File spoon-archives/postanarchism.archive/postanarchism_2004/postanarchism.0407, message 2


From: swilbur-AT-wcnet.org
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] neo-/-e-/-go
Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 14:56:37 US/Eastern


> SHAWN W & DOCTOR W:
> 
> it was thru bad press that i found MEN AGAINST
> THE STATE (a good history text for american
> anarchists) 

"Men Against the State" is really a superb work,
although, as i mentioned, i have some problems
with Martin's tendency to treat the whole
individualist tradition as "precursors" to
egoism. Warren, for example, is much more generally
concerned with "individualizing" his analysis,
without necessarily fixating on the notion of the
"ego." In fact, his continuing flirtation with the
"environmentalism" of Owen (whose collectivism he
rejected after being part of the New Harmony 
experiment) means that "the soveriegnty of the
individual" coexists in his thinking with a very
strong strand of environmental determinism. I don't
think the tensions were really ever resolved in
Warren, or in that part of Stephen Pearl Andrews'
work which derives from Warren's basic theories.
Warren was an experimenter and inventor, rather 
than a psychologist or philosopher. For present
purposes, the tensions may be more interesting than
any solutions anyway.  

> & after reading that i felt like
> checking out ernst cassirer's MYTH OF
> THE STATE. i haven't seen it on
> a library shelf yet. 

Ah, Cassirer. I need to look at that volume again
sometime. 
 
> > How egoism is manifested is going to depend a great deal
> > on how one understands the "ego." Those of us influenced
> > by poststructuralism are likely to reject the classical
> > formulations on the basic of more complex understandings
> > of how the "I" is constituted. With the distinctions
> > inside/outside, self/other, subject/object rather shaken,
> > the starker sorts of egoism seem hard to maintain.
> 
> i wonder how you (wilbur) read (ken) wilber's
> understanding of the ego. he taps into
> freud (& more often jung?) but also
> reads some cool folks like aurobindo.

Unfortunately, i'm not particularly well read where
Wilber is concerned. I've read bits and pieces, but
nothing has particularly caught my fancy. I'll admit
as well that my interest in theories of the ego only
extends to some basic sorts of questions or problems.
We know, or think we know, that this whole business
of saying "I" and of thinking (of) ourselves as more
or less "self-possessed" is not without its problems.
I'm very interested in that "necessary arrogation" we
were talking about awhile back, but primarily because
it seems to haunt all talk of politics, subjectivity,
community, responsibility, etc. If i understand the
final moves in Newman's "From Bakunin to Lacan" at all
correctly, "postanarchism" seeks to make this perhaps
inescapable problem at the heart of identity a kind of
unstable ground for anarchist community. In that regard,
it seems rather close to the discussion of community
that runs through Bataille, Blanchot, Nancy, Agamben,
and company, and the related work of Derrida on aporia
and hospitality (etc.) I'm so unsatisfied with the ways
that Newman reaches what might be common ground that i
have undoubtedly underplayed the possible connections
between that "postanarchism" and poststructuralist
anarchist approaches like my own. Perhaps one of the
ways to come at this possible convergence would be via
the problem of the ego and egoism. 
 
> > transformation of egoism through the realm of Blanchot's
> > "neuter" or Nancy's conjoined "singular plural."

I'm handwaving a bit here, though i certainly know some
of the ways to pursue this. My initial thought is that
"the subject" isn't going anyway, and the "shaken"
distinctions listed above aren't going anywhere soon,
by all indications. That doesn't mean, however, that we
need to remain yoked to them as (probably false, at least
in some senses) oppositions, or as terms that must be
properly hierarchized. If there is something worth calling
the ego, it has characteristics that are both "more" and
"less" than singular or plural. Some kind of real pluralism
of analysis seems called for. 

Then, if we could wrap our heads around what has been 
implied about the complexities and aporias of the self,
an "egoism" as rigorous as, say, Badcock's, might take
us some very interesting places. (Badcock's rather 
relentless assault on "duty" as an appropriate source
of moral feelings and social norms, is individualistic
in the extreme - but because it focuses on the real
conditions of individuality, keeps returning to the 
realm of the social, if only as the realm of consequences.
I continue to think some parallel investigation, on more
poststructuralist terms, might yield interesting results.
I am, of course, fond of these sorts of thought experiments,
like the Bataille-inspired general-economy-pantarchy of
some months back...)

I think the *most* interesting thing about the egoists is
their sense that "duty" is not the proper font of love or
fellow feeling. We can probably still celebrate Stirner's
anti-ideological critique without taking on much else. The
rest of this amounts to possible deconstructive projects.

-shawn

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