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Title: Talking with the left Author: Jens Störfried Date: 08.10.2020 Language: en Topics: strategy, synthesis anarchism, the left, post-left, critique Source: https://paradox-a.de/texte/mit-der-linken-sprechen/ Notes: Original title „Mit der Linken sprechen“. A Persiflage on the article: "Breaking with the Left" [„Mit der Linken brechen“], adapted as short-version after Wolfi Landstreichers „From Politics to Life: Ridding anarchy of the leftist millstone“ that was published in a German-speaking „insurrectionalist“ publication.
What the fuck is leftism? Honestly, I didn't understand it until now.
It's true, the term comes from parliamentarianism, the arrangement of
seats where radical Republicans or Democrats (all male) sat on the left.
This tradition was continued. The term "left" is by no means to be
reduced to this. But because the party stuff is attached to it, because
of its sponginess and because of its uniformity, it is not really
useful, in my opinion, to refer to it. This is also the case with
extra-parliamentary politics. It's vague and it's assigned to party
politics, which in turn is assigned to the state in a party democracy.
Sure, things can be achieved with it. But at the level of political
action. Self-organization from below and the autonomy of various groups
look different. But this does not obviate that anarchists want to found
autonomous organizations, get involved in them, broaden them and
radicalize them. The fact that this seems to be strange in Germany and
that anarchists often see themselves as leftists is problematic.
Nevertheless, they can participate in social mass movements. Why it is
worthwhile for anarchists to determine themselves and to develop
self-confidence and self-awareness:
1) Politics is not fun and structurally sucks. If anarchists have to
deal with it, it is out of necessity. Since emancipation processes on a
purely individual way are impossible and not a hobby, but with it we are
striving for the overcoming of domination and a new society, it is
necessary to do politics from time to time. The ambivalence inherent in
politics is one that arises from the social relations of domination in
which it takes place. Since anarchists act in these contradictions in
order to dismantle them, they consequently engage in a kind of
(anti)politics. With this they can organize themselves in such a way
that it is about the wholeness of their life, thus they dismantle
alienation instead of accepting it.
2) Anarchists are mostly skeptical of organizations. They have good
reasons for this: Hierarchies arise in organizations, they can become an
end in themselves or claim to represent certain projects or people.
Pressed into the framework of a structure that is legalized
bureaucratically (i.e. as an association, party, trade union, etc.), the
logics of social hierarchy and its administration are accepted and
adapted in and through organizations. Many people cannot even imagine
what it means to organize autonomously, decentrally, voluntarily and
horizontally. But this is possible and also necessary to implement
anarchist ideas. It is problematic when such a network - let's call it
federation - revolves around itself. Organizations should serve certain
purposes, which should go beyond not feeling isolated, powerless and
incapable of action or fulfilling leadership desires and needs for
order.
3) With anarchist (anti-)politics quantitative logics are rejected and
democracy as a form of domination is rejected. Instead of uniting many
people as will-less sheep under a meaningless label, anarchists are
concerned with promoting the self-organization of thousands of different
groups and networking them. This also affects organizing practices.
While these can be institutionalized, decision-making oriented, and
designed for continuity, they must not become encrusted. Organizations
and institutions, are not alienating in themselves, but the shape and
processes they take in a society of domination. It cannot be a matter of
pretending that we have the truth. Rather, others can be convinced of
our ideas if we implement them ourselves in concrete projects. There are
as many approaches, methods and projects as there are different topics,
milieus and contexts. Instead of winning supporters of our concepts, we
should encourage them to find their own ways, to articulate and organize
themselves. This does not mean that all approaches and ways are equally
good and meaningful and that we should not criticize and judge them. It
is precisely when we rebel together that we can find each other, develop
affinities with each other and become radically more.
4) Undoubtedly an absurdity is the policy of demands, which is
widespread in more or less radical left groups. Even anarchists still
demand and do it even worse than everyone else. Because often it is
neither clear what the demand means concretely, which subject expresses
it, which power base exists for its enforcement, nor to which addressees
it is directed and what they are supposed to do. This does not have to
be. Not for nothing did anarchists develop direct actions. These mean
not only sabotage and attacks, but all forms of self-determined actions
in which anarchist ideas are expressed and directly implemented. Instead
of reforming improvements, a qualitative change of the situation can
thus be produced. The assumption that there is a totality which can be
destroyed is essentially a rudiment from Marxist theory. Rather,
desirable social conditions exist parallel to those of domination. We
can and should start from these.
5) It is obvious, we see it on every corner: The course that history has
taken must be stopped. We need a break and a new beginning. History is
not a one-dimensional process of progress, but an intricate path, which
is not determined by supposed laws, but by the conflicts of different
actors. This also means criticizing the idea of civilization,
recognizing that technology does not simply make us freer but usually
imposes new constraints, as well as questioning how much resources
people should exploit for their happiness. Overcoming industrial society
can only succeed if we transform the existing structures and manage them
ourselves. Of course, this means giving up securities that the existing
order of domination guarantees to its relatively privileged members.
This is a major reason why so many people are afraid of radical change.
But what are these securities on which the existing system is based, and
does it thus really enable a desirable life for many? We can only find
and build new securities together if we leave the old ones behind.
6) People are in very various situations and in different ways affected
by exploitation, oppression and alienation. These differences must be
noted and acknowledged. only the subjugated themselves can emancipate
from domination, and to do so, very different struggles must be waged.
Moreover, we are all entangled in relations of domination from which we
must work our way out. Therefore, the orientation towards identities is
obvious, but not sufficient for people to empower themselves. As
individuals, they do not merge into their social roles and groups.
Emancipation always means de-identifying from these.
7) How the demands of individuals and the dynamics in groups can be
brought together and individualism and collectivism can be mediated is a
constant theme in anarchism. The existing form of society does not allow
for self-determination and self-development of the individual, nor does
it allow for voluntary, solidarity-based communality as envisioned by
anarchists. This fact is reflected in the existing subjects (their ways
of thinking and behaving, their perceptions and forms of relationships),
as well as in the existing, mostly hierarchical institutions. It is
terrible when people cannot shape their own lives, but are compulsively
bound to collectives in which they are prescribed and expected to do.
Equally problematic is the egoism and narcissism that bourgeois
individualism produces, which prevents people from forming trusting and
binding bonds with one another. Social revolution is a collective
process in which individuals struggle for, experience, and appropriate
social freedom. This succeeds only if they relate to each other in a
critical solidarity.
8) In this process, there are no absolute truths and we can only
understand the world piecemeal from a particular perspective. This is
why it is so important to put individual pieces together and change
perspectives to get a better sense of the whole. Theories can be helpful
tools for describing reality and expanding our awareness. But the world
is always more complex than we can recognize. If we want to
re-appropriate it, this means that we do not sacrifice ourselves for the
struggle, but rather satisfy our needs together in it, even if this is
undoubtedly difficult and only works in a distorted way under the
existing order of domination. None of us is out of the ideologies of
domination, but we can question them, criticize each other and develop
further, instead of falling into cynicism, fatalism and nihilism.
These various points obviously do not represent a real break with the
left. They do, however, illustrate the difference that anarchist
perspectives open up. Anarchy is not realized by leftist movements, but
by many people and groups beginning to take their lives into their own
hands, becoming solidary in the process, and fighting for the conditions
so that a good, rich, and fulfilling life can become possible for all.
For life as a whole to change, we need shared visions and
social-revolutionary forms of organization in which people voluntarily
associate, empower themselves, and help each other. The desire for
anarchy transcends political programs and strategies by far. It does not
merge into the logics and practices of the political left. But it
invites us to seduce leftists, to dissuade them from their enclosed,
fixed, supposedly clear paths and ideas of order, to dare to leap into
the unknown, and thus to allow for entirely new experiences. This
becomes possible and exciting only when anarchists take themselves
seriously and understand and form themselves as a self-confident,
independent project.