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Title: Post-foundational Anarchism Author: Tomás Ibáñez Date: April 2022 Language: en Topics: post-anarchism, theory, community, philosophy, Jean-Luc Nancy, inoperative community, postmodernism, metaphysics Source: Retrieved on May 11th, 2022 from https://autonomies.org/2022/05/tomas-ibanez-post-foundational-anarchism/
From the date of his first publication, in 1962, to the present, Tomáz
Ibáñez has engaged with anarchism with a depth, sensitivity and
generosity matched by few of his contemporaries. To walk through this
work is to discover a complex path, like the weave of a rope. But like a
rope, held together by a seemingly small set of intuitions or ideas, or
perhaps even a method, that Ibáñez continually returns to, not
repetitively, but as with an expanding musical refrain, turning ever
again on itself, simultaneously changing and clarifying its first steps
and the next.
This is a body of work that can in no way be read as “pure theory”,
whatever that might mean. Ibáñez’s written reflections bare the traces
of a “militancy” that has always marked his life, from a childhood exile
to France because of his mother’s anarchist affinities, to his early
participation in French and exiled Spanish anarchist youth and student
groups, to May 68, to his return to Spain after Franco’s death in 1975,
joining the effort to reconstruct the CNT, and the less than negligible
work in various anarchist magazines and newspapers.
The seemingly esoteric or more philosophical nature of many of Ibáñez
essays are both the herald and the artisan of that very same militancy.
One of the first essays posted on Autonomies was Ibáñez’s 1984 essay,
Farewell to the Revolution. This early essay not only remains relevant,
but in hindsight and now read in the light of the essay that we share
with this post, already points to Ibáñez’s concern with an anarchism
freed from dogma, or more profoundly, an anarchism without the
comforting conceptual and political ballast of a past that is no longer
ours, and cannot be so.
Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, in April of this year, on the occasion of
the presentation of the book, InterstĂcios Insurrectos: Antologia de
Tomás Ibáñez , Lisboa: Barricada de livros, 2022.
At the moment of trying to discover the common thread that unites the
texts that I have been publishing in the libertarian field for more than
60 years and to define the general framework in which they can be
situated, I have found myself before the problem that these texts refer
to something that simply does not exist.
That thing that does not exist and about which I am going to dare to
write is post-foundational anarchism.
In order not to fall into a subject that has become fashionable, I am
not going to declare that the concept is an empty signifier, no, but it
is true that you are not going to find it anywhere. There is no
anarchist current that defines itself as such, and there is not even a
single text, not a single text, that alludes to that denomination. It is
as if anarchism, on the one hand, and post-foundational, on the other,
had never met, had never coincided in the same sentence, while in the
field of post-Marxism, frequent use is made of the concept.
Now, it is a curious non-existence, because it is quite true that
post-foundational anarchism does not exist and, nevertheless, a good
part of contemporary anarchism has characteristics that place it
squarely in that orientation, especially if one considers its younger
element.
In fact, I understand that we can divide post-foundational anarchism
into two different kinds.
A first kind refers to an anarchism that has become detached from, that
has thrown overboard, the foundations provided by the metaphysics of the
time in which it was forged, that is, the modern age.
The second kind refers to an anarchism that would escape, not only from
the epochal principles of modernity, but also from the very logic of
metaphysics.
The first kind of post-foundational anarchism belongs to the beginning
of this 21st century, while the second kind would eventually take shape
in the second half of the 21st century, provided that, hypothetically,
metaphysics were then supplanted by the heights of a technology that
would finally be under the absolute control of our world.
I will dedicate very little time to this second type because its
eventuality is so eventually final, and it remains so far away in time,
that it is best to be prudent and not venture too far.
Well, there is something that seems obvious to me; it is obvious that
for the concept of a post-foundational anarchism to make sense, there
must be a foundational anarchism, otherwise there would be no reason for
any “post”. Therefore, the question: Is anarchism, existing anarchism,
effectively of a foundational type?
The answer is not easy, it is not easy at all, because anarchism is so
extraordinarily diverse that, as we well know, instead of talking about
anarchism, the most appropriate thing is to talk about anarchisms. It
would then always be possible to refer to some anarchism that cannot be
described as foundational, for example, perhaps that of Max Stirner in
the mid-19th century, which might perhaps deserve the epithet of
post-foundational avant la lettre.
Despite this difficulty, I believe it is quite reasonable to consider
that the anarchisms that make up classical anarchism harbour some
principles that are typical of modernity, and that therefore respond to
a certain foundational logic.
In fact, if we stop to think about it, it is the opposite that would be
quite disconcerting, because being a fully historical reality, like
everything that is born of human activity, embedded in a certain era and
immersed in the principles that govern it, anarchism not only owes many
of its characteristics to the struggles developed during the second
industrial revolution, from 1860 onwards, something that nobody
questions, but also, being immersed in the prevailing metaphysics of
that time, it was more than likely pervaded by some of its elements.
Although it is true that in each era, metaphysics contributes to
constituting the gaze, the vantage point, of those who inhabit it, it is
also true that it creates, at the same time, the blind spot of that
perspective, since each epochal metaphysics remains practically
invisible while its era is fully in force, and it only emerges when it
enters into decline.
The existence of this blind spot makes it impossible to reproach the
militants of classical anarchism for not having seen what they could not
possibly or willingly see, that is, that their thought reproduced some
of the principles of modernity. This absence of reproaches however does
not deliver classical anarchism from all criticism.
A criticism that, by the way, does not have to resort to dismissive
insult, and can be carried out with the greatest respect, accompanied,
as in my case, by a clear admiration.
Indeed, as a war machine against the domination typical of the time in
which it was constituted, this anarchism was an apparatus of struggle
quite appropriate for its time, although inevitably marked by what it
opposed. It was precisely because it was not external, was not foreign,
was not radically other to what it confronted, that it was in a position
to be able to face it.
That anarchism then constituted a very useful key to open doors of
emancipation, but… as we well know, all keys become useless when the
locks are changed.
The fact that the epochal determinations of classical anarchism are
currently emerging more clearly indicates that it speaks to us from a
place and from a time that are no longer ours, so what is required is an
aggiornamento, its renewal, thereby unlocking anarchism from its modern
bindings.
Renewing anarchism is all the more necessary since its modern ties weigh
it down considerably.
They weigh it down, in the first place, because anarchism is not only a
struggle against domination, which it is, and against all its forms, but
because it is also – and this is very important because it distinguishes
it from other political orientations – , moreover, a demand, and an
ethical demand, not to reproduce, not to engender, in the very process
of its struggle, that very thing against which it is struggling.
And, these same ties also weigh it down, secondly, because anarchism is
not only negation, opposition, and antagonism. It is also the
construction of concrete alternatives that obey principles other than
those of domination.
And it turns out that it is impossible to satisfy these two demands if
one participates, a little or extensively, in a metaphysics that,
whatever its emancipatory contents, which it undoubtedly has, also
manifests aspects that are burdened with a certain potential for
domination.
So in order to detect the traces left by the metaphysics of modernity,
it is necessary to deconstruct classical anarchism. This is a process
that is being carried out by a group of thinkers and militants,
anarchists, mostly Anglophones, such as, for example, Todd May, Saul
Newman, or Jason Adams, who take their concepts from post-structuralist
theories.
Parallel to this deconstruction, many young anarchist groups have
developed practices that unveil, without any intention to do so, some
epochal inertia that haunts classical anarchism.
Now, deconstructing classical anarchism does not mean to set out in
search of an authentic anarchism in the face of a defective or deficient
anarchism. It is only about detecting what within anarchism that has
ceased to be relevant in the current context.
This purpose marks a difference with post-anarchism, even though it is
obvious that there are multiple similarities between both approaches due
to their mutual link with post-structuralism, and because it is true
that post-foundational anarchism drinks abundantly from post-anarchism.
I believe, however, that the builders of post-anarchism committed the
discursive error of qualifying their proposal in terms of
post-anarchism, which suggested the idea of ??replacing anarchism with
“something else” and that this would completely relegate anarchism to
the past. This discursive error centred the debate on the supplanting of
anarchism, diverting the discussion from substantive issues and forcing
a good part of the theoretical efforts undertaken to confronting an
understandable self-defence reaction from a great many anarchists.
In line with the purpose that I mentioned above and that introduces a
difference with post-anarchism, I will limit myself to evoking two of
the various aspects of modernity that have a certain presence in
inherited anarchism, then go on to develop a third aspect that seems to
me fundamental because it concerns a key theme of anarchism.
The first aspect is constituted by the totalising perspective that
classical anarchism has imported from modernity, and that drives it to
formulate organisational proposals for the whole of society, be it
federalism, libertarian communism, collectivism, etc.
This totalising perspective feeds the idea of ??a revolution that would
affect the whole of society, rendering possible a global reorganisation.
Unlike that perspective, by refraining from advocating any
organisational model that has a global scope, and by moving away from
the classic revolutionary imaginary, post-foundational anarchism ceases
to be strategic, occupied with global approaches, to become tactical,
conscious of the partial and limited character of its struggles, as well
as of the singular and necessarily multiform character of some
libertarian achievements that, like their struggles, can only be local
and plural if they do not want to cease being libertarian.
The second aspect refers to the modern belief in the centrality of a
subject that would be autonomous, sovereign, self-aware, transparent to
itself and guided by reason… if it were not alienated and oppressed.
That belief, typical of enlightened humanism, has foundered, dragging
with it the project of emancipating the subject.
That project did not realise, as classical anarchism did not, that it
makes no sense to try to emancipate what is already constituted by the
very thing from which it is intended to be emancipated.
Now, taking this fact into account does not annul the idea of
??emancipation, but it does redirect it towards a process of
self-creation of the subject, through practices of de-subjectivisation,
rather than trying to liberate what is supposedly natural, that is, the
supposed true subject, which would lie beneath oppression and
alienation.
The third aspect concerns the problem of power. It is quite true that,
unlike the deterministic economism of Marx, the great success of
anarchism consists in having proclaimed, and proclaimed very loudly, the
importance of power, and of the struggle against it.
Now, it is also true that classical anarchism participates in a
conception of power that has already expired; a conception that defined
power as uniform, monolithic, invariant, basically repressive throughout
history, because that would be its essence.
However, it is well known, notoriously so, that in the 60s/70s of the
last century a new conception pointed to the productive, immanent,
polymorphous, and historically changing character of power relations
that are consubstantial with social life itself and that are born from
it.
Of course, this new analysis does not dispense with the need to fight
against power, but it does summon anarchism to rethink its own
conception.
For example, contrary to what it presupposed, the game of relations
between power and freedom is not reduced to a relationship of reciprocal
exclusion in which power constrains freedom, while freedom would be the
antithesis of power.
In fact, that game is much more complex, and mobilises the strange and
paradoxical concept of a symbiotic antagonism, a symbiotic antagonism
where power and freedom are antagonistic, of course, but at the same
time, mutually dependent.
If there is power, it is because there is freedom. Power relations
cannot occur where subjects completely lack freedom, because if subjects
cannot choose between different behaviours, no exercise of power is
necessary for them to do the only thing they can do. This argument is
also valid for the antecedent stages, for example, for the immediately
preceding stage in which power establishes the range of possible
options, because if that range is null, no exercise of power is required
to determine it, restricting, for example, the options between which the
subject can choose, and so on at each step in a long regressive
sequence.
So if there is power, it is because there is freedom, no matter how
minimal, and, conversely, if there is freedom it is precisely because
there is power, something that fits with even greater difficulty into
the coordinates of classical anarchism. However, freedom does not exist
outside of power relations, it is not an ethereal abstraction. It is
rather something that is formed in concrete situations against what is
opposed to it. It is in the resistance to power that freedom is
constituted and unfolds.
Thinking in a new way about the problem of power involves placing
resistance at the heart of that problem, and if it is true, as Michel
Foucault explains so well, that where there is power there is also
resistance, then the union between power and resistance turns out to be
intrinsic; both elements are inextricable.
Resistance is not “the other” of power, it belongs to the same framework
in which power acts and is situated, and since anarchism is forged
precisely within the practices of resistance, anarchism is also not “the
other” of power.
Classical anarchism was mistaken in thinking that because it confronted
power, that it was external to it. However, as it is not, as there is,
through resistance, an internal relationship between power and
anarchism, it is necessary to build an ethic of permanent revolt, an
ethic that promotes, in turn, the development of an art of not being
governed.
This art of not being governed defines a way of being in the world,
where the subject is constantly confronted with power, and where it
struggles to be ungovernable.
Being ungovernable is a condition as difficult as it is enviable. I
would like to be ungovernable! However, as enviable as it may be, that
condition still does not attain to the condition of not being governed,
as Catherine Malabou explains in her recent book of 2022, Au voleur!
Anarchism et Philosophie.[1]
Indeed, if the ungovernable refers to an ethic of permanent revolt, not
being governed refers, for its part, to what is radically alien,
strange, to control and to obedience. It is, if you will, “the other” of
command and obedience, which cannot be governed, under any
circumstances, in any way.
The non-governable can only be dominated, forced, imprisoned, destroyed,
but never governed, because that condition, being governed, is not part
of its way of being and its possibilities.
Unfortunately, to become non-ungovernable is, for the time being, a pure
desire, a pure desire that remains in search of an unknown mode of
realisation, and a great deal of reflection, as well as other not
necessarily reflexive practices, will still be necessary to find a
solution… if there is one.
Paths of uncertainty and incitement to continue reflection are also
opened up when the second kind of post-foundational anarchism is
approached, the one that distances itself not only from the metaphysics
of modernity, but also from the foundations of metaphysics itself.
Let us do a bit of philosophy, let us recall that it was Aristotle who
gave impetus to our metaphysical era, instituting the necessity, the
imperative necessity, of a first principle, the arche, which brings
together in the same concept the ideas of, on the one hand, beginning,
origin, and, on the other hand, command, that is, authority, power.
And it is postulated that what comes first, what precedes, has the
privilege of subordinating and determining what follows, just as causes
precede and determine effects, or that the solidity of the base on which
a building is constructed is a condition of its own strength.
And let us also remember that the antonym of the arche is, precisely,
an-arche, anarchy, the absence of a principle that establishes a chain
of command, a hierarchy. It is an anarchy which refers to no specific
political creed, that is, to any particular entity, but defines the
essence of a type of being, and for this reason it is qualified as
ontological, ontological anarchy, thereby differentiating it from
political anarchism.
What the arche accomplishes, as the first hegemonic and foundational
principle, is to put under its control, and, therefore, to fix and
neutralise, the multiplicity proper to a human being who is naturally
anarchic when they come into the world. We are all born without an
arche, we are born an-arche-ists… anarchists…
This naturally anarchic condition of the human being presupposes that it
does not have a predetermined nature, a supposed human nature always
identical to itself in its essence, but rather that it is an
indeterminate being, a network of multiple possibilities that only
become unitary, losing its original character of open multiplicity, when
an arche appears and imposes itself, a principle that, by the fact of
being first, determines, commands and hierarchises.
It is this first principle that would protect us from the enormous
danger that, according to Aristotle, an-arkhé, ontological anarchy,
would represent for any society, because the absence of an arkhè would
unleash the uncontrollable and ungovernable proliferation of that
multiple that only the arkhè is capable of reducing to unity.
However, contrary to Aristotle’s affirmation, and to what metaphysics
has repeated to us for over more than 2000 years, it turns out that, far
from making any society impossible, what truly makes an-arkhé,
ontological anarchy, is placing life and its full creativity at the
centre of human existence.
Indeed, in the absence of any foundational principle, human praxis can
only be based on itself, and this means that the principles, principles
that continue to be essential to act and think, can now only come from
the situations and practices of daily life itself, and not from the
realm of theory, not from any fixed and unitary metaphysics that
oversees practice, dictating its course. The result is that these
principles are as multiple as the very multiplicity of the situations
concretely experienced. This descent from the heavens of theory to the
concrete practices of everyday life implies, and this is very important,
that in order to think in another way it is necessary to live in another
way, in the same way that living in another way makes it possible to
think in another way.
The commitment to wake up from the frozen metaphysical dream and to let
emerge the multiplicity that it captured, evokes the magnificent verse
of the poet René Char, who speaks to us about: “That part never fixed,
asleep in us, from which will spring tomorrow the manifold.”[2]
That verse is cited in Reiner Schürmann’s book, Heidegger On Being and
Acting: From Principles to Anarchy.[3] And since I mention this
philosopher, I would like to point out that the philosophical interest
in ontological anarchy is largely due to his ingenuity when he undertook
to read the work of Heidegger, from its beginnings to its end,
publishing this labour in the above mentioned indispensable essay in
1982.
Forty years later, that is, this same year of 2022, the philosopher
Catherine Malabou has gathered in the book that I mentioned above, the
contributions around the concept of ontological anarchy of five
important contemporary thinkers, starting with Reiner SchĂĽrmann himself,
and continuing with Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault,
Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Rancière.
We could well think that at this time the most pertinent thing is to
limit ourselves to the first kind of post-foundational anarchism, and
simply worry, which is already a great deal, about renewing anarchism.
It is true that it is urgent to advance in this task. However, that does
not mean that it is not also worthwhile to reflect on ontological
anarchy, because, in addition to contributing to the renewal of the many
anarchisms, it also helps to prevent them from reproducing, in their own
development, the domination they struggle against, thereby rendering
that struggle vain.
And I would still like to make one last precision. The fact of typifying
a post-foundational anarchism is not intended to add one more adjective
to an anarchism that I like more “without adjectives”, nor to encourage
the constitution of a new current in the vast field of anarchism; yet
another one. The denomination matters little and it would seem very good
to me that there would be no more talk of post-foundational anarchism if
that expression served as the seed for a new current, because the
important thing here is not the denomination but to contribute elements
of reflection that may contribute in such a way that at least a part of
anarchism accentuates as much as possible its post-foundational
disposition.
[1] Catherina Malabou, Au voleur! Anarchisme et philosophie. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 2022.
[2] “Cette part jamais fixée, en nous sommeillante, d’où jaillira demain
le multiple.” René Char, Tansir.
[3] Reiner SchĂĽrmann, Heidegger On Being and Acting: From Principles to
Anarchy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990, p. 43. Translated
by Julius Gavroche