Puydt in the 19th
> century. Overall, the most important point here is
> that this list seeks to consider a way of thinking
> about anarchism that accepts all of these radically
> divergent possibilities without feeling the need to
> devise a new ideology to "rally the troops" around,
> yet while still maintaining an active presence in the
> world in which we live. Indeed, it is this more
> pluralistic and open anarchism, the one that is
> sometimes called "the new anarchism" that is
> manifesting itself within the social movements and
> spontaneous uprisings that are changing the shape of
> the world today and we hope to develop it further here
> through a healthy balance of in-depth theoretical
> discussion as well as an up-to-the-minute practical
> discussion of events and social struggles as they are
> taking place in our world. Though this is primarily an
> English-language list we currently have several
> hundred members who hail from countries from all over
> the world including Indonesia, Italy, Canada, India,
> Australia, Russia and the United States; many of these
> are activists and many of these are intellectuals
> while in increasing numbers, many appear to have found
> a way to do both, thus refusing a dichotomy that is as
> unbeneficial to anarchist practice as it is to
> anarchist theory. As this is a very open and therefore
> potentially very contentious list, members are asked
> to do their best to maintain a space that is open to a
> plurality of voices and perspectives - especially the
> voices of those that have been routinely silenced -
> and to maintain a sense of mutual respect as much as
> possible. Finally, there is no requirement that one
> agree "wholeheartedly" with what has been stated here
> in order to be on this list (since that would be
> exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do here)
> but it should also be stated that if your are joining
> simply out of interest for the contours of the
> discussion itself, while wishing to defend "big-A"
> Anarchism against "small-a" anarchism, please remember
> that this is not the main purpose of the list and is
> therefore of relatively limited interest.
> 
> [Social Movements of Interest]
> No Borders, Reclaim the Streets, Cacerolazos,
> Antiglobalization, Earth Liberation, Anarchist People
> of Color, Queer Liberation, Critical Mass, Zapatista,
> Autonomen, Autonomia, Sans Papiers, Wombles, Social
> Centers, Black Bloc, Guerilla Gardening, People's
> Global Action, Transgender, etc.
> 
> [Theorists of Interest]
> Horkheimer, Adorno, George Katsiaficas, Osugi Sakae,
> Foucault, Todd May, Jacques Ellul, Edward Said,
> Bakunin, Giorgio Agamben, Rolando Perez, Sartre,
> Shifu, Paul Virilio, Saul Newman, Emma Goldman,
> Merleau-Ponty, Ricardo Flores Magon, Heidegger, Luis
> Gambone, Stirner, Andrew Koch, Tolstoy, Hakim Bey,
> Bhagat Singh, Malatesta, Reiner Schurmann, Manuel De
> Landa, Wolfi Landstreicher, Derrida, Sam Mbah,
> Deleuze, Julia Kristeva, Proudhon, Guattari, Luce
> Irigaray, Subcommandante Marcos, Guy Debord,
> Baudrillard, Homi Bhabha, Hardt, Negri, Judith Butler,
> John Zerzan, Claude Lefort, Donna Haraway, Nietzsche,
> etc. 
> 
> [Intellectual Movements of Interest]
> Frankfurt School, poststructuralism, phenomenology,
> Situationism, postcolonialism, autonomism,
> postmodernism, existentialism, postfeminism,
> Zapatismo, postleftism, anticivilization, queer
> theory, etc
> 
> 
> ====> "The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in
> which we live is not the exception but the rule...power no longer has today
> any form of legitimization other than emergency."  
> 
> - Giorgio Agamben, Means Without Ends: Notes on Politics, 1996
> 
> For cutting-edge analysis of contemporary war visit http://www.infopeace.org
> 
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