Extrications Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

How does property become anarchist?

March 21, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

If we want a clear indication of the gulf between the possible (resultant) anarchism suggested by Proudhon’s mature work and the historical anarchism that emerged in the late 19th century, we probably don’t have to look beyond the almost universal suspicion that Proudhon’s final works themselves mark a retreat from the anarchist project — and the fact that the resultant anarchy that seems to occupy a central place in that work simply does not seem to register among our theoretical options. […]

Anarchy: Historical, Abstract and Resultant

February 9, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

What follows is a look at three possible senses of anarchy related to Proudhon’s work, together with a sketch of their possible relations as developments from one another. The intention here is to simply […]

Anarchy as a Beacon and as a Focus for Synthesis

January 8, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Posts in the EXTRICATIONS series: A synthetic anarchism is bound to pose some problems, whether we think of anarchism as an ideology or as a set of experimental practices. Most of the difficulties surround the […]

Theories of Anarchist Development

December 30, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Posts in the EXTRICATIONS series: The question we’re wrestling with remains this: How do we understand the anarchist past and how does that understanding influence our action in the present? This question is ultimately inseparable […]

The Synthesist’s Consolation

November 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Posts in the series: “L’homme se trompe parce qu’il apprend.”—P.J. Proudhon One of the catalysts for the post on “Coming to Terms with the Anarchist Past,” and the particular kind of clarification it represents, has […]

Coming to Terms with the Anarchist Past

November 17, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Posts in the series: [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] As archives and projects converge, it seems like a good time to state or restate some the working hypotheses—or shall we […]

Extrications: History, Tradition, Theory

August 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

The initial task in these Extrications is analytic: we want to pull things apart a bit, enough to see if we can’t isolate some terms and make some useful distinction. I want to set aside this notion of the anarchist milieu as our intentionally vague term for the thing that we are examining and pulling apart. Let’s just say for now that the milieu is the social space occupied by anarchism and anarchists—and hopefully, with a little care and luck, we’ll be able to say something a bit more definite before too long. […]

Extrications

August 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Posts in the series: [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] It’s been roughly 25 years since I first committed myself to the study of anarchist history and theory. And I can […]