Anarchism as an idea inevitably trends towards an acute structural ambiguity at its dialectical extreme points. Anarchism-the elective expression of anarchy-has it an obvious structural impasse on the issue of material desire vs material destruction.
Anarchy, in the Proudhonian sense began as a world building progressive project. While there were some more destructive minded intellectuals even as far back as the mid 19th century, it was primarily an idea of world building starting with Proudhon and going through the three subsequent successors in Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta. What has always made anarchism anarchism through and through is it's negational logic, this is something that exists even in its political economic iteration. What that negation now amounts to is much more profound then it was in the 19th century.
The 20th century has happened and questions concerning technology(or machineology as I prefer to call it) have been asked and the answers and solutions have been fairly profound from an anarchist perspective. As a radical dialect anarchism has shifted from red to green and the green element of anarchism has called for a material destruction of the world on a profound level. This destruction is part of a call back to the wild or at the very least a less domesticated non civilized form of existence. What has arguably been lost in all of this development is the fact that anarchism is also very much an a desire driven ideology and the drive for desired material abundance has been a primary part of anarchism for it's entire history. One can say that the red/green split in many ways is indicative of this split. The anarchism of the 19th century was about preserving abundance at or near all cost(Malatesta). While the all or nothing approach to abundance can certainly be rejected at this point should material abundance and desire be sacrificed for some brave undefined ecological green new world?
There is an undeniable paradox between the drive to destroy the world and the drive to change it. To change the world is to have that change be registered and this requires some type of historical structure to map this change. There is an unavoidable performative contradiction in this radical approach. To be against world building is to be against world change, there is no escaping this. World destruction would most certainly require facilitated world change on an unimaginable level without the aid of some type of cosmic disaster. World Society(as John Jacobi calls it) is certainly something to be against but to register against it is to register within it(what you resist persists as Jung says). Unmediated change can only be profoundly personal and mostly unregisterable to the world. Personal psychological change has always been the sufficient ingredient to radical change relating to anarchy. It is this insurrection driven change that cannot be conditioned or controlled by a facilitated revolutionary process(Stirner). It is psychological before material.
What of desire in all this? Material excessive desires have been lost in the logic of green and black anarchist destructive urges. Desire should be unlimited and the only mediation to this should be might, competence(Stirner) along with the restrictions of physical reality and other differentiated desire driven psychologies. Clearly abundance should not come at all cost if autonomy and anarchy are to be preserved and pursued. Abundance and autonomy need to inform each other but the latter should always have precedent over the former. There are discursive limits to the former that make something like trans humanism not applicable, the former however should not be curtailed by some unworkable primitivist scheme. It was always a mistake to make anti-civilization a literal elective position as opposed to a philosophical one, anti-civilization works best as a way to be in but not of the world, to not be psychologically sublimated to world society. Once again psychological change is the sufficient approach, world change is the mediation and world destruction-as human facilitated-is inseparable from world change.
The synthesis to this is a Stirnerian infused anarchy as opposed to negation driven anarchism. The anarchy of Stirner is not driven by negation, along with an elective mediating ist/ism, but by desire difference and divergence. These 3 Ds are the sufficient approach for a performatively congruent anarchic practice. I have called this Anarch-Egoist-Anarchy, the next logical step after post-left anarchism and post-anarchism. There is also an undeniable Deleuzean element to this difference and desire approach as there is much compatibility to be found between Stirner and Deleuze on the 3 Ds. There is an undeniable place for negation and destruction in the context of civilization and history, but negation and destruction are the means and not the ends. Difference and desire transcends negation and destruction. Divergence is the movement away from a homogenized authoritarian context through insurrection and other means. Let there be an egoist ecology of owness and not an ecology of sacrifice of desire which is the other side of the coin to sublimating oneself to an artificial homogeneous mass society.
Let us default back to desire then, but not without some destruction along the way which should only be creative and not pathological. As long as there is reification and memory there will always be a homogeneous world to navigate in and around. Trying to destroy the world is as silly as trying to save it. Save, change and enjoy yourself. At the end of the day it all ends badly anyway in the big entropic picture.
Friday, 23 November 2018
Wednesday, 29 August 2018
Thursday, 16 August 2018
The Problem with Peter and Proudhon
The
prince and the producer both propose a mono system which necessarily
effaces individual free association. The answer to mutualism and
exchange is not communism but individualism and free association.
The other problem with the Prince is that he wants to preserve material abundance. Unfortunately for him there’s no recorded way of doing this without some type of exchange scheme to go along with work and compulsion. Pierre’s scheme is at least more workable though even his scheme would lead to some amount of material wealth contraction relative to what’s been built up by capitalism.
As a tapering off point it would make more sense to start with Proudhonian orange and black-skip the Russians-and the go straight to Émile Armand who has the better idea. OBVIOUSLY the Western Feudal born Manorial mono market must be abolished, even Tucker who’ slightly to the right of Proudhon would probably agree. Markets at the margins however may not be the worst thing in the world. Better them then some organization heavy bottom up ancom scheme.
The other problem with the Prince is that he wants to preserve material abundance. Unfortunately for him there’s no recorded way of doing this without some type of exchange scheme to go along with work and compulsion. Pierre’s scheme is at least more workable though even his scheme would lead to some amount of material wealth contraction relative to what’s been built up by capitalism.
As a tapering off point it would make more sense to start with Proudhonian orange and black-skip the Russians-and the go straight to Émile Armand who has the better idea. OBVIOUSLY the Western Feudal born Manorial mono market must be abolished, even Tucker who’ slightly to the right of Proudhon would probably agree. Markets at the margins however may not be the worst thing in the world. Better them then some organization heavy bottom up ancom scheme.
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
CrimethInc Have Failed as A Practice of Anarchy
It's time to call it, Crimethinc have failed at being a practice of anarchic everyday life. They have become political and boring.
In their embryonic stage CrimethInc represented best of the Vanaeigem strain of Situationist discourse relating to everyday life. They were proto post-leftists in theory waiting to be fleshed out and they had the raw practice of an everyday living anarchy that was to be admired in their theoretical youth. Those days are long gone. As far as I'm concerned what they have become is worse then an old age Johnny Rotten butter commercial. They've become a mouthpiece for elective struggle, something that in its become manifestation can never be anything approaching anarchy.
This is no longer the anarchist group that invited scorn from the likes of class struggling libcom as immature radical brats. Instead of embracing those insults and becoming the everyday life dilettantes that they might have become they have 'grown up' in struggle with their fellow ideological adults. They now parrot standard leftist anti-fascist talking points to the point of WW2 like propaganda in some of their media. Anti-fascism is a mode of ideology that exists in bad times and should not be further enabled by anarchists who actually know some radical history in regards to that leftist umbrella racket. They engage in this and other forms of elective pseudo struggles that are not pertinent to an everyday life of anarchy.
Bob Black once referred to CrimethInc as Bob Black lite which I think is about right in regards to their theory. What they used to have was inspiring practice in regards to everyday forms of non hierarchical existence. It could always be better but CrimethInc represented something that was a great start. I'm of the view that an everyday practice of anarchy is essential for the survival the beautiful idea. In it's elective ideological form it is best situated in the 19th century, a period that is long gone. The idea of anarchy needs an everyday creative drive beyond the ist/ism of it's partial political-economic founding. There is of course the Stirnerian branch of anarchy which I and others would argue is distinct from what began with Proudhon at around the same time in the 1840s. Stirner never once mentions anarchism or anarchist but he does talk of anarchy in a very important passage along with 'lawless and selfhood'. CrimethInc at their become best could have been at least one of the groups that represented the performative practice of everyday life anarchy. This would mean sophisticating and improving the practices of situationist theory as well as finding new forms of daily life practice. An insurrection of everyday life you could say. Just as Druidry is distinct from Druidism anarchy needs it's performing practitioners beyond the on paper positioning. CrimethInc could have been one of those groups, alas, they've become what they used to bash, just another elective struggling political gang.
CrimethInc and their politics are now, boring as fuck.
In their embryonic stage CrimethInc represented best of the Vanaeigem strain of Situationist discourse relating to everyday life. They were proto post-leftists in theory waiting to be fleshed out and they had the raw practice of an everyday living anarchy that was to be admired in their theoretical youth. Those days are long gone. As far as I'm concerned what they have become is worse then an old age Johnny Rotten butter commercial. They've become a mouthpiece for elective struggle, something that in its become manifestation can never be anything approaching anarchy.
This is no longer the anarchist group that invited scorn from the likes of class struggling libcom as immature radical brats. Instead of embracing those insults and becoming the everyday life dilettantes that they might have become they have 'grown up' in struggle with their fellow ideological adults. They now parrot standard leftist anti-fascist talking points to the point of WW2 like propaganda in some of their media. Anti-fascism is a mode of ideology that exists in bad times and should not be further enabled by anarchists who actually know some radical history in regards to that leftist umbrella racket. They engage in this and other forms of elective pseudo struggles that are not pertinent to an everyday life of anarchy.
Bob Black once referred to CrimethInc as Bob Black lite which I think is about right in regards to their theory. What they used to have was inspiring practice in regards to everyday forms of non hierarchical existence. It could always be better but CrimethInc represented something that was a great start. I'm of the view that an everyday practice of anarchy is essential for the survival the beautiful idea. In it's elective ideological form it is best situated in the 19th century, a period that is long gone. The idea of anarchy needs an everyday creative drive beyond the ist/ism of it's partial political-economic founding. There is of course the Stirnerian branch of anarchy which I and others would argue is distinct from what began with Proudhon at around the same time in the 1840s. Stirner never once mentions anarchism or anarchist but he does talk of anarchy in a very important passage along with 'lawless and selfhood'. CrimethInc at their become best could have been at least one of the groups that represented the performative practice of everyday life anarchy. This would mean sophisticating and improving the practices of situationist theory as well as finding new forms of daily life practice. An insurrection of everyday life you could say. Just as Druidry is distinct from Druidism anarchy needs it's performing practitioners beyond the on paper positioning. CrimethInc could have been one of those groups, alas, they've become what they used to bash, just another elective struggling political gang.
CrimethInc and their politics are now, boring as fuck.
Thursday, 10 May 2018
Orange as the new Black for Anarchism
I'm not an anarchist anymore in the specific elective sense of the term, that's not to say that I don't technically still register with the ideas and then some. The word I use to some up my world view would be Anarch Egoist Anarchy. It's my idea of what the post left Stirnerian analysis should really become. Anarch after anarchist, Anarchy after anarchism. The 'ist' and the 'ism' will always connote elective positions and proposed solutions which will always have a mediating affect on anarchy and uniqueness as far as I'm concerned.
That aside, I'm still interested in a strong anarchist discourse in a world that is still political-economic. Anarchism will always be a political economic discourse to some degree and even in it's marginal extremes it will always represent a form of elective politics.
This brings me to the colour orange. You would think this would be a dead color for the anarchist banner. It's economic colour of exchange, it's not the predominate red that has been the baseline frame of reference for much of anarchist thought. I propose that a new baseline colour is needed and orange is that colour. Orange is the new black. It's not my colour, it's not my flag, but it's preferable to red for some obvious reasons. For one thing the color red cannot escape the ugly side of leftism particularly vanguard Marxist ideology and it's my view that a healthy anarchism should do everything it can to differentiate itself from the blood stained aspect of red ideology. Orange can at least be a new baseline alternative color with vastly less baggage. Orange of course correlates with Proudhonian Mutualism which of course allows for a baseline degree of exchange and exchange is seen as the no go area clear on back to Kropotkin. Let's get to that.
My reading of Shawn Wilbur has really helped to clarify my views on this but essentially I see exchange at most as an epiphenomenal branching problem. As an anti-reification thinker you would think I would fall in line like most anarchists but it should be said that Stirner, the anti-reified thinker par excellence, did not have a strong position on exchange beyond something to be mediated by ones egoism. On the whole I would say there is an agnosticism to be had on the question of exchange as a whole. Emile Armand for instance would take the plural position, a gift process here, exchange there. This is essentially my view. You are not going to 'abolish' exchange in any general sense. The stranger-friend relational context define these sorts of things. Exchange was always a tangential issue brought up by Karl Marx and his base-surface literalism along with is economic materialist reductionist analysis. As reified issues go, exchange is an issue but it is not THE root issue. The most glaring thing about the anti-exchange all use value ideologues by far though is that fact that most of them do not reject the organization form the comes along side the dynamics of complex complicated exchange. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They want preserve the material abundance that comes with exchange(which I have some sympathy towards) but along with that they want to retain the weighted organization that comes with modern processes. One of the basic exchange does is that it solves these complicated calculation issues. The red ideologues want the exchange spook gone but they will double down on the organization spook to get their productive way. This is not surprising considering that nearly all of the red ideologies do not have a formal critique of organization which of course includes work and education.
Beyond all this a return to orange can represent a new means for anarchism to develop a strong structural baseline that is no longer informed by the flawed structural analysis of Marx and the communists. Again, I will say Shawn Wilbur represents of preferable example of what anarchism could be in regards to a non-orthodox Proudhonian orange. It can take on more radical thinkers such as Emile Armand who was not an anarcho-communist but something much better even though he was partially influenced by Proudhon and even Tucker. Most importantly it would complete a much needed divorce from all things red which include everything from the Marxist Vanguard trash to Syndicalism and Communism which should never be associated with anarchism again. I've also mentioned a need for a blue anti-civilized alternative to green but that is for another writing. Until then.
Let orange be the new black for anarchism.
That aside, I'm still interested in a strong anarchist discourse in a world that is still political-economic. Anarchism will always be a political economic discourse to some degree and even in it's marginal extremes it will always represent a form of elective politics.
This brings me to the colour orange. You would think this would be a dead color for the anarchist banner. It's economic colour of exchange, it's not the predominate red that has been the baseline frame of reference for much of anarchist thought. I propose that a new baseline colour is needed and orange is that colour. Orange is the new black. It's not my colour, it's not my flag, but it's preferable to red for some obvious reasons. For one thing the color red cannot escape the ugly side of leftism particularly vanguard Marxist ideology and it's my view that a healthy anarchism should do everything it can to differentiate itself from the blood stained aspect of red ideology. Orange can at least be a new baseline alternative color with vastly less baggage. Orange of course correlates with Proudhonian Mutualism which of course allows for a baseline degree of exchange and exchange is seen as the no go area clear on back to Kropotkin. Let's get to that.
My reading of Shawn Wilbur has really helped to clarify my views on this but essentially I see exchange at most as an epiphenomenal branching problem. As an anti-reification thinker you would think I would fall in line like most anarchists but it should be said that Stirner, the anti-reified thinker par excellence, did not have a strong position on exchange beyond something to be mediated by ones egoism. On the whole I would say there is an agnosticism to be had on the question of exchange as a whole. Emile Armand for instance would take the plural position, a gift process here, exchange there. This is essentially my view. You are not going to 'abolish' exchange in any general sense. The stranger-friend relational context define these sorts of things. Exchange was always a tangential issue brought up by Karl Marx and his base-surface literalism along with is economic materialist reductionist analysis. As reified issues go, exchange is an issue but it is not THE root issue. The most glaring thing about the anti-exchange all use value ideologues by far though is that fact that most of them do not reject the organization form the comes along side the dynamics of complex complicated exchange. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They want preserve the material abundance that comes with exchange(which I have some sympathy towards) but along with that they want to retain the weighted organization that comes with modern processes. One of the basic exchange does is that it solves these complicated calculation issues. The red ideologues want the exchange spook gone but they will double down on the organization spook to get their productive way. This is not surprising considering that nearly all of the red ideologies do not have a formal critique of organization which of course includes work and education.
Beyond all this a return to orange can represent a new means for anarchism to develop a strong structural baseline that is no longer informed by the flawed structural analysis of Marx and the communists. Again, I will say Shawn Wilbur represents of preferable example of what anarchism could be in regards to a non-orthodox Proudhonian orange. It can take on more radical thinkers such as Emile Armand who was not an anarcho-communist but something much better even though he was partially influenced by Proudhon and even Tucker. Most importantly it would complete a much needed divorce from all things red which include everything from the Marxist Vanguard trash to Syndicalism and Communism which should never be associated with anarchism again. I've also mentioned a need for a blue anti-civilized alternative to green but that is for another writing. Until then.
Let orange be the new black for anarchism.
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I'm actually a big fan of neoteny and see it as an indispensable expression of anarchy. I do agree that domestication plays a role in neotony as well as other de-aggressive tendencies. I think a Jekyll and Hyde view needs to be taken of Domestication beyond the more one sided 70s based analysis. You want to select the aspects of it that promote de-aggression(think of those cute animal vids of Lion and Lamb friendships) but avoid the Paris Hilton purse poodle problem. Of course a certain amount of wildness and aggression needs to be left to be(leave the feral child alone).
Gillis never considers the Clastresian hypothesis that stateless nomads saw something building up that they did not like and could conceive of something like the state happening even though they didn't have the full frame of reference. There's also all the examples of built up compulsions that come with the settled societies that bring out the worst of reifcation and recursion based control. There's the whole problem of terror management and death denial. There's also the fact that the early settled societies may have been bicameral minded consciousness which lacked a certain amount of individuated rationality. Civilization represents the controlled concentration of culture not the dynamic diffusion of it. Then there is of course the problem of knowledge itself which is divorced from will(Stirner)
Here's the thing Gilly, I'm actually sympathetic to the orange/blue alternative that you are trying to set up against the red/green establishment. I've pointed out several times that red and green have constricted libertarian and anarchist discourse. The way you are going about it however is all wrong. You want a market form to replace an abstract communist-need form and you want transhumanism to replace primitivism. You're on the other side of the coin Gilly. Why not simply take a market agnostic position-as opposed to market-that edges towards individualism and association not communism. Why not take a post-civilized position against concentrated knowledge and culture but still retain a vision of excess where you make diffuse cultures serve you and not the converse. Transhumanism and market anarchism don't do this, transindividualism on the other hand...
To end I agree with you on Neoteny, I think it's essential for actualized anarchy and because of that I take a more nuanced view on domestication and taming. However to actualize neoteny it's time to break away from cityficated culture to something morpho and bioregionally diffuse. You can still have cosmopolitanism and pro-stranger(outgroup) attitudes. Civilization and universality is not the way to go about actualizing anarchy. Power and place diffuse elective affinity is.