Postructuralist Anarchism is the combination of anarchism and
poststructuralist philosophy (the work of Foucault, Lyotard and Deleuze).
What is essential to both these political philosophies that makes it
possible to combine them?
What I see as the essential link between anarchism and the
poststructuralism of Lyotard, Deleuze, and especially Foucault, is the
denial that there is some central hinge about which political change could
or should revolve. For Marx, political change was a matter of seizing the
means of production; for liberals, it lies in regulating the state. What
anarchists deny (at least in parts of their writings, the parts which I'm
trying to draw out) is that there is a single Archimedean point for change.
Inasmuch as power is everywhere, the need for political reflection and
critique is also everywhere. Not only at the level of the state or the
economy, but also at the level of sexuality, race, psychology, teaching,
etc. etc.
Is there anything left of anarchism?
I believe there is. If I'm right in my approach, what anarchism provides to
poststructuralism is a larger framework within which to situate its
specific analyses. The framework is a different one, to be sure, from the
traditional anarchist framework. It is not unchanged by poststructuralism.
But the new framework I have tried to articulate would be news to most
poststructuralists, who resist the idea of a larger framework altogether.
How do we reconcile anarchism, which often relies on politically unifying
principles (such as anti-capitalist/statist stances), with postructuralist
thought, which sees power as an interconnected network rather than a system
to be opposed?
Regarding the idea of totalizing systems, it is surely the case that much
of anarchism, both in practice and in theory, targets capitalism and the
state. My book is a suggestion that we not look in those two places so as
to blind ourselves about the ubiquity of power's operation. If capitalism
and the state were the sole culprits, then eliminating them would by itself
open us up to a utopian society. But we ought to be leery of such simple
solutions. One of the lessons of the struggles against racism, misogyny,
prejudice against gays and lesbians, etc. is that power and oppression are
not reducible to a single site or a single operation. We need to understand
power as it operates not only at the level of the state and capitalism, but
in the practices through which we conduct our lives.
In your book, political philosophy is cast in terms of the articulation of
"the discordance between the world as it exists and the world as it is
envisioned." When the discordance is no longer present, that particular
political philosophy became obsolete, whether it occurs because the world
has changed or because the goals have been realized. You give the example
of the communist revolution where, once the goals of the revolution were
reached, the political philosophy that described such a change becomes
obsolete and therefore a new political philosophy was needed in order to
advance. Is political philosophy a process where we are constantly remaking
our view of the world and what we want?
The idea I'm trying to press early in the book is that political philosophy
is motivated by a discordance between how people think the world should be
and how they find it. Why think about political philosophy unless there is
a problem that needs to be addressed? And that problem, for political
philosophy, is that the world is distant from how one thinks it should be.
Whether political philosophy is a constant process is something I'm not
sure how to answer. I don't see any reason in principle why it should be,
although it may turn out to be. The question of whether political
philosophy is a process of constantly remaking ourselves is tied to the
question of what kinds of nature human beings have and what kinds of
environments they find themselves in. Since elsewhere in the book I deny
that there is anything interesting to say about human nature, it all comes
down to environment. But who knows how environments will change, and what
kinds of questions they will raise for us?
For postructuralist anarchism, power is both creative and destructive. In
contrast, anarchism natural justification of its own existence - that
humans are essentially good and it is the institutions of power that are
bad therefore we need to get rid of them - characterizes all power as bad.
How does the anarchist concept of power change with the addition of
postructuralism?
While [anarchists] have a two-part distinction: power (bad) vs. human
nature (good), I have a four-part one: power as creative/power as
repressive and good/bad. I do not take creative power as necessarily good,
nor repressive power as necessarily bad. It all depends on what is being
created or repressed. The ethical evaluation is independent of which kind
of power it is. That's why it's so important for there to be clarity on
one's ethical vision - a point which too many poststructuralist thinkers
neglect. But one does not solve the ethical problem by positing a good
human nature and then saying that it should be allowed to flourish. There
is too much evidence against the idea of an essentially good (or
essentially bad) human nature for that claim to be made. One cannot rest
one's ethical judgments on human nature, but instead must develop the
socially given ethical networks within which our lives unfold.
You state that we "must abandon [for the most part] the idea of a clear
demarcation to be made between political philosophy and political
programs.as one moves away from analysis and toward suggestions for
intervention, one passes from philosophy to programmatics." Most political
philosophies seem incapable of passing into programmatics and then back
again. The tension between the world as it exists and what we envision is
most often destroyed by consolidation of power by one idea or political
party. Anarchism advocates a direct democracy or federalism to ensure that
this doesn't happen but is the life of a political philosophy capable
surviving programmatics?
Bear in mind that the anarchism I'm trying to draw out of the tradition
would not see direct democracy as the answer to all political problems
(otherwise, anarchism would be another strategic political philosophy).
That said, your question still remains, since one can wonder what happens
to political philosophy when a programmatics is carried out. Certainly, one
thing would remain of the view I tried to develop: the idea that we need
always to be investigating the power relationships that arise in various
practices and to give them proper ethical evaluation; that is to say, to
ask whether they are acceptable or not. On the view I'm defending, since we
never know in advance how power works, we need always to keep investigating
its operation, in order to see where it's leading and what it's creating;
and we need always to ask the ethical question of whether we find that
acceptable.
Whose job is it to construct the programmatic?
As far as who is to construct the program, it is certainly not to be
philosophers. (Goodness gracious, banish the thought.) This idea is, I
hope, no longer taken seriously, even by philosophers. The only response as
to who IS to construct the program, or at least have input into its
construction, is that it is those who are affected by the current situation
and the proposed changes. Now that may be another way of saying "the
people," but it does limit things somewhat. For instance, I will have
little to say about ho w gays and lesbians should be treated in society
(e.g. should they be admitted into the category of the marriageable or
should they challenge marriage itself?) That, it seems to me, is up to
them. My role is to support them in their choices.
The anarchist concept of power is characterized as one which "conglomerates
at certain points and is reinforced by [power] along certain lines", and
therefore can be amenable to the idea of reform because certain reforms at
certain points could result in revolution. Is there a place for revolution
in postructuralist anarchism?
The term "revolution" strikes me as a loaded one. Sometimes it seems to
mean that there is an overturning of the key point of power in a society.
When used in that way, the term "revolution" seems to imply a strategic
political philosophy, so I think it is better avoided. When things change
enough as a result of political intervention, then we have a revolution.
Thus, the distinction between reform and revolution should not be the tired
one of "mere reform" vs. "real revolution." It should instead be an issue
of how much and how deep of a change is going on. In fact, I think the term
is often used as a banner, a mark of one's radicalism, and an unconsidered
way of marking out one's distinction from liberalism. As such, it hides the
question, which we should be asking: what needs to be changed and how does
it need to be changed? When we ask that more concrete question (yes, a
philosopher suggesting that a certain jargon is hiding our ability to see
the concrete), then we're on the right track. The question of is it
revolution or just reform drops away.
What is the World Trade Organization to poststructuralist anarchism? The
WTO seems to be one of those organizations where power conglomerates, where
a variety of practices collude to create an oppressive power arrangement. I
think we mistake many supporters of the WTO if we describe them in terms of
a conspiracy theory. My suspicion is that most of them sincerely believe
they are doing good things, even though they're not. How to explain this?
It seems to me that we need to look at the practices they're engaged in and
the effects of those practices on others, and to recognize that there are a
whole series of deleterious effects that supporters of the WTO have failed
to recognize. That, it seems to me, would be a poststructuralist anarchist
take on the WTO.As an activist, I find myself in accordance with the recent
demonstrations intended to eliminate the WTO and related oppressive
institutions and to abolish loan paybacks from Third World countries. Of
course, there's a lot more, but philosophy, while it interacts with the
programmatic, does not, it seems to me, have as a role the construction of
the programmatic
As far as action is concerned, you offer suggestions of how postructuralist
anarchism can be acted upon. These include: experimentation, situated
freedom, valorization of subjugated discourses, and the intellectual as a
participant in theoretical practice rather than a leader. Can you tell me
how you and other politically active people can practice these guidelines?
It is difficult to practice much of any politics in South Carolina. Just to
point in the general direction of how I live this stuff, it concerns my
attitude toward gays and lesbians (I was faculty advisor for the
gay/lesbian group for six or seven years); my teaching (I try to reject the
idea of a given human nature in my courses, I experiment with course ideas,
I include neglected works, often with a political spin, in my syllabi, I
often situate the problems we face in the context I've developed in the
book); and my parenting (trying to see the effects of power relative to my
children's lives and attitudes, and offering alternatives to them). If I
were to approach the question from the standpoint, say, of someone living
in an urban area in the U.S. I would point to the necessity of
understanding and participating in struggles against racism, sexism, the
WTO, etc., and in doing so to see the interactions among those struggles
and the oppressions those struggles seek to overturn, without trying to
reduce them all to a simple formula.
Many anarchists feel it is imperative to create a public intellectual
culture and that, increasingly, the university is not a place that
encourages intellectual freedom, not to mention political thought. What is
your experience?
I agree that the university is a questionable source of intellectual
culture.I believe that the reality of an intellectual culture is difficult
to achieve now, because with the "mall-ization" of the U.S the whole idea
of public space is being marginalized. Some say that the internet is a new
place for a public culture, but I have my doubts. First, the sheer size of
the internet makes the intimacy of an intellectual culture difficult to
achieve. Second, there is something about sharing the same space and time
in conversation that is denied by the internet, something without which
interchange remains too anonymous in character. I don't think the internet
is useless; but it's ability to substitute for what we have lost is more
limited than some folks think.
Can you respond to critics who charge that poststructuralist theory
(postmodernism in general) is an example of a highly specialized, abstract
and obscure language that is alienating to most people and doesn't
encourage thought outside of a graduate department?
Guilty as charged. But that doesn't apply only to poststructuralists and
postmodernists. It is a general problem across the humanities and across
academics generally. We talk to one another rather than to those outside
our immediate circle. There are a number of reasons for this: pressure to
publish, the history of anti-intellectualism in the U.S., etc. But we also
contribute by adopting the jargon we do. I have tried to stay away from
jargon as much as possible, and I hope that my anarchism book, although
difficult, is at least not laden with jargon. But what you're pointing to
is a problem for all academics, and only serves to marginalize us further.
Given that "knowledge, like other subjects, is a matter of struggle and
domination" and recent publish or perish/cost-analysis tendencies of
universities, how does postructuralism escape being just another commodity?
Much of poststructuralist discourse is, of course, just like other academic
discourse in that it replicates the current academic system of ideas in the
cost-benefit consumerist model currently dominating academia. I think that
change comes not only through the ideas themselves but, especially in
academics, who's spouting them. The real question, it seems to me, is
whether people are living these ideas out or whether they are just holding
them as ideas. ~
http://flag.blackened.net/ias/8may.htm
