Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 14:32:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [postanarchism] Strategic Essentialism, Redux
From: "stevphen shukaitis" <stevphen-AT-mutualaid.org>


the discussion on strategic essentialism has been really interesting and
useful so far. having been somewhat blind for the past few days after
losing my glasses in the Atlantic I've not been able to respond to the
discussion in any great way, so in order to clear down on e-mail clutter
I'll just combine a bunch of responses into one message.

Is the Spivak piece available somewhere on-line? If so, it would be
appreciated if someone could tell me where.

To address some of the questions that Jesse raises, what's important to me
here is finding ways to use anti-essentialist ideas in strategic ways. You
raise the concern that there seems to be this notion that it is impossible
not be essentialist. I disagree, I think almost the opposite - that really
ultimately it's impossible to be essentialist. It's kind of like talking
about objective moral values. Say for instance that was one was walking
through the woods and dis covered "absolute truth" or "the essence of
_____ (insert your preferred noun here)." Great. Only problem is that to
be able to communicate this wonderful new discovery (surely leading one to
a nice new tenured position somewhere) one would have to use words and
language to communicate such - words and language formed in a particular
place and time, words that would have to be interpreted by someone colored
by their own experiences and so forth. That is, even if one accepts the
idea of their being some essence to communicate one still has to
communicate it - therefore one perhaps could talk perhaps more fruitfully
about the all essentialist discourses as being socially constructed. So
perhaps somewhere there are telepathetic beings who can communicate pure
essences with each other, but aside from them I don't see how one could be
essentialist (more accurately one would say that it would be the social
construction of essentialism). This leads into what I think is the far
more useful discussion.

To me whether pure essences claimed by essentialist discourses exist or
not really doesn't matter. What I'm interested in how claims to the
existence of such are constructed, what effect such has on social
relations, and whether they can be used differently in certain cases - and
how one would go about figuring out when and where to make such decisions.
The idea of strategic essentialism, at least as I would see it, would be
to ferret out how such discourses are socially constructed and the role
that they are playing. As a long term goal it would seem wise to want to
dispense with such - but there are conditions and places where such might
not always be the best idea.

Take the idea of race for instance. Race is basically a social construct
and one that has been used and re-used in multitudes of sketchy and
oppressive ways to say the least. However, I don't think it would be the
wisest idea of go into somewhere where there is a current discussion of
getting rid of the collection of racial data in the census and similar
surverys (California for instance) and start declaring how it is important
to dispense with these essentialist categories right now. Why? Because
whether or not race is a sketchy and untenable concept it is being used as
a social marker, a marker that can be used to more clearly illustrate many
kinds of fucked up power relations that exist now within social settings -
and by pointing them out make them more approachable to change them. That
to me would be a strategic decision - to ask what role the idea of race is
playing in situation, and whether it is the best idea of try and confront
that at the moment.

As for the question of vanguardism, I can see what you mean - but why is
there this assumption that the "theorists" are the ones who would be
taking anti-essentialist position? Could not it be the other way around.

I would think that such positions and whether not to confront
essentialalist discourses at a given moment would probably be made in the
process of organizing itself. For instance, to continue to use the race
example, perhaps at a Critical Resistance conference or other such
gathering where the strategies and frames for organizing are developed and
worked upon. In such a way that would not be vanguardist (unless of course
the decision happens to be made by vanguard party, or one thinks that any
idea that one comes to without involving the whole planet is somehow
vanguardist).

cheers.
stevphen