Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 01:49:19 -0800 (PST) From: "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: [postanarchism] Martin: "Review of Call's 'Postmodern Anarchism'" Call, Lewis Postmodern Anarchism Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books 159 pp., $60.00, ISBN 0-7391-0522-1 Publication Date: February 2003 Postmodern Anarchism, by Lewis Call, draws on the works of several theorists in an attempt to connect anarchism with postmodernism. Call uses anarchism to critique liberal notions of language, consciousness, and rationality, which are inherent in economic and political power within the capitalist state organization. Call uses postmodern methods rooted in anarchist tradition to deconstruct hegemonies of all sorts, predominantly Marxist and capitalist in nature. Yet his sharpest attack is leveled against bourgeois liberalism manifested in "late capitalism," or as Veblen describes it, "conspicuous consumption." Call constructs what he describes as a "postmodern matrix" to understand how postmodernism converges with anarchism. The matrix consists of horizontal strands, featuring theorists such as Nietzsche, Freud, Durkheim, Foucault, and Baudrillard, and vertical strands, featuring theorists such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, Levi-Strauss, and Chomsky. The combined postmodern matrix reveals a "metastrand," or as Call describes it, "the strand of science fiction literature known as cyberpunk" (11). Hence postmodernism and anarchism meet. Then, incorporating his postmodern matrix, Call discusses modern novelists' (Robinson, Gibson, Sterling, and so on) use of cyberpunk themes in their writings. Admittedly, Call argues that although some might dismiss these novels as popular literature, they actually serve a vital translation function, as they provide "inaccessible ideas of radical postmodernism and make them available to a much wider audience" (12). Call views cyberpunk as a link between radical postmodernism and the "concerns of ordinary citizens" (13), but he never explains why this link is important for ordinary citizens. Call constantly reminds readers that classical anarchism is fundamentally opposed to the hierarchical (paternalistic) social relations inherent in capitalist modes of production and state socialist strategies. He finally reveals his postmodern anarchist self when he argues that postmodern anarchism is opposed to "coercive politics implicit in all state systems. Such anarchism envisions strictly voluntary (and typically small-scale) forms of organization" (14). Call believes that although "liberalism represents an impressive and historically important body of work . . . [it] imposes a disturbing silence upon radical thinking" (61-62). In rejecting Rorty's liberal principles (and those of other great liberals such as Rawls, Nozick, Dworkin, and so on) of avoiding harm and cruelty to others, Call argues that the liberal mindset, in which one person's right to swing her fist ends where the next person's nose begins, "functions to defend existing institutions and to prevent radical change" (37). This statement proves perplexing since it appears to contradict what most liberal institutional values seek to uphold: freedom to do as you will without harming others. But what becomes increasingly clear is that Call attempts to focus on some of the aberrations to liberal institutions and structures. Indeed, Call quotes Bakunin as describing himself as an "enemy of all power," and that for Foucault it is power that makes resistance possible, and "the more power there is, the more resistance there must be" (73). No doubt that resistance movements are important in democratic societies since the state can be co-opted by a "power-elite." And, on the point of "street-level anarchy," Call initiates an important discussion regarding the role of political agitation (134). It is unfortunate that he did not capitalize on this dimension of postmodern anarchy as it relates to power-elite structures and modern resistance movements. Nevertheless, one could argue that liberal democracies can become oppressive hegemonies controlled by a power-elite or majority "to prevent radical change." In this sense, a dose of postmodern anarchy now and then might not be a bad thing. ~~~~~~~~ By Edward J. Martin, California State University, Long Beach (from Perspectives on Political Science, 10457097, Summer2003, Vol. 32, Issue 3) ===="Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the mania Which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth and one way." - Friedrich Hölderlin, 1799 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
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