The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism
Todd May, University Park, Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
Any discussion of the interface between anarchism and poststructuralism is likely to be written from one side of the fence or the other, and this will inevitably affect the nature of the analysis undertaken. This text is written from the poststructuralist side, and as a result one must carefully scrutinize the author's grounding in anarchism. The book's bibliography provides a useful indicator in this respect. The anarchist titles listed comprise two books by Bakunin, three by Kropotkin, one by Proudhon, one by Bookchin, one by Ward, Reinventing Anarchy, The Anarchist Reader, and th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Chapter 1: A Sprig of Mistletoe
The essays in this collection were envisioned and written beneath a sprig of mistletoe. The latter provides permission, a license for pleasure unconstrained by law and limited only by the desires of the mutual participants. This Yuletide custom remains an attenuated token, a relic of the saturnalia, the solstice celebrations during which everything was temporarily everted: laws fell into abeyance, labor ceased, sexual liberty prevailed, gender roles became blurred and alterable, class differences receded, and control ceased. In turn, the saturnalia — a safety valve for repressed energies in antiquity — was itself a remnant from an era of primal freedom, the earthly paradise of global mythol... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Two polar positions have been assumed by most commentators on ‘the Unabomber’, even within the anarchist milieu. On the one hand, there is the predictable ‘fluffy’ repudiation of violence. On the other hand, there is a romanticization of the bomber(s) as outlaw hero(es — never -ines). Both responses are in error. The first can be rejected out of hand as just another symptom of bourgeois playacting at being revolutionary, all the more irritating when it is accompanied by praise of violent activity in other times and other places. The second is more problematic because ‘the Unabomber’ does raise a crucial issue of our time: the urgent necessity of outright assault on the industrial system. Rather, how... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) And the Prime leveling, is laying low the Mountaines, and
leveling the Hills in man. But this is not all.
Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll
Let history be your hymn of penance, Farm your parents and the races in the ground,
Not for pelf but for remembrance,
And make ready for the festival of ruin.
Edward Dahlberg, Cipango’s Hinder Door
Foreword
It is those who are left behind, not those who go beyond, that are sad. The shape shifters have their own concerns. But this is a text as much concerned with life as with death. The metaphors are there for all to see. In the tradition of the I Ching and Ovid’s Metamorphosis, this is a book of change, a book of transformation, transmogrif... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) At the opening of Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, perhaps the premier anarcho-primitivist text, Fredy Perlman remarks: “This is the place to jump, the place to dance! This is the wilderness! Was there ever any other?” This seemingly innocuous point encapsulates a key aspect of anarcho-primitivism: the sense that the primitive is here and now, rather than far away and long ago. Perlman suggests that his notion is “the big public secret” in civilization: “It remains a secret. It is publicly known but not avowed. Publicly the wilderness is elsewhere, barbarism is abroad, savagery is on the face of the other.” But Perlman knows better than this and, perhaps as a result of his insight, so do we. And thi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The labyrinth of power has many entrances but few exits, and many lose themselves within it. Should we feel pity for the lost as we ignite the flame that burns down its dry thickets?
* * *
Frankenstein’s Monster. Created by the media, killed by the media, given an afterlife by the media. Meanwhile, a body lies bleeding, mangled in the machinery.
Media’s children. Britons look into their tv mirrors, see themselves — dead — and mourn.
A vicarious death. In weeping for Diana, Britons subconsciously weep for their own deaths, their living deaths — the deaths of their hopes, dreams, desires.
A measure of vacuity. The more one mourns the death of one’s masters, the mor... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Crystal Palace is Dostoevsky’s crowning symbol for the barrenness of industrial civilization ... In the Crystal Palace everything will be provided, man’s every desire will be satisfied, he will be insulated from pain — but the more he becomes the automaton consumer the more he will also suffer from excruciating boredom ... The Crystal Palace is the supreme economic manifestation of the utilitarian, liberal-rationalist philosophy: and it is the bourgeois paradise.
— John Carroll
The Crystal Palace burned down, of course, in 1936. But like a phenix, or dragon’s teeth sown in the earth, it sprang up everywhere as the shopping mall.
May 1998
Earth First! amnesiacs complain that c... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) An important essayist and author of four short books — Anarchy and Ecstasy, The Primitivist Primer, Lovebite and Book of Leveling — John Moore stands out for his observations on primitivism as social theory. Though his books unfortunately see little distribution in North America, John’s excellent writings frequently appear in Green Anarchist, (BCM 1715, London, WC1N 3XX, U.K.).
Could you give a basic definition of “primitivism.”
In ‘A Primitivist Primer’ I define primitivism as ‘a shorthand term for a radical current that critiques the totality of civilization from an anarchist perspective, and seeks to initiate a comprehensive transformation of human life’, and as ‘a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee”.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Arnold and Betty Moore, Ed Baxter and Andy Hopton for making this publication possible. The publisher wishes to thank Cecilia Boggis.
Lovebite mythography and the semiotics of culture
“It is no light undertaking to separate what is original from what is artificial in the nature of man. And to know correctly a state which no longer exists, which never existed, which possibly never will exist, and about which it is nevertheless necessary to have precise notions in order to judge our present state correctly.”
Ro... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Introduction
One can only approach with trepidation the task of writing an introduction to a text that takes as one of its themes the ways in which forewords domesticate or recuperate the works they introduce. To forestall accusations of proving this thesis, the introductory remarks that follow will therefore attempt to open up debate rather than limit it through imposing a supposedly definitive reading of the two essays published in this volume.
These essays are important first and foremost because they are the last works of Fredy Perlman.[1] Written during February and March 1985, and subsequently typeset by the author, they were published in the October 1985 issue of the radical primitivist Detroit periodical, the Fifth Est... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In pre-revolutionary Russia, the Socialist Revolutionaries divided into two factions, the radicals and the moderates. The former were known as the Maximalists, the latter as the Minimalists. I want to appropriate this terminology in order to identify two general tendencies within contemporary anarchism. My intention is not to add to the 57 varieties of existing anarchism. Anarchism already encompasses a broad spectrum of positions: individualist, communist, mutualist, collectivist, primitivist and so on. The focus of this essay is not on the variations and shifts in emphasis which result in the differentiation of these positions. Rather, the aim remains to aid clarity, to provide an interpretive grid, a map which will allow individuals to m... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) How irritating it is to encounter such a blatant reluctance to come to terms with contemporary, post-leftist anarchy!
The rationalist discourse of Enlightenment political philosophy can only hope to address the rational faculties.
This statement — the only point at which I refer to eighteenth century rationalism in my essay — apparently constitutes a “diatribe against the Enlightenment”. This strikes me as a bizarre notion. But even if I did want to critique the Enlightenment I can’t do so because it seems that all such critiques are inevitably “reactionary, fascist and elitist”. Critique — let alone repudiation — of the Enlightenment apparently aligns one with Hitl... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Author’s note
This is not a definitive statement, merely a personal account, and seeks in general terms to explain what is meant by anarcho-primitivism. It does not wish to limit or exclude, but provide a general introduction to the topic. Apologies for inaccuracies, misinterpretations, or (inevitable) overgeneralizations.
What is anarcho-primitivism?
Anarcho-primitivism (a.k.a. radical primitivism, anti-authoritarian primitivism, the anti-civilization movement, or just, primitivism) is a shorthand term for a radical current that critiques the totality of civilization from an anarchist perspective, and seeks to initiate a comprehensive transformation of human life. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as anarcho... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)