File spoon-archives/postanarchism.archive/postanarchism_2004/postanarchism.0408, message 1


From: rodrigoguim-AT-riseup.net
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2004 17:45:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] Demanding the Impossible?



Shawn wrote:

>Morland seems, finally, to
suppose that we can't convince others of the rightness of the
anarchist cause without rethinking ourselves - and presenting
ourselves - in some new - in his case "holistic" - fashion, as
if our "product presentation" would be too confusing otherwise.
Is there something similar at stake in Newman wanting to
situate the self "outside power," even if on the shifting terrain
of lacanian lack?<

Sure there is something similar here, Shawn.  Morland and Newman want to
present theories of the self as a primary concern for anarchists.  When I 
say primary, I mean that they understand that this understanding of self
is what inevitably liberates, or makes one more anarchist.  Their work is
to make us Know, to state what an anarchist self should look or sound
like.  Clearly, I am not arguing that they do not have important thoughts
there, and I do see that the discourse on "human nature" is a problematic
tradition in anarchism, but "postanarchists" have made the self and
knowledge as its main concerns, something "classical anarchism" was not
invested in as much, for its benefit.

Shawn: >The postanarchists seem to be convinced that anarchism
> cannot be built from pluralism, poststructuralist or otherwise.
> Again, i wonder if others find this convincing?

Sure it is convincing.  Because postanarchists are trying to build
anarchism, or poststructuralism, primarily out of knowledge, not out of
pluralism (and here we need to understand pluralism as changing and
relational, not static).  This is what I think it gets down to: in trying
to provide a theoretical basis for what "anarchism" or "poststructuralism"
should look like, sound like, feel like or produce selves like, these
authors reproduce the very dimensions of domination they seem to critique.
 Their task is to "know", knowledge as the central mode of resistance, and
they seem not to have learned from Foucault that every           
resistance (re)produces domination.

Regards
Rodrigo





> Rodrigo writes:
>> My critique is that so-called "postanarchist" authors (of
>> course I am labeling them here) have had a very reductive
>> reading of both anarchism and poststructuralism..
>
> Ahh. Yes. I'm certainly in agreement with you there.
>
> Newman, of course, actually seems to reject the positions
> of the "poststructuralist" writers he makes use of to
> critique "classical anarchism" in _From Bakunin to Lacan_,
> so i find it hard to consider him "poststructuralist."
> What he seeks in Lacan seems, by his own account, to be
> a way out of certain "poststructuralist" dilemmas. I don't
> consider the aporetic elements of poststructuralism to be
> blocks to action and decision, nor do i feel the need of a
> place outside power, any more than i consider the complex
> account of human nature Morland attributes to classical
> social anarchists as inconsistent with work towards a free
> society. That's one spot where my own poststructuralist take
> on anarchism parts company with postanarchism. Another, as
> should be apparent from my initial message in this thread,
> is in the real of anarchist history, where the postanarchists
> seem to have no grasp of our tradition's diversity.
>
>>  Their first error is to essentialize both,
>
> I'm not certain that it's a question of "essentializing,"
> though there is certainly a drastic reduction taking place.
> Newman's contention about "classical" anarchism being
> "poisoned at the root" may be close to a claim about
> essence, but all of these "postanarchists" seem to assume
> that what is objectionable about "classical anarchism" can
> actually be replaced by some other theory or element.
>
> In any event, it appears we are in substantial agreement about
> the results of the reduction.
>
> One of the reasons Morland is of interest to me, despite some
> contextual shortcomings, is that he shares the focus of May
> and Newman on rethinking "human nature," despite rejecting the
> particular characterization of "the theory of human nature of
> classical social anarchism" we find in those other authors. It
> seems clear that this sort of issue is key to postanarchism,
> but i'm still not entirely sure why. Morland seems, finally, to
> suppose that we can't convince others of the rightness of the
> anarchist cause without rethinking ourselves - and presenting
> ourselves - in some new - in his case "holistic" - fashion, as
> if our "product presentation" would be too confusing otherwise.
> Is there something similar at stake in Newman wanting to
> situate the self "outside power," even if on the shifting terrain
> of lacanian lack?
>
> I suppose i have been drawn to poststructuralism in part because
> i was already drawn to the dynamics of Whitman's "i am vast, i
> contain multitudes" and Shakespeare's "and that's true too." I
> was a pluralist before i was a poststructuralist, and see the
> continuity. The postanarchists seem to be convinced that anarchism
> cannot be built from pluralism, poststructuralist or otherwise.
> Again, i wonder if others find this convincing?
>
> -shawn
>
>> and their second error is to
>> provide reactive social responses based on the very problematic
>> representations they claim to challenge.  Maybe that is the condition of
>> "critical" thought today.  It is bound to reproduce the same dominations
>> it sets ou to overcome.  I think we are looking more at "theories" of
>> domination and resistance in "poststructuralist"(or "postmodern"?)
> though> t
>> today than exactly that which they claim to be doing: looking at
>> particular, present conditions of power efficacies and inefficacies, in
>> order to help overcome certain situations. However, Knowledge is what is
>> primary for these authors.  So what are the alternatives when action,
>> and
>> not knowledge, only knowledge as action, and that action sustained by
>> relevancy to social conditions, comes as a priority?  If the task is to
>> produce "critical knowledge", is that not a major "textual" contradicion
>> (I would even say a practice of nihilism)?
>> O.K. Shawn, you wanted names and "to see more clearly what the
>> alternatives might be".  I hope this helps (although, as you see, I
>> write
>> a few sentences).
>> I can surely see many points to your argument and that is why I called
>> it
>> a "critical reading".  In order to understand my argument, though, you
>> must note the strategic use of "poststructuralist": it is built for
>> critique as to its supposed internal coherence.
>>
>> Regards
>> Rodrigo
>>
>>
>> > Rodrigo writes:
>> >
>> >> That is a critical reading necessary even in most 'poststructuralist'
>> >> work today.
>> >
>> > I'm not sure which "that" you're referring to.
>> >
>> >> What most of those thinkers see as necessary is, again, a more
>> >> 'adequate' consideration of human nature, domination, empire, or
>> >> whatever..
>> >
>> > The poststructuralist thinkers? The issue of "adequacy" leaves open
>> > the question of "adequate to what end or standard?" The question
>> > i'm trying to raise is really about what the standards of adequacy
>> > ought to be. Specifically, because Morland is concerned with
>> > internal logical consistency and fitness of means to ends, i'm
>> > wondering whether his at-least-apparent focus on consequences
>> > meets even his own standards.
>> >
>> >> And this way "the world we actually live in" is secondary at best.
>> >> Knowledge becomes central again, to get to the "right" kind of
>> >> subject seems to be the task.
>> >
>> > Again, it strikes me that "rightness" if pretty elusive, apart
>> > from analyses that address the material facts of our daily lives.
>> > Our sense of the difficulties involved in that sort of address
>> > don't, alas, do away with the need for it. In the message you're
>> > responding to, i was questioning whether the notion of a "state"
>> > or a "stateless society," when divorced from specific histories
>> > and struggles, might not simply confuse important issues. Hopefully,
>> > we are struggling against real conditions, real oppressions, rather
>> > than against abstract ideas.
>> >
>> >> And this is not to discredit the
>> >> trials and errors of strategioc subjectivity.  Only that most
>> >> "poststructuralist" thinkers, at least the ones that have had
>> >> voice, have so often been preoccupied with describing subjectivity
>> >> that they have reinstated it as primary - and not only important -
>> >> to all efforts at resistance.
>> >
>> > Can you name names here? I'm curious to whom you are attributing
>> > this, in order to see more clearly what the alternatives might be.
>> >
>> > -shawn
>> >
>> >> The task becomes again to
>> >> "know".  Then we have to ask: "What is being done"?
>> >>
>> >> Rodrigo
>> >>
>
>
>
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