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Title: Anarchism is movement Author: Tomás Ibáñez Date: 2014 Language: en Topics: movement, post-anarchism Source: Retrieved on June 20th, 2019 from http://autonomies.org/tag/tomas-ibanez/
Yes! Anarchism is in movement and it is so twice over.
On the one hand, it has thrown itself towards a dynamic of renewal that
has it move at a speed that it has not known for a long time and which
translates, among other things, into a significant expansion of its
forms and themes of intervention, in the strong diversification of the
shapes that it takes on and in the considerable increase of its
publications.
On the other hand, the social, cultural, political and technological
changes that have occurred over these last decades vigorously spur it on
and drive it towards a rapid expansion in distinct zones of the world.
Anarchist symbols appear in the most recondite regions of the globe;
anarchist actions show up in the news, where they are least expected,
and anarchist movements, whose magnitude is at times surprising, stir up
multiple geographical areas.
Should we be happy? Of course! Because, parochial patriotism aside, what
is good for anarchism is good for all people who, having heard of
anarchism or not, knowing or not what it means and sharing or not its
principles, suffer in the flesh domination and exploitation and, in some
cases, cherish dreams of revolt and rebelliousness. To taint social and
political reality with a little more anarchism cannot but contradict the
smooth running of oppression and injustice.
Does this robust expansion of anarchism augur the proximate advent of a
more libertarian and egalitarian society, or at least, a few social
transformations of great magnitude? To these questions, the answer can
only be: not by a long shot! We are no longer at the age of believing in
fairy tales and we know perfectly well that, even assuming that the
number of persons touched by the influence of anarchism has undergone an
extraordinary growth, it would continue to represent a population of
Lilliputian dimensions; for too insignificant in the face of the more
then seven billion human beings, of every condition and belief, that
inhabit the planet and of whom, it must be believed, that a great many
would prefer, however difficult it is to accept, other systems of values
and other ways of life than those that appear so desirable to us.
However, once the siren songs that announced radiant mornings were
silenced and the eschatological hopes were locked away in the trunk of
old illusory dreams, what still remains is that the current revival of
anarchism is the bearer of excellent prospects for all of the practices
of resistance, subversion and rebelliousness that confront the
impositions of the reigning social system. The expansion of anarchism
opens up, in effect, the possibility of multiplying and intensifying the
struggles against the apparatuses of domination, of putting in check
more often the attacks on the dignity and the conditions of life of
people, of subverting the social relations moulded by mercantalist
logic, of tearing away spaces to live differently, of transforming our
subjectivities, of reducing social inequalities and expanding the space
open to the exercise of practices of freedom.
And all of this, not for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow; not for
after the great explosion that will change everything, but for today
itself, in the day to day, in the quotidian. For it is in the here and
now where the only revolution that exists and that is truly lived is
carried out, in our practices, in our struggles and in our way of
living. Here and now, as Gustav Landauer had already indicated, when he
said that “anarchism is not a thing of the future but of the present”.
To make a notch in the reality where we live, even if not in the whole
of it, even if only in a fragmentary way, to have a bearing on it,
finally, after so much time of seeing it pass through our fingers like
sand and to thus transform it in the present, no doubt in a piecemeal
way, but radically, this is what today’s anarchism in movement offers
us. And this, let us not doubt for a moment, is far from being a little
thing, above all when we verify that the principles, the practices and
the realisations that characterise anarchism are reinvented, claimed and
deployed by collectives and by people who do not necessarily come from
milieus that define themselves as explicitly anarchist.
I invite you on this occasion to take a brief walk through the
resurgence and renewal of anarchism, hoping – as does anyone who writes
– to be capable of awakening your interest and of keeping your company
until the end, even if the path that I have taken, or my way of
following it, is not necessarily the most appropriate.
I have considerably lightened the principal body of the text, placing
the development of certain themes in a few final addenda. They deal with
questions that in my view are undoubtedly important, but whose detailed
analysis are unnecessary to follow the principal argument of the book.
They can nevertheless be consulted by those desirous of deepening their
understand of the matters focused on. The three addenda that I have
included address the questions of modernity and postmodernity,
poststructuralism and relativism.
Finally, I have to make two clarifications regarding the bibliography.
Bibliographic references are usually organised according to the
alphabetical order of the authors names and this is effectively how the
general bibliography is presented at the end of the book. However, for
the specific theme of postanarchism, it appeared to me to be more useful
to organise it chronologically and to have it appear at the end of the
chapter dedicated to this theme.
The second clarification is that for the writing of this book, I turned
to, sometimes literally, many of my own texts, published in other places
and at other times. It is for this reason that I thought it convenient
to have a separate bibliography of my own libertarian writings that I
have used in this book or that maintain a very direct relationship with
it.
century
Beneath the incredulous gaze of those who had shut it up in the dungeons
of history and before the surprise of many, if not to say of everyone,
anarchism has been experiencing since the beginning of the 20th century
an impressive momentum that manifests itself in various regions of the
globe. Independently of whether this preoccupies or makes us content, it
has to be stated that anarchism occupies again a significant place on
the political scene and that it is in the process of reinventing itself
on the triple plane of its practices, its theory and of its social
diffusion.
When an unexpected event occurs, it is easy to declare, a posteriori,
that its mere occurrence is the proof that it had to happen and anyone
could have anticipated it if they had disposed of enough information.
This is of course not generally the case and, with respect to anarchism,
it is clear that its return onto the political scene could very well not
have happened. No historical necessity presides over its resurgence, nor
that of any other social phenomenon. Nothing is written since the
beginning and for ever and this is a great good fortune, for this is the
price for the very possibility of freedom. Against the idealised images,
we have to recognise that if anarchy formed part of the deepest
aspirations of the human being, if it were inscribed in some way in
human nature, or, also, if humanity moved necessarily towards a horizon
of anarchy, despite the ups and downs of history, little space would
remain for the idea of freedom, something that would be oddly
paradoxical. Castoriadis saw it clearly: either the social-historical is
open and permits radical creativity, or we are condemned to repeat
indefinitely what already exists. Hence a choice has to be made between,
on the one hand, a conception of historical reality that privileges the
possibility of freedom, even though this places the perennity of
anarchism at risk and, on the other hand, a conception of this reality
that can assure, eventually, the permanence of anarchism that would be
inscribed in the heart of history, but which reduces considerably the
field of freedom.
The fact of not subscribing to theological conceptions of history and of
rejecting any strict historical determinism does not impede us from
investigating and analysing the reasons for which anarchism rides again.
It is precisely these reasons that this book aims to contribute to
clarify.
In any case, to be more precise, the concern to elucidate and explain is
not the only one at the origin of this essay. Indeed, it is not only a
matter of giving an account of anarchism, outlining it in its current
resurgence, but to contribute to its renewal at the level of its
practices and and its thought. The book does not have then a purely
descriptive goal, but is politically committed in favour of the new ways
of conceiving and practicing anarchism. These new ways appear to have a
more direct connection with current reality and are in a better position
to expand the influence of libertarian ideas. Not because this expansion
is good in itself, or should be pursued for its own sake, but because it
can only have beneficial consequences for the victims of domination and
exploitation.
I warred for some time against the guardians of the temple; that is,
against those who want to preserve anarchism in the exact form that it
was inherited, as the risk of asphyxiating it and impeding it from
evolving. My appeals then go back some time for “an anarchism disposed
to constantly putting its very foundations at risk, directing towards
itself the most irreverent of critical reviews”. These exhortations,
that rise up not so much against classical anarchism but against its
fossilisation at the hands of the vigilantes of orthodoxy, seem to me to
be necessary at certain times, though they have ceased to be so today.
The exuberant vitality of anarchism has effectively barred those,
brimming with love for it, who tried to retain it, so as to preserve it
better. The guardians of the temple continue to exist, of course, but
they can only carry out rearguard actions and it seems useless and of
little interest to develop a critical discourse against their narrow and
vetust conception. The concern now is to contribute to stimulate the new
anarchism that is developing verdantly, beneath our very gaze. What is
important is to help to reform it in the frame of the current epoch,
without stopping to criticise this or that aspect of expired
conceptions.
To say that anarchism is resurging in the present is to affirm,
simultaneously, that it has found itself more or less missing for some
time. Likewise, when it is stated that it is reinventing itself, it is
suggested, analogously, that this is not a mere reproduction of
previously existing anarchism, but the incorporation of some innovative
aspects. Even though the concern here is not to present its past, the
reference to the eventual eclipse of anarchism and its supposed
withdrawal from the political scene obliges us to cast a glance over its
history to see whether this has effectively been so. However, previous
to that, I believe that it is useful to reflect on the theoretical
scenarios where the question of an eventual eclipse of anarchism is not
even posed and from which therefore it would be completely incongruent
to speak of its current resurgence.
The first scenario presents itself when anarchy is taken as the
reference, more than anarchism, and it is defined as a certain state of
things that would exist in the heart of this or that ambit of reality. A
state of things whose defining characteristic would consist of excluding
domination and where diversity and singularity could manifest themselves
freely. Anarchy, taken as an ontologically distinct entity, can be
considered in fact as one of the possible multiple modalities of
reality. And it can be argued, for example, in a Bakuninist tone, that
biological life itself can only develop because it summons conditions
for the free manifestation of diversity, of plurality, including the
combination of contradictory elements; and because it is capable of
smashing the constrictions that strive to repress its free expression
and the manifestation of its diversity. Thus, certain aspects of the
living would call for a state of anarchy to be able to exist. In this
sense, anarchy would be directly inscribed in life, as in other spheres
of reality, which means that it would never totally disappear; above
all, if far from making of it a state of things that can only express
itself in terms of an all or nothing, it may still be considered, in a
gradualistic manner, that certain segments of reality carry with them
greater or lesser degrees of anarchy.
There may well be no inconvenience in speaking of anarchy as a certain
state of things, as a certain modality of reality that is accordingly
intensely desirable for anarchists and towards which they would like to
advance as quickly as possible. However, what is not admissible is that
we cling to this reality on the basis of essentialist presuppositions,
even though, certainly, they would serve to exclude any possibility of
an eventual disappearance of anarchy, guaranteeing that the latter could
continue to exist, even when it manifests itself at a most basic level.
To think anarchy as an ontological entity, as a really existing state of
things, does not exclude that this state of things be contingent rather
than necessary, that it depend on variable circumstances that condition
its existence and that it can therefore suffer eclipses and, even, a
definitive disappearance. Anarchy, considered as a distinct ontological
entity does not enjoy an existence in itself, but only that it accedes
to existence on the basis of an activity, necessarily human, which
constructs a specific conception of anarchy.
In effect, against the essentialist dogma, it has to be admitted that to
the degree that being does not exceed the conjunction of its ways of
existence, there cannot be at its side or in addition to its forms of
existence something that would be its essence. In this sense, anarchy
cannot be this or that in itself, but is the circumstantial product of a
conjunction of relations; and it only acquires meaning in the context of
a culture, of a society and of a particular epoch. More precisely, the
context in which anarchy has meaning, by opposition, is in a context of
domination, experienced as such by the people who live in the said
context.
This means that, genealogically, for anarchy to accede to existence, for
it to be constructed as a differentiated and specific entity, not only
must there exist apparatuses of domination and resistances to these
apparatuses, but that also, furthermore, domination and resistance must
enter into the field of possible experience of subjects. Often
domination is not understood as such, often it does not enter the field
of the thinkable and often the resistances that it arouses are not
experienced as such, in which case the conditions for the possibility of
anarchy are not gathered together and anarchy, plainly, does not exist.
For it to exist it is necessary that, in addition to bringing together
these conditions, certain ideas – such as, for example, those of
singularity, freedom, autonomy and the struggle between domination and
what resists it – be effectively thought, something that does not happen
until a certain period of historical development. Anarchy as a certain
state of things, anarchy as an ontological entity, is not a pre-existent
thing, it is a construction and, even, a relatively recent construction.
Anarchy and anarchism are, of course, two different phenomena, but the
kind of relation that they maintain reveals that they are intrinsically
connected phenomena. Indeed, anarchy is meaningless except within the
framework of anarchist thought responsible for its theoretical
conceptualisation. In other words, anarchy – understood in the specific
way that anarchists give to the term – is a construction that reveals
itself to be inseparable from anarchist thought, simply because it
emerged from it. Furthermore, this thought is, for its part, but one of
the constitutive elements of the anarchist movement, understanding by
this a collection of practices, of discursive productions, of social and
cultural events, of symbolic elements, etc., that form a specific
historical fabric.
Therefore, to the extent that anarchy is a theoretical-practical
production that emanates from the anarchist movement, it is not defined
once and for all, but can vary with the eventual fluctuations of the
anarchist movement and it can, even, disappear if this last should do
the same, because in the absence of the concept of anarchy, the movement
would be totally undetectable in the heart of reality and its eventual
existence would fall fully under the category of the unthinkable, or
under that of simple historical vestige of what has only a past reality.
If I have dedicated so much space to the discussion of the concept of
anarchy, it is, in part, because certain sectors of the anarchist
movement, influenced, perhaps, by the thought of Hakim Bey – to whom we
will return further on – currently give a decisive importance to this
concept, which they oppose to that of anarchism. Anarchism would be the
obscure side of anarchy, what would pervert it and negate it in
practice. In the face of this way of presenting things, it is necessary
to see clearly that anarchy and anarchism are two completely inseparable
elements, given that neither can exist without the other.
The second scenario where an eventual collapse of anarchism would be
meaningless presents itself when, after having separated anarchism as a
movement, on the one hand, and anarchism as theory, on the other,
certain anarchist thinkers and propagandists, such as Kropotkin, for
example, attribute to anarchism a millennial existence under the pretext
that certain conceptual or axiomatic elements that characterise it can
already be found outlined or formulated since the most remote antiquity.
It is clear that if such a perspective is adopted, it becomes difficult
to speak of an eventual collapse of anarchism that would precede its
current reappearance, given that it is always possible to discover
conceptual traces of anarchism in a good many cultures, as far back as
one goes in time.
If anarchism has truly accompanied us practically throughout the length
of human history because it is inscribed, so to speak, in the human
condition, the eventuality of its disappearance constitutes an
aberration. Conversely, if we merge together in an inseparable whole
anarchism as a theoretical corpus and anarchism as a social movement,
this possibility becomes evident because anarchism requires, precisely,
this theoretical corpus to exist.
What will constitute little by little anarchist thought and what will
establish it as a distinct political thought that is recognisable, from
a certain moment on and not before, under the denomination of
“anarchism” is not separable from a social thought that is forged in the
midst of very specific political, economic, cultural and social
conditions, and of very definite social struggles. There is no anarchism
without the development of capitalism; there is no anarchism without the
analyses elaborated, for example, by Proudhon regarding the social
conditions created by the establishment of capitalism; and there is no
anarchism without the struggles against exploitation carried out by
workers, whether they be factory workers, artisans or peasants.
It is evident, therefore, that anarchism did not constitute itself, in
Europe, as a definite political thought and, simultaneously, as a
significant social movement, until the second half of the 19th century,
giving origin to, at the same time, to the anarchist concept of anarchy.
There is neither anarchism nor anarchy before then, however much certain
precursors anticipated some of its conceptual elements, however much
social history harbours demands and manifestations that it could claim
as its own, and however much, in the light of anarchism once constituted
as such, can be observed in certain cultures some forms of organisation
and of life similar to those promoted by anarchism, as the current rise
of anarchist anthropology makes clearly manifest.
Once this prior reflection on some theoretical scenarios which, in being
accepted, would invalidate the possibility of a disappearance, even
momentary, of the binomial anarchy/anarchism is closed, we are going to
detain ourselves briefly with the history of anarchism. In fact, we are
not even going to try to get an overview of such a rich and agitated
history, which has already filled thousands of pages and which will
continue to fill many thousands more. To dedicate to it, as I will here,
only a few paragraphs, would be something of an affront to this history
if I did not immediately indicate that my purpose is not to make known
the history of anarchism – excellent books abound in this regard -, but
only to illustrate the reasons for which anarchism eclipsed itself for a
few decades.
Among the principal references, we find, in the heat of the French
Revolution of 1848, the writings of Joseph Déjacque, of Anselme
Bellegarrigue and, above all, of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who marked the
beginnings of a political thought that identified itself as anarchist
thought. After, with the drive of industrialisation and the workers’
movement (the creation of the International Workingmen’s Association –
IWA – in 1864), anarchist thought and the anarchist movement developed
simultaneously through a series of struggles and events among which
stand out, undeniably, the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Saint Imier
Congress of 1872. The names of Bakunin, of Guillaume, of Kropotkin, of
Reclus, of Malatesta, of Anselmo Lorenzo and of Ricardo Mella, among
others, have remained closely associated with the growing relevance of a
thought and of an activity that will place itself on the political and
social scene as a truly significant phenomenon and entity in the last
decades of the 19th century and the first of the 20th century,
culminating finally in the Spanish Revolution of 1936.
Anarchism was throughout those years a living thought; that is, a
thought in continuous formation, in evolution, in osmosis with the
social and cultural reality of the time, capable of enriching itself and
modifying itself in contact with the world into which it places itself,
through the experiences that it develops, thanks to the struggles in
which it participates and the absorption of a part of the knowledge that
is elaborated and that circulates in its surroundings. The anarchist
movement that feeds this thought, while nourishing itself in turn from
it, is also capable of having a bearing on reality, of producing certain
effects within it and of exercising an influence that will come to be
notable in various European countries such as Spain, Italy, France,
Germany, England, Russia or Ukraine, as well as in various Latin
American countries – Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, among them – and,
even, in the United States of America.
After having demonstrated an appreciable vitality for about a century –
grosso modo between 1860 and 1940, that is, some 80 years -, anarchism
fell back, inflected back upon itself and practically disappeared from
the world political stage and from social struggles for various decades,
undertaking a long journey in the wilderness that some took advantage of
to extend their certificate of dysfunctionality and to speak of it as of
an obsolescent ideology which only belongs to the past.
The fact is that, after the tragic defeat of the Spanish Revolution in
1939, if an exception is made for the libertarian presence in the
anti-franquista struggle, of the participation of anarchists in the
anti-fascist resistance in certain regions of Italy during WWII or the
active participation of British anarchists in the anti-nuclear campaigns
of the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s or, also, a certain presence
in Sweden and Argentina, for example, anarchism remained strikingly
absent from the social struggles that marked the next thirty years in
the many countries of the world, limiting itself in the best of cases to
a residual and testimonial role. Marginalised from struggles, unable to
renew ties with social reality and relocate itself in political
conflict, anarchism lost all possibility of re-actualising itself and of
evolving.
In these unfavourable conditions, anarchism tended to fold in upon
itself, becoming dogmatic, mummified, ruminating on its glorious past
and developing powerful reflexes of self-preservation. The predominance
of the cult of memory over the will to renew led it, little by little,
to make itself conservative, to defend jealously its patrimony and to
close itself in a sterilising circle of mere repetition.
It is a little as if anarchism, in the absence of being practiced in the
struggles against domination, had transformed itself slowly into the
political equivalent of a dead language. That is, a language that, for
lack of use by people, severs itself from the complex and changing
reality in which it moved, becoming thereby sterile, incapable of
evolving, of enriching itself, of being useful to apprehend a moving
reality and affect it. A language which is not used is just a relic
instead of being an instrument; it is a fossil instead of being a living
body, and it is a fixed image instead of being a moving picture. As if
it had been transformed into a dead language, anarchism fossilised
itself from the beginnings of the 1940s until almost the end of the
1960s. This suspension of its vital functions occurred for a reason that
I will not cease to insist upon and this is none other than the
following: anarchism is constantly forged in the practices of struggle
against domination; outside of them, it withers away and decays.
Stuck in the trance of not being able to evolve, anarchism ceased to be
properly anarchist and went on to became something else. There is no
hidden mystery here, it is not a matter of alchemy, nor of the
transmutation of bodies, but simply that if, as I maintain, what is
proper to anarchism is rooted in being constitutively changeable, then
the absence of change means simply that one is no longer dealing with
anarchism.
One has to wait until the end of the 1960s, with the large movements of
opposition to the war in Vietnam, with the incessant agitation on
various campuses of the United States, of Germany, of Italy or of
France, with the development, among a part of the youth, of
nonconformist attitudes, sentiments of rebellion against authority and
the challenge to social conventions and, finally, with the fabulous
explosion of May 68 in France, until a new stage in the flourishing of
anarchism could begin to sprout.
Of course, even though strong libertarian tonalities resonated within
it, May 68 was not anarchist. Yet it nevertheless inaugurated a new
political radicality that harmonised with the stubborn obsession of
anarchism to not reduce to the sole sphere of the economy and the
relations of production the struggle against the apparatuses of
domination, against the practices of exclusion or against the effects of
stigmatisation and discrimination.
What May 68 also inaugurated – even though it did not reach its full
development until after the struggles in Seattle of 1999 – was a form of
anarchism that I call “anarchism outside its own walls” [anarquismo
extramuros], because it develops unquestionably anarchist practices and
values from outside specifically anarchist movements and at the margin
of any explicit reference to anarchism.
May 68 announced, finally, in the very heart of militant anarchism novel
conceptions that, as Todd May says – one of the fathers of
postanarchism, whom we will speak of below -, privileged, among other
things, tactical perspectives before strategic orientations, outlining
thereby a new libertarian ethos. In effect, actions undertaken with the
aim of developing political organisations and projects that had as an
objective and as a horizon the global transformation of society gave way
to actions destined at subverting, in the immediate, concrete and
limited aspects of instituted society.
Some thirty years after May 68, the large demonstrations for a different
kind of globalisation [altermundista] of the early 2000s allowed
anarchism to experience a new growth and acquire, thanks to a strong
presence in struggles and in the streets, a spectacular projection. It
is true that the use of the Internet allows for the rapid communication
of anarchist protests of all kinds that take place in the most diverse
parts of the world; and it is obvious that it permits assuring an
immediate and almost exhaustive coverage of these events; but it is also
no less certain that no single day goes by without different anarchist
portals announcing one or, even, various libertarian events. Without
letting ourselves be dazzled by the multiplying effect that the Internet
produces, it has to be acknowledged that the proliferation of
libertarian activities in the beginning of this century was hard to
imagine just a few years ago.
This upsurge of anarchism not only showed itself in struggles and in the
streets, but extended also to the sphere of culture and, even, to the
domain of the university as is testified to by, for example, the
creation in October of 2005, in the English university of Loughborough,
of a dense academic network of reflection and exchange called the
Anarchist Studies Network, followed by the creation in 2009 of the North
American Anarchist Studies; or as is made evident by the constitution of
an ample international network that brings together an impressive number
of university researchers who define themselves as anarchists or who are
interested in anarchism. The colloquia dedicated to different aspects of
anarchism – historical, political, philosophical – do not cease to
multiply (Paris, Lyon, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico and a vaste etcetera).
This abundant presence of anarchism in the world of the university
cannot but astound us, those who had the experience of its absolute
non-existence within academic institutions, during the long winter that
Marxist hegemony represented, that followed conservative hegemony, or
that coexisted with it, above all in countries like France and Italy. In
truth, the panorama outlined would have been unimaginable even a few
years ago, even at a time as close as the end of the 1990s.
Let us point out, finally, that between May 68 and the protests of the
years 2000, anarchism demonstrated an upsurge of vitality on various
occasions, above all in Spain. In the years 1976-1978, the extraordinary
libertarian effervescence that followed the death of Franco left us
completely stupefied, all the more stupefied the more closely we were
tied to the fragile reality of Spanish anarchism in the last years of
franquismo. An effervescence that was capable of gathering in 1977 some
one hundred thousand participants during a meeting of the CNT in
Barcelona and that allowed during that same year to bring together
thousands of anarchists that came from all countries to participate in
the Jornadas Libertarias in this same city. A vitality that showed
itself also in Venice, in September of 1984, where thousands of
anarchists gathered, coming from everywhere, without forgetting the
large international encounter celebrated in Barcelona in
September-October of 1993.
Many were the events around which anarchists gathered in numbers
unimaginable before the explosion of the events of May 68. In fact, the
resurgence of anarchism has not ceased to make us jump, so to speak,
from surprise to surprise. May 68 was a surprise for everyone, including
of course for the few anarchists who we were, wandering the streets of
Paris, a little before. Spain immediately after Franco was another
surprise, above all for the few anarchists who nevertheless continued to
struggle during the last years of the distatorship. The anarchist
effervescence of the years 2000 is, finally, a third surprise that has
nothing to envy in those that preceded it.
How will, then, the fourth surprise be that the immediate future
undoubtedly holds out for us?
It is very obvious that the kind of anarchism that was slowly created
after May 68, and that gained a sudden impulse in the beginning of the
years 2000, marked an inflection in relation to what had existed
hitherto. To paraphrase the poet Paul Verlaine, one could say that it is
no longer “ni tout à fait le même ni tout à fait un autre” [neither
completely the same nor completely different]. It about in effect a
somewhat different form of anarchism which generated itself in and
through some practices of struggle against domination that began to
extend themselves towards the end of the 1960s, following in the wake of
the events of May 68.
It seems particularly clear that if anarchism regained protagonism, it
has been, above all, because the changes that have occurred at various
levels of social, cultural, political and technological reality have
created conditions today in consonance with some of the characteristics
of anarchism. This consonance explains how contemporary anarchism
responds far better than other currents of socially engaged political
thought to the particularities and the exigencies of the present.
Nevertheless, if this harmony between certain features of anarchism and
certain characteristics of the current epoch have permitted its
expansion, such that anarchism reveals itself as a well adapted
instrument to the struggles and the conditions of the present, it has
also had a retroactive bearing on some of its features. Indeed, these
features have been modified as a consequence of the involvement of
anarchism in present reality and as a return effect on its very capacity
to have an impact on reality.
We have then, on the one hand, the constitution of a new reality that
presents the peculiarity of lending itself to anarchist intervention
and, on the other hand, an anarchism that renews itself precisely
because of its action on this reality. It is from this double process
or, stated differently, from this coupling between reality and
anarchism, that this latter has again become truly contemporaneous,
meaning by “contemporaneous” that which finds itself in consonance with
the demands of the struggles provoked in present day reality.
Even knowing full well that no such current exists, that there is
neither a doctrine nor an identity that presently calls itself
neoanarchist and that to promote a new adjective for anarchism – one
more – is of little interest, I resort to this expression as a
convenient and provisional way to designate this somewhat different
anarchism that we find in the beginning of this century.
If there is something that powerfully calls our attention when we
observe contemporary anarchism, it is, without any doubt, its
significant expansion beyond the frontiers of the anarchist movement. It
is true that anarchism has always overflown the contours, ultimately
considerably confused, of the anarchist movement, but this overflowing
has been amplified in a spectacular fashion since May 68 until the most
recent protest movements, with their massive occupations of public
squares and streets (Seattle, the 15M movement, Occupy Wall Street,
etc.).
This expansion of anarchism outside its borders is not only of a greater
dimension than in the past, it also presents somewhat different
features. In effect, it is no longer a matter of an essentially cultural
type of overflow, as when some artists, certain singer-songwriters and a
few intellectuals sometimes expressed their proximity to libertarian
ideas. Today the overflow manifests itself in the very heart of specific
struggles undertaken by opposition movements that make no direct claim
to anarchism.
Firstly, in the final stages of May 68, we witnessed the creation of new
social movements that struggled, on identitarian bases, for the
recognition of certain categories of people that were strongly
discriminated against and stigmatised. These movements were not
anarchist, far from it, but on some matters, they moved close to it. In
any case, they moved away from classical political schemas, far more
centralised in their forms of organisation and struggle, as well as
showing themselves to be much less sensitive to the problematic of
relations of power. It was in this way that struggles against various
types of domination gained, little by little, a certain importance side
by side with more traditional struggles anchored in the economic sphere
and the world of work.
Subsequently, towards the end of the 1990s, a new inflection occurred
with the appearance of the alter-globalisation movement, a movement of
movements. Despite its enormous heterogeneity and despite all of the
criticism that can be directed at it, it is a movement that bears strong
libertarian resonances. It is made up, basically, as everyone knows
today, of collectives and people who are active outside specifically
anarchist organisations, but who encounter or who reinvent, in
struggles, anti-hierarchical, anti-centralist and anti-representative
political forms that are quite close to anarchism, as much with regards
to decision making methods, as to forms of organisation and the
modalities that characterise their actions; actions that in fact often
make theirs, principles of direct action.
A good part of the activism associated with it – not all, of course –
shows itself to be more fiercely committed to the defence of certain
anti-authoritarian practices than some so-called anarchists. At times,
it even occurs that they demonstrate themselves to be more intransigent
than the anarchists in the demand that the characteristics of the
actions undertaken, as well as the modes of decision making and the
forms of organisation adopted, be truly prefigurative. That is, that
they not contradict but, on the contrary, reflect in their very
characteristics the goals sought.
Finally, at the beginning of the second decade of this century, occurred
the massive occupations of public spaces in Spain’s cities, followed by
those of Wall Street in New York and in other cities of the United
States, which also adopted forms of organisation and modes of action
with close affinity to those that characterise anarchism.
The novelty therefore is that today the anarchist movement is no longer
the only depositary, the only defender of certain anti-hierarchical
principles, nor of certain non-authoritarian practices, nor of
horizontal forms of organisation, nor of the capacity to undertake
struggles that present libertarian tonalities, nor of mistrust towards
all apparatuses of power, whatever they may be. These elements have
spread beyond the anarchist movement, and are taken up today by
collectives that do not identify themselves with the anarchist label and
that sometimes even make explicit their refusal to allow themselves to
be closed within the folds of this identity.
To avoid possible misunderstandings, it is important to clarify that
this is not a matter of enlisting under the flag of anarchism movements
that make no reference to it and of qualifying as anarchist any popular
demonstration that bases itself on direct democracy. Neither the great
protest of Seattle, nor the 15M movement, nor Occupy Wall Street were
anarchist, and their subsequent shifts can even end up contradicting
their initial libertarian tonalities. Anarchism does not only consist of
certain formal organisational modalities, but is also based on
substantive ideas that are fundamental to define it. In fact, the
paradox could occur of certain social movements adopting anarchist
organisational models to promote political notions that are its
antipodes. It is obvious that horizontal and assembly based functioning
is not sufficient to be able to speak of anarchist practices.
However, it is undeniable that the movements that I have referred to
present a “family resemblance” with anarchism that places them clearly
in its ideological field and that these demonstrations form part of an
anarchism in action, even if they do not claim the name for themselves
and even if they effect some few changes in its traditional forms. It is
in part to designate this somewhat diffuse, non-identitarian, form of
anarchism, forged directly in contemporary struggles and outside the
anarchist movement that I have recourse to the expression “anarchism
outside its own walls” [anarquismo extramurros]. Curiously, this kind of
anarchism also includes, at least in Spain, people who defined
themselves as anarchists, but who renounced the label so as to be closer
and to be more involved in the kinds of practices and sensitivities,
globally libertarian, that characterise some of the new rebellious
movements.
Non-identitarian anarchism is part of neoanarchism, but it does not
exhaust its extension, but only represents one of its aspects, one of
its facets. The other face of neoanarchism is comprised of collectives
and people – generally very young – who even though they affirm
themselves as explicitly anarchist, they nevertheless express a new
sensibility with respect to this identitarian ascription. There way of
assuming anarchist identity is marked by a flexibility and an openness
which articulate a different relation with the anarchist tradition, on
the one hand, and with opposition movements outside this tradition, on
the other hand. The borders between these two realities in fact become
more permeable, more porous, the dependence on the anarchist tradition
becomes more flexible and, above all, this tradition is understood as
having to be cultivated, enriched and, therefore, transformed and
reformulated by inclusions and, even, by a hybridisation, by a certain
blending [mestizaje], with contributions coming from struggles carried
out within the framework of other traditions.
It is not a matter of incorporating into anarchism a few elements of a
political thought elaborated outside it. It concerns rather, and above
all, of producing together, with other collectives also committed to
struggles against domination, elements that are incorporated within the
anarchist tradition, making it move. This openness of neoanarchism could
be illustrated in that famous phrase which states, more or less, the
following: “Alone we cannot, but, in addition, it would be pointless”.
It is this same sensibility that we find in the declaration of the
Planetary Anarchist Network (PAN), where one can read:
We are, however, profoundly anti-sectarian, by which we mean two things.
We do not attempt to enforce any particular form of anarchism on one
another […] We value diversity as a principle in itself, limited only by
our common rejection of structures of domination. Since we see anarchism
not as a doctrine so much as a process of movement towards a free, just,
and sustainable, society, we believe anarchists should not limit
themselves to cooperating with those who self-identify as anarchists,
but should actively seek to cooperate with anyone who is working to
create a world based on those same broad liberatory principles, and, in
fact, to learn from them. One of the purposes of the International is to
facilitate this: both to make it easier for us to bring some of those
millions around the world who are, effectively, anarchists without
knowing it, into touch with the thoughts of others who have worked in
that same tradition, and, at the same time, to enrich the anarchist
tradition itself through contact with their experiences.
This identitarian redefinition has important repercussions on the
anarchist imaginary and this is significant because, as we well know, it
is not generally due to a previous knowledge of theoretical texts that
young people approach the anarchist movement. It is not by virtue of the
writings of Proudhon or Bakunin that there are those who adhere, but
because of a particular imaginary; and it is not until later that the
canonical texts are eventually read.
The anarchist imaginary has in fact never ceased to enrich itself
integrating, among other things, the great historical episodes of
struggle against domination, as these manifested themselves in different
parts of the world. What it has made its own over the last years has
been, for example, the barricades, the occupations and the slogans of
May 68 and, after 1986, a series of phenomena such as the anarcho-punk
scene (that developed with force starting in the 1980s and which was an
authentic breeding ground for young anarchists) or the okupation
movement, with its unique aesthetic and lifestyle. These are the
elements that have continued to nourish and spur on this imaginary.
It has however undoubtedly been the great international episodes of
struggles against various forms of domination (that, without wanting to
be exhaustive, go from Chiapas in 1994 to Taksim Square in 2013, passing
through Seattle in 1999, Quebec, Gothenburg and Genova in 2001, the No
Borders camp in Strasbourg in 2002, the Athens neighbourhood of Exarchia
uninterruptedly since 2008 until today and Madrid, Barcelona or New York
in 2011) that have revitalised the current anarchist imaginary. This
imaginary, a little different from that of the 1960s, which generally
began with the Paris Commune, moving through the Chicago Martyrs and the
misnamed Tragic Week of Barcelona, on to the mutinous sailors of
Kronstadt and the Maknovtchina of Ukraine, finishing in the Spanish
Revolution, is that which today provokes identitarian adherence among
anarchist youth. It seems obvious that the new elements which constitute
it inevitably redraw the outlines of this identity.
In brief, the contemporary anarchist identity is not at all the same as
the old one. It cannot be the same because what constitutes its
imaginary sustains itself also from the struggles developed by current
protest movements, and these present features different from the older
struggles.
These new forms of struggle do not appear by chance and they are not the
result of a new political strategy deliberately elaborated somewhere.
They are rather the direct result of a recomposition and of a renewal of
the apparatuses and modalities of domination that accompany the social
changes of these last decades. The practices of struggle against
domination are changing at the same time as the forms of domination
change; and this is absolutely normal because the struggles are always
provoked by and defined by that against which they constitute
themselves. It is the new forms of domination that have appeared in our
societies that give rise to the current resistances and which give them
the structure that they possess.
The configuration of society in a network, the path from the pyramidal
to the reticular and the horizontal, the deployment of new information
and communication technologies (from hereon, NICT), all of it evidently
puts into movement new forms of domination. It also however facilitates
the development of extraordinarily effective practices of subversion
which happen to be in consonance with the organisational forms proper to
anarchism.
It is the forms adapted by the practices of struggle against the current
forms of domination and, more specifically, those that are developed by
the new movements of opposition, which find themselves incorporated,
partly, in contemporary anarchism and which serve to outline a
neoanarchism.
As long as it finds itself in direct connection with these struggles,
neoanarchism shares in their imaginary and joins their principle
characteristics with an anarchist imaginary which cannot but be
modified.
One of the most striking features of this modification concerns the
revolutionary imaginary itself.
The stimulus and incitement value that generalised insurrection bears in
the classical revolutionary imaginary is effectively replaced in the
neoanarchist revolutionary imaginary by the attraction to what could be
called the continuous and immediate revolution. That is, revolution
comes to be considered as a constitutive dimension of subversive action
itself. Revolution is conceived of as something that is anchored in the
present and that it is not therefore something that is only desired and
dreamed of as a future event, but is essentially lived.
The revolutionary is the will to break the apparatuses of concrete and
situated domination, it is the effort to block power in its multiple
manifestations, and it is the action to create spaces that are radically
separate from the values of the system and the modes of life induced by
capitalism. The emphasis is thus placed on the present and on its
transformation, limited but radical, and it is therefore for this reason
that so many efforts are dedicated to creating spaces of life and forms
of being that are situated in radical rupture with the norms of the
system and which give rise to new radically rebellious subjectivities.
It can indeed be seen clearly today that the old revolutionary imaginary
conveyed the hope of a possible dominion of society as a whole, and that
this hope was the bearer of inevitable totalitarian deviations that were
translated into actions, in the case of politics referenced to Marxism,
and that remained only in outline, though still perceptible, in those
inspired by anarchism.
Likewise, beneath the standard of universalism which could be nothing
other than – as with all universalisms – a masked particularism, this
imaginary concealed a will to dissolve differences within the framework
of a project that, claiming to be valid for everyone, negated in
practice the legitimate pluralism of political options and values.
Finally, the messianic stink of an eschatology that strove to
subordinate life to the promise of living, and to justify all sufferings
and renunciations in the name of an abstraction, was so profoundly
encrusted in this imaginary that it blocked the exercise of any trace of
critical thought.
Nowadays, the explicit rejection of our iniquitous social conditions of
existence remains intact, as well as the desire to illuminate radically
different conditions. Nevertheless, the concept of revolution is
profoundly redefined from a fully presentist perspective: the idea of a
radical rupture continues to be held, but without any eschatological
point of view. On the contrary, nothing can be proposed for the day
after the revolution, because it cannot be located in the future. Its
only home is the present and it is produced in each space and in each
instant that it is possible to withdraw oneself from the system.
What is new in the present is that the will of radical rupture can
appeal to nothing more than the negation of obedience, to rebelliousness
and to profound disagreement with the established reality. No object of
substitution is necessary to reject what is imposed upon us; no progress
towards …, no advance in the direction of … are required to measure the
reach of the consequences of a struggle. The measuring rod with which
the new antagonists evaluate the compass of their struggles is not
exterior to them and is in no way guided by the more or less wide path
that struggles have been allowed to use to approach an objective that
would exceed the situated, limited, concrete and particular character of
the same.
This is, for example, what one comes away with from a text by the US
collective CrimethInc, in which the following can be read:
Our revolution must be immediate revolution in our daily lives … [W]e
must seek first and foremost to alter the contents of our own lives in a
revolutionary manner, rather than direct our struggle towards
world-historical changes which we will not live to witness. (Days of
War, Nights of Love)
It seems clearly evident that the new struggles contribute especially to
multiply and disseminate centres of resistance against very concrete and
distinctly situated injustices, impositions and discriminations. It is
perhaps this dissemination that explains the great diversity that today
characterises a movement fragmented into a multiplicity of currents that
run from green anarchism to insurrectionism, from anarcho-feminists to
the anarcho-punk movement, from anti-speciesism and veganism to the
self-named organised anarchism – generally, of the communist libertarian
variety -; without forgetting that anarcho-syndicalism continues to have
strong roots in a country like Spain, where it counts on two principal
organisations that represent, grosso modo, the two traditional currents
of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism.
Either way, it is not only that the perspective of a global
transformation that gives birth to a new society no longer constitutes
the nerve that today dynamises and orients struggles. It is moreover
that the struggles which aspire to be global or totalising inspire,
rather, a certain mistrust because they are seen as tending to
reproduce, sooner or later, that which they purport to combat. If in
fact capitalism and the apparatuses of domination need, imperatively, to
affect the totality of society, it is because they can only function in
a context where no one of its fragments – neither the most negligible,
nor even its interstices – has the possibility of escaping its control.
Conversely, the resistances would fatally separate themselves from their
reason for being if they intended to mould society in its totality and
in all of its aspects. It is a matter then of attacking the local
establishment and manifestations of domination, renouncing a
confrontation on a more general level, something that would call upon
resources of a similar power and nature to those used by the very system
to control the ensemble of society.
For this reason, even though the effort to regroup as many forces and
wills as is possible continues, the construction of large organisations
solidly structured and anchored in a specific territory can no longer be
found on the current subversive agendas. On the contrary, what is seen
to is the preservation of the fluidity of the networks that are created
and the avoidance of the crystallisation of excessively strong
organisations, which only present the appearance of efficiency and which
always end in sterilising struggles. This fluidity is especially
emphasised in the insurrectionalist position, inspired at its origin by
the Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno, but which, since then, has
evolved and diversified itself. Let us recall that insurrectionalists
advocate four major tactics: desertion – exodus – consists of escaping
the places where practices of hierarchical domination exist; sabotage;
the occupation of spaces – streets, places, official buildings, etc. –
and, finally, the articulation of two kinds of spaces theorised by Hakim
Bey: the TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zones) and the PAZ (Permanent
Autonomous Zones). Although they virulently criticise classical
anarchist organisations, proposing much more lax, fluid and informal
organisational structures and privileging the creation of small
autonomous groups based on relations of affinity, the insurrectionalists
continue to defend an idea of revolution that has certain resonances
with the traditional.
The emphasis that contemporary anarchism places on the transformation of
the present and on the redefinition of revolution as a reality that does
not await us at the end of the path traveled by struggles, but as
something that occurs within the current struggles themselves and the
forms of life that they give rise to, is not unrelated to its present
day success.
Indeed, to remain coherent with its wager on the present, anarchism sees
itself as summoned to offer, in the context of present day reality,
concrete realisations which make it possible to live now, even though
only partially, in another society, to weave other social relations and
to develop another mode of life. These realisations go from self-managed
spaces to networks of exchange and mutual aid, moving through okupied
spaces to all kinds of cooperatives.
It is basically with concrete achievements and not with cheques to be
covered in the future that the promises of the revolution are paid, and
they intensely seduce a part of those who reject the current society. It
is therefore also because anarchism offers an ensemble of concrete
realisations which transform the present and which permit changing
oneself, that it today enjoys an undeniable success among certain groups
of youth.
To struggle no longer consists only in denouncing, in opposing and
confronting, it is also to create, here and now, different realities.
The struggles have to produce concrete results without ceasing to be
conditioned by hopes placed in the future. To learn how to struggle
without illusions with regards to the future leads us to locate the
whole value of the struggle in its own features. It is in the very
reality of the struggles, in their concrete results and their specific
approaches wherein lies the whole of their value, and this must not be
sought in what is to be found beyond them: for example, in this or that
final objective that would give them legitimacy.
It is consequently about tearing away spaces from the system, to develop
community experiences that have a transformative character, because only
when an activity truly and radically transforms a reality – even if only
in a provisional and partial manner – does it establish the bases for
going beyond a mere – though always necessary – opposition to the
system, creating a concrete alternative that in fact defies it. This is
an approach that Proudhon already advocated when he questioned the
virtues of destruction and of opposition, and when he emphasised the
construction of alternatives. It is also what Colin Ward defended in the
1970s when, anticipating certain neoanarchist positions, he said that
anarchism, far from being negation, was the construction here and now of
alternatives that abide by principles other than those of domination. It
is lastly what Gustav Landauer proclaimed in the beginning of the last
century when he wrote this phrase that I already cited in the preamble:
“Anarchism is not a thing of the future but of the present: it is not a
question of demands but of life”.
It is accordingly necessary to act upon a milieu that we transform,
while this allows us to transform ourselves, modifying our subjectivity.
This is possible creating different social ties, constructing
complicities and relations of solidarity which outline, in practice and
in the present, a different reality and another life. As stated in the
French journal Tiqqun: “it is a matter of establishing modes of life
that are in themselves modes of struggle”. Of course, none of this is
completely new and it can be related, in part, to the lieux de vie –
places of life – created by individualist anarchists towards the end of
the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
The criticisms of these approaches also began long ago. It is indeed
clear that the system cannot tolerate an outside with respect to itself
and cannot accept that certain fragments of society escape its control.
It would therefore be absurd to think that spaces removed from the
system can proliferate to the point of being able to progressively
subvert and dismantle it. The little islands of freedom are a danger and
the system draws its claws well before the threat grows. This marks the
limits of the pretensions to change society by means of the creation of
another society in the midst of that already exists.
This realisation certainly invalidates the excessive confidence placed
in the constructive dimension of anarchism, but it does not diminish in
any way its interest. The system cannot control everything permanently
and in its totality, and in the same way struggles are possible because
they encounter and open spaces that escape, in part and during some
time, the strict control of the system. So too the spaces that are
removed from the system by the concrete realisations of anarchism can
subsist for a more or less prolonged period of time.
This is important because, as we well know, besides oppressing,
repressing and crushing human beings, the apparatuses and practices of
domination always constitute modes of subjectification of individuals:
they mould their imaginary, their desires and their way of thinking such
that they respond, freely and spontaneously, in a way that the dominant
authorities expect. It is for this reason that we cannot change our
desires if we do not change the form of life that produces them, and
thus the importance of creating forms of life and spaces that permit
constructing practices of de-subjectificiation. It is ultimately an
issue, today as in the past, of producing a political subjectivity that
is radically rebellious to the society in which we live, to the
commodity values that constitute it and the relations of exploitation
and domination that ground it.
It is not uncommon to hear neoanarchists say, with strong Foucaldian
accents, that it is a matter of transforming oneself, of changing our
current subjectivity, of inventing ourselves outside of the matrix that
has formed us. But, notice, this does not refer to a purely individual
practice, because it is obvious that it is in relation to others, in the
fabric of relations, in collective practices and common struggles, where
materials and tools are found to carry out this labour upon oneself.
Coincidentally, the importance that practices of de-subjectification
have today put directly into question the famous dichotomy that Murray
Bookchin established, in the mid-1990s, between social anarchism and
lifestyle anarchism, because both kinds of anarchism, far from being
opposed to each other, are intimately connected. The necessary
construction of a different subjectivity through struggles, whether with
a local or global perspective, implies in effect that there is no social
anarchism that does not involve strong existential elements and that
there does not exist lifestyle anarchism that is not impregnated with
social aspects. Despite this, it is often said that, contrary to what
occurs with rebellions rooted in the social question, that the
rebellions qualified as existential are totally innocuous for the system
because, even though they may overflow the strictly private sphere, they
do not cease to remain confined to reduced spaces which are unable to
perturb the well functioning of the system.
Things are not however like this. If anarchism, which is also – above
all, some would say – a way of being, a mode of living and of feeling, a
form of sensitivity and, therefore, a clearly existential option,
represents a problem for the system, it is because in part it opposes a
strong resistance, not only in the face of its repressive intimidations,
but, above all, against its manoeuvres of seduction and integration. In
spite of evident exceptions, it is in fact quite frequent that those who
have been profoundly marked by their anarchist experience remain
irrecoverable for ever. In keeping alive their irreducible alterity with
respect to the system, they obviously represent a danger for it. It is
not that they permanently challenge it by their mere existence, but that
they also serve as relays so that new rebellious sensitivities are born.
This sustains a certain relation with something that Christian Ferrer, a
good friend and anarchist philosopher, used to say to me: “anarchism is
not taught and nor is it learned in books – though these may help -, but
is spread by contagion; and when someone is infected, more often than
not, it is forever”.
I believe then that social anarchism, also called organised anarchism,
and lifestyle anarchism, mutually imply each other. This is indeed so to
the degree that, on the one hand, the challenge represented by the
adoption of a lifestyle different from that which the established system
defends and the refusal to abide by its norms and values constitutes a
form of struggle which corrodes its pretension to ideological hegemony
and which gives rise to social conflict, when the system takes
normalising measures or when dissidents develop activities of
harassment. In either case, lifestyle anarchism produces effects of
social change that may sometimes be notable.
On the other hand, it is obvious that no one can fight for collective
emancipation and commit themselves to social struggles without this
profoundly affecting their lifestyle and their way of being. It turns
out, in addition, that the two forms of anarchism frequently coincide on
the terrain of concrete struggles. This does impede certain determined
elements of the anarchist movement from raising barriers between these
two ways of practicing anarchism. It is because I am convinced that
these barriers weaken anarchism, that I would like to argue briefly here
against those who try with effort to consolidate them.
In general, those who are catalogued, in the majority of cases against
their will, as supporters of lifestyle anarchism – among whom would be
included the majority of neoanarchists – show themselves to be little
belligerent as regards the differentiation between libertarian
ideological currents and feel themselves to have little interest in
internal struggles within the movement. It is more often those who are
in favour of social or organised anarchism – that overlap, in good
measure, with libertarian communist positions – who strive to extend
their sphere of influence in the heart of the movement and confine to
its margins “lifestyle” anarchists. It is therefore their arguments that
I would like to discuss here, but not without first spelling out certain
points, to avoid misunderstandings.
It is obvious that an anarchism “without adjectives” is only sustainable
as anarchism if it is committed to social justice and freedom among
equals. Not only must it denounce exploitation and social inequalities,
it must also struggle against them in the most efficacious way possible;
it must be present among those who have committed themselves in these
struggles and must endeavour to expand its influence among those most
directly affected by the injustices of the system. There is nothing to
be said consequently against the efforts, on the contrary, that certain
anarchists deploy to organise themselves with the aim of contributing to
better develop those struggles. Nevertheless, it is also obvious that
social or organised anarchism conveys, with excessive frequency,
practices and political assumptions that surreptitiously distance it
from its libertarian roots. Either because it adopts insufficiently
horizontal structures – if not on paper, in practice – or because it
lets itself be tempted by a certain vanguardism, or also because it is
inclined to develop sectarian practices, among other things.
Capitalism is of course our most direct enemy and it should not be given
any respite. The struggle against it constitutes an unrenounceable
exigency for anarchism. However, considering the cultural diversity, or
other kinds of diversity, that characterise the more than seven billion
human beings who inhabit the planet, it is unreasonable to think that
our values and our social models can succeed in bringing together the
preferences of the majority. Totalizing perspectives are of no value to
us, therefore, neither within the frame of the vast “global world”, nor
also in the frame of a particular society. If we do not wish to
resuscitate eschatological illusions, we must accept that, for those of
us who are committed to combats in favour of emancipation, that we will
never know the final success of these combats, nor the advent of the
kind of society that we dream of. What we will only come to know is the
experience of these struggles and their never definitive results.
Consequently, social anarchism or not, organised anarchism or not, in
the last instance, we have to wager on the modification of the present –
a necessarily local and partial modification – turning a deaf ear to the
songs of the totalising sirens and abandoning eschatological illusions.
If it is not possible to establish a generalised libertarian communism,
nor to render anarchist the whole of the human population, or even a
particular society, what can anarchism aspire to and what is left?
Well, even so, what remains is the ongoing struggle against domination
in its multiple facets and this includes, of course, domination in the
economic sphere, even though it goes well beyond this. What also remains
is the transformation of the present, always localised and partial, but
radical, and this includes our own transformation. And finally, we have
to escape from our confinement and our ghetto, to act together with
others, not to convince them, but to accept them; not for strategic
reasons, but for reasons of principle.
To act with others? You are right comrades, those of you who struggles
in the heart of the anarchism that proclaims itself “organised”. To act
with others as you often do is honourable, however it also means to act
with anarchists who do not enlist under the flag of organisations laying
claim to “social anarchism”, but who, far from finding refuge in the
private sphere, are also committed to radical struggles. As indeed
usually happens with dualisms, the dichotomy suggested by Bookchin
deforms reality because there are not two categories of anarchism, but a
single continuous one. At one extreme, we find a lifestyle anarchism
withdrawn into itself and totally indifferent to social struggles, while
at the other extreme, one finds a social anarchism impermeable to
everything other than the social struggle against capital. Between these
two extremes, unfolds an array where all of the doses between the two
types of anarchism are represented.
What creates the dichotomy, leaving as it does only two possibilities
open, is the eventuality of belonging or not to a specific organisation.
But if the dichotomy originates in this fact, then it is obvious that it
cannot serve to say that “social anarchism” is to be found on one side
and that what is found on the other side is not social.
The same comment can be applied to the expression “organised anarchism”.
There is not an organised anarchism, on the one hand, and another which
is not, on the other hand. It is obvious that one has to organise
oneself and that the development of any type of collective activity
always calls for some form of organisation, as well as the deployment of
a certain organised activity, even if only to publish a few pages or to
debate an issue. Therefore, the question is not whether to organise
oneself or not, but how to organise oneself. And the answer is that to
know how to organise ourselves, we have to know for what purpose we want
to organise. This conditions the form of organisation.
The traditional model presupposes the creation of a permanent, stable
and encompassing structure, articulated around a few programmatic bases
and some common objectives of a sufficiently general nature such that
the structure disposes of an ample temporal perspective. It is a model
that got on poorly with actual social conditions and that lost a
considerable part of its effectiveness, in times characterised by
velocity and the rapidness of changes. The current reality demands much
more flexible, more fluid, models, guided by simple aims of coordination
to carry out concrete and specific tasks. To the degree that, to be
effective, the form of organisation must adjust to the nature of the
tasks and the objectives for which it was created, and to the degree
that these latter are diverse and, sometimes, variable and transitory, a
multiplicity of organisational forms must coexist in as complementary a
way as possible, without doubting that they can disappear or transform
themselves according to the rhythm of social changes and events.
The question of organisation should probably be rethought and given new
meaning in the same way as occurred with the concept of revolution, not
to proclaim the absence or uselessness of organisation, but to renew its
conceptualisation, its forms and practices. Its clear that the
fascination currently exercised, in certain activist circles, by the old
model of organisation – brandished as a panacea to increase the
effectiveness and diffusion of anarchism – in no way facilitates this
task. The efforts dedicated to the construction of an anarchist
organisation and the priority conceded to this labour diverts attention
away from tasks more directly tied to struggles, and sustains the
illusion that the difficulties that trouble current struggles are due
principally to the absence of a grande libertarian organisation and that
these will disappear as soon as the latter sees the light of day.
The preoccupation to organise and organisational activity must be
constant such as to be able to develop collective activities. However,
this is very different from the determination to construct an
organisation. For this reason, the use of the expression “organised
anarchism” is deceptive. It is an expression that basically refers to
anarchism framed in a classical type of organisation or to anarchism
bound to the insistent effort to construct such an organisation and
suggests that, no matter how organized certain anarchist groups or
collectives are for carrying out concrete and specific tasks, these form
no part of organised anarchism.
The expression is deceitful, but also dangerous because it introduces,
as almost all dichotomies do, an asymmetry of value and a
hierarchisation between the two poles of the created duality.
Accordingly, given that the fact of organising oneself constitutes,
obviously, a positive value, valid anarchism is organised anarchism and
the other type of anarchism is contemptible. Evidently, the difference
between them does not reside in being organised or not, both are, but
because one is marked by a specific organisation or aims to construct it
and the other is not. But of course, if things were said in this manner,
the valorising and hierarchising effect that emanates from the
expression “organised anarchism” would be lost, and the call to
construct “the organisation” would be weakened.
My way of dealing with this question should not be interpreted as an
argument for an anarchism closed within the sphere of the individual and
resistant to all organised action. To question the dichotomy created by
reference to social anarchism and organised anarchism does not mean that
anarchism should not achieve a social projection and, more precisely, a
projection within social movements. If anarchism has revived in the
present, it is precisely because it has been present in the large
popular mobilisations of the beginning of this century; and it is
obvious that if anarchism wants to have any kind of validity, it must
pervade the broadest social movements possible – as Spanish anarchism
did until the end of the 1930s -. This implies of course that these
movements cannot be composed principally of anarchists, nor must they be
specifically anarchist. This libertarian impregnation, due to the
presence of anarchist militants, as well as people and collectives that
act in a libertarian manner, even though they do not define themselves
as such, can be observed more recently in the multitudinous
mobilisations that do not cease to amplify and radicalise themselves in
France, since 2008 until today, against the construction of an airport
in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in Brittany, or the mobilisations against
evictions in Spain.
If contemporary anarchism changes, it is precisely because it finds
itself involved, with other collectives, in current struggles and
because it incorporates into itself the principal characteristics of
these struggles. Because it finds itself in harmony with these
struggles, neoanarchism participates in their imaginary and gathers into
itself some of their features in an anarchist imaginary which cannot
therefore but see itself modified. Ultimately, the anarchism that
changes is the anarchism that struggles and that struggles in the
present.
As I already indicated, “neoanarchism” is the expression that appeared
to me to be the most convenient to refer to the change experienced by a
significant part of contemporary anarchism; this expression though can
contribute to cover over certain continuities with the anarchism of
earlier epochs. In reality, neoanarchism re-encounters and reformulates
some characteristics of anarchism that, while it is true that they had
practically disappeared after the defeat of the Revolution of 1936, it
is also true that they marked anarchism during the first third of the
20th century, above all in Spain. Thus for example, the desire to
transform the present and to transform oneself without waiting for the
revolution; or the effort to construct concrete alternatives to the
system in multiple domains – such as education or production – or, also,
the eagerness to tear away spaces from the system so as to be able to
develop other ways of life … these were aspects that were constantly
present from the end of the 19th century to the first third of the 20th
century, in different countries, while they acquired a spectacular
intensity in Spain after the 19th of July of 1936.
It is very likely that there exists a relationship between the current
resurgence of anarchism and its re-encounter with principles that made
its strength possible in its moments of greatest vigor. However, the
terms “re-encounter” or “reinvent” should not be undervalued, because,
in effect, it is not about a mimesis, a mere reproduction by imitation,
but that these old principles are constructed in a new context that
marks them with certain different characteristics. The existing
continuities and similarities do not take away one iota of value from
the process of reinventing and reformulating by oneself, instead of
simply repeating, reproducing or receiving what is inherited.
If anarchism is surging back again with force at the dawn of the 21st
century, it is undoubtedly because some of the changes that our
societies have experienced during the last decades are in tune with some
of its characteristics and because, consequently, a kind of concordance
between specific aspects of reality and certain aspects of anarchism
have been established. In other words, if some of the characteristics of
the contemporary sociopolitical, technological and cultural changes
favour the deployment of certain anarchist practices, it is because
there exists a certain isomorphism between these said characteristics
and practices. As a result, it is in the intersection, in the encounter
or, better, in the interaction between these elements – that is,
between, on the one hand, the changes that have taken place and, on the
other, anarchism; but neither in the one or the other, considered
separately. It is in the loop that anarchism forms with the changes that
have recently occurred where the secret of anarchism’s riding again is
to be found.
Accordingly, for example, if we consider changes of a technological
kind, its clear that parallel to the undeniable danger that they
represent for our freedoms, NICT [New Information and Communication
Technologies] also favour the horizontality of decisions, exchanges and
relations, while increasing the possibilities of self-organisation and
permitting the rapid dissemination of local initiatives, to mention only
a few of the effects of these technologies which move entirely in a
direction similar to that advocated or called for by anarchism.
Likewise, if we consider sociopolitical changes, it turns out that the
expansion and the growing sophistication of the procedures of control
and of the exercise of power that are applied to evermore numerous
aspects of our daily life demonstrate that anarchism was completely
correct in insisting on phenomena of power, and this contributes to
increasing its credibility. Furthermore, this proliferation of
microscopic interventions of power multiplies the occasions for
deploying practices of resistance against domination, as anarchism
maintains. Other changes, more circumstantial, such as the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, have also
played a facilitating role in the development of anarchism. These events
effectively put an end to the Marxist hegemony in the challenge to
capitalism and unblock the search for other references to direct
contemporary radical politics.
Lastly, if we contemplate the cultural changes, we can observe that the
crisis of the legitimating ideology of modernity and, especially, the
questioning of its essentialist presuppositions – that negated the
possibility of freedom – , as well as the collapse of its eschatological
perspectives – which sacrificed the present in benefit of the future –
and the criticising of its totalising pretensions – which crushed
singularities and diversity -, could not but reinforce, through a
rebound effect, certain anarchist assumptions.
Before developing these themes, it is worthwhile to stop a few moments
before the fact that this is not only about a resurgence of anarchism,
but also, simultaneously, about its renewal.
The resurgence and renewal of anarchism take place in unison. This
concomitance is not surprising because it follows from the fact that the
resurgence that we can presently verify is only possible because
anarchism renews itself and is able, in this way, to harness itself to
the new conditions that define the current epoch. Indeed, if it did not
renew itself, no matter how favourable present conditions were to it, it
could not surge back again. It could not do so for the simple reason
that these favourable conditions are, at the same time, new, that is,
unprecedented in the path that anarchism has traveled until now. It is
therefore necessary for this latter to change so at to adapt itself to
the new conditions and to integrate the novelty that appears along its
own journey. The very fact that it surges up again today indicates, in
principle, that it has succeeded in carrying out enough of a renewal to
be able to connect with the changes that have occurred in its milieu.
Therefore, renewal is a necessary condition to render its resurgence
possible, but, at the same time, given that this resurgence articulates
itself with the necessary adaptation to novel conditions, it cannot but
reinforce, in turn, the renewal of what made it possible. Which means
that the resurgence of anarchism acts as a necessary condition that
makes its own renewal possible.
Resurgence and renewal acquire the form of a loop that sustains itself
in a continuous movement and that recalls what I already mentioned with
regards to the interaction between the characteristics of anarchism and
those of specific social changes. To applaud the resurgence of anarchism
and to lament, at the same time, its movement away from its traditional
forms – as some anarchists do and, even, some anarchist currents –
constitutes therefore a contradiction that only becomes evident when the
relationship between these two aspects is grasped. Here also a choice is
imposed, because anarchism would not have been able to surge back again
if it had remained unchanging. To oppose its renewal is to act,
inevitably, against its reappearance.
While not forgetting that resurgence and renewal are mutually
inseparable elements, I am going to separate them, exclusively for the
purpose of exposition, presenting, firstly, a few considerations about
the renewal of anarchism, following then with its resurgence.
The renewal of anarchism is to be explained by the fact that by its very
nature, it is a changing reality, and not only accidentally so.
Insofar as it is immersed in the flux of historical time, anarchism,
like any other current of thought, necessarily gathers within itself
some of the new elements that are produced within it and is thereby
modified in a more or less significant manner. In this sense, that
anarchism changes with the passage of time is evident, and in noway
mysterious. What would be completely unusual would be instead its total
invariability.
Anarchism however is not limited to experiencing conjunctural
modifications, the outcome of historical avatars, but is a
constitutively changing reality. This means that change is to be found
directly inscribed in its manner of self-constitution and in its way of
existing. Consequently, if change defines anarchism’s way of being, it
could not continue to be what it is if it did not change.
In other words, anarchism is necessarily changeable because its
immutability would contradict the kind of reality that it is. This way
of being is not without consequences because, for example, if what I put
forth here is true, then there is nothing further removed from anarchism
than to conceive it as a timeless, inalterable, immutable thing, defined
once and for all. And this immediately pushes aside any pretension to
watch over its original purity and any fancy to institute oneself as a
guardian of the temple.
The reasons that render anarchism constitutively changeable rest
principally on the symbiosis between idea and action that mark anarchist
thought and practices.
As Proudhon and Bakunin clearly stated, the idea has as much an origin
as a practical value; it is born in a context of action and is directed
towards producing practical effects through the action that it in turn
engenders. In this sense, anarchism, contrary to Marxism, is not an
ensemble of analytical and programmatic texts that have the aim of
guiding action, but an ensemble of practices within which certain
principles are manifest. These are principles that constitute themselves
therefore through action, that are born from it and that in turn steer
it.
The symbiosis between idea and action is what is at the origin of the
constitutively changeable character of anarchism. This is very easy to
understand as soon as we stop for a moment at what characterizes action.
It is in fact clear that far from occurring in a vacuum or in the
abstract, all action finds itself necessarily inserted in a historical
context. As every historical context is, necessarily, specific and
singular – precisely because it is historical -, action that develops
within it cannot but be, also, specific and singular and, therefore,
change itself in accordance with the inevitable variations that the
historical context invariably undergoes. A historical context which,
behind each of the changes that it undergoes, is newly singular and
specific, and will demand consequently that the actions which develop
within it be so as well, if they are to produce any kind of effect.
Of course, as action and idea are intimately bound in anarchism, the
changes that action meets with produce, in turn, changes in the
conceptual content of what action produces, at the same time as action
is a consequence of those changes.
Ultimately, to not be constitutively changeable would mean then for
anarchism to break this so particular tie between idea and action that
comprises one of its formative elements, and we would find ourselves
therefore before something that would be anything but anarchism.
Anarchism does not preexist the practices that institute it and it
cannot survive beyond the practices that continuously produce it, except
as a historical curiosity. It cannot do so because it is not something
that inspires or activates these practices, that is latent below them,
for it is nothing else but these practices in themselves and the
principles that result from them.
domination
Anarchism can be defined, among other ways, as what contradicts the
logic of domination, at whatever level it is deployed. It is therefore
in the midst of the practices of struggle against domination where it is
engendered. This indicates, yet again, that it necessarily evolves. In
effect, these antagonistic practices cannot but transform themselves to
the extent that, in the course of history and the social changes that
accompany it, the apparatuses and modalities of domination modify and
recompose themselves.
If it is true that struggles are not born spontaneously from nothing,
but are always provoked and defined by that against which they
constitute themselves, then it can be inferred that it is the new forms
of domination that have arisen in our society which inspire present day
resistances and which bestow upon them their form. In other words,
antagonistic movements neither invent themselves nor create that to
which they are opposed and against which they constitute themselves;
they only invent the ways to oppose these realities. So, for example, it
is because the apparatuses of domination currently adopt reticular forms
that the resistances also adopt them.
Stated differently, that against which anarchism struggles changes and,
consequently, the forms of struggle also change giving way to new
experiences and new approaches which, in being gathered into anarchism,
make it evolve.
It also has to be taken into account that the new social conditions not
only modify the apparatuses of domination and the corresponding
practices of struggle, but also produce modifications in the symbolic
fabric and in the cultural sphere. On the one hand, they give rise to
new discourses of legitimation that are necessary to support the new
apparatuses of domination, but, on the other hand, that also give rise
to new analyses and new antagonistic discourses that enrich critical
thought. That is, a modality of thought that, in the words of Foucault,
put into question all forms of domination, and in which can be found,
despite the enormous differences that separate them, as much
Castoriadis, as Deleuze, Foucault or Chomsky, among others.
Insofar as this way of thinking also constitutes a form of struggle
against domination, it approaches and borders an anarchism that, for its
part it, cannot avoid encountering this thought, receiving its influence
and therefore changing with the integration into its own discourse of
some of the formulations of contemporary critical thought, as we will
see in the chapter dedicated to postanarchism.
Ultimately, the only way to render anarchism invariant, fixed and
stationary is to tear it away from the milieu where it lives and embalm
or mummify it, because living anarchism breaths in the fluidity of the
change that animates it and, as said earlier, that makes it not be in
every moment “neither totally itself nor totally something other”. It is
a constitutively changeable way of being and whose mode of existence
consequently consists of finding itself in a perpetual becoming.
Among the changes that favour the growth of anarchism, I will only
mention those related to the development of NICT and, furthermore, those
that result from the current proliferation of relations of power and the
effects of domination.
new political subject
Although they contain evident freedom destroying features, it is obvious
that the NICT also permit the constitution of a milieu favourable to the
development of anarchist practices, facilitating horizontality,
self-government and the exercise of direct democracy, while stimulating
collective creativity and propitiating direct action.
A quick examination of the popular mobilisations that have taken place
these last years show that the use of NICT impresses upon them
characteristics that favour the expansion of anarchism. So, for example,
the extraordinary rapidity and amplitude, sometimes surprising, of the
mobilisations that are called through social networks based on
electronic exchanges (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are possible because
behind them there are no – or at the origin of the call to which they
respond – potent organisations, afflicted with all of the inertia and
all of the weight that inevitably accompany stable and lasting
structures; and this confers on these moblisations certain qualities
that bring them close to libertarian modes of functioning. In effect, in
the absence of a permanent centre of decision making and of already
established structural frameworks, the initial call functions simply as
a trigger, more than as an organising body, and leaves, thus, the
essential part of the mobilisation and its success in the hands of the
participants, depending on their sense of self-organisation and their
initiative, which in these conditions, cannot but privilege
horizontality and collective creativity.
The mobilisations that constitute themselves on the bases of social
networks and the NICT have not displaced those that answer to the call
of traditional organisations. Both today coexist, but, of course, they
give rise to very different dynamics. Classical demonstrations can
occasionally be seen to be overwhelmed and to take unpredictable
directions, but in principle, everything falls under the control of the
organisations that call them and the margin of initiative left in the
hands of the participants is minimal. The preparations are long and
labourious, prudence is obligatory because an eventual failure of
participation represents certain costs for the organisation… By
contrast, mobilisations called for without any stable organisational
infrastructure can materialise in a way that is practically immediate,
and what can happen escapes all control and all prediction. In general,
these mobilisations often conclude without anything extraordinary
happening, but sometimes the libertarian potentialities that
characterise them gain form in very precise circumstances that we will
see next.
Certainly, the majority of the popular mobilisations, both those of the
past and those of today, have precise demands and they maintain
themselves as long as the collective energy that emanates from social
discontent is sufficiently intense to sustain them. When this energy
abates, either because results have been attained that diminish the
discontent, or because of fatigue, dejection or repression, the
mobilisation ceases and the return to order is produced, as the good
people like to say.
Sometimes it happens that these struggles give way to the deployment of
a collective creativity that puts into question and makes falter the
very logic of the system. A second kind of movement of rebellion is thus
outlined in which can be seen that the thousands of people who invade
the streets and public spaces do not do so only to protest against this
or that particular aspect, or to demand this or that concrete measure,
but also to institute or, better, to self-institute itself as a new
political subject.
This process of self-institutionalisation that is carried out within the
very mobilisations demands that the people who organise themselves,
converse, collectively elaborate a political discourse that is proper to
them and construct in common the elements necessary to keep the
mobilisation going and to develop political action. This requires that
the imagination be put to work to create spaces, construct conditions,
elaborate procedures that permit people to elaborate, by themselves and
collectively, their own agenda at the margin of the watchwords that come
from a place other than the mobilisation itself. This labour of creation
of a new political subject then takes the lead over the particular
demands that provoked the mobilisation.
In this kind of situation, new social energies form next to those that
originate with the initial social discontent, feeding back upon
themselves, losing intensity to then, in the following instant, to grow
back again, as in a storm. These energies rise up and constitute
themselves within the very situations of confrontation. That is why
great social uprisings have an unpredictable nature and come under the
sign of spontaneity.
To subvert normal functioning and established uses, to occupy public
spaces, to transform places of passage into places of encounter and
expression, all of this activates a collective creativity that invents,
in each instant, new ways to extend subversion and have it proliferate.
Liberated spaces therefore illuminate new social relations which create,
in turn, new social ties. People transform and politicise themselves in
very few days, not superficially but profoundly, with incredible speed.
It is, as a matter of fact, the concrete realisations, here and now,
that reveal themselves capable of mobilising people, of inciting them to
go further and to make them see that other ways of life are possible.
However, for these realisations to see the day, it is necessary that
people feel themselves to be protagonists, that they decide for
themselves. And it is when they are truly protagonists and they really
feel themselves to be so, that they involve themselves totally, exposing
their bodies in the development of the struggle, thereby permitting that
the movement of rebellion amplify itself well beyond what could have
been prognosticated in view of the discontent, source of the first
confrontations. This process of self-institution of a new political
space, created in the very midst of struggles, is very close to what
anarchism advocates and calls for.
It was a phenomenon of this kind that occurred in Paris in May of 1968;
long before, therefore, the existence of the Internet, which
demonstrates that the NICT are not necessary for these events to happen.
Nevertheless, it is also a phenomenon of this kind that filled the
public squares of Spain with protesters from the 15th of May of 2011 on.
All the same, what seems quite clear when we observe the struggles of
the beginning of this century is that even though the NICT are not, in
any way, necessary for the formation of the conditions of collective
creativity, direct democracy and self-organisation, they nonetheless
encourage their appearance, thus promoting mobilisations with a strongly
libertarian character.
In commenting on the reasons for its renovation and, more precisely, of
its formation in struggles, I said that anarchism could be defined as
what contradicts the logic of domination. Anarchist thought has in
effect put so much effort into unmasking the multiple damages that power
inflicts on freedom and in delegitimating and dismantling the
apparatuses of power, that it has instituted itself as the ideology and
the political thought of the critique of power, while other emancipatory
ideologies that originated in the 19th century confined this subject to
a secondary or derivative level. It is precisely the importance given to
the phenomenon of power that accounts for the vigorous actuality of
anarchism. This latter today harvests, so to speak, the fruits of the
secular obstinacy with which it has denounced the harmfulness of power
and sees itself, finally, absolved of the accusation of having remained
blind to the principal causes of injustice and exploitation, that some
situated exclusively in the economic sphere. However, we also have to
recognise that in its questioning of power, anarchism has not always
been correct.
In showing that relations of power are forged within social ties and
that they are created incessantly in the vary fabric of society, the
research of Michel Foucault has contradicted the anarchist belief in the
possibility of radically eliminating power, obliging a fairly profound
reconsideration of this entire problem.
Paradoxically, the refutation of anarchism on this precise point seems
to assure its permanence for a very long time, because if it is certain
that relations of power are inherent to the social and that anarchism is
fundamentally a desire to criticise, confront and subvert relations of
power, then something of what inspires anarchism cannot but persist
while societies exist. And not because anarchism is called upon to
perpetuate itself throughout the centuries, but because it is unlikely
that a political current which, under different names or other
modalities, continues to make the criticism of power its principal
preoccupation, whatever the concrete techniques adopted by domination,
will completely disappear.
The political importance and actuality of anarchism has grown as the
importance and the sophistication of the relations of power of daily
life have increased. In revealing the abundant plurality of the
modalities of the exercise of power, and in questioning overly
simplistic analyses that rendered these invisible and in this way
shielding them from any possibility of contestation, Michel Foucault’s
research has contributed decisively to highlight the extension of power
and to magnify its perceived presence in the social field. This has
enormously amplified the field of anarchism’s theoretical and practical
intervention, underlying its importance.
However, it has not only been our perception of the modalities of the
exercise of power that has been diversified and amplified in the last
decades. We have also witnessed the proliferation of those aspects of
our lives subject to the interventions of power.
In contemporary society, power operates with an ever finer surgical
precision, gaining access to the smallest details of our existence – so
as to, among other things, extract surplus value -, while at the same
time increasing the areas in which it intervenes and the diversity of
its procedures. Procedures that transform us, for example, into
“entrepreneurs of the self”, extending the logic of business to the
whole social body, or which use our freedom to make us more competitive.
With the multiplication of the facets of our existence that become
targets of the interventions of power, the occasions for the concrete
intervention of anarchism also consequently multiply and, in parallel,
the feeling that the exercise of power constitutes an omnipresent
phenomenon that should be a principal concern, as anarchism always
affirmed, intensifies.
This omnipresence today awakens a more than justified anxiety that the
present does not cease to feed. The feeling that the apparatuses of
power are in a position to control our most anodyne actions and that
nothing can escape their gaze, finds ample sustenance in episodes such
as WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, or Edward Snowden and the National
Security Agency (NSA) of the United States, as well as in the
revelations about the use of big data to generate information and
economic benefits from the traces left behind by the steps we take in
the electronic fabric. Likewise, the procedures of continuous,
exhaustive and “for always” recording and storage of exchanges and
consultations that pass through the medium of the Internet and mobile
apparatuses, accompanied by the unlimited capacity to treat this
information, augur or, better, illustrate our already total transparency
before the gaze of power. If to this we add that with the use of drones
and other techniques for the physical elimination of individuals branded
undesirable – poisonings, for example -, power has gone well beyond, and
without embarrassment, the control of information, then the considerable
expansion, in some parts of the population, of the hostility to power
and the desire to combat it, is understandable.
This extension of power also has a bearing on the situation in the world
of work. Until a few decades ago, resistances were activated and armed
on the bases of the conditions of exploitation that weighed upon the
workers. Today these conditions continue to sustain important struggles.
However, domination, which is much more diversified than in the past,
has proliferated outside the field of productive labour, thereby
considerably weakening the strength of the workers movement. Today, it
is not only a matter of extracting surplus value from labour power; all
of the activities which workers give themselves over to, outside their
workplaces, also produce benefits to a degree and with a diversity of
procedures unknown until the present. Their savings, their leisure,
their health, their houses, the education of their children, care given
and received, etc., produce dividends that, if they were always
substantial, today have acquired a much more considerable volume.
It is thus not surprising that the coming to political awareness
increasingly originates in the experience of the control exercised over
our daily life and in the perception that our whole existence is
commodified. It is from this experience and this perception that
originate the new antagonistic and radical subjectivities of our time.
It is sufficient therefore to consider simultaneously the contributions
of critical thought to a new analysis of the relations of power and the
characteristics adopted in the exercise of power in contemporary
society, to see that the field that opens up before anarchist struggles
is experiencing a spectacular deployment.
The social, cultural, political and technological changes of these last
decades are creating conditions favourable to the resurgence of
anarchism, while at the same time obliging it to renew a certain number
of its presuppositions and perspectives. On the level of practices, this
renewal has taken on, in good measure, the form of what I earlier called
neoanarchism, while on a more theoretical level, it has taken on, in
part, the form of postanarchism, as we will see in what follows.
Strongly criticised by some, praised by others, postanarchism currently
enjoys a presence in the international anarchist movement significant
enough that it can no longer be ignored by anyone.
The term postanarchism probably appeared for the first time in March of
1987, when Hakim Bey – pseudonym for Peter Lamborn Wilson, an anarchist
residing in the United States – published a very short text with the
title Post-Anarchism Anarchy. It would however be a big mistake if we
thought to locate in this manifesto the point of departure for
postanarchism, as it has subsequently developed. Hakim Bey’s text is a
plea against the paralysing effects caused by the fossilisation of
anarchist organisations and against the sclerosis of anarchism converted
into, according to him, a mere ideology. It is a call to overtake
anarchism in the name of anarchy, where the conceptual lines of what
would subsequently constitute postanarchism appear nowhere. In fact,
Hakim Bey’s influence will be noticed, above all, among certain sectors
of neoanarchism more than in postanarchism, with the notions of the
“TAZ” and “PAZ” – “Temporary Autonomous Zones” and “Permanently
Autonomous Zones”, respectively – which he developed in the 1990s and
which influenced segments of libertarian okupations and of
insurrectionalism.
Paradoxically, it is in a work that did not mention the term
postanarchism anywhere where the origin of this current of thought is to
be located. In effect, Todd May, a US anarchist and academic, published
in 1994 a book whose title, The Political Philosophy of
Poststructuralist Anarchism already clearly announced what would
constitute one of the essential dimensions of postanarchism, namely, the
inclusion within anarchism of important conceptual elements taken from
poststructuralism. Todd May had already initiated this reflection in
1989 in an article entitled “Is Post-Structuralist Political Theory
Anarchist?”. However, in being published in a philosophy journal of
limited circulation, it went largely unnoticed. And the same happened
with an article entitled “Poststructuralism and the Epistemological
Bases of Anarchism”, that another university professor, Andrew Koch,
published in 1993, again in a philosophy journal with modest
circulation.
A few years later and while the echos of the great demonstration of 1999
in Seattle still resonated with force, offering testimony to the
resurgence of anarchism, another book, in which the term postanarchism
is also not used, took up in part Todd May’s theoretical argument. This
book published in 2001 by the Australian anarchist professor Saul
Newman, whose title is From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and
the Dislocation of Power, ends with a chapter textually calling for “a
postanarchist politics”, employing the instruments of poststructuralism.
In the following year, 2002, another Californian professor, Lewis Call,
published a work along the same lines, Postmodern Anarchism, which
reinforced a current for which there now competed three possible
denominations: first, “poststructuralist anarchism”, then “postmodern
anarchism”, and as a third option, “postanarchism”. It was this last
denomination, despite being the least precise, the most ambiguous and
the most problematic, that finally imposed itself. The first of the
denominations mentioned would have been undoubtedly the most appropriate
and the most precise, for carrying with it a direct reference to
poststructuralism, but it was too much tied to university culture. The
final result was also probably influenced by the discredit that
undermined the term “postmodern”, due to its vague content, its changing
definitions and the sometimes contradictory character of its political
implications.
It is possible that the creation, in Februrary of 2003, by Jason Adams –
who had participated in the organisation of the Seattle demonstration -,
of a website called “Post Anarchism”, which served as a platform for
numerous exchanges and debates, contributed to spreading and
consolidating the use of this term. In any case, the publications and
the references to postanarchism have not in fact ceased to multiply
since then and in 2011, a mere ten years after the publication of Saul
Newman’s book, there was already a first Post-Anarchism Reader.
When the texts that develop or discuss the postanarchist approach are
reviewed, what appears with the greatest force is perhaps the idea of a
hybridisation of anarchism and poststructuralism, or the inclusion of
poststructuralist concepts within anarchism. It is the grafting, some
would say, of poststructuralism onto anarchism that will make way for a
new variety of libertarian formulations which will give form to
postanarchism.
Jason Adams states, for example, that postanarchism is not so much a
coherent political program, but rather a anti-authoritarian problematic
that emerges from anarchist poststructuralist approach or, even, from a
poststructuralist anarchist approach.
Benjamin Franks, for his part, writes that postanarchism is to be
understood as a new hybrid of anarchism and poststructuralism. And Saul
Newman presents it as the construction of an intersection between
anarchism and poststructuralist discourse. The same Benjamin Franks adds
that the term postanarchism, that is used more often than not with a
certain hesitation, refers to an ensemble of efforts to reinvent
anarchism in light of the principal developments that have marked
contemporary radical theory and that began, in many cases, with the
events of May 68 in Paris.
In the initial page of introduction to the website created by Jason
Adams, below the heading “What is postanarchism?”, one can read:
In order to understand what the emerging phenomena of postanarchism “is”
in the contemporary moment, first of all one should consider what it is
not; it is not an “ism” like any other — it is not another set of
ideologies, doctrines and beliefs that can be laid out positively as a
bounded totality to which one might conform and then agitate amongst the
“masses” to get others to rally around and conform to as well, like some
odd ideological flag. Instead, this profoundly negationary term refers
to a broad and heterogeneous array of anarchist theories and practices
that have been rendered “homeless” by the rhetoric and practice of most
of the more closed and ideological anarchisms such as
anarchist-syndicalism, anarchist-communism, and anarchist-platformism as
well as their contemporary descendants, all of which tend to reproduce
some form of class-reductionism, state-reductionism or liberal democracy
in a slightly more “anarchistic” form, thus ignoring the many lessons
brought to us in the wake of the recent past.
Postanarchism is today found not only in abstract radical theory but
also in the living practice of such groups as the No Border movements,
People’s Global Action, the Zapatistas, the Autonomen and other such
groups that while clearly “antiauthoritarian” in orientation, do not
explicitly identify with anarchism as an ideological tradition so much
as they identify with its general spirit in their own unique and varying
contexts, which are typically informed by a wide array of both
contemporary and classical radical thinkers.
…
[In] Saul Newman[‘s] … book “From Bakunin to Lacan: Antiauthoritarianism
and the Dislocation of Power” … the term refers to a theoretical move
beyond classical anarchism, into a hybrid theory consisting of an
synthesis with particular concepts and ideas from poststructuralist
theory such as post-humanism and anti-essentialism.
(Jason Adams, Postanarchism in a Nutshell)
We conclude this brief review taking up what Saul Newman says,
undoubtedly the principal theorist of post anarchism:
This does not, in any sense, refer to a superseding or moving beyond of
anarchism – it does not mean that the anarchist theoretical and
political project should be left behind. … The prefix ‘post-’ does not
mean ‘after’ or ‘beyond’, but rather a working at the conceptual limits
of anarchism with the aim of revising, renewing and even radicalizing
its implications.
(Saul Newman, Post Anarchist and Radical Politics Today)*
Given the poststructuralist and postmodern filiation of postanarchism,
one could expect that this latter would take up the offensive launched
by these two currents of thought against the legitimising ideology of
modernity, but now directing this criticism against the modern
presuppositions that would eventually dwell in anarchist thought. And,
indeed, postanarchists endeavour to show that anarchism is very far from
having escaped from the ideological influences of modernity.
It seems to me that we cannot but agree with them on this point on the
condition, of course, that we refuse to conceive of anarchism as
something which sprung up from a preexisting foundational essence and
that we think of it instead as having constituted itself through an
ensemble of social and cultural practices deeply rooted in history.
These practices were not in fact those of a few isolated individuals,
but were developed by thousands of people who were fundamentally – and
how the devil could it be otherwise? – modern subjects, given that it is
in the Modern Epoch when anarchism constituted itself as a significant
social movement.
Logically, anarchism cannot but be profoundly marked by the social
conditions and the fundamental ideas of modernity. Of course, anarchism
is not a faithful copy, a mimetic reproduction, a clone of the
principles of modernity, as some postanarchists sometimes insinuate. And
it is not for various reasons, such as, for example, that modernity, as
with all other historical epochs, is a heterogeneous time that
incorporates more influences than those which have a dominant character;
and, in this precise case, in addition to those that come from
Enlightenment ideology, those that emanate from Romanticism, for
example, also manifest themselves.
Anarchism in fact sees itself influenced by modernity twice over. First,
because it develops historically within modernity and absorbs therefore
some of its characteristics. And, secondly, because it gained body in
certain practices of struggle against certain aspects of modernity.
Anarchism situates itself consequently, in modernity and against
modernity, to take up the expression of Nico Berti when he speaks of
anarchism as something that is in history but against history.
Consequently, anarchism constructs itself at the same time by antinomy
and opposition to, and rejection of, certain aspects of modernity. And
equally, by assimilation and absorption of, and accommodation to, this
same modernity. With some frequency, it happens that with and against
are not incompatible and, in any case, it is what occurs here, given
that, on the one hand, anarchist practices articulate themselves against
particular mechanisms of domination of modernity; but, on the other
hand, they construct themselves necessarily with materials and with
tools specific to its time. They are therefore simultaneously modern and
anti-modern practices.
The idea in fact that anarchism finds itself inevitably marked by the
spirit and the social conditions of its time follows logically from a
conception of anarchism that understands its theoretical corpus on the
basis of certain practices of struggle and, above all, practices of
struggle against domination. The idea that anarchism could move through
modernity without being influenced by it could only be sustained by an
essentialist conception of anarchism, or on the basis of a mysterious
capacity that anarchism would have to be able to transcend the
conditions that constitute it.
Allowing then that the postanarchist thesis, according to which
anarchism has incorporated certain influences originating in modernity,
is reasonable, we can now ask ourselves about the conditions of
possibility that have allowed postanarchists to formulate this thesis
and even to arrive at constituting themselves as a current of thought
within anarchism. It is of course in the social, economic, cultural and
political changes of the second half of the 20th century where these
conditions of possibility are to be found; that is, finally, in the same
phenomena that cause the resurgence of anarchism.
These changes effectively mark the beginning of a transition in our
societies towards forms and conditions of existence which only today do
we experience their very first effects, but which increasingly
differentiate themselves from those that characterised the extensive
period of modernity; a period that begins to gain shape during the 16th
century, that creates its legitimising ideology during the century of
the Enlightenment and that continues to be for the most part ours today,
even though it has ceased to be hegemonic. (For a more elaborate
development of the question of modernity and postmodernity, see the
Addenda.)
In parallel to the technological, political and economic changes that
have given origin to a recomposition of the apparatuses and modalities
of domination and, therefore, of struggles, the second half of the 20th
century has seen the development of a strongly critical movement of
modernity’s legitimising ideology. This critique has antecedents in the
very times of the Enlightenment – in Romanticism, for example – and,
later, in thinkers situated in opposition to it, such as Max Stirner or
Friedrich Nietzsche; a critical movement that from the 1980s on, came to
be called postmodern thought or poststructuralist theory.
The conditions then for the possibility of postanarchism lie in the
development of poststructuralist/postmodern criticism, which for its
part is made possible by the first steps towards a change of epoch.
This inclusion of postanarchism in the critical movement that raises
itself up against certain aspects of modern ideology bestows a certain
credibility on the reproach that all of this concerns an approach that
originates not with concrete struggles and which is finally nothing more
than an intellectual movement, not to say, something strictly academic.
If we observe with greater attention, however, it can be noticed that
its formulation and its development maintain a relation, even though
indirect, with current struggles against domination. On the one hand,
May 68 and, more generally, the struggles that erupted in the world at
the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s are not foreign to
the elaboration of poststructuralist and postmodernist theses, upon
which postanarchism finds fundamental support. On the other hand,
postanarchism would not have found any echo and, perhaps, would not even
have been formulated without the eruption of practices and forms of
intervention that are specific to radical politics, as these have
configured themselves from the end of the 1990s until the present.
It is true that postanarchism invents absolutely nothing, that it takes
its tools from the theoretical spaces from which is developed the
criticism of modernity, namely poststructuralism and postmodernism. It
is enough to see the importance that it gives to the anarchist criticism
of representation, or the anarchist exaltation of diversity and
singularity, to be convinced of the origin of its tools. Nevertheless,
it is also true that postanarchism contributes to making this criticism
known in anarchist milieus and this is a great merit, even if this is
finally its only merit.
It would however be erroneous to reduce postanarchism to the simple role
of disseminator of concepts and theses, because postanarchism also
presents itself as an effort at self-criticism that realises anarchism
by freeing it from the debts that it contracted in the past with the
legitimising ideology of modernity. Of course, if the usefulness of the
Enlightenment in undermining the conceptions, institutions and practices
of subjugation that existed at that time leaves no room for doubt, nor
then can it be ignored that the social changes that have occurred over
the course of modernity and the labour carried out by critical thought,
have made ever more visible the subtle effects of subjugation that the
ideas of the Enlightenment also bore, and these can no longer be simply
assumed, without further ado, by antagonistic movements.
Among the many criticisms that postanarchism directs at anarchism, two
of the most important point to, on the one hand, the essentialist
presuppositions that it assumed and, on the other hand, its overly
vetust conception of the phenomenon of power. The later fails to take
into consideration, among other things, the productive nature and the
immanence that characterise this phenomenon. Even though I have moved to
the adenda a more detailed exposition of the problematic of power and
essentialism, I would like to briefly address the theme of essentialism,
considering it exclusively in its relation to the question of the
subject, which will inevitably touch on some aspects of the problematic
of power.
It is in fact obvious that anarchism shares, in good measure, the modern
belief in the existence of an autonomous subject, and that it would be
sufficient to pluck it from the claws of power for it to be able to
finally realise itself, to be free and to act for itself. It was thus
about working for the emancipation of individuals. That is, to act to
remove them from tutelage, from servitude or, at least, from an ensemble
of restrictions that repress them, so as to be able finally to become
the owners of themselves. However, poststructuralism teaches us that
beneath the paving stones there is no beach, that there is not a desire
that we can liberate or a subject that we can emancipate, because once
emancipated, what would be seen would not be an autonomous being, but a
being already moulded and constituted by relations of power. To oppose
the effect of the apparatuses of domination will never make appear a
constitutively autonomous subject that, liberated from what repressed
it, would find its authentic self, for the reason thqt this later does
not exist. All that we can hope for, and it is not a little, is that the
subject find the instruments to modify itself by itself and to
constitute itself differently, neither closer nor further from what
would be its fundamental nature, for this last is to be found nowhere,
given that it simply does not exist.
I take from Saul Newman the idea according to which one of the most
perverse effects of the ideology of the Enlightenment, and of its
humanist presuppositions, is to have been able to construct
subjectivities that perceived themselves as endowed with an essence
which would find itself repressed by the action of certain external
circumstances. This perception effectively guides the struggle against
power in a direction that paradoxically reinforces it, given that the
struggle to liberate our essence from what represses it seeks to
liberate something which in fact is already constituted by power.
Instead of scrutinising the marks left behind by its interventions, we
assume them as alien to power and as something which preexists its
action. This leads ultimately to opening the door to the normalising
effects that produce the belief in a human nature which would be – with
apologies for redundancy – purely “natural”. Certainly, if a human
nature exists and if we wish to be recognised and recognise ourselves as
“human subjects”, we should try to mould ourselves as faithfully as
possible to the characteristics that define it and the norms that
configure it, without anyone even asking this of us, simply allowing
certain normalising effects to act.
With the crisis of the autonomy of the subject, it is of course the
ideologies of emancipation that are also seen as invalid, in many
respects. In addition to what presented itself as the subject that
needed to be emancipated – the autonomous subject -, the subject charged
with carrying out the emancipation – the proletariat – also became
problematic, while doubts began to grow with regards to the objectives
assigned to the final outcome of emancipatory struggle; that is, the
creation of a pacified and reconciled society, in the purest
eschatological tradition.
These critical developments have led us to the necessity of redefining
radical politics, not to disarm them, as is feared by the defenders of
ideologies anchored in the 19th century, but to rearm them with the aim
of increasing their effectiveness in a society that, to say the least,
is far from being that of the past. For example, there is no doubt that
it continues to be necessary to fight against the State, as long as this
continues to be the principal apparatus of repression and control. It is
however necessary to abandon, among other things, the ingenuousness of
believing that the State only exercises power from above, on subjects
whose only tie to it would be rooted in the fact that they are trapped
by its nets and suffer its dominion. In reality, these bonds are far
more dense than those that can be inferred from a mere relation of
subordination, given that the State receives some of its features, from
below, in this case, as a consequence of the effects of power produced
by subjects themselves in the context of their relations. In receiving
them from their subjects, it is natural that it share them, without
demanding any coercion. Therefore, to struggle against the State also
consists in changing things “below”, in local, diverse and situated
practices, there where power acquires part of its attributes.
I am convinced that it would be extremely interesting for anarchism to
appropriate and integrate into its own critical baggage the
poststructuralist-postmodern critique, above all in its Foucauldian
variant. Among other things, this later teaches us about the a priori of
our possible experience; that is, about what constitutes us today and
what, because of the very fact that it constitutes us, escapes our
perception. This can help us to understand what sustains our
interpretations of, and the nature of what orients, without our
knowledge, our thought, our practices, our subjectivity and our
libertarian sensibility; and contribute, in this way, to better focus
our struggles against domination.
To limit oneself to protecting the modern elements of anarchism is as
useless as the effort to place value on the differences that separate it
from modernity. What is truly important is to give to anarchism
expressions that are in consonance with the present. That is, with an
epoch that is still massively modern, certainly, but where the advances
of postmodernity are more visible with each passing day.
Nevertheless, it is in no way the debate over postanarchism that will be
decisive for reaching this goal, but the changes experienced by the
struggles against domination. In effect, to the extent that anarchism,
as I do not stop repeating, constructs itself on the bases and in the
midst of these practices of struggle, it follows that it necessarily
changes when these vary. It is, consequently, because it indissolubly
joins idea and action, because it establishes a symbiosis between theory
and practice, that anarchism engenders new ideas when it engages with
new practices, thereby renewing itself on both planes at the same time;
that is, on that of ideas, on the one hand, and on that of practices, on
the other.
Ultimately, it is in the first place because it remains totally faithful
to its determination to combat domination in all of its forms; in the
second place, because domination modifies its own features with the
advance of postmodernity, and in the third place, because anarchism does
not separate its theoretical formulations from its practices of
struggle; it is for these three reasons, taken together, that anarchism
is becoming surreptitiously postmodern, whether we want it or not,
whether we are conscious of it or not. And it does so as a consequence
of its adaptation to the characteristics of the present. Needless to say
that this is eminently positive, as much to assure the political future
of anarchism, as to maintain in all of their intensity the struggles
against domination.
These quite favourable considerations with regards to postanarchism
should not make us lose sight of the fact that it has been the object of
strong criticisms from the anarchist movement, and that some of these
criticisms are not without foundation. There are, roughly, two types of
critical considerations.
The first, formulated by numerous anarchists, among them Jesse Cohn and
Wilburg Shawn, believe that classical anarchism and postanarchism in
fact differ fairly little and maintain that to justify the existence of
postanarchism, its defenders insist on deforming and making a caricature
of classical anarchism, of which they certainly have a more than
insufficient knowledge of the whole. Thus, postanarchists would trace a
biased image of anarchism with the aim of demonstrating the importance
of reforming it in the light of poststructuralism and for this they
resort to selected fragments of chosen authors who are far from
representing the breadth and diversity of an anarchist thought that
assumes perhaps some presuppositions originating with Enlightenment
ideology, but which also sets aside critically other aspects of this
same ideology.
In her book on contemporary anarchism, Vivien García reproaches
postanarchists not only for important lacunae that burden their
knowledge of anarchism, but also of misinterpreting its nature,
succumbing to the professional deformation produced by their academic
activity, something that impedes them from seeing that the texts of
anarchism, indissociable from their involvement in political action,
cannot be dealt with as if they formed a theoretical corpus of a
principally philosophical kind.
Others seek to deactivate the charge against the modern presuppositions
of anarchism claiming, as Nathan Jun does, that classical anarchism was
already postmodern and that it had anticipated notions emphasised only
much later by poststructuralists. Jun’s thesis is that the ideas of
Prouhon, Bakunin and other anarchist thinkers, among which he highlights
of course Max Stirner, are in the end quite close to those of Friedrich
Nietzsche, and that it is the ideas of Nietzsche that will influence
Foucault or Deleuze.
The second type of criticism, originating above all with platformists
(supporters, to varying degrees, of the proposals gathered together in
Archinov’s Platform (1926) to structure in a more cohesive way organised
anarchism) and also with certain libertarian communist currents,
believes that postanarchism is an approach that unconsciously plays the
game of neoliberalism and that turns anarchism away from the struggles
rooted in the world of labour. This criticism, formulated principally by
Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt in their book Black Flame is
already found in embryo in Murray Bookchin and in John Zerzan. As Newman
notes, Bookchin and Zerzan attack poststructuralism on various grounds
and with different objectives, but their central thesis is that
poststructuralism – because it puts into question the autonomy of the
subject and the liberatory potential of Enlightenment rationality –
implies a kind of nihilist irrationalism which, according to them,
renders it impossible to be ethically and politically committed and
leads it finally to have conservative implications.
If one in fact follows the writings of Saul Newman over the course of
these last years, one can see that the first type of criticism,
formulated when postanarchism first appeared, has had a certain effect
on the theses developed by him. It has softened, so to speak, his
criticism of classical anarchism, attenuating the recriminations against
its modern elements, and has had him pay greater attention to the
continuities rather than the oppositions between both types of
anarchism. It is somewhat as if postanarchism recognised that it had the
tendency to overestimate the impact of Enlightenment ideology on
anarchism and to exaggerate the reach of its acritical absorption of the
essentialism that accompanies this ideology.
We see then that postanarchism has not turned a deaf ear to the
criticisms that it has received , showing its openness to react
positively to some of these. Furthermore, it has demonstrated its
vitality by continuing to feed a critical debate within anarchism and by
endeavouring to reach out to the various contemporary expressions of
practices of struggle and to the theoretical elaborations of radical
politics, as this are developed within, but also outside, the anarchist
tradition. In this sense, queer theory, postmarxism, the work of Judith
Butler, Jacques Rancière, Toni Negri or the Tiqqun current, to cite only
a few examples, are taken into account, so as to approach them
critically and, also, to collect elements capable of enriching
postanarchism and of converting it into a space of anarchist
intellectual creativity.
To conclude this chapter, it appeared useful to me to complete it with a
list of the principal publications, organised chronologically, related
to postanarchism. Some set out and develop postanarchist theses, others
comment or analyse them critically and, finally, some, though part of
anarchism in movement, would be closer to what I have called
neoanarchism than postanarchism.
…
Translators Note: The website that Ibáñez mentions, created by Jason
Adams in 2003, no longer seems to exist. Instead of therefore
translating Ibáñez’s own translation of Adams’ text, I have quoted from
a piece by Adams entitled Postanarchism in a Nutshell (available at the
online Anarchist Library), which seems to repeat the passage quoted by
Ibáñez. The passage quoted by Saul Newman appears in the book without
any direct reference. I have then assumed that it is quoted from
Newman’s essay Post Anarchist and Radical Politics Today, which is
available online here.
In the preceding pages, I have tried to describe some of the forms in
which contemporary anarchism presents itself and I have suggested a few
hypotheses with the aim of endeavouring to understand what has given it
a new vitality at the beginning of this century. These hypotheses are of
course completely debatable and the conception of anarchism upon which
they rest may provoke the agreement of some or the reservations of
others. However, in light of the successive episodes of rebellion in the
world, it seems to me quite clear that anarchism in these last years
surges anew with force, that it does so in a significantly renewed form
and that this resurgence and this renewal are intimately bound up with
each other. In other words, one does not go without the other, and this
for reasons that are neither due to mere circumstances nor to accidents,
but refer instead, as I have tried to show, to essential issues.
With everything, it must still be asked if the form that contemporary
anarchism is acquiring, made up of a mixture of neoanarchism, of
anarchism beyond its own limits and postanarchism constitutes in the end
a subculture of anarchism that will come to add itself to the already
existing subcultures – individualism, libertarian communism,
anarchosyndicalism, insurrectionalism, etc. – or if, on the contrary, we
can consider it as the prefiguration of a new modality of radical
politics that will take up anew the fundamental intuitions of anarchism,
but recomposing them in an original way. My conviction is that this new
radical politics will gain shape, slowly, and will come to substitute,
in a more or less long term, that which began in the 19th century.
However, I have no certain criterion as to whether this new political
radicality is prefigured in contemporary anarchism.
Like the famous Russian dolls that fit one into the other, various
elements today come together to explain the double movement of
anarchism’s resurgence and renewal, and at the same time to offer some
clues about grounds on the basis of which it can continue to develop and
achieve a real influence on our societies or, at least, on some
significant parts of it.
A first aspect that seems quite clear, though it goes beyond the
concrete case of anarchism and, even, the more general case of political
ideologies and religious affiliations, resides in the extraordinary
importance of the imaginary in the mobilisation of affects, to create a
feeling of community, to stoke the desire to struggle and to activate,
eventually, movements of rebellion. In effect, one has to intensely
believe that another order of things, much more attractive than that
which exists, is possible and fervently desire that this possibility
becomes reality, to commit oneself without reservation to the struggle
to change existing reality. The recognition of the importance of the
imaginary is nothing new; its role however seems to increase
significantly in present day subversive movements.
The privation of certain material and/or symbolic goods becomes
sometimes in fact so unbearable that people lose all fear and openly
commit themselves to the struggle to change things. It may also occur,
nevertheless, that the collective imaginary is the principal cause and
motor of rebellions. Struggle and commitment however are not
self-sufficient values; to fight in the name of convictions and an ideal
are not necessarily laudable, as the struggles driven by fascist or
jihadist imaginaries remind us. Obviously, everything depends on,
ultimately, why one struggles and what we are committed to. The kind of
imaginary capable of promoting struggles with a libertarian character
takes the form of utopia. Utopia can be understood as a principle which
activates and revitalises the radical rejection of the world that is
imposed upon us, even as, with greater or lesser precision, the outlines
of what we desire, or at least the values upon which what is desired
should be based, are outlined.
The current resurgence of anarchism is accompanied by a revalorisation
of utopian thought and by the conviction of the necessity of utopia.
Perhaps because in part the present world lacks any utopia, anarchism
finds a propitious breeding ground for its development. These
circumstances point to the sustenance and intensification of the
exigency of utopia as one of the possible grounds for the development of
anarchism. However, just as it is said, jokingly, that nostalgia is not
what it used to be, it turns out that utopia is also not exactly what it
was in the past. If we observe with care the renewal of anarchism, we
can see that the current revitalisation of utopia is the revitalisation
of a utopia fully conscious of being so, absolutely convinced that it is
nothing more than a utopia; that is, aware that it is only an incitement
to struggle and not a future project in search of realisation. This is a
demand for utopia as the receptacle of our desires and of our dreams, as
the place for the expression of a more encouraging vision of the world
and as a navigation map, blurred and imprecise, where the routes have
sill to be invented more than to be followed.
It is consequently a kind of utopia liberated from all of the old
eschatological contents that accompanied it far too frequently in the
old revolutionary imaginary, a utopia that has bid a final farewell to
the siren songs that promised a better future, if the present were
sacrificed, and which only points to the future as a mere orientation to
actively construct present reality. Because it is in our daily life
where people have to live the revolution. In fact, either we experience
it and live it from now on, or, what is more probable, we will never
come to know it. A phrase comes to me in this instant, without knowing
its source. It more or less said: “life is what passes while we prepare
ourselves to live, it is what flows while we plan life projects”; in
like manner, the revolution will pass out to sea and it will remain
beyond our reach if we do not anchor it firmly in the present.
It may seem incongruent or, even, contradictory to connect so directly
something which opens onto the future, as utopia does, with the prosaic
preoccupation with the present; and someone could suspect that I let
myself be carried away with oxymorons. Nonetheless, the extraordinary
dilation of the present, which is for new generations the only truly
significant part of a time where the past and present are confined to
ever narrower margins, undoubtedly represents one of the most
significant phenomena of an epoch when the piercing cry “No Future”
resonates. Whether we celebrate the preeminence conceded to the present
because it raises itself up against the ingenuous and submissive
acceptance of its sacrifice on the alter of the future, or we regret
this so called preeminence because it renders difficult the activation
of political projects that aim for the long term, it is clear that
emergent anarchism and, more generally, radical politics, express
themselves today in the present. In effect, the current social
sensitivity of oppositional movements demands that political proposals
be judged in terms of their suitability in really existing situations
and that it be in the immediate that they demonstrate their validity. It
is for this reason that, to my understanding, the preeminence attributed
to the present constitutes a second possible ground for the development
of anarchism.
In this case however it is also necessary to avoid a possible
misunderstanding. The presentism which characterises a good part of
contemporary anarchism must not be interpreted as if the objective of
struggles consisted of creating spaces where one can live in a
relatively satisfactory manner and in consonance with anarchist values,
while the rest of humanity lives in unbearable conditions. This would
imply that there is little which differentiates the values of anarchism
from the principles which animate the capitalist system. In the same way
that no one is really free while there are those who are not, neither
can one live in consonance with libertarian principles while others
remain exploited and oppressed. Emphasis is not placed on the present so
as to attain a certain, more satisfactory, way of being – even though
the fact of living according to our principles, of being consistent with
ourselves and of seeking to resolve the contradictions that the
surrounding world imposes on us, also makes us feel better -, but to
articulate a mode of struggle. This emphasis simply means that the trap
that consists in postponing the actual transformation of reality with
the aim of dedicating all of one’s energies to pure confrontation is
rejected. This trap occludes the fact that the transformation of the
present is, before anything else, a weapon and, perhaps, one of the most
dangerous for the system because it eats away at it from within and
permits its relentless harassment.
Likewise, the emphasis on the present would ingenuously err and would
make itself extremely vulnerable, if it pretended to ignore the past and
break all of the ties with the memory of earlier struggles and with the
accumulated experiences of the long confrontation with domination. To
centre on the present does not mean constantly starting from zero and
having to newly learn and experiment with everything. The historical
legacy of social movements against oppression and exploitation is too
rich to not seek to learn from it and to use it to effectively shake up
the present. It is precisely because they know that collective memory is
the bearer of tremendously dangerous weapons for its survival that the
dominant powers of society take such great efforts to bury and distort
it.
The new modality of utopia and radical presentism, paradoxically united
in contemporary anarchism, are accompanied by a third element that gains
daily ever more importance as an instrument of resistance to and
subversion of the instituted social system, at the same time as it
increases the attractiveness exercised by anarchism. This has to do with
its constructive capacity, something which completes the diverse
practices of confrontation that it encourages and the will to resist
that it inspires.
So anarchism must not only offer reasons and means for struggle, it also
has to offer reasons to live in a different way and the means to
experience, in practice, a different life. It is precisely because it is
able to offer all of this today that it is able to seduce minority
elements, but with each day, larger youth elements. Its constructive
capacity makes it possible to tear away spaces from the system, and to
construct modes of life capable of offering more satisfactions than
those offered by the mirages of commodity consumerism and to oppose the
later’s power of seduction. It is in this constructive capacity where
anarchism finds, I believe, a third ground for its development.
A fourth condition consists of the necessity to definitively abandon all
totalising pretensions, rediscovering the suspicion already manifested
in this regard by the rich and fertile current of classical anarchist
individualism, even though this based its caution on the demand that all
singularities be respected and not on the present arguments.
Against totalising temptations, anarchists must in fact be fully
convinced that their values, their ideas, their practices, their
utopias, their beliefs, the ways of life they long for, in sum, all that
distinguishes and characterises them will never be able, far from it, to
reach unanimity in an extraordinarily diverse humanity.
They must accept, without any reticence or the least bitterness, that
choices different from their own are perfectly legitimate and that the
only rationally conceivable social reality is a plural and heterogeneous
reality, in which it will represent only a more or less limited part of
humanity and in which it will find itself in a context of necessary
coexistence with other options.
It is a matter then of acting and working “with others”, in struggles
and in everyday life, and to open oneself up to ideas and experiences
coming from outside our own tradition. To do things with others who do
not exactly share all of our modes of being and thinking, not because of
the mere tactical preoccupation of increasing our forces to better
struggle against the enemy, but, as I said before, for reasons of
principle, because anarchism is also the respect of and search for
diversity in freedom. And it should be concretely, in a situation and in
practice, that the limits of this common activity and this shared
everyday life should be evaluated, because if, effectively, it is
certain that other options are perfectly legitimate, it is no less
certain that ours are also, at least to the same extent, and that we
have the full right to defend them. To defend them without imposing
them, of course, because “to be an anarchist obliges” – as our comrade
André Bernard says -, yet without accepting, as well, that others impose
theirs upon us, and without hesitating to resort to force, if necessary,
to impede it (see the addenda dedicated to relativism).
As it is not advisable to live in a ghetto, to raise frontiers or walls
of separation, we will have no other remedy but to find ways to
conciliate, on the one hand, the possibility of living in a milieu as
libertarian as is possible with, on the other hand, the necessity of
coexisting with other milieus. This is one of the challenges that
anarchism has to resolve and that is posed not only at the global level
of a society, but, even, in the micro-spaces that we are able today to
wrench away from the system. Along this same line, it should be stressed
that anarchism should show itself more sensitive to its own cultural and
civilisational determinants, acquiring full consciousness of its
undeniable Eurocentrism and that its roots plunge into a field
historically impregnated with Christian influences. It is indispensable
that anarchism establish a dialogue, an exchange and a confrontation
with related perspectives, but which are embedded in other cultural
contexts, so as to be able to critically rethink some of the
presuppositions that shape it and to make them less dependent on its
socio-cultural determinants.
The problematic of power or, better, of domination, which has become
much more sensitive than in the past and which provokes evermore
numerous and vehement reactions of resistance from some youth,
constitutes a fifth element that explains the recovery of vitality of
the ideology which historically concerned itself, in the most determined
way, with this issue.
In parallel, the increase of the presence of power in the social fabric
has considerably enriched the analysis of this phenomenon, giving way to
a new understanding of its mechanisms. This is certainly a new
understanding that obliges anarchism to qualify and, sometimes, to
reconsider in depth its own conceptions of power. This has contributed
to its renewal, even though the weight of its old conceptions continues
to be excessive.
Finally, a sixth element that appears in the double process of the
resurgence and the renewal of anarchism – if only enunciated in an
explicit manner by the postanarchist current – is the mistrust shown
towards a good number of the presuppositions of the legitimising
ideology of modernity, and the critical work of clarifying its
supposedly emancipatory effects. To mention but one example of the
subjugating character of certain supposedly emancipatory
presuppositions, it is sufficient to consider the way in which
differences, diversity and singularity are crushed as a result of the
beliefs which underlie the acceptance of an essentialist conception of
human nature, and the universal and, consequently, ahistorical and
uniform character, that is conferred upon it.
It will be to the extent that anarchism moves away from – as it has
already begun to do so – the legitimising belief of modernity, that it
will find itself in a better position to work towards the weakening of
the apparatuses of power, apparatuses set up by it, and, consequently,
be better received by those actively opposed to them.
In summary, to enclose utopia in amorous care such that it shine in all
of its splendor; to free it from its eschatological weight and hold it
in the here and now; to concentrate our energies on the transformation
of the present; to materially construct seductive alternatives in the
face of what existing society offers us; to lock away in the trunk of
youthful errors totalising illusions, accepting to be nothing more than
an option, a choice, among others; to rethink, in depth, our conceptions
of power and to free ourselves from the vestiges of the legitimising
ideology of modernity that may still nest in our conceptions: these are
some of the paths that seem to point to the current resurgence/renewal
of anarchism and they are, I believe, the paths which anarchism will
have to pursue, with a firmer step than that which it is taking today,
to continue its expansion and deepen its renewal.
Can the period in which we live, that of the beginning of the 20th
century, be completely inscribed within the general coordinates of
modernity? Or, on the contrary, are there already discernible indicators
that a sufficiently radical transformation has begun, such that it is
possible to speak of the emergence of a new historical epoch?
Opinions differ and, for the moment, there is no evidence that clearly
favours one of the two options. However, I will risk supporting the
thesis of those who believe that modernity is, effectively, a historical
epoch that is still fully in force, but that it has nevertheless already
initiated a phase of transition towards another epoch. Perhaps due to a
lack of imagination, it is convenient for me to designate this new epoch
“postmodernity”.
On the one hand, it is obvious that in a period of only a few decades,
changes of great magnitude have taken place, as much in the field of
technology, as in that of geopolitics and economics, changes that affect
the ensemble of society. These changes are not only distinguishable by
their magnitude, but by the constant acceleration of the rhythm by which
they are produced. The current velocity of the processes of change
undoubtedly constitutes an important differentiating factor with respect
to the nature of the transformations during earlier centuries.
On the other hand, all epochs produce a legitimating ideology, an
ideology that permits its development and acceptance. Modernity does not
escape this rule and it also possesses a legitimating ideology which
gained form during the Enlightenment and which, perhaps, as a sign of
the change of epoch that has already begun, is ceasing to be accepted as
the obvious and natural way to contemplate the world, becoming instead
an object of radical critiques. But nor does postmodernity escape this
rule and it is currently generating its own legitimating ideology
through, among other things, a firm opposition to the postulates of
modernity.
Let us now briefly examine the characteristics of modernity and
postmodernity as historical epochs and as the legitimating ideologies of
these epochs.
I understand that modernity is clearly an epoch which has, as with all
epochs, a beginning and an end. To speak of “a beginning” should not be
taken to mean an isolated, unique moment, but a more or less extensive
process of constitution. The reference to “an end” alludes to a period
of decline, also more or less extensive, that is a prelude to its
exhaustion and the emergence of a new epoch. In effect, modernity does
not appear at a precise moment, already equipped with all of its
attributes, but rather the distinctive features that shape it constitute
themselves progressively over a period of many centuries. Nor will its
disappearance be sudden.
The modern epoch began to acquire form in Europe from the beginning of
the 15th century, with, among other phenomena, the construction of a new
scientific rationality, the decisive invention of the printing press,
advances in the arts of navigation or the European discovery of the New
World… All the same, it was still necessary to wait some time for the
formation of some of its elements, such as the nation state or the
declaration of human rights. And it was not until the 18th century,
under the Enlightenment, that its legitimating discourse was articulated
with a certain clarity.
Modernity is not separable from the constitution of the immense
enterprise that “Science” represents, nor from the enormous effects that
it has produced on our way of being, our form of life and our form of
thinking. Modernity is born together with an ensemble of technological
innovations that give rise to a new mode of production, that will slowly
configure itself as the capitalist mode of production, giving birth in
turn to the process of industrialisation that will accelerate and
generalise itself in the later half of the 19th century.
To understand the process of the constitution of modernity, it is worth
reviewing for a moment what some researchers, such as Pierre Levy, have
called “intelligence technologies”. These concern technologies that
inscribe themselves in the very process of thought, that have as their
function and as effects, rendering possible certain operations of
thought that were in no way realisable before these intelligence
technologies were constructed; to render possible certain operations of
thought, to give them greater efficiency or improve them and, therefore,
change them in some sense; to definitively create new forms of thought.
Thus writing can be considered an intelligence technology which
undoubtedly affected the modalities of thought and had innumerable
effects on knowledge. The printing press was another of these
intelligence technologies.
The invention of the printing press or, more precisely, its
crystallisation and the social diffusion of its use mark the beginnings
of modernity. This innovation of intelligence technologies was a crucial
element making possible the constitution of modernity, simply because it
was fundamental for making possible the constitution of modern
scientific reason. Modern scientific knowledge would be practically
unthinkable without printed books and all that they imply. The printing
press is not only a vector of diffusion and socialisation of knowledge,
but it also influences the very form in which it is presented and
produced and, therefore, it shapes its very nature. The effect of the
printing press goes well beyond the simple facilitation of the
circulation of texts. For example, the human subject – author or simple
transcriber – is constantly present in the manuscript, even though
her/his presence fades away on the printed page, something that helps to
construct the idea of objectivity, so important to modern scientific
reason. Graphs, tables, images that are reproduced in multiple copies,
without the least difference between them, also contribute to
objectifying the representation as something trustworthy, natural and
secure, contributing thus to the development of one of the principal
constitutive elements of the discourse of modernity, namely: the
ideology of representation.
As with the printing press in the 15th century, all of the great
innovations in the field of intelligence technologies have fundamentally
changed societies, such that it is not difficult to understand that when
the computer and the electronic processing of information appears in the
middle of the 20th century, that this too will produce social effects of
the first magnitude.
Despite the considerable heterogeneity of the conceptions and the
analyses that forged the world view specific to modernity, it is
possible to outline the general features that define it. If Martin
Luther’s Reformation and Erasmus of Rotterdam’s humanism, among others,
contributed to constructing its discourse, it was the philosophy of the
Enlightenment that gave it body, defining its contents with greater
precision. We can synthesise them in the following eleven
characteristics:
First, the hyper-valorisation of reason. On the basis of a teleological
conception of history, according to which history moves towards a
specific end, scientific reason and reason in general appear as vectors
of progress and emancipation. History in effect has a point of origin
and it progresses in a particular direction that will be appropriate as
long as it is always guided by reason. In the process of making reason
the central element, definitive of our I, according to Descartes, an
intrinsic relation, an internal relation between reason and freedom,
between reason and progress or between reason and emancipation came to
be postulated. From this perspective, the increase of rationality would
imply, connaturally, an increase in freedom, and would bring with it the
possibility of social progress. Reason is simply emancipatory.
Second, the development of the ideology of representation. That is,
among other things, the formulation of knowledge as representation of
the world and the subordination of its veracity to the fact that it
reproduces reality correctly. This means that knowledge is, in some way,
a transcription of the real, a translation of reality to another level –
the level of knowledge – that must be as faithful as possible, avoiding
any alteration of the translated. The discourse of modernity affirms
that this is in fact possible, and thereby automatically establishes a
duality, a dichotomy, object-subject, that will drag itself through the
whole period of modernity.
A third aspect consists of the attachment to universalism and the belief
in the secure foundation of truth. That is, the affirmation according to
which the truth – as well as values – can be grounded on indubitable,
absolutely true bases. The discourse of modernity is totalising and
presents itself as true for all human beings and in all times. This is
why the grand narratives, the meta-narratives of modernity, always
express themselves in terms of universal values and projects, providing
explanations that have an unquestionable, ultimate foundation (for a
deeper development of this idea, see the addenda below dedicated to
relativism).
Fourth, the affirmation of the centrality of the subject and
consciousness. The subject is autonomous, which is to say that in
principle it can become the owner or master of itself and the agent of
its own history. In like manner, consciousness can be transparent to
itself. Important thinkers of modernity concerned themselves with
suggesting paths by which consciousness ceases to be an alienated
consciousness and comes to be transparent to itself. In this connection,
it was Marx who formulated the most genuine social approach regarding
what determines consciousness and clouds its transparency.
The fifth aspect concerns the attachment to a humanism based on the
belief in the existence of an essential human nature and, more
generally, in the adoption of an essentialist perspective. Even though
essentialism is not exclusively modern, as it pervades the whole of
western philosophy, it is one of the postulates of this ideology most
incisively questioned by poststructualism.
Sixth, the figure of the individual was established and individualism as
an ideology was fomented. The modern imaginary leads us to think
ultimately as individuals who, as such, are all equivalent and who only
belong, as if by circumstantial “addition”, to specific groups,
communities or social categories. In this way, we can move through
different communities or distinct social categories, without ever
ceasing to be individuals. This signifies that the individual takes the
place of the community as the constitutive unit of the social and
constitutes itself as the subject of law of modern society.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, John Locke or Jeremy Bentham, among
others, elaborated the ingredients of a new moral order that would
slowly infiltrate and mould the manner in which we imagine society and
our place in it. The principal ideas revolve around the basic notions of
social contract, rights and moral obligations of individuals, and mutual
self-interest. The basis of these ideas, what legitimates the structures
of power that operate in society, is the acceptance of its constituent
elements to submit to specific game rules under a sort of founding
contract. This is an implicit contract that defines the manner in which
the different members of society should behave in relation to each other
so as to guarantee their own security and to extract the maximum common
benefit. The contract gathers together an ensemble of rights and
obligations which the society and the members of the society can demand
and must grant to each other mutually.
The novelty is that the social bond is grounded in the rights and the
interests of the individuals, such that the obligations imposed by
society are justifiable only if they preserve these rights and
interests. It is as if the modern individual says to those who govern
something like the following: “I only concede your right to govern me if
you do so for my benefit and if you recognise that it is I who conceded
it to you …”
A seventh aspect has to do with the elaboration of the idea of progress
and the subordination of the present to the future. Modernity is perhaps
the first epoch that perceives itself as an epoch; that is, that thinks
of itself as a particular moment in a specific process. The moment that
an epoch considers itself as such, it is the past that gives meaning to
the present. In other words, the current moment can only be understood
in reference to the past and it makes the past responsible for the
present. This also means that the present is burdened with the
responsibility of configuring the future.
The present time transforms itself into a useful time for the future and
it has the moral responsibility of assuring that this future be
satisfactory. The faith in progress postulates that the present is
necessarily better than what was before and worse than what will happen
in the future, as long as obstacles are not raised to the correct
functioning of reason. The underlying idea here is that the human being
can make history, can govern it, instead of being carried by it, leading
it in the right direction as long as it allows itself to be guided by
reason.
Eighth, modernity is a project and a process of secularisation. The
principles and the supreme values upon which is articulated the ideology
of society are no longer to be found in the heavens; they abandon
transcendence to situate themselves amidst humanity and in the very
heart of society. This signifies the metaphorical death of God,
understood as the ultimate foundation of the principles upon which
society should be based. However, modernity does not leave the place
occupied by God empty, but substitutes the figure of a supreme being
with other absolute principles, such as universal reason, absolute
values or transcendental truth, that tend to have, in practice, the same
effects. God disappears, but its doubles enter into action. This does
not of course take away from the fact that the process of secularisation
has important consequences against religious obscurantism, against the
arbitrariness of a power that presented itself as the simple executive
arm of commands originating elsewhere.
The ninth aspect has to do with fidelity to a secular eschatology and
the affirmation of the historicity of societies. Eschatological thought,
so important in Christianity, places at the end of time this splendid
moment when evil will be definitively defeated; when absolute happiness
will be finally attained, when the subject will be fully realised and
will leave behind itself a long path of pain and anxieties, finally
reconciling itself with itself. Modernity secularised Christian
eschatology, emphasising the historicity of our condition and
elaborating a series of “grand narratives” about the irrepressible
development of progress or the final illumination of all the mysteries
of the world, which inspire hope and which promise a kind of final
redemption.
This basically means that historicity is our condition. The introduction
of historicity into our vision of the world and, thus, into the way in
which we conceptualise, represents a substantial change in comparison to
other societies. In effect, it assumes that we are no more than a
particular moment in a history that has a direction and which advances
ineluctably towards a specific end and which, furthermore, will be a
happy end. Consequently, hope is fully justified and the great promise
borne by the future completely legitimates and renders tolerable all of
the suffering that the present may afford us. In this sense, the
emancipatory discourses of the 19th century outlined a more or less
distant horizon where the conquest of happiness awaits us.
A tenth feature refers to popular sovereignty. Modernity invents “the
people” as a new collective agency and establishes popular sovereignty
as the source of any pretense to legitimate government. Indeed, it is
only possible to govern with the mandate of the people and for the good
of the people, and this should give rise to certain means of expression.
Some of these are formal and belong specifically to the political
sphere, such as for example electoral processes. Others are informal and
are found outside this sphere, while conditioning it; it is the case of
“public opinion”, constructed as a central authority in the political
imaginary of modernity.
Lastly, as the eleventh characteristic that should be mentioned,
modernity is a process that has slowly led to the development of
industrialisation and the “labour enlistment” of the whole population –
even though certain sectors, such as women for example, took
considerable time to integrate this process -. This social innovation,
which required the development of a series of apparatuses and
techniques, produced multiple consequences. Among them, the centrality
conceded to work, the growth of the values associated with it, such as
professional conscience and the theorisation of the reasons for which
labour and its values should be central elements, even to define our
dignity; an ensemble of elements that have continued to diminish in the
present, which perhaps signals the incipient exhaustion of the modern
epoch.
Let us not however precipitate ourselves. Modernity reached one of its
most complete expressions in a very recent epoch, as recent as the
1950’s, with the process of modernisation (the very term “modernisation”
is relatively recent). Modernisation appeared as one of the principal
political values for those who govern, as that which populations should
pursue and what countries should realise. It is a matter of increasing,
as much as is possible, the rationalisation of the economy and society.
Its discourse is formulated in terms such as “raising the per capita
income of countries”, “maximising the development of productive forces”,
“increasing productivity”, “expanding the capilisation and mobility of
available resources”, “improving competitiveness”, “increasing
purchasing power”, etc.
On the political level, modernity has endeavoured to generalise the
democratic model of political participation, considered as the form of
political functioning most adequate to making possible the process of
modernisation and drawing out all of its benefits.
In addition to having propitiated certain social advances, modernity has
had some very significant costs. It was necessary to pay a very high
price for its very development, resulting in an enormous quantity of
suffering for the victims of the process, that is, for all of those
elements considered marginal with respect to the fundamental values of
modernity, for everyone who was in a peripheral position with respect to
the centres of power of modernity, and for all of those parts of the
world which were colonised so that modernity could prosper and
strengthen itself.
In the same way that the Modern Epoch began with a series of technical
innovations, such as the printing press, postmodernity also began with
an important technological innovation, the electronic processing of
information. The power and speed that information technologies have
introduced into the treatment and generation of information are not only
at the basis of the knowledge society, they have also provoked the
exponential development of communications, the acceleration of the
process of globalisation, the establishment of a new economic order and
the upsurge of biotechnologies, which, thanks to genetic engineering,
have opened up the possibility of artificially selecting certain human
characteristics. The simultaneous development, beginning in the 1990’s,
of cyberspace, a network of electronic interconnections, has had a
decisive bearing on all facets of the social fabric; relationally,
economically, politically, symbolically, and so on.
In view of these elements, it is easy to understand that the
transforming impact of the computer in areas such as production, work,
commerce or science, are configuring new conditions of life and a new
social framework which cannot but change our vision of the world.
Zygmunt Bauman, the sociologist, who prefers to speak of “liquid
modernity” instead of “postmodernity”, captures with acuity some of the
most significant aspects of the new social reality that is gaining form.
To cite but one, acceleration, in all areas, constitutes one of the
defining features of a new epoch where everything flows at a vertiginous
rhythm. Thus, for example, the obsolescence of products, that until
recently was a defect against which one had to struggle – duration was
sold – has ceased to be a problem. Today, the speed of becoming obsolete
has turned into an advantage for goods: everything ages with enormous
velocity and must be quickly substituted. This programmed obsolescence
and the necessity of change affects not not only industrial products,
but extends to all of the phenomena of the work world and daily life:
contracts are unstable, commitments are ephemeral. A permanent
disposition to change must be manifest, changing direction with each
little sign, seeking to be free of any long term ties and maintaining a
flexible identity in a world of fluid and momentary connections.
All of these transformations, to which can be added the constant
relocations, the reduction of the life cycles of the skills demanded of
workers, the deregulation of labour relations, etc., daily feed the
feeling of unpredictability and insecurity before the future. The idea
that no one will exercise a single, unique profession, nor that they
will dispose of the same employment for life, is consolidated and
generalised; in the same way that no one is guaranteed the possibility
of always remaining in the same place.
The perspective of professional migration, of territorial migration, of
skills migration and the uncertainty of payment, sustain an imaginary
where lasting, stable identities and, furthermore, permanent identities
shaped on the basis of work, cease to be meaningful. This announces the
end, therefore, not of work, but of the peculiar ideology of work which
was so important in the last phase of modernity. And the end, also, of
what we could call identity sedentariness, substituted by the
perspective of identity nomadism.
Two centuries had to pass, after the beginnings of modernity, for the
conditions to be present for the elaboration of the legitimising
discourse of this epoch and to gain awareness that it was effectively
“an epoch”. Two centuries, in addition to the three or four decades that
separate us from the beginning of postmodernity. Even taking into
account the strong acceleration of historical and social time, the
brevity of the time that has passed explains the confusing, diverse,
contradictory, incoherent and fragmentary nature of the legitimising
discourse of postmodernity.
In fact, the discourse of postmodernity presents a double aspect: it
develops, first, a powerful criticism of the ideological presuppositions
of modernity – in this sense, postmodernity is an anti-modernity – and
it elaborates, secondly, the bases of a legitimising discourse for the
new epoch.
While critical of the ideology of modernity, postmodern discourse
invites us to see reason, presented as emancipatory, as having in
practice totalitarian type consequences. In effect, reason constitutes,
among other things, an apparatus of annihilation of differences, however
not of differences in terms of inequalities, but of the diversity and
the singularities which manifest themselves in all domains, including in
the domain of cultures. Reason orders, classifies, universalises,
unifies and, for this, it must reduce, expel, neutralise and suppress
differences. As well, in its programmatic discourse, modernity promised
social progress and wise dominion of nature, but these commitments were
not fulfilled. Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the depletion of the planet’s
resources and the destruction of minority cultures are some of the
consequences brought about by the modern pretension of converting
ourselves into the owners and possessors of nature.
The great principles of modernity are, according to postmodern
discourse, nothing but simple stories told to legitimate en epoch. The
grande narratives are deceiving narratives that hide the enormous
effects of power. Behind the beautiful declarations about the autonomy
of the subject and about the self-transparency of consciousness, stalked
practices of subjection. Truth, objectivity and the secure foundations
of knowledge in fact hid particular values disguised behind the
pretensions of neutrality, objectivity and universality. Indeed,
modernity is not reproached for having killed God, but in having put in
the place of absolutes rooted in the heavens, new absolutes that
produced the same effects in a more cunning manner.
Considering now the second aspect of postmodern ideology, we see that
the effort to elaborate the legitimising bases of the new epoch insists
on the fragmentation of reality, of the subject, and also on relativism
in the field of knowledge and values.
In the new ideological scenario, eschatology is weakening, the grand
emancipatory narratives no longer seduce the imagination, and the
horizon of hope that these drew and the great promise that they
sheltered ceased to be believable. The perspective of a distant, but
secure, goal, outlined by science, in terms of progress, or by politics,
in terms of the end of exploitation and domination, is no longer
satisfactory. The lines that sketched the path towards emancipation lost
clarity, giving way to the idea that there is no pre-established path,
no map that could safely direct the navigation towards a future of
freedom and happiness. And all of this translates into a strong
scepticism and towards a rejection of any long term project, whether of
a political nature, or existential.
The feeling that the present should not be mortgaged to what the future
may bring us has continued to increase and that we should live in the
present instant against what some eventual better future has ceased to
guarantee. Presentism, the desire to extract all that is possible from
the present and to consume the instant, substitutes the sacrifice of
investing for tomorrow. Precarious ways of life install themselves in
the ephemeral, the immediate is what truly counts, because no hopeful
future is guaranteed, and thus the idea that there is no future
continues to gain strength.
The secularisation driven by modernity grounded itself in the conviction
that our historicity propelled us necessarily towards a future of
progress, sought after through the rationality of human actions.
However, in those moments in which the conviction falters, when the
future becomes uncertain and uncontrollable and when eschatology
weakens, it seems that secularisation leaves us overly unprotected and
that it is necessary to search for protecting transcendent realities
which offer us security. We are accordingly witness to a certain return
of religious sentiment, the proliferation of sects and esoteric groups,
or a greater acceptance of the supernatural and of mysteries that refer
to magical thought. It is perhaps for this reason that the ideology of
the new times encourages the abandonment of a strict rationality,
thereby weakening the border between facts and values, between the
affective and the cognitive, or between the real and the virtual.
Perhaps it is also for this reason that the event exercises, currently,
such an intense fascination on people. Resistant to historicity, the
event is what cannot be predicted, what breaks with the logic of
rational expectations and represents one of the highest expressions of
discontinuity. There is no doubt that there is, currently, an enormous
desire for events, a desire for exceptional incidents, even if they are
catastrophic, a collective appetite for what surprises, for what is
unique and for what occurs without previous warning. Populations are
hungry for events. Perhaps, however, this is also a revenge against
power, a kind of compensation for the feeling that everything is under
control, a sort of challenge to a power that appears to be able to do
everything, except, by definition, to predict an event, given that this
would cease to be an event if it were predictable.
Before the ideal of a self-possessed individual and constituted as the
supporting and legitimating unity of society, the desire of group fusion
and intersubjective valorisation gains form. A tendency towards tribal
identifications manifests itself. A necessity for strong identifications
which certainly promote practices of solidarity and mutual aid, but
which at the same time confine them to the interior spaces of the groups
to which one belongs. The desire to fuse into the community and to
dissolve oneself in the collective outlines a project that exhausts
itself in the mere satisfaction of being together.
Despite the fact that people continue to mobilise in the streets and
continue to participate in elections, symptoms of a global lack of
concern for the political sphere are discernible. Scepticism gains
ground and increases the distance between political representatives and
those represented. After having been a key element in the political
imaginary of modernity, public opinion not only appears as infinitely
fragmented, but is also ever more perceived as powerfully
instrumentalised by the communications media and by the powers which
control them. It is obvious that if public opinion is constructed
through power, it can no longer serve as an alibi to legitimate it and
to have us believe that power respects the public will. Consequently,
the problem that political power must now confront is that people desert
it and that they neither desire to commit themselves to it nor to
participate in it, limiting themselves to living in its shadow and
abandoning it completely, in the hands of those who manage it.
To conclude these considerations on the epoch that is beginning to
emerge, I want to emphasise that, as modernity established new forms of
domination, so too is postmodernity doing the same. To be convinced of
this, one has but to think of the effects that the social networks have
on our ways of being and on how we relate to each other, or of the
surveillance that ICTs make possible, or also the kind of
governmentality that the medicalisation of life puts into practice.
Therefore, it is by no means a matter of completely celebrating the
entrance into postmodernity. What is to be thanked is the
demystification and critique of modernity, a critique that, if it serves
anything, makes us more sensitive to the effects of domination generated
by the grande principles of modernity and to which we submitted without
even knowing that we were doing so.
Should we mobilise ourselves against postmodernity? I believe that yes,
but of course, not in the name of modernity … Should we turn away from
the discourse of postmodernity? I believe not. To ignore it, to not wish
to listen to it, to not want to understand it, is an enormous hoax, for
as we reject the name, the thing continues to advance. Our subjectivity,
our ways of subjectification, our closest reality, our social
environment … all of this, whether we want it or not, whether we accept
postmodernity or not, is changing. The still confused discourse of
postmodernity must be studied and analysed seriously, as much as to
better understand the modernity which has constituted us and which has
shaped our way of thinking, as well as to try to see the nature of newly
approaching forms of domination. If we want to understand the present
and strengthen our capacity for action, then we must decipher the
discourse of postmodernity.
The influence of post-structuralism on the configuration of
postanarchism is of such a magnitude that to gain a proper understanding
of the latter, it is useful to examine it with care. Before we stop to
consider three aspects – the question of the subject, the essentialist
postulate and the problematic of power – which are of special relevance
to rethink anarchism and which occupy a privileged place in the current
of postanarchism, it is necessary to situate the immediate predecessor
of post-structuralism, that is, structuralism.
Structuralism is a cultural movement that gestated in the early 1950’s,
it affirmed itself throughout the same decade (1955, the year Claude
Levi-Strauss’ Tristes Tropiques was published, was emblematic) and
consolidated itself in the decade of the 60’s. The apogee of the
movement was possibly reached in 1966, a year baptised in France as “the
structuralist year”. Structuralism’s decline however began in this same
decade, in the wake of the critical impact of May 68. It nevertheless
continued to shine until the mid-1970’s, giving way at that moment to
post-structuralism.
Structuralism took from Ferdinand de Saussure, founder of modern
linguistics, some of its principal conceptual tools. For Saussure, the
sign, the constitutive unit of language, has no importance in itself, it
lacks positive significance. Its significance does not result from its
content but from its position, of the place that it occupies with
respect to all of the other signs, that is, of the difference that it
maintains with respect to other signs. This means that we should not
concentrate on the terms that are in relation to each other, but on the
relationships between these terms. In this manner, specific contents are
excluded, the signifier is privileged over the signified, the code over
the message, which is to say, essentially, the formal structure of the
language over the circumstantial statements that can be produced by
means of it.
Saussure also emphasised the dichotomy between language and speech.
Speech is but one manifestation, one realisation, one particular
expression determined by language, by the code. This means that to
understand the system of a language, we have to set aside its
circumstantial manifestations, we have to ignore speech. Linguistics
constitutes itself excluding the one who speaks, pushing away the
subject.
The dichotomy between synchrony and diachrony also reveals itself to be
crucial and the metaphor of chess helps us to capture its meaning. In
effect, Saussure says that to take a decision in playing chess, what is
important is the position occupied by the chess pieces on the board,
their differential value and the possible combinations between the
pieces. How this situation was arrived at – that is, the history that
led to this particular arrangement on the board – may be interesting,
but, at the time of deciding, it is purely anecdotal. What else does the
path along by which we arrived at this situation give? It is the
configuration of the situation which conditions our decision. It is
therefore necessary to analyse the structure as such; the way in which
this structure arranged itself is of no concern. And this means that
history must be excluded from our preoccupations.
Structuralism thus excluded a series of dimensions that had hitherto
seemed important, such as the referent, contents, the subject, history.
On the level of philosophy, structuralism constituted itself in
opposition to phenomenology and, more generally, against the philosophy
of consciousness.
Phenomenology places the accent on the experiential, on the directly
lived, on subjectivity as the constituent element of our experience of
things and of ourselves. According to phenomenology, the world is
transparent to the consciousness of the subject, provided that
consciousness frees itself from everything that constrains and distorts
it. The subject’s consciousness is also transparent to itself, as long
as the necessary precautions are taken. For example, it is obvious that
an alienated consciousness cannot be transparent to itself.
Phenomenology places at the forefront the conscious subject, the
consciousness of the subject and the power of consciousness. This means
that knowledge involves the rigorous questioning of the subject’s
consciousness.
Structuralism constitutes itself precisely against these presuppositions
and sustains that consciousness is opaque to itself, that the subject
and consciousness are not constituent, but rather constituted. They are
constituted by language, by codes, by structures, by culture, by the
unconscious … Accordingly, it is useless to interrogate the
consciousness of the subject. What must be questioned is what speaks in
and through the subject without the latter being conscious of it. And,
consequently, the subject must be radically eliminated, the subject of
modernity, of phenomenology, the subject as transparent consciousness of
itself.
What must be sought out is what hides behind experience and what renders
it possible; to investigate what, lying behind appearances, engenders
the manifest and the visible. One has to go behind the facts to see what
produces them; one therefore has to search for the latent and invisible
structures. The truth hides behind what can be seen, lying in the depths
covered over by appearances. The metaphor of the researcher is that of
the diver.
Structuralism shares some of the fundamental presuppositions of
modernity. It values scientificity and gives therefore a privileged
place to reason – and to scientific reason in particular -; it assumes a
certain essentialism and a certain belief in human nature; it
participates in the search for universals, etc.
It nonetheless also questions some of the basic presuppositions of
modernity. Concretely, it rejects the idea of an autonomous subject, of
a subject creator of itself of itself and of history, and shares in the
criticism of the subject as a consciousness transparent to itself.
Structuralism acquired an enormous influence in the heart of the
cultural and intellectual world. It was however when it found itself at
the apogee of its recognition, marking the thought of an entire epoch,
that something surged forth that no one could predict – and even less
the structuralists: the eruption of May 68 and this was lethal for
structuralism.
In the first place, May 68 was an event and, as such, something that
structuralism rejected, in principle, as secondary and insignificant.
The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan sought to play down the importance of
the graffiti, the demonstrations and the street disturbances, saying:
nothing important will happen because “structures do not fill the
streets”. Later, before the magnitude of the event, Lacan sought to
correct matters saying that “it was the structures that filled the
streets …”. Lacan however doubly equivocated: what was happening was
important, and it was not structures that were in the streets, it was
subjects.
In the same way, May 68 also put into question totalising, globalising
and universalising discourses, legitimating the local, the particular
and the specific. This contestation could not but affect structuralism,
given that it raised suspicion against a type of discourse that
corresponded effectively with what it maintained.
May 68 strengthened the conditions for the implosion of structuralism
and activated the time bomb that destabilised it and made way for
post-structuralism. This latter was constituted on the basis of a
denunciation of the former’s impasses and its acritical assumption of
many of the presuppositions of modernity. Structuralism, for example, is
questioned on the grounds that it takes for granted the universal
character of scientific reason, accepting concepts such as the truth,
certainty or objectivity, and that it seeks to ground knowledge on
absolute and definitive foundations.
The humanism that beats in structuralism is also questioned. In effect,
despite the fact that it advocated the elimination of the subject, its
search for the invariable, for universals and transcultural constants,
which are neither historical nor contingent, evidences a profound
essentialism that joins with the belief in the existence of human
nature.
Post-structuralism manifests a radical disagreement with structuralist
ahistoricism. The exclusion of history is considered inadmissible and
Foucault played an important role in this critique. Nevertheless, when
post-structuralism reintegrates history and introduces movement to
structures – giving to them their genesis and their dynamism -, it does
not take up the concept of history specific to modernity. It rejects
history as continuity, history as something with a direction and which
advances progressively towards specific goals that always improve upon
earlier ones. The post-structuralist conception of history is different,
it is discontinuous, lacks any end or purpose and is not evolutionist.
It is a historicised structuralism that is characterised by the
re-introduction of history into the heart of structure.
Lastly, the exclusion of the subject is also questioned. The subject
reappeared in an indirect way as a consequence of the consideration of
non-discursive practices which form part of what is outside a text. It
also appeared in a direct way as a result of the importance covered by
enunciation and, therefore, the necessity of taking into account the
spoken. In this manner, the subject re-integrates itself in structures,
it is again present in them, but no longer as the former subject, not as
the subject of modernity; it is not an instituting subject. It is a
subject already constituted, but which, still, plays an active role.
What remains of structuralism in post-structuralism is, almost
exclusively, the critique of phenomenology and the categorical rejection
of the conscious subject of modernity.
Post-structuralism is characterised by its radical rejection of the
essentialist perspectives that have accompanied a considerable part of
philosophy since Antiquity and that pervade the ideology of modernity.
If the existence of being – of any kind of being – is always a concrete
and situated existence that occurs in a particular world, then it is
inevitable that the changing characteristics of this world condition and
mould the concrete expressions of this being. The essentialist postulate
however pretends that independently of the social and historical
conditionalities which it may have suffered, being, endowed with a
constitutive essence, remains fundamentally the same. Behind the
contingent and variable modalities of being, as and how it manifests
itself, there consequently exists a fixed and invariable, essential
being.
Thus beneath the changing forms of that which represses it, is found our
constitutive desire; beneath the fluctuating regimes of truth and the
sinuous trajectory of reason, is found the truth in its unalterableness
and rationality in itself; or beneath the extensive cultural, social and
historical diversity which subjects present, is found invariable human
nature, etc.
Essentialism takes us back directly to the game thought up by Plato
which consists in turning our eyes away from the deceitful shadows that
surround us, so as at to thereby accede to the essence of things, the
unalterable and eternal truth of their being, well beyond the
circumstantial distortions imposed by existence.
Accordingly, essentialism incites us to bring together, as much as
possible, an existence with the essence that grounds it. Beyond that
which appears to us to be, or that which the vicissitudes of our
existence have led us to be, what we are, authentically, is a
consequence of what is already inscribed in our essence. Consequently,
we should rediscover this essence which lies beneath what obscures and
deforms it, so as to attach ourselves to it as much as it is possible
and, thereby, fully realise ourselves. It is necessary to break with the
distance that separates us from our true self, from authentic reason,
from the constitutive nature of the human being …, because it is in this
same distance where is rooted precisely our infelicity and our
alienation, our difficulty in realising ourselves fully or in acceding
to the full truth. In sum, to find a happiness that is born of the
coincidence between what we truly are and what we appear to be, it is
clear that we have to endeavour to be faithful to our own essence.
Furthermore, in considering that existence is no more than the simple,
temporary manifestation of the essence that sustains it, it follows that
essentialism emphatically denies the possibility of creating and closes
down the very possibility of freedom. In effect, as Castoriadis said, to
create, in the strong sense of the term, is to produce something that is
not already fully contained in what is given, in what already exists up
to this moment. Accordingly, if what already exists is “the changeable
expression of an immutable essence”, whatever we can produce will only
represent an expression, distinct as regards form, of this unchanging
essence. If things have an essence, our practices cannot create anything
that is not already part of it. This marks the strict limit of our
freedom, a freedom which can only transform, but which can never reach
radical novelty.
Following Foucault, one of the principal elements that characterise
post-structuralism is the desire to contradict the essentialist
postulate. It is a matter of neutralising its implications and of
demonstrating not only that it is an intellectual fallacy, but that it
represents, in addition, a dangerous fallacy for the exercise of our
freedom. There is not in fact behind the being that is, that is, of the
being that truly exists, its true being which we could reach by
cleansing it of its contingent and accidental aspects, which cover over
its real existence. Essence is subsumed in existence, it does not exist
as something separate from it – simply put, it does not exist -, and
thus to search for it is completely vain. Essence is a useless,
erroneous and deceitful concept and that is consequently dangerous for
our practices of freedom. We only possess existence, with its
irremediably contingent character.
One of the elements that best defines post-structuralism is its
reformulation of the question of the subject. It not only reintroduces
the subject where structuralism had eliminated it, but it also
dismantles the essentialist conception of the subject inherited from
modernity.
The philosopher Richard Rorty belongs to those who question the idea
according to which people are constituted, in the depths of their being,
by a true I, by an essential and immutable human nature, that had been
repressed and covered over by historical institutions and practices.
There is, according to Rorty, no intrinsic human nature that we could
rescue, that we could free from alienation or that we have to go on
progressively realising so as to finally find ourselves, as we really
are.
There is no project for the human being that we might elaborate that
would be legitimated by the claim that it is closer than others to its
true nature, or that it is more in conformity than others with what is
truly the case and which would allow for a more complete form of
self-realisation.
Of course, we can elaborate transformative projects and we can desire to
be differently, ceasing to be what we are today, but we must argue for
these projects with justifications that make no appeal to our supposed
essence. We can, for example, want to be more free, but not because
freedom constitutes an exigency inscribed in our nature, nor because it
is an exigency that we want to satisfy so as to be, thereby, more fully
human.
We may want to construct ourselves one way or the other, but none of
these ways will be more or less in conformity with our true nature;
simply because there is no such thing.
Obviously and fortunately, we can come to be different from what
circumstances have made us out to be because we can create ourselves in
another way.
Foucault, following Nietzsche on the de-subjectification of the subject,
shelved the category of the subject as a transhistorical element, the
ground of experience, and radically inverted the basic assumptions of
phenomenology. It is not the subject that is the condition for the
possibility of experience, but rather, it is experience that constitutes
the subject. Or, instead, it is experience that constitutes the
plurality of subjects that inhabit the subject-form. It follows,
consequently, that the subject, far from being a universal,
transhistorical and foundational being, is but a changing historical
product, as variable as experience itself may be.
In other words, the subject is always the result of specific practices
of subjectification, historically situated, which need to be analysed if
we wish to know how we came to be what we are. It is on this basis that
eventually we can act so as to cease to be who we are, to think
differently, to create other things, to feel distinctly, to desire in a
different way and establish other values. Things neither have to be
necessarily as they are – however difficult it is to imagine that they
can be different – nor do we have to be as we are – however difficult it
is to discern the very path of a possible alternative -.
Post-structuralism, above all in its Foucaldian version, distinguishes
itself by the incisive re-conceptualisation to which it submits the
question of power. According to Foucault, power must not be thought
exclusively under the form of the law, the State, political authority,
as what constrains our freedom, as what prohibits or sanctions our
transgressions. Or rather, power is effectively all of this, but it is
not only this. The error we usually make consists in taking the part for
the whole, by reducing power to a single modality. Foucault does the
opposite. He puts into parenthesis power’s most visible form, not to say
the only form that is clearly visible, and centres his attention on the
other diverse and multiple forms of the exercise of power, which were
able to develop widely because they hid themselves from our sight.
According to Foucault, power is not a thing, it is not a property, it is
not something which characterises specific entities, it is not something
which is possessed or owned, but is a relationship; it is not something
which is in a particular place, clearly located. Power is not something
which descends – the traditional image -, power ascends; it is not
something which pervades everything from above and which continues to
irradiate and penetrate everywhere, controlling everything. Power is
created and sprouts forth from all spheres of the social because it is
immanent to it.
Through a very complex play of the constitution of an ensemble of
effects, the distinct forms of power that emerge in different social
fields reciprocally feed each other, to converge in large tendencies
which initiate ascending movements and contribute to configuring the
State and the centres of power.
Thus the form of the State is not independent of the relationships of
power which are generated, which are woven, in the social fabric. Power
above – the State and centres of power – is constituted in part, also,
by what comes from below. However, from these centres and from the
State, the exercise of power also flows and projects itself below,
eliminating or, on the contrary, selecting and animating the relations
of power that are forged there. It is obvious that to speak of an
ascending power does not signify, far from it, that the power of the
State is underestimated.
Power not only functions according to the model of the law, it also
functions under the model of the norm and it is, basically, normalising.
While the law is prescriptive, the norm is simply declarative, not only
expressing a legitimised knowledge that tells us what we have to do, but
what it would be normal to do. It does not oblige us to be in a specific
way, but rather informs us of how the majority of our fellows are; and
if, in comparing ourselves with them, it follows that we are not as we
ought to be, then we endeavour to eliminate or reduce this difference so
as to be normal. It is evident that the norm, and the process of
normalisation, does not function like the law. The latter always needs a
sanctioning mechanism, while the former only requires a prompting
mechanism that can push us towards a greater conformity. On the other
hand, power is not principally a negative authority which limits and
constrains. Power is basically productive; it is in part constitutive of
desire, freedom and the subject. This means that it is already present
in these elements and that there is not, therefore, a possible
exteriority to relations of power.
However, if power is a relation and, more precisely, a relation of
forces, then, necessarily, where there is power there is also
necessarily resistance. Power implies, ineluctably, resistance, for the
mere fact that it constitutes itself within a relation of forces between
things that are in confrontation. Let us not though celebrate this fact
too quickly. This resistance is not in a relation of exteriority with
respect to power, it remains within its fabric, it is one of its
components and shares with it far more than we usually imagine. Even
knowing that it does not represent a radical alterity to power, it is,
for Foucault, a matter of multiplying the lines of resistance as lines
of intervention by power are deployed. The resonances and the
imbrications between resistances and power mean that there is neither a
discourse nor a practice that is intrinsically liberating. This or that
discourse, this or that practice, may constitute resistance to power in
a specific moment, but not because they are intrinsically emancipating
or liberating. We must suspect any discourse that pretends to be
intrinsically liberating, for it is with this, precisely, that the
danger begins.
I cannot resist including a long quotation from Michel Foucault to
conclude these quick annotations on a conception of power that has been
adopted by post-structuralism and, to a large extent, by postanarchism.
In his last interview, just a few days before dying, Foucault said:
… what we can also observe is that there can be no relations of power
unless subjects are free […] To exercise a relation of power, a certain
form of freedom has to be present. This means that in relations of
power, there necessarily has to be the possibility of resistance, for if
there were no possibility of resistance – a violent type of resistance,
resistance as flight, astute resistance, of strategies to change this
situation, to modify it -, then there would be no relations of power.
Given that this is how I approach the matter, I refuse to answer this
question that I am so often asked: “if power is everywhere, then there
is no freedom?” […] If there are relations of power throughout society,
it is because there is freedom everywhere.
For many reasons, relativism merits considerable attention from our
part. Firstly, because as it radically rejects some of the more
questionable presuppositions of the ideology of the Enlightenment, it
displays clear affinities with post-structuralism and postmodernism and
consequently finds itself quite close to the kind of thought that
inspires postanarchism.
It follows, furthermore, that as relativism undermines, by the same
root, the principle of authority and radically questions every
absolutist argument, that it is disposed to bring a greater flow of
water to the anarchist mill than any other current of philosophy. This
is even more so as it proffers tools to anarchism to make evident and
neutralise traces of authoritarian principles that modern thought may
have left in its midst.
There is still however a third argument for relativism which motivates
our particular attention. It has to do with the extraordinary hostility
shown towards it and the merciless ostracism to which it has been
subject … “Vade retro Satanás” [“Step back, Satan”] has been, it might
be said, the anti-relativist leitmotiv. In effect, relativist
disqualifications and the blunt anathemas directed against relativist
positions constitute a historical constant. We find these
disqualifications in Plato, when he ridicules Protagoras; and we find it
as well in the famous encyclical of John Paul II, published in 1993 and
entitled Veritati Spendor, wherein it is proclaimed that the relativist
questioning of truth is one of the worst threats that looms over
humanity. A warning that, two days before becoming Benedict XVI,
cardinal Ratzinger reaffirmed with vehemence in the homily of the mass
Pro Eligendo Pontifice. In fact, it is quite frequent to hear
conservative voices putting us seriously on guard against the
devastating effects which relativism has on the moral values of our
civilisation. But it is no less frequent to hear progressive voices
proclaim that relativism is dangerous, even for simple peaceful and
civilised coexistence, given that it would take us in the end to accept
brute force as the ultimate means to settle our differences.
The fears which relativism gives rise to evoke those that the death of
God caused among people some decades ago: “if God is dead, then all is
permitted”, “the law of the jungle will impose itself”, “man will become
a wolf to man”, and other nonsense of the same kind. We know that it was
precisely the idea of God which covered over in fact the masked reign of
the law of the jungle and that the abandonment of this idea does not end
at an ethical precipice, on the contrary. And nor does the death of the
truth and the farewell to universal principles lead to ethical
catastrophes. It was precisely the respect for the divinity and the
invocation of these grand principles that blocked the very possibility
of an ethics.
This hostility is perfectly understandable when it comes from religious
sectors, given that theistic belief demands the absolute, for obvious
reasons. Faith may experience moments of doubt and stagger momentarily,
but it is not fully itself except in absolute certainty. If one has
faith, then God truly exists and exists for everyone since the beginning
of time and forever; including for those who deny its existence. The
relativist is therefore seen as an abominable unbeliever, given that
s/he questions, in principle, all universals. Curiously, this same
hostility also originates with those who defend that scientific reason
transcends, necessarily, socio-historical circumstances and that it
situates itself in the absolute. To the extent that it questions the
universality of scientific reason, the relativist is seen consequently
as a dangerous obscurantist.
Given this so generalised and intense hostility, relativism is condemned
and rejected, more often than not, without even bothering to have a
quick look at its arguments. In effect, it is as if since the time of
Plato that the issue has been resolved once and for all and that nobody
with any sense could do anything but energetically distance themselves
from it.
It is a simple question of logic: if, as relativism maintains, truth
does not exist, then neither can it be true that the truth does not
exist. Therefore, the affirmation “the truth does not exist” is not
true; and if it is not, then it is true that “the truth exists” and
relativism is consequently false. The argument from self-contradiction
deals a mortal blow that seems to bring to a definitive conclusion any
discussion.
Nonetheless, instead of reassuring us, it is the very bluntness of the
argument of self-refutation that should provoke suspicion. For if things
are as clear as they appear to be, if relativism is such a foolish,
ridiculous, inconsistent and unsustainable position, as Plato affirmed,
it would have been logical for the question of relativism to have been
closed at the very moment of its formulation. How can it be explained,
then, that rather than passing away, that it has remained alive for
centuries, that it has reached our own days and that it has even
experienced a spectacular boom in the last decades?
It is very easy to show, as we will see further on, that the supposed
self-contradiction, into which relativism falls, disappears as soon as
we cease to play the game established by the absolutists. This is a game
that sets up, as an imperative condition to start a discussion about the
truth, that the discussion obey the argumentative rules established by
the absolutist conception of truth. It is a matter then of a game that
consists in using the criterion that is itself under discussion, namely:
the truth, as an argument to settle precisely the discussion about this
criterion.
It is evident that if it is demanded of the relativist that s/he affirm
the truth of her/his affirmations, s/he cannot but fall into
contradiction, given that it is the very criterion of truth that s/he
disputes. It cannot be asked of someone who rejects the concept of truth
whether what they say is true or false. They should rather be asked what
reasons they have for believing that their position is better or what
arguments make it more acceptable than another. The relativist only
falls into self-contradiction when s/he claims for her/himself what s/he
denies for others. However, in that case, not only is the relativist
self-contradictory, but s/he also becomes an anti-relativist.
We can also see that, repeating the strategy that consists of enclosing
relativism in a spiral of self-contradictions, the absolutists make it
affirm that “all points of view are equivalent, and no one view is
better or truer than any other”. This assertion would oblige the
relativist to place her/himself in the absurd situation of having to
present her/his view, immediately admitting that there is no good reason
for considering it better than any other point of view and that no one,
not even the relativist her/himself, have any motive to prefer it to
anything else. Of course, as we will see shortly, relativism does not
have to accept anything like the affirmation that there are no points of
view which are not preferable to others.
It is because I am fully convinced that relativism provides tools of the
highest quality to develop practices of freedom and because it does not
appear to me to be correct that a millenarian tradition of
disqualification should have succeeded in condemning it without due
process, that it seems to me important to contribute to dissipating some
of the errors that surround its image and to advocate here in its
favour.
It is precisely on the terrain of ethics where it is usual to say that
relativism constitutes the worst of all possible options. In effect, it
is accused, among many other things, of dissolving moral values by
affirming that all values are equal; of promoting ethical indifference
by sustaining that nothing justifies ethical commitment; and of opening
the door to the law of the jungle by allowing for nothing else but the
use of force as the final resort to settle disagreements. These three
accusations are sufficiently grave to have us ask whether they have any
kind of foundation.
However, in the first place, the relativist does not affirm that all
ethical options are equivalent and that no one option is better or worse
than any other.
What the relativist in fact defends is that any moral option is as good
as any other and that all ethical values are strictly equivalent, but
only from the perspective of their ultimate foundation. It is from the
point of view of the common absence of an ultimate foundation that the
relativist traces a strict equivalence among all ethical values. It is
the case that if the relativist had to turn to the criterion of the
foundation or the objectivity of values to establish which are better,
that s/he could only abstain from any choice, declaring them all
equivalent. Nevertheless, what characterises relativism is precisely the
categorical rejection of the criterion of ultimate foundation to
discriminate between values. With the result that nothing obliges
her/him to affirm that there are no values that are not superior to
others.
From the affirmation according to which there are no values that are
objectively better than others because all of them lack an ultimate
foundation, the affirmation cannot be inferred according to which it is
not possible to differentiate between values.
Therefore, a relativist can state, without contradiction, that her/his
values are better than others, that certain forms of life are preferable
to others and that s/he is eventually prepared to struggle for them.
However, in contrast to the absolutist, s/he declares at the same time
that these values which s/he assumes as better lack any ultimate
foundation, being, in this respect, equivalent to any other value.
In contrast to the absolutist, a relativist cannot argue against a Nazi
on the basis that the values that the latter defends are objectively
reprehensible or that the practices that this same approves of
transgress unquestionable moral norms. S/he can only counter her/his own
values and present the reasons that s/he has to defend them, but without
claiming a privileged status for them against those who question them.
With regards to the second accusation, relativism in fact does not
defend that nothing can justify ethical commitment and that it is all
the same whether one sets out to defend certain ideas or remains quietly
at home watching a soap opera.
For what reason would we be only justified in defending our values, on
the condition that they be assumed to be absolute and universal? To
affirm that these depend on us, that they are relative to our practices
and our decisions, is to assume that they stand only by the activity
that we deploy to defend them. In the absence of any transcendent
principle to establish the hierarchy of values, to make a determined
normative choice obliges the person who makes it to defend the choice
with all possible vigour, given that s/he knows that it rests upon
nothing more than the defence, argumentative or of another kind, that is
capable of unfolding it, and that the full responsibility for the choice
made falls entirely upon her/him.
It is precisely because s/he does not feel her/himself pushed by any
imperative necessity in the choice of her/his normative commitments that
the relativist is far from, if not to say at the opposite pole of, a
supposed moral indifference.
It is when values are postulated as absolute, it is when they depend on
nothing and, above all, when they do not depend on ourselves, that then
defending them becomes secondary. In forming part of an order which is
not susceptible to change, for in such a case, it would not be absolute,
then its adoption simply testifies that we submit to the imperatives
traced by the straight path of the Good and of Truth. To accept a system
of values which, in not depending on ourselves, only offers us the
possibility of acceptance, leads to the abandonment of any critical
thought and to the renunciation of any attempt to exercise our freedom.
Inhibition and de-mobilisation result when it is believed, as the
absolutist does, that values exist anyway and that, to the extent that
they are objective, they will exist in secula seculorum; whether we do
anything for this to be the case, or not. It is precisely when one
believes in the transcendence of values when it becomes secondary and
dispensable to defend them or not. Furthermore, good conscious, the
tranquility of the spirit and the absence of any trace of doubt,
constitute the legacy of someone who knows that when they act according
to the Moral law, that they do not have to give an account of their
actions because these do not refer to one’s responsibility, but to what
has been dictated by authorities which surpass her/him and which do not
depend on her/him.
Accordingly, for example, no absolute moral imperative obliges us to
struggle against privileges and injustices. It concerns a decision that
is taken or not, influenced by circumstances. As with an absolutist, a
relativist can take this decision or not, but if s/he takes it, then
s/he cannot find encouragement in the idea that s/he is supported by
universal principles which indicate the path to the Good and the Truth.
S/he will limit her/himself to saying that this struggle constitutes
her/his particular option and will try to argue in defence of this
option without appealing to anything that transcends it.
The third reproach against relativism is that it opens the path to the
law of the jungle. However, it still has to be seen if relativism
appeals to force as the final argument to resolve differences.
The answer is yes. When all of the arguments are exhausted, nothing
remains but relations of force. The relativist nevertheless asks: what
is the difference that separates her/him from the absolutist, on this
point?
And the response is … that there is not the least difference.
In effect, even though the absolutist presents her/his own position as
what permits the use of force to be avoided, s/he cannot hide that s/he
also resorts to it as the ultimate argument to settle the differences
with those who do not assume her/his rules of play and refuse to be
reasonable. However, they do this furthermore with the aggravating
circumstance which consists in stigmatising the victim of this violence.
To the extent that, as the absolutist contends, ethical criteria do not
depend on our decisions and possess an objective value, it is obvious
that to not accept these criteria can only be a mistake or a
demonstration of irrationality. If we reject what has been objectively
established as morally good, it is because we are in no way normal,
because we are perverse. This perversion excludes us from the treatment
that other members of the community of rational beings deserve and
dictates the use of force, given that we are impervious to reason. The
case of the Inquisition is particularly exemplary. The violence is that
much more intense when it is not only physical. Beyond questioning the
rationality of those who do not share their system of values, the
absolutists, sheltered by the objectivity of their values to the point
that all rational beings should assume them, exclude from the human
community those who question these values.
In the end, to defend their values or their form of life, the
relativist, as much as the absolutist, have recourse to the use of force
when all of the arguments are exhausted. However, the radical difference
lies in the fact that the absolutist feels fully justified to do so and
that this violence is not her/his responsibility, as she/he limits
her/himself to being the docile instrument of the Good and of Reason.
If in relation to the question of ethics and moral values the opposition
between relativism and absolutism is radical, it is no less intense as
regards the question of truth.
Let us recall that the relativist does not say that “the truth does not
exist”, still less that “it is true that the truth does not exist”,
which would obviously be self-contradictory. S/he only says that the
only thing which can be affirmed from the perspective of our way of
thinking is that the truth “is”, but that it is “conditioned”; that is,
that it always depends on a certain merker or context.
No one, including the relativist, puts into question that, within a
specific context, certain beliefs should be accepted as
true-in-that-context. What the relativist rejects is that the truth
constitutes a property which, for reasons of principle, transcends any
context. This attitude represents a serious threat to two fundamental
beliefs which the absolutists consider indispensable: the belief in the
universal nature of truth and in its objective character.
Universalism affirms that true beliefs are so “at all times, in all
contexts and for all human beings”. The reference to all times means
that nothing which occurs in the future can alter the truth of a
proposition, if it is really true. The relativist sees no rational
argument which can permit making wagers of this sort about the future
and considers them the expression of a mere act of faith. As for the
reference to all contexts, the relativist asks how anyone can come to
know which contexts there are in all contexts. And as regards the
reference to all human beings, the relativist is not only disposed to
admit that certain truths hold effectively for all human beings, but
sees in this fact a confirmation of her/his own point of view.
To the extent that all human beings share common characteristics – for
example, of a biological type -, it is not surprising then that certain
truths hold for everyone. However, this precisely redounds to the idea
that truth is relative to a determined marker which, in this case, are
human characteristics. If these characteristics were different, there
would continue to be valid truths for all human beings; but because the
context would be different, these truths would be distinct from those
currently held (to offer an example, it could be true that pure
hydrochloric acid was good for our skin).
The second basic belief threatened by relativism is objectivism. That
is, the belief that the truth is independent of the procedures which
establish it or of any characteristic of who establishes it. According
to objectivism, a belief is true if it transcends the particular point
of view from which it was formulated, if it is abstracted from the
marker within which it was produced, and if it is not affected by the
location of who enunciated it. This signifies that it is true if it
expresses, therefore, a point of view from nowhere, that is, a generic
location without qualities. As the relativist cannot see how it is
possible to accede to something in complete independence from how it is
acceded to, neither can s/he see any meaning in objectivism, unless s/he
accepts the hypothesis that there exists a place that corresponds the
point of view of God and that we can put ourselves in this precise
place.
The effort deployed by the absolutists to demonstrate the inanity of
relativism does not limit itself to signaling its dangers for reason and
putting into doubt its logical consistency. This effort also seeks to
show the inconsistency of relativism in daily life, given that the
relativist would be obliged to deny in practice what s/he proclaims in
theory. In effect, however much the relativist attacks truth in theory,
it is easy to verify that this contradicts what s/he does in practice.
It is obvious that in her/his daily life, that the relativist has no
remedy but to permanently invoke the criterion of truth, to employ
profusely the true/false dichotomy and assume, firmly, the true
character of a very ample ensemble of beliefs.
To be able to live, an individual has to believe in the existence of
truth. Those human beings who would be incapable of distinguishing
between true and false beliefs would extinguish themselves immediately,
if they were abandoned to their own fate. This does not mean that human
beings have no false beliefs, but it does imply that the majority of our
beliefs must be true and that we have to discern them as such to be able
to develop in the world. In other words, the use of the true/false
dichotomy constitutes one of the conditions for the possibility of our
experience and it forms an integral part of the conditions for the
possibility of our very existence.
Whether we defend a relativist position or not, it is true that if we
put our hand in the fire we burn ourselves, that certain plants are
toxic and others comestible; it is true that the extermination camps
existed, that 2+2=4, that gender, racial, class, etc. discrimination
exist; it is true that we cannot do without the concept of the truth,
and it is true that to deny the truth of all of this is properly
untenable. There is therefore a contradiction between what the
relativist affirms theoretically and what he does in practice.
A contradiction between theory and practice would in effect be produced
if the relativist rejected the concept of truth on the level of theory,
but s/he does not do so. Relativism does not intend to abandon the
concept of truth, but only to give it a new meaning, distancing it from
its absolutist conceptualisation and marking it pragmatically. What the
relativist questions is not the pragmatic value of the belief in truth,
but the philosophical presuppositions assumed by the absolutist in this
belief.
The usefulness that the fact of believing in the truth represents is in
no way put into doubt by the relativist. However, we cannot but remember
that usefulness as a value presupposes nothing more than this, and that
no logical bridge exists which allows us to move from utility to truth.
That something is useful does not imply that it is true. Consequently,
that we appeal in our daily life to an absolutist conception of truth
tells us nothing about the true or false character of this conception.
For example, we all use the truth in the sense of correspondence, when
we agree that “a statement about certain facts is true, if the facts are
effectively as the statement says that they are”. This way of using the
truth is undoubtedly tremendously useful for our manner of relating to
the world and, also, of dialoguing with others. Today, however, we all
know that the correspondence notion of truth is logically and
conceptually untenable, despite its doubtless utility.
When s/he plays a game of chess, the relativist assumes an ensemble of
rules: s/he assumes, for example, that the proposition according to
which the bishop can only move diagonally is true and that to accept it
is part of the very possibility of playing chess. There is though no
need to accept anything further, there is no need to accept that there
is something like an essence of the game of chess or that there is
something like a place where, independently of our decisions, the rules
of chess are located.
The same occurs with the semantic rules of the absolutist type that
govern the use of the true/false dichotomy. We have to assume these
rules, to assure our existence; nevertheless, we do not have to commit
ourselves to anything more than the unquestionable pragmatic value that
the correct application of these rules has. Utility and truth are terms
that refer to distinct conceptual fields; true and useful are predicates
which do not function in the same semantic fields. The pragmatic value
of truth only has value of course within the context of a specific form
of life and for the kind of being that we are.
The relativist therefore defends a pragmatic conception of truth and
recognises, furthermore, that in ordinary language the semantics of
truth is of an absolutist kind, given that it fully assumes universalism
and objectivism. Whether we wish it or not, absolutist type truth forms
part of our use of the concept of truth in everyday life. This is
comprehensible if we accept with Ludwig Wittgenstein that the grammar
which governs any language must have a pragmatic value, that is, it must
be such that it allows us to develop ourselves in the world. Language is
in effect one of the principal tools elaborated by the human being to
settle himself adequately within the surrounding world. But for this
tool to have been effective, it had to connect to, join with, the
characteristics of the world and, so to speak, these latter had to
slowly inscribe themselves in our grammar. Accordingly, it is utility
which presents the true/false distinction so that we could adapt to the
world, the world as it would come to be reflected in our semantics of
truth.
In the same way that our place in the world presupposes the existence of
truth defined in absolute terms, the relation that we maintain with our
fellows presents the same demands. However, this does not have to
co-validate the absolutist conception of truth.
We cannot in effect generate meaning, if not within the setting of
conventions and shared practices with our fellows, within a specific
culture. Without this exchange and without this common background,
communication would be totally impossible. In the same way that one
cannot play chess without defining a certain number of rules valid for
all players, neither can one communicate or exchange except in the
context of a game of rules which constrains the acceptability of
statements, thus impeding arbitrariness. The fact of admitting, as the
relativist does, that these rules are purely conventional does not
excuse us from following them if we intend to play, that is, in this
case, to dialogue and to give meaning.
That the truth depends on our conventions does not mean that we can
adopt this or that convention, according to our taste, because our
practices and conventions are constrained by our characteristics, by our
history and by the demands of life in common, especially those that
concern communication. We are not authorised therefore to decide
arbitrarily whatever we please to affirm as true. We cannot decide, for
example, that a glass of sulfuric acid is good for our health, in the
same way that we cannot decide that the extermination camps did not
exist, because it was so decided. This would be to exclude oneself from
any possibility of debate. If one intends to communicate with others,
then arguments are necessary and the rules of argumentation have to be
respected. To restore truth to our practices, to our conventions and to
our characteristics does not mean to remit it to our free will.
Relativism does not open the path to arbitrariness. Rather, it most
certainly closes access to arguments from authority and demands that
whatever is affirmed, including the existence of extermination camps,
that it be argued for from within the framework of conventions made
explicit as possible. Just as considering truth in absolute terms was
renounced, so it is necessary to define as precisely as possible the
conditions in which this or that affirmation will be admitted as true,
and this of course does not tolerate any exception.
In conclusion, relativism – which is only self-contradictory if it is
evaluated according to the criteria against which it constitutes itself
– does not end at any ethical precipice and does not lead to any
political inhibition. On the contrary, it demands a commitment as
combative as if it had opted for a specific normative position. In like
manner, relativism does not disarm us before choices made and it does
not render debate futile, but rather the opposite, given that it makes
us responsible for our choices and forces us to defend them, arguing for
them. In fact, it seems that ultimately all of the false complaints made
against relativism cannot forgive what is most fundamental to it,
namely, a mortal blow dealt to the very principle of authority. The
existence of Absolute Truths and Universal Values bestows on whoever has
them in their possession the right and, even, the moral obligation to
vanquish whoever moves away from these truths and these values. In
rising up against these absolutes, relativism finishes in a certain way
the enterprise undertaken by the Enlightenment; and it is no longer just
God, but its doubles as well, that see themselves expelled from human
affairs.
Finally, I want to call attention to the fact, certainly clearly
evident, that our relationship to the world is not exclusively, nor
primarily, a relationship of knowledge, but that it is also a
relationship of action, of encounters, of sensations, of experiences and
sentiments. It is certain that Plato contributed in an important way to
privileging the will to know and to prioritising the search for truth
above the remaining human practices. We however do not have to follow
his footsteps. We can also question the privilege conceded to truth and
prioritise an ethics and an aesthetics of existence, in the sense of
constructing the possibility that all of us be able to create a
beautiful life and one worthy of being lived.
It is obvious that for absolutism, the Truth offers no doubt. It is
resplendent, brilliant, hard, unmistakable and overwhelming. Its edges
appear clear, cutting and they offer themselves to us in terms of all or
nothing: half-truths were never the Truth. Truth is not negotiable, it
holds for everyone and it holds for ever. Universal, atemporal,
absolute, it is indisputable, it imposes itself. We can look away from
it, refuse to recognise it, but the truth will continue to be the truth
above our decisions. No posterior evidence can change it and, should it
change the truth, it is because it was not really true, it only seemed
to be. The truth is either absolute or it is not the truth, and when we
find it and proclaim it, we are appropriating time and dominating the
future; that is, denying it. The future can only show that a truth was
not true, but if it is, nothing can go against it. The will to Truth is,
directly, a will to Power that seeks, furthermore, to legislate for
eternity. From this perspective, it constitutes a danger and a weakening
of our freedom.
The truth is an epistemological question, the construction of the way of
life that deserves to be lived is an ethical question. Between ethics
and epistemology, the choice, as a significant part of anarchism saw
with clarity, offers no doubts, because to decide how we want to be is
considerably more important than asking ourselves about, what can we
know?
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and The Constructive Potential of Its Destruction. Doctoral Thesis.
Loughborough University.
VACCARO, Salvo (coord.) (2011): Pensare altrimenti, anarchismo e
filosofia radicale del novecento. Milán, Eléuthera.
WARD, Colin (1973): Anarchy in Action. London: Allen and Unwin.
ZERZAN, John (1991): “The Catastrophe of Postmodernism”. Anarchy: A
Journal of Desire Armed, 30, 16-25.
I also want to mention in this bibliography the following excellent
journals:
A contretemps: http://acontretemps.org/
Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies:
https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/adcs/index
Anarchist Studies: https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/anarchist-studies
Réfractions: http://refractions.plusloin.org/
Publications by the author used in or related with the text
a. Books
1982. Poder y Libertad. Barcelona: Hora.
2001. Municiones para disidentes. Barcelona: Gedisa.
2005. Contra la dominación: Gedisa. Italian edition: Il libero pensiero.
Elogio del relativismo. Milán: Eleuthera, 2007.
2006. ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas.
Barcelona: Anthropos. Revised new edition (2007): Actualidade del
anarquismo. Buenos Aires: Terramar Ediciones e Libros de Anarres
(Ciolección Utopía Libertaria). Revised French edition (2010): Fragments
épars pour un anarchisme sans dogmes. Paris: Rue des Cascades.
b. Selected articles
1981. “La inevitabilidad del poder político y la resistible ascención
del poder coercitivo”, El Viejo Topo, 60, 28-33. Republished in (2006):
¿Por qué A?: fragmentos dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas. French
edition (2010): Fragments épars pour un anarchisme sans dogmes.
1983. “Per un potere politico libertario”, Voluntà, 3. Republished under
the title: “Pour un pouvoir politique libertaire”, en Considérations
épistémologiques et stratégiques autour d’un concept. In Bertolo,
Amedeo; Di Leo, Roosella; Colombo, Eduardo; Ibáñez, Tomás and Lourau,
René (1984): Le Pouvoir et sa négation. Lyon: Atelier de Création
Libertaire. Spanish edition (2006): ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos dispersos
para un anarquismo sin dogmas. French edition (2010): Fragments épars
pour un anarchisme sans dogmes. There is also a Greek version published
in 1992.
1985. “Addio à la rivoluzione”, Voluntà, 1. French edition: AA.VV
(1986): La Révolution. Un anarchisme contemporain – Venise 84. Vol. IV.
Lyon: Atelier de Création Libertaire. Spanish edition (1986): Utopía, 6
(Buenos Aires); in Ferrer, Christian (Comp.) (1990): El lenguaje
libertario, Vol. I. Montevideo: Nordan-Comunidad, and in (1999): El
lenguaje libertario. Antología, Buenos Aires: Altamira. English version
(1989): Autonomy, 1. Available at:
http://autonomies.org/2010/04/farewell-to-the-revolution/.
1990. “Adiós a la revolución … y ¡viva la gran desbarajuste!”.
Archipiélago, 4. Republished in (2006): ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos
dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas. French edition (2010):
Fragments épars pour un anarchisme sans dogmes.
1993. “Sísifo y el centro, o la constante creación del orden y del poder
por parte de quienes lo cuestionamos”, Archipiélago, 13. Italian version
(1992): Volontà, 1. Republished in (2006): ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos
dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas and in (2007) Actualidad del
anarquismo. French edition (2010): Fragments épars pour un anarchisme
sans dogmes. There is also a Greek version.
1994. “Tutta la verità sul relativismo auténtico”, Voluntà, 2-3. French
version: AA.VV (1997): Tout est relatif. Peut être. Lyon: Atelier de
Création Libertaire. Spanish version (2006): ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos
dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas and in (2007) Actualidad del
anarquismo. French edition (2010): Fragments épars pour un anarchisme
sans dogmes.
1996. “Questa idea si conjuga all’imperfetto”, Voluntà, 3-4. Spanish
version (2006): ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos dispersos para un anarquismo sin
dogmas and in (2007) Actualidad del anarquismo. French edition (2010):
Fragments épars pour un anarchisme sans dogmes.
2001. “Instalados en la provisionalidad y en el cambio … (¡Como la vida
misma!)”, Libre Pensamiento, 37-38. French version (2002): “Installé
entre le provisoire et le changement, comme la vie elle-même”. IRL –
Informations Rassemblées à Lyon, 90. Republished in (2006): ¿Por qué A?:
fragmentos dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas and in (2007)
Actualidad del anarquismo.
2002. “¿Es actual el anarquiso?”, Página Abierta, 123. Republished in
(2003): La lletra A, 61. Portuguese version (2004): Utopia, 18. French
version (2006): A Contretemps, 24 and in (2010): Fragments épars pour un
anarchisme sans dogmes. Republished in (2006): ¿Por qué A?: fragmentos
dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas and in (2007) Actualidad del
anarquismo.
2006. “A Contratiempo”, Libre Pensamiento, 51. Republished in (2006):
¿Por qué A?: fragmentos dispersos para un anarquismo sin dogmas and in
(2007) Actualidad del anarquismo. French edition (2010): Fragments épars
pour un anarchisme sans dogmes.
2006. “A l’aube du XXI siècle: les clairs-obscures de la nouvelle
donne”, Réfraction, 17. Spanish version (2007): Libre Pensamiento, 55,
and in (2007) Actualidad del anarquismo. Also in (2010): Fragments épars
pour un anarchisme sans dogmes.
2007. “Neoanarquismo e società contemporanea. Diálogo com Manuel
Castells”, Libertaria, 1-2. Original version in Castilian (2008): “El
neoanarquismo, la libertad y la sociedad contemporánea. Diálogo con
Manuel Castells”, Archipiélago, 83-84. There also exists a version
published in Greece.
2008. “Points de vue sur l’anarchisme (et aperçus sur le néo-anarchisme
et le post-anarchisme)”, Réfractions, 20. Italian version (2008):
Libertaria, 3-4. There is also a version published in Greece. French
version (2010): Fragments épars pour un anarchisme sans dogmes.
2009. “Los nuevos códigos de la dominación y de las luchas”, Libre
Pensamiento, 62. Italian version (2009): “Le nuove forme del dominio e
delle lotte”, Libertaria, 4. French version (2010): Fragments épars pour
un anarchisme sans dogmes.
2009. “Il post-anarchismo e il neo-anarchismo” (text for the Colloquium
of Marghera) and “Apuntes sobre neoanarquismo” (text for the Colloquium
of Pisa), Bollettino Archivio G. Pinelli, 34. There is also a Greek
version (2010): Eutopía, 18, 2011, and in French: “Conversations avec
Tomás Ibáñez”, A Contretemps, 39.
2011. “Pouvoir et liberté: une tension inhérente au champ politique”,
Réfractions, 27.
2011. “La Rivoluzione”. In AA.VV: Rivoluzione? Milán: Asperimenti.
Spanish version (2012): “La revolución”, Libre Pensamiento, 70. There is
also a version published in Greece.
2011. “El 15M y la tradición libertaria”, Polémica, 100.
2012. “Le temps saccadé des révoltes”, Réfractions, 28. Spanish version
(2012): El sorprendente ritmo de las revueltas”, Libre Pensamiento, 71.
2012. “L’anarchisme est un type d’être constitutivement changeant.
Arguments pour un neo-anarchisme”. In Angaut, Jean-Christophe; Colson,
Daniel and Pucciarelli, Mimmo (Eds.): Philosophie de l’anarchie.
Théories libertaires, practiques quotidiennes et ontologie. Lyon:
Atelier de Création Libertaire.
2013. “La raison governementale at les métamorphoses de l’État”,
Réfractions, 3.
If it were not for the friendship and wisdom of Félix Vázquez, my
Gallicisms and other grammatical and stylistic incongruities would have
turned this book into a cruel linguistic affront. Many thanks, Félix,
for the rigorous revision and the sensible suggestions. Were it not for
the hope and the commitment of so many anarchists who gave their lives
for this idea and the continuous, enthusiastic passion of those who
continue to animate it, it is obvious that this book could simply not
have been, and therefore my thanks also go to the broad libertarian
horizon that has made it possible, and within it, I can fail to mention
the collective that has continued to maintain, with its dedication and
efforts, the Virus publisher.