Subject: [postanarchism] a postanarchist concept: enarchism: loosening the hold of the academy
From: Tom Blancato <tblan-AT-telerama.com>
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2003 10:49:12 -0400





I was looking at a piece in the NYTs on "open source" software, and other, 
parallel items, like a cartoon character who is open source ("jenny 
everywhere"). Generally, I find that the term most appropriate for such 
interesting developments is "enarchy". The enarchist practice is post- 
anarchist, in that it passes an an-archist phase and moves beyond it into a 
structure of en-abling archical enstructurations, variously, but freed from 
the usual, pre-anarchistic solidifying/finalizing/enforcement structures 
such as copyright. Was there a certain post-anarchist moment, that is to 
say, therefore, an anarchist moment, in the development of the open source 
software movement? That anarchist moment appears to be linked with the new, 
with newly opening spaces that, for a time, operate without archical 
structures. But a certain moment "capitalizes" upon that moment, according 
to *something*: the presence of some sensibility, awakening, historical 
accomplishment, conceptual fluency or readiness, ground-gravity or mimetic 
preparedness, etc. in which a will to anarchy finds a moment and sees a way 
clear. The "sharing" aspect (the NYT article was under the heading of 
"sharing") points to "original" (instinctive, grounding, constitutive) 
conditions that can take place, if given the chance, so again, the "chance 
of the chance" (of the chance...): the conditions of possibility of the 
chance and the by-which and, especially, the *mis en scene* of the chance, 
moment or time in which the enarchical can unleash itself. I still think 
that what is called "post anarchist" tends to remain, as I have suggested 
previously, in a backward form, conceptually, in its self nomination as 
"postal", rather than being able to turn around into the enarcical. This 
might, after all, be preferable in academic settings in which finding a 
place within largely static institutional structures for *tenure*, a 
certain "copyright", one might say, of oneself in one's own perdurance as 
income generating fix-ture in "the academy".  Copyright as a certain 
"hold", in any case (ten-ure).

Derrida made much out of the aspect of *iteration* as constitutive for what 
language "is", much to the noncomprehension of his interlocutor (Searle?). 
The "en" is, likewise, a structure of iteration. The iterative function is 
the *enpresentational* aspect of language. Language in this sense is not 
presented, but enpresented. Thus, it is crucial to understand the "en". I 
don't mean to get involved in a language-specific context here, only to 
clarify the "en" and make the (usually poorly received) suggestion in the 
direction of the "enarchical", for which I claim copyright as its inventor. 
Thus it should be notated "Enarchy (tm)", where (tm) means "Tom" as well as 
"Trade Mark". Just kidding. Um. However, perhaps something does lie in the 
moment of the consideration of just such an attempt or practice, and my 
interest in invoking it here, if for no other reason than to give it a 
post-anarchist, enarchist spin. Yet, if enarchism is post-postanarchistic 
(so maybe this belongs in the post-postanarchy list, which does not yet 
"ensist", just as the concept of ensistence doesn't yet exist), perhaps 
there is much to appreciate in the consideration of the very idea of 
coining terms and other things. The coin, of course, is cast metal whose 
markings are supposed to be largely immutable (hence archistic). One well- 
known anarchistic move, "do away with money!" of course tends to fail. The 
enarchistic approach both enables coinings and at the same time opens up to 
the *mis en scene* of the various issues involved in the *tenure* of the 
coin (be it code, money, institutional structure, one's own specifically 
skilled labor as expert, or lack thereof, etc.). Interestingly, there is an 
enarchistic monetary site that proposes some kind of bartering system as an 
alternative to printed money. Don't know much more about it and it looks 
unworkable. Or else they are about printing their own, fully 
barter/service/goods based coinage. That was an interesting case of an 
enarchistic project, even if unworkable.

But then, enarche is a coined term itself. I am not sure about the 
reflexive aspects of this, where and why there may be some necessity in 
unfolding its im-plications. In any case, as pertains to quesation of the 
academy, the anarchistic, post-anarcistic (and ??), one would want to see 
both substantive and extrasubstantive realizations of a post-anarchist 
moment. I hold that the "en" and associated terms constitute this on one 
substantive level. Likewise, in my own thinking of an enarchist academy and 
what that could look like, I tend to project practices, situations of 
"tenure" of various forms (the various tenutos holding professors in place, 
subjects as headings in place, etc.) that are themselves introduced *back* 
into practice accurding to some kind of "ur" constellation of post- 
anarchist concepts (enarchy, enconstruction, *mis en scene*), to "come out 
the other side" of this consideration in realizations which can work, more 
at least, from the "ground up", to realize and capitalize on a certain 
moment as to enable a becoming-post-anarchist of the university. As it is, 
the tenerous structures (don't know if tenerous is a word) of the 
university tend to produce massive reinscriptions and reinstantiations of 
some very strongly archical assumptions that, while enabling and propelling 
many a critique, tend to disable a more sound realization of that moment 
that was probably being pointed to in the question that started the recent 
thread on "the academy".

I'm not in academics, so it may seem silly for me to interject my little 
comments on these topics. (I stay "outside of the academy" because I have 
never been accepted really, which is my personal situation and, ostensibly, 
not appropriate in this space of discourse, although I think that a certain 
post-anarchism actually entails such an inclusion, with a certain difficult 
honesty...) In any case, one may want to raise questions about how 
repressions, capitalizations and seizures may take place regarding academic 
acceptance of more post-anarchistic trajectories, especially if they are 
tied up with really corrupt capitalizations, suppressions and abuses. One 
can, perhaps, wonder about the holding structures that may associate with 
such matters, but I will limp forward to open a discourse of etiologies and 
iatragenics of *limping* that really ought to be touched upon much more and 
whose *mis en scene* might show up some problematic things, to say the 
least, since it is the post-anarchistic and the ameliorative that in the 
end may be limping most of all. I hope that doesn't seem too wild, but 
having seen the Mengeleian depths to which suppressions can sink, I am 
pretty sure (lacking social validation) that I am doin the right thing in 
making such mention. In any case, my point was to indicate the notion of a 
post-anarchistic academy and how it could be possible. Interestingly, the 
NYTs article made mention of how some MIT (I think) courses are being put 
online and rendered open source, and hence, in a certain way, enarchistic.

What I hold here is that this direction is much more "properly" post- 
anarchistic, and that post-anarchist discourse tends to be falling into str 
ucture which I believe are riddled with holdings and seizures of many 
kinds, not to mention constitutive violences and/or the failure of 
discourses and activisms to develop most of the important, necessary 
directions of ameliorative kinds regarding all sorts of social problems and 
conditions. I have always felt this, right in the thick of supposedly 
substantive and specific topics. Chomsky on language acquisition, for 
example. I *experienced* this topic as a nexus of forces in which 
substantive progression felt the brunt of the *influence* of academic 
tenure (i.e., are questions even freely possible, can't any one *tell* that 
the discourse is being continually set up by the very conditions of 
professorial income and tenure? doesn't this "product a, product b" 
discourse ring through and through of a certain artifice?), to the point 
that at times I nearly had to go and stand in the bathroom as the discourse 
felt so bad. Has anyone felt that a topic was being dominated by tenure 
itself? Has anyone wanted to say, "Since you wrote a book does that mean 
that this discussion can't really take place of an important new question 
comes along, since you are going to defend your book no matter what?"

In any case, looking at this comment (below) and how it goes with "radical" 
students, not to mention radical ideas, I think it looks abysmal. I know in 
my heart that the major subtending structures that inform people's 
sociality are terribly hierarchical and these holdings corrup most 
ameliorative developments. The most insidious destruction appears to be 
taking place in the direction of psychology, which above all threatens a 
"discourse" or at least operative philosophy of "action as being", to do is 
to be, etc. by laying open the *mis en scene*, etiology, iatragenics, 
conditions, etc., of actions in such a manner as to disrupt, above all, the 
attempt to attach and fix or put into tenure attributions and associations 
which are currently linked with actions or nonactions, perhaps something 
like Derrida's "two calls" in a manner that is so bad as to make such 
fixings and attachments, as far as I can see, the most insidious and 
abusive, conforming and dominating, corrupt and capitalistic structures 
taking place in the world today.

In area after area, the deeper being of people, their specificities, their 
histories and conditions, differences of talent, skill and tendency are all 
leveled which a type-casting gaze is seizing hold like an obese tyrant, 
even if it is a collective, similarly dressed or similary existentially 
attuned and tenured tyrant. In the US, where prisons grow like cancers, 
this logic, the logics of judgement and incarcertion and the hideous scenes 
of probation and probation appeal (there is now a "Parole Board" tv show) 
lurch forward (I hope to find the strength to view this lurching as 
limping): to view these judging people who question these prisoners, so 
many likely of recidivism, which there is so little responsibility taken 
for actual practics of rehabilitation, amelioration, etc., is to witness 
nothing less, and nothing more, than the machinations of a new tyrant. This 
new tyrant operates everywhere and freezes a certain arche, conforming the 
entire world to its particular agendas of attribution, de-psycholization, 
brutal existential logics, massive capitalizing enterprises, absurd 
trumpings up, etc. The link to prisons is most telling because it should be 
presenting the biggesat challenge to "anarchists" and "postanarchist" and 
"radicals". Yet we find a certain all too well-known *thriving* we have 
already seen takes place in prisons regarding certain ways of, let us say, 
thinking. I refer to the link of religion and religoius intervention in the 
prisions.

The prison development associates with the freezing of *openings* and a 
reaction against comlexity and various existential reductionism. Prison is 
the ultimate tenuto, at times super-max, rife with all sorts of associated 
abuses, negligences, etc. The point of this foray into prisons is that it 
is a good litmust test for what isn't happening in the world of radical, 
and it means to point a finger, or even in a way blow a whistle, in the 
direction of what is really causing the freeze of progress. I hope I 
haven't mengled too many ideas here, or pointed at least only to what is 
itself already mangled or mangling others. What is at stake here is not 
simply status quo, however. It is crop. It is production. It is capital. It 
is power, practice and paradise. It is status, tenure and investors, and 
above all the idea that *there is nothing outside...* (the academy, the way 
things are, this art, this music, etc.) There was no rainforest beneath 
this arena, these teams, these projects. There were no plants, no trees, 
streams below this parking lot, there  are only these parties, these gams, 
this arena, these experiences, only these things count, nothing else, this 
is how it will be. These are the logics of tenure. Many gorge on them, 
becoming precisely the obese tyrant who is now so collectively holding 
sway.

That tyrant cared very little when 500,000 children were starved to death, 
sacrificed next to nothing when wars were launched, and makes so few moves 
to develop alternatives to war (and prisons) as to give the necessary and 
provisional hypothesis that what these people are doing is *systematially 
closing off alternativity and new work and capitalizing on these horrific 
status quos*, just as the academy, which is in some ways of a piece, is 
*systematically closing off alternativity, new work, amelioration, 
rehabilitation, psychologism and psychological attributions of difference 
and especially the the opening of a deep, subsantive and institutionally 
active realization of a post-anarchistic mode*. That tyrant witnesses, to 
use a fitting term, a massive incercation, sees it and says that it is 
good, in a certain way, while the paths of amelioration are shut down in 
parallel to the paths of the deconstuction of talent and the releasement of 
true empowerment held in check currently by the repetitive production 
scenes of talent that does not yet release itself to its own study and its 
educational parallel. I can't believe no one can see this for what it is, 
can not see the famous painting of "the ruling family" (russian? can't 
remember) floating in the discourses and musics dominating our world today. 
I can't believe no one does not see in popular culture the most dominant 
trends. I can't believe no one can't see that the major existentialities 
operating today are the most corrupt and destructive things.

So if we see MIT doing enarchist teaching online, what are we to make of 
it? What, for that matter, should we make of the Department of Defense (US) 
talkign about "thinking outside the box" on its web page? To me it means in 
particular that the major registers of "radicality" are not quite where we 
think they are, that many of the discourses concerning radicality, 
anarchism, progress and so forth are not what they think they are or what 
we think they are. Whoever they and we are. Even the rare question of "well 
anyone feel dominances or hypocricies in anarchist collectives or the 
academy", etc., tend to fall into rather pedestrian answers, I think.

Tom Blancato






On Sat, 4 Oct 2003 09:47:41 -0700 (PDT), bryan welton 
<inricewesurvive-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:

> i agree with the case you've made against academics
> assuming prominence as representatives of anarchism.
> but would say that this goes hand in hand with an
> anarchist critique of bureaucratic leninism to
> constitutional democracy, as normative social
> organizations. i would think that all of us on the
> list agree that nobody can represent the whole's
> interest.
>
> i'm aware and have experienced as well the immunity
> some people feel they have as an "anarchist" or
> "anarchist group" from being called out on
> authoritarian behavior. unfortunately i can't offer
> any sort of way out, except outsiders vocally and
> actively keeping those individuals in check.
>
> bryan
>
> --- Richard Singer <ricinger-AT-inch.com> wrote:
>> bryan welton wrote:
>>
>> >if you accept bonefeld's description of the
>> asymmetrical relationship of capital and labor, the former being 
>> dependent on the
>> latter while labor is both within and against capital, then this would
>> describe the possibilities of rupture in the (re)productive institution. 
>> this
>> is where i attribute my hope to the younger generation of aspiring 
>> academics
>> involved in subculture and diy organizing, in their ability to resist
>> integration and challenge authority beyond institutional relationships.<
>>
>> How does this hope differ from the hope placed in
>> the much higher number of self-consciously radical students who entered
>> academia 30 years ago?  Was that hope so well placed?
>>
>> >this is not exclusive to the young, but i assume
>> that a person who shares affinity with anarchism already finds 
>> themselves on
>> the margin of politics and culture, by default, in their antagonism to 
>> the authoritarian/patriarchal/consumer/wage/etc.
>> dynamic.<
>>
>> Ideological affinity does not always translate into
>> actual behavioral patterns.  I've found a lot of "unofficial"
>> authoritarianism within the "anarchist" movement.  Everybody wants to be 
>> a
>> revolutionary...but, how deep is this antagonism in most of our 
>> comrades, and
>> how much can most people really escape the hierarchical and/or
>> authoritarian tendencies and expectations so deeply ingrained in our 
>> cultural
>> upbringing?  I've found that many anarchist groups manifest an even 
>> greater
>> amount of authoritarianism than reformist political action
>> groups because power in anarchist groups usually remains unacknowledged 
>> (or,
>> maybe the more appropriate term would be "denied") and therefore
>> less easily checked; because a lot of people with strong ideologies can
>> form rigid notions and be susceptible to knee-jerk reactions (rather 
>> than
>> thinking through and interrogating situations with the depth and
>> skepticism required for real radical-democratic process); and, maybe, 
>> because a
>> lot of people jump at the chance to be a big fish in a little 
>> pond...while
>> others look for bigger fish to follow and admire.  I'd like to feel
>> differently, but I feel the way I do as a result of my observations and
>> experiences.
>>
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> (Collective Book on Collective Process: 
>> http://www.geocities.com/collectivebook)
>>
>>
>
>
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