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Title: Collage Author: negligible forces Date: Sep 7, 2020 Language: en Topics: Meta-Anarchism, chaos theory, Gilles Deleuze Source: Retreived on Feb 18, 2022 from https://negligibles.medium.com/collage-basic-introduction-to-the-meta-anarchist-political-vision-f61a549ad059
Consensus is when people reach a mutual agreement on a given issue.
Anarchy loves consensus. Actually, some anarchists seem to believe that
it’s the only acceptable form of decision-making.
Unfortunately, consensus has its limitations. The capacity for consensus
drops rapidly as the size of the group increases; it usually takes a lot
of time to reach one; not everyone are fans of participating in
sophisticated and lengthy discussions on every single issue. Those are
all usual objections to anarchism — and arguments for top-down
governments. That is, states.
States rely on the principle of one-for-all decisions. They claim it as
an inevitable consequence of large-scale organization — because it’s not
like an actual consensus can be reached between millions of people,
right?
But you don’t need a consensus for millions of people.
Sometimes, though arguably so, there is an actual necessity to enact a
decision that has to be shared by a group of people this large. Perhaps,
some kind of an issue of planetary scale — akin to climate change.
However, this happens drastically less often than the state strives to
present. There are far less groups that actually require a commonly
shared decision. The state operates in this manner not because of some
“natural necessity”, and not because it has the best interests of
society in mind, but to impose a type of governance that is more
convenient for the state itself. Unified systems are far more compatible
with centralized governance.
Being used to this approach to decision-making as the “natural” one,
some of us may unconsciously transfer it onto our ideas of a freer
society. That’s kinda what happened to “representative democracy”: all
residents of the country are obliged to express the enormous aggregate
of its collective will through the bottleneck of a single ruler, a
single set of rules, a single voting act. Although some things have
changed, the structure of governance remained similar to that of a
monarchy. No wonder this kind of democracy appears hardly functional to
some people.
If convenience for society (rather than convenience for top-down
governments) is a priority for us, another type of decision-making comes
to the forefront. “Fragmentation”.
What’s that? It’s a type of decision-making which implies that different
people should be able to enact different decisions regarding how they
want to live — and how they want to organize their habitat. It also
implies that their coexistence can be coordinated within prescriptions
of mutually shared protocols.
The principle of fragmentation is highly prominent in the open-source
software industry — known there as “forking”. But can we apply it to
political organization?
Let’s look at examples.
Residents of a neighborhood disagree on whether a road must be built in
the place of a local garden. To resolve this dispute, one could use
conflict resolution techniques, reconcile both sides and achieve
consensus on the basis of a compromise. One could also find new,
nontrivial solutions which would satisfy everyone. If there are no
resources for such luxury — perhaps, act in accordance with the opinion
of the majority. But no matter what type of method we apply here, this
would still remain a one-for-all solution. In this particular case,
technologies of our time leave us with no alternative approaches to this
problem. So, here fragmentation is inapplicable.
Here’s another example. Residents of a town believe that publicly
smoking weed is harmful to everyone in that town. Residents of another
town believe that publicly smoking weed is harmless, and maybe even
beneficial to the smokers. Now, you can fragment the decisions at the
regional level. Weed-haters can prohibit smoking in their town, and
weed-lovers can allow it in theirs. In this situation, fragmentation is
preferable.
All that’s required is a shared protocol to which both towns subscribe,
and which postulates that separate towns can make their own policies on
weed-smoking. Let’s call this an “interpolity protocol”. If necessary,
it can be a formal protocol of explicit mutual agreement — otherwise
it’s an informal protocol of “we just kinda let each other do our own
thing”. It’s the “agree to disagree” principle but applied to actual
political organization.
Now, in some countries, a similar system of decisional fragmentation
already exists, relying on high degree of regional autonomy. But it is
confined by strict borders of states or regions. It is still subject to
central authority. It responds very poorly to the shifts of opinions of
local residents. Whereas fragmentation can take place to a practically
infinite degree — all the way to individuals (or even subpersonalities).
It can allow for much more dynamic and adaptive political organization,
converting on-the-spot decisions into societally recognized ones almost
“in real time”. That is what’s called “free flow of desire” in Deleuzian
jargon.
On the other hand, the idea that a large group has to partake in a
single uniform decision implies suppression of some portion of people
with differing interests, e.g. with differing desire. This is usually
followed by delegitimization of those interests with a variety of
justifications: they’re non-citizen, they’re unpatriotic, they’re
privileged, etc.
Dictatorship of the few, rule by the majority and consensus are all
different methods of coordination within a single architecture of a
cohesive decision-making network. Consensus is, of course, the most
anarchist option within this particular architecture.
But it is possible to invent anarchist methods of decision-making on the
basis of different architecture. For example, networks with high degree
of fragmentation. In those kind of networks, tightly interconnected
areas — one may call them “assemblages” by Deleuzian terminology — are
intermitted by loosely connected “gaps” between different
areas/assemblages.
As a matter of fact, the technology of consensus in a large anarchist
society could function only alongside the technology of fragmentation.
In fully connected areas/assemblages, consensus is most likely to occur.
Those areas/assemblages could be communities of people with similar
values — as well as self-sovereign individuals. The fact that there are
gaps of lesser cohesion between those areas/assemblages allows every
area/assemblage to choose its own paths of existence and development.
What would be the most effective political framework for fragmentation?
I’m not sure there can be a decisive answer to that question right now,
but we can already start trying to outline and implement such a
framework.
Imagine virtual polities, which act as decentralized law providers for
all who wish to use their services. Users of different virtual polities
are subject to different sets of restrictions which they themselves deem
preferable. They often form localized communities, because it is more
convenient to interact with users who have the same providers. But the
providers are not subject to strict borders. Virtual polities are not
territorial in themselves, although they can condense on certain
territories. Somewhere, focal points emerge which gather users only of a
particular virtual polity, while elsewhere users of many different
systems settle alongside each other. Relations between users of
different virtual polities are coordinated by networks of interpolity
protocols of varying scale, formal and informal. Virtual polities can
exist within other virtual polities; they can be of any size and shape;
they can intermingle, intercross, conjoin, dissociate and divaricate.
Let’s call this system a “Collage”. A meta-anarchist Collage, if you
want to be particularly precise. A political system of maximized
self-determination. It is also a system that is entirely emergent and
self-organizing, and with no central authority whatsoever. In other
words, it is a confederated system.
The Collage implies that any kind of communities are possible. Including
those which misalign with your personal values. Including
ethnonationalist enclaves — as well as communes where nationalists are
strictly not welcome. As well as resorts for synthetic drug enthusiasts
exclusively; or a town for people who want to create a completely
functional furry society; or a medieval city with guilds and
knighthoods; or a primitivist hunter-gatherer reserve; or whatever
society you would like to live in.
With that said, we can hypothesize that highly isolated gatherings of
think-alike extremists will probably be a rare occurrence in the
Collage. Although, the possibility for such gatherings will already
resolve a huge amount of social tensions. But for most people it’ll be
probably more preferable and sustainable to live in “conservative”
polities with basic anarchist norms of decentralization and
self-governance; plus moderate fragmentation based on minor
disagreements. By “conservative” I mean only “preserving some set of
values” (in this context, anarchist values), and not the values which
you associate with that word.
The extremist polities, in turn, could serve as “political frontiers” of
consensual courageous experimentation, allowing the Collage as a whole
to try out new unusual sociopolitical frameworks. This will allow for
non-coercive societal evolution — in contrast to societal evolution as
we know it, which happens by violent confrontation between progressive
and conservative groups, as well as mutual coercion and struggle for
power over others. Now, some leftists call it “the dialectical process
of history”, but I prefer to call it “a redundant apparatus of surplus
suffering”.
On the other hand, we can’t really predict what the Collage will look
like. Maybe it will be an infinitely varying smorgasbord of distinct
worlds — rather than an assemblage consisting of a “conservative” core
and “extremist” periphery as described above. Maybe it will be both of
those systems existing as neighboring self-sufficient Collages. Maybe it
will be something entirely unimaginable from today’s perspective. In any
case, historical determinism is structurally fascistic. Remember — we’ll
know it only when we get there.
Now, don’t mistake this model for simple voluntaryism. It’s not like we
can just get rid of the state and the free market will instantly arrange
us into peaceful consensual autonomies. Actually, the global capitalist
market in its current form, if met with no resistance, would most likely
devour and suppress any attempts at forming a plural meta-anarchist
network of autonomies.
The Collage must evolve independently, gradually and organically: by
many different people trying out many different approaches at the same
time to see what works, and synthesizing those approaches together to
achieve increasingly large-scale solutions. This is how all functional
societal systems emerge — through gradual evolution, not meticulous
planning.
But if so, how can we foster such a system into existence?
First and foremost, everyone should have the right to create their own
political project and invite anyone who wishes to participate. Let’s
call this activity “alterprise” — enterprise of alternatives. So, we
need to acknowledge the right to alterprise. Doing alterprise should be
as easy as doing a commercial start-up in a country that is oriented
towards supporting emerging small businesses.
A lot of nasty things can be said about “unbridled capitalism” — and I
already mentioned some — but it can’t be denied that market dynamics can
be used as a great tool for rapid systemic development. A market, when
organized properly, is essentially a technology of synthetic evolution:
people offer their products on the marketplace; “good” products gain
audience, while “bad” products wither away; the cycle repeats.
Now, what’s defined as a “good” or a “bad” product is entirely
circumstantial. Also, what the product or its providers gain by
attracting audience also varies between different types of markets. In
modern capitalist markets, a product’s success results in financial gain
for its provider and consequent concentration of power in that
provider’s hands. In a marketplace of organizational systems, the
product and its author are rewarded by implementation, as well as
investment of personal resources by willing participants. Think of it as
free, collaborative, open-source political system development.
Similarly, evolution is not just some improvement. It is improvement of
performance of certain tasks. And the tasks which define the
evolutionary selection may be any kind of tasks. In order for political
evolution to not result in optimization of totalitarian and centralized
systems, certain criteria of selection must be configured. Firstly, a
market demand for anarchist systems must emerge — anarchist systems must
prove themselves to be a better political product. Secondly,
Some of you may have heard of a similar political idea — called
panarchy. At first glance, it seems identical to the meta-anarchist
vision — a plurality of political systems between which people can
freely choose. However, I believe there is an important distinction to
be made.
A panarchist system does not necessarily rely on anarchist principles of
autonomy and self-governance. It can as well be a plurality of top-down
governments with territorial sovereignty, akin to Moldbug’s Patchwork. A
panarchy is a marketplace of political systems, but, once again, they
can be any kind of political systems— for example, dystopian
dictatorships with no actual alternatives.
Strong anarchist institutions and principles are crucial for
facilitating the free flow of political desire. The Collage must have
widespread reliable instruments of direct bottom-up political agency—
whether based on markets, on direct democracy, on blockchain, or on
something else. Without such instruments, the Collage will devolve back
into statehood.
An advanced meta-anarchist society may afford to have polities with high
risk of coercion — voluntary kingdoms or warrior cultures, for example —
but the systemic core of the Collage must remain anarchical in order for
the Collage to remain extant.
Interpolity protocols of varying scale are the glue of the
meta-anarchist Collage. To ensure freedom and flexibility, polities must
have the ability to agree on their own protocols. Successful protocols
are then shared and adopted by other polities. However, as with software
development, it might be much more convenient to work out a basic
protocol, on top of which all other protocols will be layered.
What should a baseline protocol for the Collage look like? It probably
shouldn’t have a lot of rules. It shouldn’t interfere with the logic of
individual rule systems, but it should prioritize personal liberty of
individual people over local rules. For example: anyone who wishes to
stop playing by the rules of a given polity must have the ability to
leave it, and they can’t be held back against their will. Or, even
better — anyone, regardless of physical location, can instantly switch
to a different law provider at any moment and, by that, immediately
become positioned within its jurisdiction.
Baseline protocols may themselves be plural and subject to evolution.
Actually, most likely they will. The more successful a given baseline
protocol is, the more parts of the Collage will adopt it.
In that case, the global level of affairs will be managed by more
informal conventions — or even with no explicit conventions at all, but
by emergent swarm-like and stigmergic organization. The informal
approach seems to be the most optimal for large-scale interrelations, as
it arises naturally from the global balance of interests. Today, a major
portion of international relations operates in a similar fashion. This
approach involves far less algorithmization — specific situations and
precedents become significantly more substantial.
At the current moment, this is mostly a vague fantasy. A questionable
utopian proposition. Surely, many problems and peculiarities, not
addressed in this text, will arise in practice. However, certain
meta-anarchist tendencies are already present in our day and age:
autonomous zones, blockchain-driven decision-making, federated social
networks, micronations, private and charter cities, democratic
confederalism of Rojava, free and open-source software — and many more.
The Collage assembly process has already started — but if not properly
facilitated, it will be dissolved and defeated by more totalitarian and
structurally fascistic tendencies: social credit systems, state police
militarization, mass surveillance, usage of AI and big data for top-down
control, automation of coercion, and so on.
To prevent this and ensure the emergence of the Collage, we need to
continuously network meta-anarchist tendencies together; start up our
own alterprises and personal utopias; create forks of existing projects;
make political and ideological innovations; and be ready to encounter
fierce resistance from the systems of status quo.
If we somehow succeed, we may suddenly find ourselves on a planet that
is a flourishing playground of chaotic consensual experimentation and
constant exploration of existential possibilities; a world of
unimaginable variance and beauty; a world of thousands of ontological
frontiers.
I’d say such a world would be worth the struggle.