File spoon-archives/postanarchism.archive/postanarchism_2004/postanarchism.0401, message 24


Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 23:55:03 -0800 (PST)
From: "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: [postanarchism] Aragorn!: "Postmortem: A Conference Between 'Post-Left' Anarchists and Anti-State Communists"


Postmortem: A conference between 'post-left'
anarchists and anti-state communists

by Aragorn!

http://www.sfbay-anarchists.org

It should be obvious that this is the perspective of
one attendee and not an abstraction.

Intro

The anarchist study group (ASG)1 at the Long Haul had
been paying attention to the rise of intelligent
commentary both critical of the modern anarchist
milieu and engaged in a parallel criticism of the
system as a whole. This is exemplified by publications
like Aufheben (UK) and Against Sleep and Nightmare
(US) that aspire to deepen the struggle against the
current order. Locally there has been a tradition of
collaboration and fracture between Anti-State
Communists (ASC) and the anarchist milieu (TAM). This
history has largely been lost but it is worth citing
and learning from.
The goal for the ASG was to learn about this tendency,
its history, motivations, and antecedents. This began
with G. accepting the ASG invitation to give a
presentation on his perspectives on ASC. He began with
requesting that the reading group read Preliminaries
on Councils and Councilist Organization by Rene Riesel
(link), which does a better than fair job of
explicitly defining and historically reviewing what
exactly council communism is. His presentation
centered on the events of Germany from 1917-1921 and a
telling, from the perspective of the revolutionary
groups at the time, of the German Revolution. One of
the most unusual and intriguing (to the ASG) aspects
of G. presentation is that he defined himself as a
proponent of non-Marxist Communist. This was exciting
for the ASG who clamored for more.

The question then became, given the spirit of
comradeship given during the presentation and the
knowledge that there hasn't always been such
positivity between the involved tendencies, how to
broaden and deepen this conversation. On further
discussion with G. the conclusion was that some sort
of conference might be appropriate. This conference
was organized with members of the ASG and a circle of
people that work with G. on assorted projects. It was
organized as an 'invitation-only' conference with an
openness towards people inviting other people, but not
towards it becoming a public event. The conference was
8 hours a day for two days with lunch served by the
organizers.

>From the invitation to the conference.

"It is clear that both traditional Marxism and
traditional anarchism have failed to offer humanity
any kind of sustained alternatives to the continuation
of capital and the state. It has been the experience
of those presenting this invitation that the more the
authoritarian left clings to the last vestiges of its
living death, the more the anti-authoritarian
tendencies among those interested in authentic
revolutionary self-organization has grown in
relevance. We have therefore decided to organize a
two-day conference of like-minded individuals to
discuss what we see as a gradual convergence of ideas,
in the hope of clarifying the issues of theory and
practice that have kept anti-state/libertarian
communists and post-left/radical anarchists apart
historically. We would like to figure out if there are
enough similarities among us to create and sustain any
kind of collaborative efforts. "

Optimism was not the first order of the weekend. Given
the complicated personalities and historic tension
between anarchists and ASC in the past the organizers
developed the structure of the event in what could
generously be described as a plodding methodological
format designed to have some basic conversations with
one another before launching into what was suspected
to be highly contentious and personalizing debate. 

The agenda (which can be found here ) began with the
attendees defining the different 'parent' tendencies
that represent our positions. The ASC defined was Left
Communism, Libertarian Communism, Council Communism
(both German and Italian), Bordigists, Socialism or
Barbarism (Castoriadis), the Situationist
International, International Communists, Libertarian
Marxists, Autonomists (German and Italian), Cammate,
Wildcat, and Barrot. The PLA defined Insurrectionary,
Anti-Civilization, and Green Anarchisms, Primitivism,
DIY Punk/Hardcore, Crimethinc, Individualists (and
egoism), Post-anarchism, and Pacifism. Even keeping
these definitions brief entailed the first three hours
of the event being a refresher of ideas that many in
the room already understood and not enough information
for those who were exposed to them for the first time.

The next item on the agenda was a review of what could
be seen as a similar attempt at bringing anarchists
and ASC together in the late seventies and early
eighties. It was local (to the Bay Area) and called
the UCC (the Union of Concerned Commies). It brought
together groups like Red-Eye, Work and Pay, and
Collective Inventions. Its history shook out in
completely unsurprising ways in that a certain set of
people involved were interested in keeping the
politics non-confrontational which limited the kinds
of projects that the UCC could embark on. These
'vague-ists' later went on to participate in Processed
World, favoring clever and cosmopolitan over a
defined, coherent politic.

The final and longest item discussed on the first day
was a review of some of the highlights of resistance
(from the perspective of ASC and PLA) through the 20th
century, with an eye on the question "What has
prevented us from working together before?" While the
question was not directly answered, there were some
swipes in the direction of the question throughout the
discussion. What was obvious was the high degree of
specialization (for lack of a better word) embodied by
some of the participants of such historical events as
Kronstadt, the Spanish Civil War, and the German
Revolution of 1919. One of the running jokes
throughout the weekend was in reference to the
specifics of the German Revolution and the obscure
ability that knowledge gave one to understand the
difference between the KPD, the KAPD, and the AAUD.

There was a nod in the direction of talking about
recent events (Argentina, the recent War Protests)
that quickly turned into a heated conversation about
protest politics and the power of marching en masse.
There was general consensus against the ritual of
protest, with one exception that kept the conversation
heated.

The first day had around 30 participants throughout
the day and a lunch of vegan potpie, baby lettuce
salad and pumpkin and pear pies. No Food Not Bombs for
this group!

After the event of the first day most of the
participants scattered to the four winds. Most of the
out-of-towners, and those who hadn't talked themselves
out, continued the evening with a trip to Smart Alec's
(a mediocre kind-of vegetarian hamburger joint) and
then a private showing of the "Ring of Free Trade" (a
parody of the Fellowship of the Ring from an
anti-globalization perspective) and "We Interrupt this
Empire" (about the resistance to the Gulf War of
2003).

The second day started slowly. We attempted to lure
people to show up on time (10:00 am) with the promise
of muffins, good coffee, and zucchini bread, but still
didn't get started until 10:30. People didn't entirely
roll in until almost noon.

The agenda for the second day built on the 'trust'
established the first day and was more directly
pointed at critical discussion. The question was asked
the first day (to the anarchists) "Why don't you just
use the term communism?" which prefaced much of the
eventual discussion during day two (although the same
question was not asked again, the inverse was). The
specific question we tried to center the conversation
on was "What are the lingering questions from the
"other" tendency that need answering?" For the
anarchists there were not a lot of pointed questions,
which highlighted the fact that most of the anarchists
knew a hell of a lot less about the ASC than the ASC
knew about the anarchists. The ASC were most
interested in hearing how anarchists addressed the
problem of being an ahistorical tendency (as in
unconcerned with its own history of revolutionary
failure and the inability to deal with the problematic
of power (as in Spain)). They also argued that
anarchist’s criticism of Marx was a)overly simplistic
and b)de-emphasized the importance of having an
analysis of political economy. Finally they made the
argument that their perspective was a materialist
perspective that is something that PLA do not seem to
have established.

The most coherent anarchist criticism of the ASC
perspective was regarding the question of 'Hierarchy
and Authority' by I. While the definitions of
hierarchy and authority are not particularly clear, it
is clear that anarchists are concerned with combating
this problematic to an extent not of concern to ASC.
This developed into a brief exchange regarding which
tradition has a more valid claim to concerns outside
of economics. Mentioned specifically is the anarchist
desire for 'freedom,' as a symbol for a psychological
component to the tendency that the ASC do not have. In
response, the Frankfurt School was brought up as a
Marxist (although not ASC) group with interests in
psychology, culture, sociology and more. Woven through
this conversation was a question brought up on day
one. "Who is to be suppressed?" This is a particular
problematic for anarchists as the question of violence
is normally thought of as a very different question
than suppression. Put another way, should 'the people'
(the proletariat, the dispossessed) take the 'voice'
away from the exploiting class? What if that looks
like taking away the freedoms normally associated with
a liberal republic (speech, commerce, and movement)?

The highlight of the weekend was when we did a
go-around where the question was finally asked
"Describe your political tendency without the use of
jargon" which was the first time over the course of
the weekend where we specifically argued for our own
individual political position. The unique thing about
this constellation of people was that in a room of 25
or so people you authentically heard 25 different
articulations of many of the same themes. While quite
a few of the anarchists cited a desire for freedom and
quite a few of the communists wanted to not be
alienated, the way that people talked about their
position was refreshingly distinctive. This was not a
room filled with voyeurs.

Lunch was served and consisted of fake meat hoagies
and butternut squash soup. Dessert was a mix of vegan
cookies, snicker doodles, chocolate chip, and peanut
butter.

The post-lunch discussion was anti-climactic in a
rather inspiring way. The tendency at many conferences
is to leave very little time at the end of an event,
to discuss what all that you have talked about before
really means in terms of future work. Obviously this
question was asked here too, "What form can future
collaborative efforts take?" Instead of there being an
insistence on a centralized task that everyone
could/should sign onto, the group generally talked
about what projects they were working on and requested
that interested parties contact them at their leisure.
People agreed to a sharing of contact information and
a proposal to continue the conversations that have
started at the ASG site. sfbay forum.

What went right?

Given the setup, a lot of things went right. The space
was really conducive to the type of meeting that we
had and the number of people that attended. It was
better attended than the organizers had hoped for,
given the obscurity of the subject matter and the
word-of-mouth nature of the invite process. 

The food was great. If the ASG has proven one thing
(time and time again) it is that we can throw a good
party where conversation, and not idiots, is the main
attraction.

There was not a major fight. Given the egos and
politics in the room, there was every expectation for
a knock-down, drag-out fight between a couple of the
hotheads. This did not materialize. There was some
flirting with larger arguments (including me rising to
the bait of yet another call to 'get out of your
anarchist ghetto and start working with real people')
but people kept a level head. (There was at least one
heated argument over dinner but was quickly diffused
out of apparent lack of energy and general
comradeship)

The people were very interesting. People can be
surprising. Right when you are ready to write off a
certain set of people for being too rarified in their
knowledge base, or too (anti) ideological they
surprised you with a crystal clear point that you
didn't think of before. There were people there who
represented the best of the ASC and anarchist
traditions over the past 30 years.

The people were very knowledgeable. Given the age of
the participants (the opening go-around entailed many
of the people citing their years of experience with
the average being well over 10 years), this isn't that
surprising but it was a pleasure to hear a consistent
level of both lived and learned knowledge throughout
the weekend.

Trust was built . While the group didn't seem ready to
do trust-falls and grab an earth ball, there was an
escalated level of trust in the room after the weekend
than there was before. An argument could be made that
these are the kind of baby steps that will allow for
the running that we may need to do in the future.

What went wrong?

A lot of the weekend was really boring. The entire
first day served as a type of sophisticated trust
building exercise. This was great from the perspective
that the weekend ended up not (obviously) alienating
anyone, but no one necessarily left punching the air
ready to set Berkeley aflame.

Some people talked too much. This is related to the
problem of experts (and ego) but there were a half a
dozen people (myself included) who took up at least
2/3rds of the speaking time over the weekend. That is
a shame and seemingly insurmountable.

The language could use some work. The title of the
conference went something like 'Anti State Communists
and Post-Left Anarchists collaboration conference’,
which rolled off your tongue with the ease of
swallowing a mouthful of glass. The entire weekend was
loaded with what seemed like subjective
interpretations of a lengthy laundry list of empty
phrases (which was the motivation for the
'jargon-free' go-around) that seemed more like
reflection of our positions in an obscure caste than
our ability to articulate what is on the mind of the
dispossessed.

Growing old isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
While there being a decided lack of controversy over
the weekend was a positive, in terms of not chasing
people away and not tilting windmills over semantics,
there did seem to be a decided lack of passion in the
room. Maybe more name-calling was necessary to inspire
the kind of energy that would translate into taking
the spirit of the weekend onto the streets. 

Organization. The organizers (I speak of myself most
pointedly) did not have facilitation in mind which
allowed for certain individuals to talk for far too
long, to dominate the direction of the conversation in
exactly the ways that we were attempting to challenge
(i.e. leftist), and for certain experts to talk again
and again about subjects many other people could have
spoken (even without quite the authority of the
expert). The wrong balance was struck between being
open and accommodating and getting shit done.

1. Acronyms. No one denies that acronyms are both
clumsy and the quickest way to chase people out of the
room that aren't already convinced that they should be
there. That said, seeing Anarchist Study Group,
Anti-State Communist, or Post-Left Anarchist repeated
over and over again is mind numbing and repetitive.
Acronyms are used to simplify and that is what they do
here. 



===="“It does not matter how many people chose moral duty over the rationality of self-preservation - what does matter is that some did. Evil is not all-powerful. It can be resisted. The testimony of the few who did resist shatters the authority of the logic of self-preservation. It shows it for what it is in the end - a choice." 

- Zygmunt Bauman, 'Modernity and the Holocaust'

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