Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 14:30:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Clarifying Essentialism's Relation to Anarchism


Perhaps, like Spivak and the Subaltern Studies group,
it would make sense for anarchists today to recognize
that while there is no essential human "nature", at
certain times it may still make sense to engage in a
sort of "strategic essentialism" in which we speak
from the place of the human subject and the desire for
freedom in the same way that Spivak advocates
"strategically" speaking from the place of the
subaltern even though it is recognized that this is a
place that has been constructed by power...would that
be close to what either of you are advocating, Shawn
or Jesse, or do you think there IS a human nature that
essentially desires freedom?

===="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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