File spoon-archives/postanarchism.archive/postanarchism_2003/postanarchism.0312, message 108


From: JessEcoh-AT-cs.com
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:59:08 EST
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] a response to Staudenmaier on "Post-Left Anarchy"


lawrence writes:

>   The Unoriginality Argument 
> The first thing a critic does who can’t deal with the
> content of what s/he is criticizing is to try to show
> that it isn’t original.

the "there's nothing new under the sun" argument can be a simple debater's 
trick, but staudenmaier seems to be responding to some exaggerated claims _for_ 
the originality of PLA.

> Like the argument that
> worker’s self-management is more efficient at
> production than private ownership, this argument
> relies exclusively on capitalist criteria (innovation
> being seen as the sure road to success). So like most
> critics who show little desire to understand their
> targets, Peter Staudenmaier (PS) first attacks
> post-left anarchy (PLA) by asserting that it isn’t
> original—even though nobody says it is.

hmm.  "nobody"? let's take the article to which staudenmaier is most 
immediately responding, the piece by jason mcquinn.  on the one hand, mcquinn modestly 
acknowledges that PLA is "nothing new"; on the other hand, he makes what 
sound like sweeping claims for PLA's being an "unprecedented" trumping of all 
"ideologies," lumping together quite nearly everything under the heading of 
"ideology" while simultaneously restricting the category so that it does not include 
"critical thinking" -- which logically implies that nobody besides the 
PLAists have done any "critical thinking." in fact, PLA is supposed to be so beyond 
everything ("almost every aspect of contemporary thinking and communication is 
ideological") that it would appear to be synonymous with "critical thought."  
i'm not sure if all this necessarily amounts to a claim for PLA's historical 
originality, but it sure is one heck of a claim for its uniqueness.

> The Bad Faith Argument 
> PS’s proof for the unoriginality of PLA is that it
> resembles the critiques of—horror of horrors—leftists!
> Camatte, Castoriadis, and the various theorists
> attached to the Frankfurt School are cited as major
> (perhaps he would have preferred to say exclusive)
> influences on what he sees as the core components of
> PLA. [ . . . ] PS smugly points out the leftist
> pedigree of this constellation of thinkers as if PLAs
> wanted to remove any possible connection with any
> leftist at any time, as if the PLA discourse were
> called “anti-left” or “non-left” anarchism [ . . . ] The
> “post” in PLA clearly means that leftists have
> influenced PLAs, and that we recognize that anarchism
> has an undisputed leftist genealogy—but it is the aim
> of PLA to move anarchist theory and practice beyond
> those limits. 

well, the usual meaning of the prefix "post-" is "after," "subsequent to," 
"succeeding," etc., and even if this does not amount to the categorical 
rejection implied by "non-" or "anti-," it does tend to appeal to a notion of progress 
and transformation versus continuity, mere repetition, stagnation, etc.; 
e.g., we don't say that the period of 1939-1945 is "post-war," because it _is_ the 
war.  so to name X a "post-Y" is to present it as discontinuous with Y, a 
step beyond Y, past and surpassing Y, a big improvement on Y.  in that case, it 
would be surprising to find that X and Y overlapped substantially.  granted, 
"post-" can be used in ways that imply a mix of continuity with change (e.g., 
"post-romantic"), but it invites one to focus on the latter rather than the 
former (whereas the prefix "neo-" does the opposite).  in any case, given the 
semantic ambiguity of the very label "post-left," i don't think lawrence's 
attributions of "smugness" or "bad faith" to staudenmaier are really fair.

> The (False) My School is Original Argument 
> Tossing Social Ecology in the mix accomplishes two
> things. First, PS situates SE within a leftist
> lineage, something nobody disputes. Second, he repeats
> the absurd (bordering on delusional) claim that it was
> the Founder of Social Ecology, PS’s mentor Murray
> Bookchin, who, within the past 40 years—and almost
> single-handedly—introduced a critical analysis of
> domination into anarchist theory. Who made this claim?
> Murray himself. It’s funny; I remember Proudhon and
> Bakunin mentioning something about domination when
> they wrote more than a century ago.

first of all, staudenmaier credits the Frankfurt School as well as bookchin 
with a "re-orientation toward domination as our central critical term" (which 
is not quite the same as "introducing" all "critical analysis of domination 
into anarchist theory").  secondly, staudenmaier's claim is not quite so 
ahistorical as all that.  yes, bakunin and others use the word "domination" to 
describe what they oppose, but their focus does tend to be on state, church, and 
marketplace as the primary institutional embodiments of dominatory power, rather 
than on less formalized or institutionalized forms of domination in everyday 
life (e.g., racism or sexism); hence the need to make the universality of our 
opposition to domination explicit.

> The Straw Man Argument 
> The next ploy is to fabricate positions not held by
> any of his targets. To be generous to PS, perhaps some
> of his allegations are true; but we’d never know it
> because he never says who holds such positions,
> denying everyone the possibility of either agreeing
> with or refuting him. [ . . . ]
> 
> Other straw man slurs include the following: “A few
> post-left anarchists go so far as to extol the
> right-wing tendencies within anarchism as a healthy
> corrective…” Just who these post-left anarchists might
> be, or what right-wing tendencies they extol, remains
> a complete mystery. Then there’s the old stand-by of
> the right-wing canard: “Post-left anarchists would do
> well to examine the history of this foolish slogan
> before adopting it into their repertoire.” What
> slogan? “Neither left nor right,” which is yet another
> example of PS’s fake concerns. No post-left anarchist
> I know of uses this slogan for the simple reason that
> this tendency is called “post-left,” not “post-right”
> (the only place that I’ve seen it is in the
> subscription ad for this journal—and it’s an ad, not a
> manifesto.) In fact, there’s nothing in the post-left
> anarchist discussions that can be put within the realm
> of right-wing politics. 

staudenmaier is quoting from mcquinn here.  mcquinn heads the last section of 
his essay with the title: "Post-Left Anarchy: Neither Left, nor Right, but 
Autonomous." it's good that lawrence avoids confusing anarchism of any sort with 
right-wing nonsense (and criticizes those who do), but given the history of 
the slogan mcquinn uses, he ought to know better than to use it.

the far more serious business between advocates and critics of PLA is the 
question of whether PLA is adequate to the facts of the social and the challenges 
of organization and social transformation.  staudenmaier may not have done 
the best possible job of raising these questions, but lawrence does little to 
assure me that they can be answered with a hearty "yes."


   --jesse.


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