Recently, The Happy Revolutionary asked me if I knew anything about a bloke calling himself the ‘Bay Area National Anarchists’ (BANA), as “Inexplicably, one of these national anarchists popped up on a blog I visit, bemoaning the terrible ‘oppression’ caused by political correctness. I was curious to see how this sort of far-right nonsense could have found itself married to anarchism.”
Perhaps a more apt description would be that a small number of fascists are feeling unrequited love of anarchy?
In any case, I confessed to having encountered the same group of Mealy Mouthed Rogues some years ago. (The best scholarly article on the subject that I’m aware of is Graham D. Macklin, ‘Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2005 [PDF].)
As noted previously, the APEC meeting in Sydney in September 2007 — besides creating a police state and a final opportunity for George II to personally thank his lieutenant John HoWARd for eleven years of loyal service — witnessed a new pimple arise on the body politic: the notional anarchists of the New Reich. As a result, a statement was produced by local anarchists following the NR’s emergence, and it will appear in the new issue of Mutiny zine. Aside from that, there’s been little reaction on the part of local anarchists, and presumably won’t be until such time as the (er) anarchist Darrin Hodges joins his comrades in another public demonstration.
On the other side of the fence, I’ve recently stumbled upon a thread on the “pathetic” statement in question on a fascist forum, FolkandFaith. Unsurprisingly, the very brief discussion it generated further demonstrates the general witlessness and political incoherence of those who subscribe to the idiotic concept of ‘national anarchism’. Nevertheless, the intervention of Welf Herfurth’s mob in Sydney — and the existence of a handful of individuals in Australia willing to pose as such — is not without some greater utility, and that is principally to force some other, self-proclaimed anarchists to confront their own political incoherence. In large measure, this incoherence is based upon a misunderstanding of both anarchism and (political) authority: that is, in conceiving of ‘anarchism’ as nothing more nor less than the rejection of any and all forms of authority, ‘anarchists’ of this under-performing school are necessarily incapable of a political perspective — of any sort. Thus when a group of racists emerge proclaiming themselves to be ‘anarchists’, other ‘anarchists’ simply recoil. Lacking the ‘authority’ to assume their own perspective on ‘anarchism’, they also lack the authority to deny this same ‘authority’ to others, whatever bizarre spin they wish to place upon it.
Below is something I prepared earlier. On a vaguely-related note, see also ‘communist headache’, theory of the offensive, December 24, 2007.
- In the popular imagination, according to anarchist historian Peter Marshall: “Anarchy is terror, the creed of bomb-throwing desperadoes wishing to pull down civilization. Anarchy is chaos, when law and order collapse and the destructive passions of man run riot.” For this reason, anarchy is the spectre “that haunts the judge’s bench and the government cabinet”. The depth of anarchism’s unpopularity with government leaders was perhaps most ably expressed in 1901 by President Theodore Roosevelt when, following President McKinley’s assassination by the sometime anarchist Leon Czolgosz, he declared that “Anarchism is a crime against the whole human race and all mankind should band against anarchists”. Two years later the US Congress enacted the Anarchist Exclusion Act, banning alien anarchists and any person “who disbelieves in or is opposed to all organized governments”. It’s worth noting that this law remains in force, and it still remains possible for anyone courageous (or naïve) enough to declare their belief in a world without government to United States authorities to be denied entry to the country on that basis.
Of course, anarchism’s unsavoury reputation among government leaders and the general public is not the only barrier one faces in trying to arrive at a more coherent definition than that given by President Roosevelt. Noam Chomsky, for example, has written that, given the diverse ideas and practices that have at one time or another been referred to as “anarchist”, it would be a “hopeless” task to try and construct some general anarchist theory. However, if anarchism is understood less as a fixed ideology and more as an historical movement leading towards greater human freedom then “at a particular time there is every reason to develop, insofar as our understanding permits, a specific realisation of this definite trend in the historic development of mankind [sic], appropriate to the tasks of the moment”.
Notwithstanding Chomsky’s cautionary approach to arriving at a more general definition of anarchism, at the core of anarchist philosophy is the idea of human freedom, and the belief that human beings are most happy when they are free to realize themselves through their own creative efforts. From a literal viewpoint, while “basically mean[ing] ‘origin’, ‘beginning’, and, in a concrete sense, ‘uterus’… [if] [o]ver the centuries the meaning of arché has shifted to include ‘power, rule, domination’” an arché (anarchy) may be understood as meaning ‘without rulers’. The anarchist vision, therefore, is of a classless, stateless or ‘non-hierarchical’ society. For Mikhail Bakunin, that ‘fanatical lover of Liberty’ (as he described himself) and Marx’s chief rival within the First International, this liberty was:
…not official “Liberty”, licensed, measured and regulated by the State, a falsehood representing the privileges of a few resting on the slavery of everybody else; not the individual liberty, selfish, mean, and fictitious advanced by the school of Rousseau and all other schools of bourgeois Liberalism, which considers the rights of the individual as limited by the rights of the State… No, I mean the only liberty which is truly worthy of the name, the liberty which consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers which are to be found as faculties latent in everybody, the liberty which recognises no other restrictions than those which are traced for us by the laws of our own nature; so that properly speaking there are no restrictions, since these laws are not imposed on us by some legislator, beside us or above us; they are immanent in us, inherent, constituting the very basis of our being, material as well as intellectual and moral; instead, therefore, of finding them a limit, we must consider them as the real conditions and effective reason for our liberty.
Further, this concept of freedom is eminently social: “The freedom of each [individual] is… realizable only in the equality of all. The realization of freedom through equality, in principle and fact, is justice”.
In attempting to arrive at a more coherent and expansive anarchist social theory, one describing “a mode of human organization… rooted in the experience of everyday life”, the English anarchist writer Colin Ward identifies a number of definite trends: “the ideas of direct action, autonomy and workers’ control, decentralization and federalism”. However, these ideas, while helping to illuminate key trends within anarchist political philosophy, are insufficient to arrive at a sophisticated and balanced conceptualisation and definition of anarchist thought, and our search for this begins, appropriately enough, with an examination of anarchism’s origins in ‘The Age of Revolution’.
Proudhon
Anarchism as a modern political philosophy first developed in the mid-nineteenth century, and the French printer, ‘Man of Paradox’ and ‘Philosopher of Poverty’ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) is usually credited with being the first thinker, in 1840, to consciously call himself an ‘anarchist’: a term that until that point had been used in an exclusively negative fashion, one synonymous with chaos. In What is Property? Proudhon, in response to an imaginary critic shocked at his renunciation of the major strands of political thinking—republicanism, democracy, monarchism, constitutionalism and the aristocracy—states that his use of the term ‘anarchist’ to describe his political perspective is not at all humorous: “I have just given you my considered and serious profession of faith. Although I am a strong supporter of order, I am in the fullest sense of the term, an anarchist”. Exactly what Proudhon meant by that he explains by recounting the struggles of the ‘Man of Reason’ against illegitimate authority. According to Proudhon, through man’s [sic] efforts to develop his understanding of himself and his place in the world—efforts which are understood to be inextricably linked to his efforts to extricate himself from unjust authority—“sovereignty of the will retreats before the sovereignty of reason… [Thus] Anarchy, absence of master, of sovereign—that is the form of government to which we draw closer day by day…”
Property is Theft!
Of course, What is Property? is famous not only for being the first occasion upon which a political thinker consciously and publicly adopted the term ‘anarchist’, but moreover for being one of the first shots fired at one of the cornerstones of modern capitalism: property. What is property? For Proudhon, ‘property is theft’. Described by James Joll as “one of the most effective revolutionary slogans of the nineteenth century”, and hailed by Karl Marx as a “penetrating work” and “the first decisive, vigorous and scientific examination of property”, What is Property? is striking therefore, for its denunciations of both government and property. In short, Proudhon is not solely opposed to government, and his opposition to it is not simply because ‘government’ places fetters upon the workings of the ‘free market’ (as some latter-day ‘libertarians’ or ‘anarcho-capitalists’ argue.) In other words, Proudhon’s critique of modern society is grounded in both anti-statist and anti-capitalist principles. Further, Proudhon argued that if we reject property, we must also reject government. In more contemporary parlance, anti-capitalism necessarily implies anti-statism.
Property is the right to use and abuse. If, then, government is an economy, if its object is production and consumption, the distribution of labour and products, how is government possible while property exists? And if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and indeed despotic kings, kings in proportion to their acquisitive faculties? And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be anything but chaos and confusion?
It could be argued that the notion that proprietors should be ‘despotic kings’ found its legal and political confirmation in the advent of the corporation, especially from the point when, in 1886, the US Supreme Court gave corporations the rights of persons.
In any case, whatever his later political prevarications, and despite the many, sometimes contradictory interpretations of his thought—as Daniel Guerín notes, Proudhon was “at one and the same time, the father of “scientific socialism”, of socialist political economy and of modern sociology, the father of anarchism, of mutualism, of revolutionary syndicalism, of federalism and of… collectivism” —it is this opposition to the rule of both state and capital that marks Proudhon as the first of his era to expound the political principles upon which anarchism as a social movement was to be built. Indeed, Mikhail Bakunin, one of the other great anarchist figures of the nineteenth century, defined anarchism as “Proudhonism greatly developed and pushed to its further conclusion”.
While in this statement Bakunin may have been underemphasising the complex and contradictory nature of much of Proudhon’s thought—features which obviously render problematic the apparently simple work of transmuting ‘Proudhonism’ into ‘anarchism’—it is nevertheless true that the key ideas Proudhon formulated have played a highly productive role in germinating further explorations in anarchist social theory.
In his history of anarchism, George Woodcock makes a crucial distinction between anarchism as idea and anarchism as movement. As movement, Woodcock regarded the destruction of the Spanish Republic in 1939—and the defeat of the predominantly anarchist social revolution that existed largely in opposition to the Republic —as marking “the death of classic anarchism… the movement that Bakunin had founded during the internal struggles of the International in the 1860s”. In the second edition of his history, however, Woodcock was forced to concede that, in the twenty-five years since his book’s initial publication:
…anarchism has re-emerged in new forms, adapted to a changing world… one can no longer validly argue that anarchism in any final sense came to an end in 1939, though the old traditional anarchism did. The idea has revived astonishingly, assuming new manifestations…
In the almost twenty years since the publication of the second edition of his history, anarchism has again proven its durability. While part of the reason for this longevity may be located ‘outside’ of anarchism—that is, in the economic, political and cultural context in which movements and ideas either find their place and flourish or remain marginal and have little political or cultural impact—the (anarchist) idea that ‘property is theft’ is one that has continuing relevance. It finds its contemporary echo in many of the slogans that have been adopted by ‘anti-globalisation’ movements and the attack on private ownership represented by What is Property? remains at the very core of contemporary anarchist philosophy. Moreover, as one of the first properly anarchist treatments of the question of ‘property’ and its ethical and political significance, Proudhon’s What is Property? is—despite its many stylistic flourishes, polemical exaggerations and Proudhon’s delight in the use of irony, contradiction and his status as a ‘connoisseur of paradox’—a central document in the history of anarchist ideas, and one worth exploring not only for its own sake but also in order to establish the rationale behind anarchism’s revolutionary contempt for capitalist social relations.
I live, like you, in a century in which reason is subordinate only to fact and to proof. My name, like yours, is SEEKER OF TRUTH. My mission inscribed in these words of the law: “Speak without hate or fear, and say what you know!”
What Proudhon knew about property he expressed in a typically rambling and ironic fashion: he did not mean literally what he said. (Or at least, not always!) For Proudhon, ‘property’ was ownership of the fruits of another’s labour. ‘Possession’, on the other hand, he (loosely) defined as referring to the right of man (sic) to own and control his means of survival. Thus:
Under “property” one may distinguish between: I. Property pure and simple, the right of domain over a thing, or as they say, “naked property”. II. Possession. “Possession,” says [Alexandre] Duranton, “is a matter of fact, not of right.” [Charles] Toullier: “Property is a right, a legal power; possession is a fact.” The tenant, the farmer, the shareholder, and the usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who rents and lends for use and the heir who waits for the death of the usufructuary to come into possession, are proprietors. To venture a comparison: a lover is a possessor, the husband a proprietor.
Proudhon’s vision of a just society led him to condemn one in which those who own property thereby assume the right to govern. As such, What is Property? may be understood as a nascent version of the more properly socialist doctrine that Bakunin, Marx and a host of other thinkers would develop in later years. Thus whatever one makes of the value of Proudhon’s work as a whole—as Peter Marshall has noted, “Proudhon was one of the most paradoxical and inconsistent social thinkers of the nineteenth century” —in rejecting property and government, Proudhon provided the basis for the elaboration of a specifically anarchist political philosophy. As Woodcock writes:
By rejecting government and the non-working proprietor, by advocating economic equality and free contractual relationships between independent workers, What is Property? contains the basic elements from which all later libertarian and decentralist doctrines have been built. But it contained them in an undeveloped form.
As with other social theories, one measure of the value of Proudhon’s thought may be found by examining its impact upon social practice. In terms of the development of socialist doctrines in France, for example, his followers played a crucial role. According to Woodcock, “the French workers who helped to found the [First] International… many leaders of the Commune of 1871, and most of the syndicalist militants of the French trade unions between 1890 and 1910” owed a great deal to his work. These links between anarchist political philosophers and labour movements were to culminate in the theory and practice of anarcho-syndicalism. Before examining the emergence of such movements, however, it is worth tracing Proudhon’s ideas as they developed in the work of the one of the other great nineteenth century anarchist thinkers: Mikhail Bakunin.
Bakunin
Born into the Russian aristocracy and widely regarded as ‘the father of anarchism’, it should be noted that Bakunin’s anarchism did not develop until much later in life, his first public declaration occurring in a speech to the League for Peace and Freedom in 1868. This is an important point because Bakunin’s critics, especially “Marxists”, often attempt to demonstrate the essential incoherency of Bakunin’s philosophy by contrasting his earlier, non-anarchist works with those of his mature, anarchist period.
In the First International, Bakunin was Marx’s chief adversary, arguing against the ‘politicisation’ of the class struggle and the centralisation of the socialist movement. So effective was he that, rather than risk losing control, Marx moved the headquarters of the International to New York, where it soon collapsed.
Leonard Krimerman and Lewis Perry note that Bakunin:
has been frequently depicted as an opéra bouffe character… his writings… described as preposterous, chaotic, incomplete. One is left to puzzle at his ability to stalemate Marx in competition for the loyalty of the International and at the endurance of the Bakuninist tradition in the Mediterranean countries.
In seeking to answer this puzzle, of explaining how such a disreputable thinker and incorrigible conspirator could possibly have had such a profound impact upon the development of nineteenth (and twentieth) century socialist thought, Richard B. Saltman argues that Bakunin’s political philosophy is far from the caricature provided by hostile critics. According to Saltman, Bakunin’s theory is centred on three critiques: of the state, of science, and of capitalism…
To be continued…
@ndy! Long time no see, good to hear from you my friend! Honestly Bakunin and Proudhon [sic] politics are more much more similar to National Anarchy in most respects so I don’t know what exactly you are trying to prove. Even traditional anarchists preface those two for their supposed anti-Semitic positions, in fact I’m surprised you haven’t called them nazis knowing how loosely you define that as anyone that disagrees with State-mandatory multiculturalism. But anyway thanks for the “free and fair” balanced reporting it’s always appreciated. Please extend my warm regards to The Happy Revolutionary.
See you on the barricades my dear, sent with kisses!
Once again you have saved Christmas.
Cheers vents. BANA sounds like he may have missed out on a few presents this year.
=P I don’t do christmas but I had a wonderful solstice celebration. What was your fav gift @ndy?
“Lacking the ‘authority’ to assume their own perspective on ‘anarchism’, they also lack the authority to deny this same ‘authority’ to others, whatever bizarre spin they wish to place upon it.”
See: CrimethInc.
Honestly, though, people generally seem to lack the time and patience to sit down and listen to an in-depth discussion about politics when everyone is used to hearing one liners like “Keeping the economy strong” or “Putting your family first”, so I usually see anarchism (fairly accurately) passed off as one of many forms of socialism without any party or group controlling it and directing it towards a centralized dictatorship, as which happens with other radical “left” ideologies. I’m curious, but- where are these incoherent types found? I honestly can’t say I’ve known or met any anarchists that aren’t extremely coherent, and most follow that general line- the only “anarchists” I’ve ever heard of that don’t seem to tack completely unrelated terms like “capitalism” to the end of the word, bar the odd crazy individualist, like pr or those in/involved with the aforementioned CrimethInc mob…
Sophia:
The “incoherent” anarchists you ask about tend to stem from the 70’s era punk scene. Anarchy was equated with a punk show and drug addiction and refusing to allow “fascist” things like jobs and parental/authority figures and [sic] influence on one[‘]s behavior. Eventually most of that crowd burned out on heroin. The influence of that tendency in the anarchist movement remains strong hence the heavy emphasis of no one telling anyone what to do, lack of organization, of actions that tend to provide material benefits, such as working or farming. Some of the better elements of this tendency ha[ve] been written about in a wryly poetic style by an author who goes by the name Hakim B[e]y.
Otherwise in the Anglo world “incoherent” and “bizarre” is [sic] often a buzzword for ideas a person does not like.
Lastly, anarchism as a form of socialism is a point of contention in the modern anarchist movement. I would reckon that about half of all anarchists would agree with a kind of anarcho-communist or anarcho-syndicalist kind of society but a large number of others reject this and advocate a return to a hunter gather[er] mode of existence. For me the economic goal of the absolute equal distribution of wealth and the abolishment of class society is not the pinnacle of my value system for the anarchist project. I advocate a non capitalist mode of production that is directly tied into community social life such as a g[u]ild or syndicalist system in communities that self manage themselves according to whatever sustainable, social, economic, or religious structures they choose. Obviously that makes me the odd man out in the anarchist movement, allowing so much community freedom to exist in an anarchist society is why I call myself a National Anarchist. Naturally most anarchists disagree with this to the point of calling for my murder lest other people should decide how they want to live for themselves. In that sense they adhere strictly to the Frankfurt school of Marxism on social issues.
For revolution
BANA
www. bayareanationalanarchists . com
ps- including my site url as @ndy likes to edit my blog[‘]s web address to non existent websites, my :* to your sense of humor dear boy!
BANAnageddon!
I stand corrected. I think BANAnas actually believes that it’s perfectly consistent with anarchism (as defined by Andy and Chomsky above) to make “choices” that limit the ability of others to make similar “choices” because… um, he was there first?
If “community life” means banning non-whites, it can not be said that everyone is free – only free to make the choices imposed from above. And they wonder why real anarchists – not to mention the able-minded – are hostile. A cursory look at the BANA website shows why they are being encouraged to exercise their right to suck the business end of an exhaust pipe.
BANA is not accepted by any other anarchists, not in any way consistent with the history of anarchism, not organised in any meaningful way and, while decrying a (mythological) mass of individualist primitivists, claim that they alone have the best interpretation of anarchist organisation.
For fuck’s sake, they can’t even understand a cartoon in Heeb magazine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w
As for the Australian contingent, I doubt they’ll be stupid enough to try the same thing twice. The reason why I don’t believe them to be a priority for action isn’t because I lack the courage/confidence to do so, but because it seems like they’re an even stranger sub-cult (isn’t it around two people?) of the already marginalised white nationalist movement. Vigilance is good, but I think they’re a waste of time. Although if someone wanted to organise a dacking if they do show up again, I’ll be happy to join in.
PS In terms of nutrition and quality of life (including leisure time), all the indicators point to hunter gatherer societies being superior to agrarian societies. Dickhead.
Yo.
Yeah, maybe. But even if, say, 95% of the Australian population is completely uninterested, at any time, in any place, and under any circumstances, in engaging in a serious dialogue about ‘politics’, that still leaves something like 1,000,000 people who are. As for anarchism itself… I have to confess to not fully understanding your point. Are you stating that, for those who care to venture an opinion on the subject, ‘anarchism’ means (something like) an ‘anti-authoritarian’ or ‘libertarian’ interpretation of ‘socialism’? If so, that’s a fairly accurate reading in my book (The Big Book of Anarchism).
By incoherence, I mean the incapacity to define anarchism. What is it? Secondly, to situate this definition in history, the history of anarchism understood as being not only a series of ideological pronouncements — which is an extremely impoverished understanding of anarchism in any case — but as a series of social movements. I also mean ‘coherence’ in two senses: one internal, the other external. That is, is this definition or picture of anarchism internally consistent? And secondly, what relationship does it have to the broader fields of political philosophy and political practice? Basically, I think that ‘anarchism’ needs to be distinguished from forms of militant liberalism, both as an ideology, but also in practice.
For example, there’s a reticence to make any definitive statements about anarchism, often on the putative grounds that doing so is an exercise not merely in ‘authority’ — understood as being ‘authorship’ — but actually ‘authoritarian’; as if by doing so one is acting in a manner contrary to ‘anarchism’ or its spirit.
This perspective is deluded. To begin with, without being able to define ‘anarchism’, it’s not possible to act either ‘for’ or ‘against’ it. Secondly, such a perspective fails to realise that this criticism is one which is equally applicable to all forms of political discourse. That is, political discourse is always and everywhere an exercise in power: in naming and establishing the relationships between various concepts and practices, there is always and everywhere a perspective already present.
I could go on, but I think in order to really establish the case I want to put, I’d have to venture into other territory, especially the critique of ‘ideology’. Suffice it to say that, in reference to the ‘national anarchists’, I believe they can be made to function in a way that is useful to anarchist theory and practice. CrimethInc too is another story, but Knabb’s comments are, as ever, illuminating:
Hiya Lumpen,
I believe that communities are allowed to make whatever decisions they want and the role of the individual is to put those decisions into action.
Thats right, we reserve the right to prohibit entrance to anyone that threatens the existence of our collective for any reason whatsoever. If you ever lived in an anarchist community before _you would_ understand what I’m talking about.
WOW! Anarchists not accepting other anarchists ideas/positions, jeez that has never happened before!? *rolls eyes* LOL
Do you think that anarchists _must be_ “recognized by the established authority/talking heads of a political tradition?” Is such “approval” of any importance whatsoever? Did Kropotkin approve of Goldmans sexual liberation? Did the anarcho-syndicalists accept punk rockers? Didn’t think so.
Now that[‘]s an interesting point to [m]ake as 1) I’ve known a few individual primitivists over the years and in general I’m unimpressed, 2) National Anarchists don’t advocate organizations per se. I think you meant social organization, and yes I’ll admit I believe that these ideas are best for me. National Anarchism explicitly states if you don’t agree with how we want to live our lives that is fine you can live your life elsewhere.
As an example of what I’m talking about, I wouldn’t want to live with a bunch of Christian evangelists and I don’t think you would either.
That doesn’t mean you are allowed to persecute them for believing differently than you but you can quite clearly set the boundaries of acceptable behavior for your group/tribe and it’s relations with others. Would you accept christians kidnapping other people[‘]s children to save their souls for christ? Didn’t think so.
“Traditional,” that is old school, anarchists can’t allow groups of people to live the kind of life they want to live for a number of a priori reasons and this is where the ideology fails. Anarchists, like Marxists, hold that their beliefs are universal values applicable to all of humanity due to it’s “scientific,” and “humanitarian” underpinnings. It’s my opinion that these are not universal values applicable to all human beings but cultural values stemming from a specific cultural heritage. Specifically this is the charge of “colorblind” racism that the Marxist adherents of the Frankfurt school call white privilege. It is accurate to call universalist values racist, esp. when the intellectual roots of that tradition is comes [sic] straight from Catholicism. The introduction of large Muslim populations into Western countries shows how subjects like forced marriages, genital mutilation, and honor killings are intolerable to widely held “Western” values. All practices that aren’t explicitly accepted by the majority of white skinned people are denounced. However since the ideas of anarchism and socialism came before large scale contact with those cultures it shows exactly how Eurocentric such values are and why the Left has been unable to resolve the differences in a changing cultural reality and the values they are supposed to represent. Hence time goes on and zero progress is made in making your ideas reality as the state and capitalism grows stronger and stronger. The Left has completely failed to stem the tide of globalization due to your pre conceived multicultural values. IMO that[‘]s what the ruling class had planned all along.
Vigilance is not vigilantism and neither is dacking a show of courage.
You’re probably right. Ass hat.
BANANAS:
When I refer to “incoherency”, I don’t mean to refer to (self-identified) punks who are also (self-identified) anarchists, or to the 70s punk era. I certainly don’t mean the stereotypical, drug-addicted, parasites (although some of my best friends are or have been drug-addicted parasites — arf arf) who emerge in almost any milieu, punk or not. The anti-authoritarian impulse expressed by many parts of the punk sub-culture/s is interesting and valuable — or at least I find it to be — but, as is the case with any other ‘merely’ cultural politics of contestation / anti-disciplinary political expression, is subject to recuperation by those authoritarian entities it militates against.
This ‘problem’ is hardly unique to ‘punk’.
I also actually appreciate the desire to organise pleasurable activities largely outside of and against market forces and commercial impulses; experimentation with other, alternative, less exploitative, more politically-engaged forms of fashion, diet and lifestyle; the rejection of work, etcetera.
Or: ‘Punk Is Whatever We Make It To Be’, as they say in The Classics.
Nevertheless, ‘punk’ is not ‘anarchism’, and ‘anarchism’ is not ‘punk’. As for Hakim Bey (a/k/a Peter Lamborn Wilson), he’s more hippie than he is punk, and has written about all kindsa stuff…
The rest is dribble:
When I use the term ‘incoherent’, I mean exactly that: without logical or meaningful connection between its parts.
The points of contention within contemporary anarchism are many and varied — the relationship of anarchism to socialism is hardly novel. Those anarchists who express an anti-civilizational perspective — that is, those who advocate de-industrialisation, and a return (of sorts) to a pre-agricultural lifestyle — offer, in my opinion, some penetrating insights into the nature of modern society (as do the ostensibly non-anarchist thinkers, such as Lewis Mumford, who preceded them, and who also enunciated a critique of civilization (and technology in particular)) but are otherwise embarked upon a fairly tenuous political project.
None of this has anything to do with “the Frankfurt school of Marxism on social issues” as such.
Hi all
I wonder if the “Frankfurt School” is a new code word for jews amongst these National Anarchist types?
rebel love
Dave
@ndy:
Points taken, thanks for clarifying. I was responding to Sophia[‘]s comment, but WRT your last post, “When I use the term ‘incoherent’, I mean exactly that: without logical or meaningful connection between its parts.”
I would criticize that statement with 1) such is usually the case with all new ideas. For example, the same thing was said of Einstein[‘]s theory of relativity when it was first released. 2) National Anarchism is a collection of ideas in its infancy that will change and evolve in time. There is already a huge divergence of opinion in the movement on many issues, some of which are completely opposite of my own views.
and LOL @ “although some of my best friends are or have been drug-addicted parasites — arf arf” same here!
Lewis Mumford looks _really_ interesting, a quick check on his wiki article reminds me of an Oswald Spengler remixed with Isidore Isou and Jacques Ellul. Will look into further when I have time.
gc:
Yes indeed: the Frankfurt School is alleged to be responsible for a wide range of crimes according to the anti-Semitic right, especially insofar as its critique of ‘culture’ is concerned. ‘Multiculturalism’, ‘political correctness’, ‘affirmative action’ and more are all ultimately the responsibility of the dirty Jews of Frankfurt, apparently. That said, the thesis appears to be a product of a more general reaction to “The Sixties” on the part of US elites and their shoeshine boys in the academy and the think tanks, and an attempt to locate progressive currents in US society as being the logical culmination of the Communist menace…
…oi BANA, did you spill my pint?
Not the “the dirty Jews of Frankfurt” but the professors at the University of Frankfurt.
You remarks have made it clear to me that it’s time to write a blog post about the BANA position on the “Jewish Question” as Karl Marx once put it.
Your dismissive statement about “the Communist menace…” is really a surprising statement coming from you as I thought you were more intelligent/well read than that.
In every land where the anarchists gained control of the means of production: Kronstadt, Ukraine 1919-1921, Spain 1936-1939, they were betrayed and massacred by the Communist Party. In fact in the 20th century, the communist movement directly or indirectly murdered 100,000,000 people ( source: http://www . hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM ) to further it’s goals. They were so effective, in so many places, that the wholesale slaughter of human populations that Trotsky and Stalin brought about makes the Nazis look like rank amateurs in comparison. If you are a humanitarian as you fancy yourself and anti-authoritarian this shouldn’t be glossed over so easily. Let me remind you that that number accounts for about 30,000,000 citizens of communist authorities, many killed for personal motives or just the sake of being cruel. Or they owned a farm. Or they had a university education [like you yeah?]. The Chinese Revolution destroyed 99% of all of Chinas cultural and historic heritage. Literally The Forbidden City in Beijing is the only relic of the past they did not demolish. They did the same thing in Tibet. They did the same thing in Russia. They did the same thing in Eastern Europe. They did the same thing in Cuba. They are trying to do the same thing in much of South America. So for you to sit here and tell me that these Marxist Professors were some benign chaps peace love and harmony jews (which should be irrelevant, I don’t know why you raise the issue. They could be christians or muslims for all I care) in their hearts, is rubbish. I don’t normally write or think about such large numbers of human beings and so let me type that out that number again and tell me if you can conceive of what One Hundred Million People look like (give or take a few million)?
The Nazis, for all their bloodthirstiness, who you bemoan endlessly for their murderous four year conflict during most of the Second European Civil War took place exterminated maybe 5,000,000 million people [sic], perhaps as high as 6,000,000 according to war time propaganda, the exact number is indeterminable.
I don’t know of a single old school anarchist who trusts communists (let alone Trots) any more than they can be drop kicked. I suggest you look into Noam Chomsky[‘]s essay on the Kronstadt Sailors for a few clues of what your Red buddies have in store for you. (Also I can suggest [this essay] since I can’t find the link for it.)
And personally I admire a lot of things Marx wrote about. I’m the only person I know who has read all three volumes of Das Kapital. I believe that nether him or his followers have anything valuable to contribute to the Revolutionary struggle other than to exist as examples of what not to do. Even more so for the results of the 1960s cultural legacy as I live in the epicenter of it conception and I can describe at great length to you it’s many pros and cons and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s legacy is highly overrated.
For revolution,
BANA
The short version:
The long version:
Yeah, the ‘Frankfurt School’, a/k/a the Institute for Social Research (Est. 1923). Many of its members were Jewish, some were not. In any case, whether conceived of as being further evidence of the pernicious influence of The Jew on Western Culture or not, it’s significance to the far right is as I stated: within its walls, an assault on (“liberal”) Western Culture was prepared, and intellectuals such as Marcuse, Adorno, and Benjamin laid the intellectual groundwork for (gasp!) “The Sixties”, which is When All Hell Broke Loose and The Permissive Society was inaugurated (in the US, the only country that matters). The basic thesis is expressed in an essay by some angry cranky not-so-nifty Nevilles: ‘The Frankfurt School, The New Left, Cultural Self-Loathing and the Psychosis of Multiculturalism’ (in which context, Harold Marcuse’s comments on David Horowitz are relevant).
As far as I’m concerned, the idea that the philosophies associated with The Frankfurt School (perhaps best summarised as ‘critical theory’) have somehow obtained a position of political dominance within the US state is utterly preposterous, and I’m not in the least interested in discussing the question any further.
As for your comments on the relationship between anarchism and such ideas, you wrote:
1) “Naturally most anarchists disagree with this [“allowing so much community freedom to exist in an anarchist society”] to the point of calling for my murder lest other people should decide how they want to live for themselves. In that sense they adhere strictly to the Frankfurt school of Marxism on social issues.”
2) “Specifically this is the charge of “colorblind” racism that the Marxist adherents of the Frankfurt school call white privilege.”
Again (and again and again): nonsense. Your understanding of anarchism is a misunderstanding of anarchism. The “sense” in which anarchists adhere to “the Frankfurt school of Marxism on social issues” makes no “sense” at all. To begin with, the Frankfurt School produced many diverse thinkers, who had all sorts of views on all sorts of questions or “social issues” (as opposed to “non-social issues” presumably). The only “sense” in which anarchists may share some common values with the leading theorists of the Frankfurt School is by way of an aversion to the kinds of crude racism and racialised thinking which saturates your writing and that of the “national anarchists” as a whole. In this respect, “national anarchism” is simply a tiny fraction of the racist right, whose adherents claim to want to have their phantasy of a white nation reproduced on a micro-scale and in the name of something they call ‘anarchism’, but which bears no closer relationship to anarchism than does any other small-minded, racist, communitarian philosophy, one articulated by various fascist thinkers for almost a century.
As for the notion of ‘white privilege’ and critical theory, this is presumably a somewhat tortured reference (as all your references tend to be) to something called ‘critical race theory’. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re thinking of journals like Race Traitor and Maoists like J. Sakai? (An interview with the mad Maoist is available here, and an orthodox Marxist critique of his work is available here.)
Whatever.
A pointyhead writes:
In general, your comments, and the ideology you espouse, resemble nothing so much as a large block of Swiss cheese.
Finally, therefore — and readers are urged to go to BANANA’s blog in the unlikely event that they’re genuinely interested in pursuing a dialogue on this or any subject of interest to the notional anarchists / actual racists — on the subject of ‘Communism’:
My dismissive comment about the Communist menace has a context, and that is the preposterous idea that the Frankfurt School is teaching Good Americans about all kindsa crazy stuff like “political correctness… multiculturalism… militant feminism… campus speech codes… affirmative action (racial quotas)… communist propaganda masqu[e]rading as academia — ethnic studies, womens studies, hispanic studies, black studies, peace studies”, et cetera. Further, Communism has collapsed, both as reality (‘actually-existing socialism’) and as theory. Its vestiges may be found in Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and ah, China, but its place as ideology of choice for insurgents is now much more restricted (largely to parts of the Indian sub-continent and South America) and competes with various interpretations of radical Islam (in Muslim countries) for the loyalties of the masses.
In any case, in general, for much of the twentieth century, ‘Communism’ has functioned as little more than a means of allowing for — that is, has constituted an ideological expression of — the further development of an indigenous ruling class, one almost invariably dependent on patronage by either China or Russia (a distinction reflected in the splits between the numerous Communist parties that the era produced in the West, now almost invariably reduced to being mere shadows of shadows of what they once were).
I’m perfectly well aware of the history of oppression, exploitation and war associated with and in fact brought about by Communist domination, including the repression of anarchists. In fact, I’ve no doubt that I’m much more well-versed in this history than you are, seeing as I’ve spent the last 15-20 years studying it. Thus as far as I’m aware, while other anarchist scholars (Paul Avrich, for example) have, Chomsky has produced no extensive commentary on the Kronstadt rebellion.
“So for you to sit here and tell me that these Marxist Professors were some benign chaps peace love and harmony jews (which should be irrelevant, I don’t know why you raise the issue. They could be christians or muslims for all I care) in their hearts, is rubbish” is rubbish. In reality, I’ve said nothing about the pacifistic disposition of the Frankfurt theorists. The fact that a number were Jewish is a fact that others have seized upon, as a cursory examination of the place of the Frankfurt School in far-right conspiracy theories will soon reveal.
By the way:
1) I don’t endlessly bemoan the Nazis — I take the piss out of their brain-damaged epigones;
2) I don’t “trust” “communists” any more than I do non-“communists” — I maintain friendly relations with persons who might otherwise be termed ‘libertarian communists’;
3) Marx’s legacy is complex. He was a brilliant writer and a political genius, and many of his ideas have enriched our understanding of society. But like all Great Men, he was more than capable of talking complete bollocks, and I obviously reject the utility of any philosophy centred upon the work of one man.
There’s a sad sort of clanging
From the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too
And up in the nurs’ry an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say “coocoo”
Regretfully they tell us
But firmly they compel us
To say goodbye to you
So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, good night
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight
So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu…
You anarchists should all read george orwell’s 1984.
It outlines the fact that society is built on an endless [struggle] for the lower classes, revolting, becoming higher, then their lower counterparts revolting against them. Karl Marx also wrote this in communist manifesto, except in the end the stupid dick actually believed in a utopian workers society. This can never be. Some humans are born to rebel, no matter the circumstances. Therefore, endless struggle, balance, and an ever changing class system. The only way in 1984 (book) the party can maintain control is to keep people scared, hating and by changing history, also with doublethink, but you gotta read the book (even if you find all this politico shite boring, the book fucken rules). The struggle signifies that humans need balance with political influence and all sorts of shite, and utopian societies such as anarchism, socialism and even anarchism are completely impossible. The message is clear people, this world cannot change. How can you have all good and no bad? Why would you want it that way anyhow?
Life is meant to be fun. Make the best, turn off your computers, drink a beer in the sun, fall in love, call ya mum, listen to rad music, stand up for yourself, stand up for others, experiment with drugs, learn guitar, steal shit, fuck, be fucked, get into a fight, quit a job, get a new one, get a dog, sleep in, learn shit, read a book, but front and foremost, BE YOU AND THINK FOR YOURSELF.
Hows that for anarchy you bunch of fucken hippies. Im not even an anarchist and i’m making more sense than you cunts.
Ah, Bob? I think you might need to re-read 1984.
And I think Bob may wish to brush-up on the Manifesto as well… Otherwise, i ThInK bOb MaKeS aN eNoRmOuS aMoUnT oF sEnSe: like, just LIVE, man. (Oh, and drink at The Birmy.) I mean, when was the last time you called ya mum Lumpen? This world cannot change. Experiment with drugs. How can you have all good and no bad? Learn guitar. Why would you want it that way anyhow? Get a dog. BE YOU AND THINK FOR YOURSELF.
Of course Orwell must have said that this world cannot change. This is why we still live in a feudalist system and ponce about discussing chivalry.
I called my Mum yesterday to tell her I sent her a copy of Vera Drake. Pretty much the most depressing movie ever. It’s about a working class woman who runs around pumping girls full of Omo. Weirdly enough, that movie reminds me heaps of Road to Wigan Pier.
Since I don’t know Bob from a
bar of soappacket of Omo, and at least sympathise with the sentiment of what he’s saying, I’m going to recommend he reads Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, then think about what 1984 might be about. I expect a report on my desk by next Monday. C’mon, reading books is on your fun list (eek, but so is fighting!).You know Orwell fought alongside the Anarchists and was in a Trotskyist brigade during the Spanish Revolution, right? Not that it justifies either in any particular way, but it should at least show you what Orwell might have been trying to say. HINT: He thought things could change for the better, and literally tried to kill fascists to do so.
Sorry Bob, I can’t think of a non-patronising way to say you got it, and Orwell, very fucking wrong.
1984 is my favourite book, by the way. It blew my mind when I read it at the tender and impressionable age of 14. The movie rules, too.
But BobtheBuilder, surely the first rule of anarchy is that one doesn’t talk about anarchy?
Oh yeah, and FTR, in response to ‘NA23’ (who writes like a disgruntled high school student, and likely is one), on his forum BANANAs writes:
Awesome.
“Awesome”
you’re welcome mate 😉 still working on that blog post for ya.
Melbourne “safer”? Hasn’t this person seen Romper Stomper, Chopper, Every Night Every Night or Love and Other Catastrophes?
Melbourne is hell, man. I live in an ethnic enclave and the fresh Lebanese bread and high-quality prosciutto tastes like ashes in my mouth when I think of how better I am than everyone I live next to, what with their fancy statues of lions, gleaming pebblecrete and pants that go all the way up to their armpits.
Whitey will have his day on the meanstreets of Moreland! Mark my words!
[Why bother?]
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