tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1467690322986108296.post7446921696488767761..comments2023-10-23T15:27:26.222+01:00Comments on A Sceptical I: Anarchy!Darkwinterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02204745027944941560noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1467690322986108296.post-27608176828562578392008-06-12T12:50:00.000+01:002008-06-12T12:50:00.000+01:00yeah - it would be - we should have coffee at Uni ...yeah - it would be - we should have coffee at Uni at some point if you're still about.<BR/><BR/>Correction to above post: the Zapatistas operate in Chiapas state, not caracas (which is in Venezuela) - d'oh!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1467690322986108296.post-24816476635720701112008-06-12T08:22:00.000+01:002008-06-12T08:22:00.000+01:00Thanks for the comment Mike, I agree with everythi...Thanks for the comment Mike, I agree with everything you said in it - particularly the qualifications to my own remarks. It's not always easy to put forward the strongest, most air-tight argument when you must also make it accessible to as wide an audience as possible.<BR/><BR/>I think the link between capitalism and dystopia (or lack of hope for Utopia) is one which would be fascinating to explore in more detail.Darkwinterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02204745027944941560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1467690322986108296.post-3324820691666037582008-06-12T01:05:00.000+01:002008-06-12T01:05:00.000+01:00A very interesting post, and one that certainly wi...A very interesting post, and one that certainly will be of value to anyone seeking to understand some of the overarching political ideologies behind the various protest groups seen or sometimes only alluded to in the news.<BR/><BR/>I liked the idea of seeking to separate out anarchism as an ideology from the conceptions of randomness and chaos that inform many lay understandings of the various strands of anarchist thought and history. The piece was clear and concise, something of a treat really when one considers how many discussions on large amorphous blobs of political ideology sometimes develop.<BR/><BR/>In response to this discussion I thought I might bring up something that occurred to me when reading your piece.<BR/><BR/>Anarchism as utopian ideology - while I agree that contemporary anarchistic ideologies tend to gravitate towards a sometimes underdeveloped vague notion of human nature in its 'better moments', there is perhaps a little more to it than that.<BR/><BR/>On the doctrinal side, Rudolph Rocker famously wrote in his seminal work "Anarchosyndicalism: Its aims and purposes" that "I am not an anarchist because I believe that it is the final goal - I am an anarchist because there is no such thing as a final goal". Clearly in response to Marx's emphasis on the communist 'goal of history', Rocker's anarchosyndicalist doctrines were far less well developed than Marx's clear manifesto. There remains however, something more subtle in Rocker that echoes the earlier humanist works of Marx, specifically regarding the nature of the productive and coooperative human being<BR/><BR/>I don't think Rocker is overly optimistic in this regard, if one looks to the forms of tribal association and cooperation that have occurred across human history there certainly seems ample scope to allow for this view. Where the statement in your piece stated that anyone with a basic grasp of human nature realises that this is utopian fantasy requires perhaps some qualification. Cooperation in the societies I mentioned was underpinned by neccessity (e.g. the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian peninsula, Native Americans etc.) wereas our modern capitalistic societies actively encourage competative, individualistic pursuits that result in greater forms of competition between smaller groups. We are also able to obtain both neccessary and luxury commodities individually and with relative ease.<BR/><BR/>If we look to contemporary societies where economic conditions are perhaps not as stable and fruitful as British society, we can then perhaps see more space emerging for the anarchistic mode of social organisation - case in point: the Zapatista movements of Caracas in Mexico. This seems to work reasonably well for them, and appears preferrable to the conditions suffered by indigenous agrarian peoples through centuries of colonisation and capitalist exploitation. However I doubt similar conditions would be preferrable or indeed be likely to prevail in advanced capitalistic societies of the west - the systems of governance and the level of abstraction from the means of reproduction are just to far to endanger the existing structures.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com