From: textured-AT-riseup.net
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 18:28:38 -0800
Subject: [postanarchism] Re: shit stains and pink pigs



> liberalism is an
> authoritarian waste of time

good we agree then. ;)


your logic is that since marxism remains useful and worthwhile depsite its
shameful history, we shouldnt discount liberalism just because it too is
tainted with authoritarianism and other problems. but that is a massive
reduction to collect the totality of intense struggle and resistance to
authoritarianism, which is the heritage of marxism just as much if not more
than anarchism, and include it in a single thought *with* the
authoritarianism it is resisting. the idea of history must always be
submitted to dissimulation, and certainly the history of marxism is no
exception. but this could all be avoided if you were to let go of the silly
fetishism of identity that demands that all thinking must inscribed in
discourse as a 'stance' or relegated to being just an accoutrement for an
identity, like capital taking the place of labor, or like clothing that
exists only in order to have a designers label. i dont see how trying to
revitalize or receate a sort of 'liberalism' that coincides with anarchism
actually achieves anything new or valuable.

> ...where he argues we
> should do whatever benefits the majority no matter
> what, its clearly extremely instrumentalist
> (authoritarian) and could be used to justify the
> domination of minorities by majorities.

but like i said before i dont see what *remains* of liberalism after you air
it out. does it just become a vague existentialist sense of solidarity? or
what? wheres the politics? the term liberal is reactionary. liberal is to
libertarian what labor day is to may day.

> she is
> pointing out that anarchism always begins with the
> individual, in that the group never exists prior to it
> but only as a result of the voluntary association of
> free individuals

but actually the opposite *is* true. and it is not totalitarian or even
potentially totalitarian to say so. and it is really a false distinction
anyway because individuals are never the 'self-same themselves' that liberal
politics would make of us all (actually that is one of the most primary
forms of authoritarian violence), there are only multiplicities and their
territorializations. the molecular and its molarizations.

> (someting along the lines of an
> anarchy magazine approach, she also seems to like bob
> black). whereas for marxism, even autonomous marxism,
> the individual is never prior to the group but rather
> the opposite,

no the group is not 'prior', it is a false dichotomy. a hierarchy
instantiated upon the socius.

> you said if
> postanarchism is anything it is a critique of
> essentialism and metaphysics, but isnt existentialism
> a critique of essentialism as well, i.e. "existence
> precedes essence" as is often attributed to the
> tradition?

no because existentialism only understands and critiques half of the 'double
articulation' that gives us our reality. thats what the poststructuralists
are on about phenomenology for. although it depends on what one thinks of as
'existentialist'. for example, lacan might be considered an existentialist.
or nietzche. but here we are again with that tedious cataloging of names and
ideas as objects. my original point might be re-phrased as: post-anarchism,
if it is to exist, should be thought in terms of existentialisms failure to
create a sincere politics of existence.


> if i am going to take the best aspects
> of marxism into account and embrace "autonomous
> marxism" i dont see why i wouldnt do the same with the
> equally problematic tradition of liberalism and
> embrace l. susan brown's "autonomous liberalism"

if all you are doing is creating a 'who i think is cool' database then go
for it, add their names. i wont try to stop you. but the idea of 'autonomous
liberalism' is still ridiculous.

> ps: the panopticon was bentham not mill - but then i
> guess you could say the soviet union was stalin not
> marx...

lil johns pa james had pal jerry over for teatime and panopticoning and
arguments about whether pigs hurt better than humans and how much more pink
they were at night. 
-daniel.