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Title: Liquid Anarchism
Author: Tyler Dixon
Date: 15/01/2019
Language: en
Topics: Epistemological Anarchism, Paul Feyerabend, anarchy, science
Source: Retrieved on June 5, 2019 from https://nightforestpoetry.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/night-forest-issue-1-.pdf (PDF)
Notes: [Tyler died before finishing the final draft. This was annotated by Julian Langer and published out of love and respect for the individual he was.]

Tyler Dixon

Liquid Anarchism

Anarchy, defined as “without ruler," and differentiated from Anarchism:

"non-hierarchical social and political organization as a positive

project." Then it becomes possible to think of Feyerabend's attitudes to

science as helpful for our attitudes to anarchism. The way this attitude

can be applied the methodology of science is especially important to the

practice of Anarchism from the lens of "liquid anarchism."

Feyerabend’s "disunity of science" should happen to anarchism, not the

theory or the discourse of anarchism as much as the practice thereof. As

the state becomes ubiquitous, the practice of anarchism should as well.

It should reject itself. It should compete. It should mandate all

options on the table.

Anarchism is a method of politics, not a science. It is not a field of

study as much as it is a practice of politics. And politics is war by

other means. Once it becomes liquid, it can no longer be rigid, static

and stagnant.

Feyerabend's arguments for science do not crossover to politics in

general. He is discussing discourse and epistemology, knowledge and

truth.

Politics is the conversation of violence and power, and for anarchists,

how to fight it, decentralize it, absolve it.

We do not wish to have a battle of wits in the marketplace of ideas. We

want to fight you in the street, we want to disturb.

Feyerabend's politics are centrist, essentially. However, in the context

of anarchism and its relation to Anarchy, no ruler, the one who seeks

anarchy and not anarchism can be very different. They don't want the

same thing.

If we want to build, we must destroy, and this creates chasms in

anarchism as a "movement"

Because his thinking about science, when applied to politics amounts to

[… the draft Tyler sent us shortly before his passing didn’t have an

ending to this sentence]

His ideas about methodology are what matters for us.

Applying his understanding of how to attain knowledge we can think of

methods of achieving the knowledge of anarchism, the application of

anarchy to anarchism.

It's a nihilist anarchism, we make a distinction between anarchy and

anarchism.

"There is no demarcation between science and non-science

There is no demarcation between anarchism and anarchism"

His work informs a liquid anarchism. It is closely related to anarchism

without adjectives, but furthermore, LA must negate itself, compete with

itself for otherwise, it crystallizes, but to be anarchist (A person who

practices anarchism, as one who practices science), against the

ubiquitous state, you need to be against methodology, because for

scientists, what they want is "objective truth," Politics is about power

and the state concentrates this power and at the same time, it

directives are [… again this is another sentence left unended – I as a

friend of Tyler’s would not want to remove or fill in here]

Politics is not epistemology, it is about power, violence, and conflict.

The state which used to concentrate this power in the way of Kings, then

Constitutional Monarchies, then Liberal Democracies has become

insidiously invasive at the same time it is also concentrated. This

postmodern state needs other forms of social control, so its methods

adapt to reach their ends. The state is liquid.

Is clearly "Against Method" in response, any attack on the state.

Anarchism must also become "Against Method" it must “flow like water.”

It’s because there is not center, no essence that is stagnant.

His work informs a liquid anarchism. It is closely related to anarchism

without adjectives, but furthermore, LA must negate itself, compete with

itself for otherwise, it crystallizes, but to be anarchist (A person who

practices anarchism, as one who practices science), against the

ubiquitous state, you need to be against methodology, because for

scientists, what they want is "objective truth," but what anarchists

want is nothing short of everything, but nothing in particular. So,

beyond competition in a market place of ideas, which is the area of

theory. Liquid anarchism incorporates the notion of not just a stagnant

"diversity of tactics" but a rejection of methods as a discourse. It

sees the tiredness in good/cop bad cop debates with liberals and

radicals and flows through it, carving new paths of negation and

redirection.

Politics is not epistemology it is about power, violence, and conflict.

The state which used to concentrate this power has become insidiously

invasive and at the same time, is liquid. Is clearly "Against Method" In

response, any attack on the state. Anarchism must also become "Against

Method"

[Obviously much of these paragraphs are a repeat of a previous ones. I

believe that when Tyler wrote this, he chose to do this as a poetic

approach to articulating his ideas, so have not changed anything here.

This continues throughout the essay.]

Just as nihil is not nihilism. Anarchy is not anarchism.

Feyerabend's work informs a liquid anarchism, which is closely related

to anarchism without adjectives, but furthermore, LA must negate itself,

compete with itself or otherwise, it crystallizes. To be anarchist (A

person who practices anarchism, as one who practices science - I am not

an anarchist, I am simply a philosopher of anarchism), against the

ubiquitous state, you need to be against methodology, because for

scientists, In Feyerabend's view what they want is "objective truth,"

and no single method will reap this reward. But what anarchists want is

nothing short of everything, but nothing in particular. All that

ultimately unites anarchists is an agreement that they would like to see

Anarchy - The absence. Anarchists therefore often have contradictory and

irreconcilable differences of opinion. So, beyond competition in a

market place of ideas, which is the area of theory. Liquid anarchism

incorporates the notion of not just a stagnant "diversity of tactics"

but a rejection of methods as a discourse. It sees the tiredness in

good/cop bad cop debates with liberals and radicals and flows through

it, carving new paths of negation and redirection.

Liquid anarchism is action that actively seeks the destruction of the

state. It is when Anarchy meets Anarchism. It must move. It becomes

liquid. It seeps into everything by all means available.

Conceiving anarchism as liquid modifies anarchism further along the

lines of the situationists and the post-left anarchists. What

differentiates those anarchists from an anarchist liquidity is that

here, an attempt will be made to articulate and define the postmodern

state in detail, in an effort to understand the problem better. The

situationist and post-left critiques are still solid. I mean this in

both the colloquial term and in regard to academic jargon. They were

"right on" but they had no in-depth analysis of the postmodern liquid

state. And this remains a recurring problem in anarchist dialogues and

actions world over.

There is no Bastille to storm, we are living in a post-panoptic world.

We have become functionaries of the state. We must fight ourselves. "We

must be like water."

Politics is not epistemology. It is about power, violence, and conflict.

The state, which used to concentrate this power has become insidiously

invasive and charitable, it is liquid. The state is clearly "Against

Method." In response, any attack on the state. Which is, by nature,

negation not affirmation, switches domains of use, patterns of logic,

terms of agreement between interlocutors. Anarchism, being a philosophy

of absence, of building replacement or alternative social structures,

already lends itself to liquidity. Anarchism is a lot like [… another

sentence we will never know Tyler’s intended ending (though I like to

imagine he’d end it with “nothing”, but perhaps he did)]

Anarchism must also become "Against Method"

Anarchy, defined as without ruler," and differentiated from Anarchism:

"non-hierarchical social and political organization as a positive

project." Then it becomes possible to think of Feyerabend's attitudes to

science as helpful for our attitudes to anarchism. The way this attitude

can be applied the methodology of science is especially important to the

practice of Anarchism from the lens of "liquid anarchism."

"Disunity of science” should happen to anarchism as the state becomes

ubiquitous, the practice of anarchism should as well. It should reject

itself. It should compete. It should put all options on the table.

Anarchism is a method of politics, not a science. It is not a field of

study as much as it a practice of politics. And politics is war by other

means. Once it becomes liquid, it can no longer be rigid, static and

stagnant.

Feyerabend's arguments for science do not crossover to politics in

general. He is discussing discourse and epistemology, knowledge and

truth.

Politics is the conversation of violence and power, and for anarchists,

how to fight it, decentralize it, absolve it.

We do not wish to have a battle of wits in the marketplace of ideas. We

want to fight you in the street, we want to disturb.

Feyerabend's politics are centrist, essentially. However, in the context

of anarchism and its relation to Anarchy, no ruler, the one who seeks

anarchy and not anarchism can be very different. They don't want the

same thing.

If we want to build, we must destroy, and this creates chasms in

anarchism as a "movement"

Because his thinking about science, when applied to politics amounts to

His ideas about methodology are what matters for us.

Applying his understanding of how to attain knowledge we can think of

methods of achieving not the knowledge of anarchism, but anarchism

itself. the application of anarchy to anarchism.

It's a nihilist anarchism, we make a distinction between anarchy and

anarchism. Anarchism must negate itself to achieve anarchism, on

principle.

"There is no demarcation between science and non-science"

A concern for anarchists is the tension between anarchy and anarchism.

Anarchy is simply the absence of something. Anarchism is the Nietzschean

problem of the absence.

Just as nihil is not nihilism. Anarchy is not anarchism.

Feyerabend's work informs a liquid anarchism, which is closely related

to anarchism without adjectives, but furthermore, LA must negate itself,

compete with itself or otherwise, it crystallizes. To be anarchist (A

person who practices anarchism, as one who practices science - I am not

an anarchist, I am simply a philosopher of anarchism), against the

ubiquitous state, you need to be against methodology, because for

cientists, In Feyerabend's view what they want is "objective truth, “and

no single method will reap this reward. But what anarchists want is