We’re concerned, in these early phases of the survey, with the means by which we might recognize an anarchism emerging in contexts where that term did not yet have any of its familiar associations. What are the conditions for an emerging body of thought to inspire in us the same responses we have to the sorts of anarchism we presently espouse? […]
As we move forward, let’s propose some distinctions between the various varieties of anarchism and near-anarchism that we might encounter. Let’s start with an ideal and probably nonexistent integral anarchism, which would represent a successful synthesis or distillation of the various attempts to express basic anarchist principles in a way that would simply allow us to apply them. That sort of anarchism might require a significant body of work to express—or it might be the sort of thing that, finally clarified, could be comfortably scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin. […]
Constructing Anarchisms Part II—Anarchist History: Margins and Problems (An Idiosyncratic Survey) Onward!—to the next experiment—with Scandal as our muse and encounter as our method. General Resources: Part I—Constructing an Anarchism [main page] Anarchist Beginnings archive […]
Constructing Anarchisms Part II—Anarchist History: Margins and Problems (An Idiosyncratic Survey) Onward!—to the next experiment—with Scandal as our muse and encounter as our method. General Resources: Part I—Constructing an Anarchism [main page] Anarchist Beginnings archive […]
Constructing Anarchisms Part II—Anarchist History: Margins and Problems (An Idiosyncratic Survey) General Resources: Part I—Constructing an Anarchism [main page] Anarchist Beginnings archive The Rise and Progress of the Great Atercratic Revolution II—Anarchist History: Margins & […]
Constructing Anarchisms Part II—Anarchist History: Margins and Problems (An Idiosyncratic Survey) General Resources: Part I—Constructing an Anarchism [main page] Anarchist Beginnings archive The Rise and Progress of the Great Atercratic Revolution II—Anarchist History: Margins & […]
The best and the worst thing about anarchist history—or the anarchist past, fodder for various anarchist histories—is probably just the fact that there is so much of it. It’s no simple thing just to establish a general sense of the progression of events in time. So the first thing we’ll try to accomplish in this part of the course is to just make our way, decade by decade, from the 1830s to the 1930s, noting the general state of anarchist ideas and movements, together with some of the contexts that seem most useful for understanding the work of anarchists in each period. […]
It was sort of a wild idea: to propose a year-long course on anarchist ideas, on short notice, for an audience of whoever shows up, and to start off with the elaboration, largely on the fly, of an idiosyncratic anarchist synthesis, drawing on a wide variety of source material. But here we are, finishing up that first and probably most difficult phase of things. […]
I’m going to tackle two concepts together this week. As an experimental space assembled quickly and redecorated on the fly, “Constructing an Anarchism” has served me pretty well. But it was a space designed for more activity, more encounters with other participants, than it has actually seen—and I would be lying if I said it hasn’t felt just a bit cavernous when I give myself time to think about it. So I want to get the last two components of my anarchism on the table and then perhaps move fairly quickly into the summary. […]
We want to know how to act like anarchists. And what I’ve suggested in recent posts is that it will be easiest to answer that question in a wider variety of contexts if we can get it right in our most intimate associations—generally the kinds of associations that even non-anarchists might be inclined to keep free of political and economic modeling. […]
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