Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 19:50:34 -0800 (PST) From: villon sasha k <il_frenetico-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: [postanarchism] Glavin: "Power, Subjectivity, Resistance: Three Works on Postmodern Anarchism" "What a traditional anarchist critique of T.I.A. misses is that the effect of T.I.A is not so much the repression of radical groups, but rather, the construction of self-policing subjects. (The effect of jailing Sherman Austin, a Black anarchist webmaster, is that it makes people on the internet think twice about creating a website espousing their political beliefs.)" Really? Do "traditional anarchists" (ones that haven't read post-structuralist or post-anarchist works) really miss this point? Do they really not see that such repression makes others not act in the same way? This is an example of "postist" absurdism. Anarchists have always realized that repression stops others from acting because they self-police themselves. This really shows how silly the critique can become when it is put into the traditional anarchism/post-anarchism dichotomy. Sure, we can always use more theorization about repression, but it simply isn't so black and white; and, when it is made so black and white the critique loses all its value. "My “buying a book” becomes an act of rebellion. It isn’t illegal to buy a book, the form of power that is being exercised is not the power of law or suppression in a traditional sense, what is being exercised is the power of the norm. The norm sets both what is to be internalized—not doing anything that could be interpreted as “wrong”—and, more importantly, constitutes what is transgressive: buying a book on anarchism. " I think it is exactly here that a little theorization of capitalism would be useful. Buying a book might be transgressive to post-anarchists, but it isn't for capitalism. Without any theorization of how capitalism has been able to recuperate revolt, and even comodify it, all analysis is lost and it becomes transgressive to buy a book. Glavin says we need to be "proactive" instead of transgressive, but isn't it exactly an understanding of capitalist recuperation, missing from post-anarchism, that will let us figure out how to be proactive? On newman, I agree with some of Glavin's comments; particularly with this:"Newman starts off his text by conflating power and domination. He posits that anarchists oppose power as such, not state power, the power of the church, and the economic exploitation of capitalism, but rather, simply “power.” " And this is the point I tried to make and jason disagred with in my review. It is actually Newman's critique of power that is too simplistic; and that is expressed by his conflation of Foucault's domination and power, or anarchism critique of what I call alienated power and anarchists effort to take power over their own lives. It is in this effort that anarchists construct an ethics of power--missed completely by newman. In the end, Glavin does not question the central and foundational claim of postanarchism at all: that "classical anarchism" (which is its own construction) is as essentialist as is claimed. The question is, what do they leave out in order to make such a construction in the first place???? sasha ====------------- Anarchist Discussion Board -- Also for response to KKA, WD and Aporia: http://pub47.ezboard.com/banarchykka The Killing King Abacus Page: http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005