Anarchism as post-structuralist active critical of domain and oppression
On this issue we are publishing excerpts of an interesting speech taken from Tadzio Mueller, increase the power of Anarchism - Power, hegemony and anarchist strategy (Empowering Anarchism, Power, hegemony, and anarchist strategy)
In this paper we deal with core issues critical to the understanding and practice of anarchism. Tadzio Mueller addresses the issue of power which intersects with the important issue of identity and hegemony.
A thorough analysis and clear to move forward in the daily struggles in a libertarian way without falling into authoritarian masquerading as released. A few pages of theoretical reflection to improve the daily practices of subversion.
A.S.
I will focus on the work of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, whose work, influential and controversial in Germany, as evidenced by his public confrontations with Jürgen Habermas, has been receiving increasing attention outside its country of origin(1). Sloterdijk, with a typical post-structuralist move, first draw up a truly radical critique of power relations inherent in attempts to construct political identities, then does exactly the step that I hope to avoid: a critique of political abdication from politics . Starting from the statement that knowledge today has been unmasked as (a claim) power, and the "truth" as a mere strategy, defines his project as an attempt to bring to completion the task of the Enlightenment, or the revelation The stripped of power by dismantling the facades behind which hides (Sloterdijk 1983: 12, 18).
This is quite significant in the context of the placement of post-structuralism in general, and Sloterdijk, in particular, in relation to anarchism: Anarchism could be defined in a similar way as an attempt to fulfill the Enlightenment project (assuming your definition ) because it intensifies the critique of power put into service for the first time and then by liberal Enlightenment Marxism, to extend to all aspects of life(2).
Sloterdijk suggests that the final battle that enlightenment has yet to win is the unveiling of the hidden power behind the concept of identity, stripped of ego, or subject, as constructed (Sloterdijk 1983: 131-2) . Tracing the construction of a bourgeois class (and the attempt, in a somewhat less successful, to build a positive identity of a working class), Sloterdijk shows how these political projects that have been altered and established relations of power through the creation of these same political forces that leaders claimed to represent (Ibid: 133-54).
So politics becomes a struggle between identity and knowledge-power: any political mobilization on an issue, as anarchist or liberal, does not necessarily mean "wood" (as in the expression: essentially, we are all oppressed workers), but the construction of "a new power-knowledge and the creation of a new subject of power-knowledge"(3).
Against this background of the Enlightenment Sloterdijk fight to break 'frozen identities', as opposed to celebrating this a necessary product of the policies' anti-political existence, "which would seek to reject all attempts to identify, to break the disciplinary mechanisms that make us conform to a particular view of what we should be, and how we should be. Because "politics is when people try to crack each other's head" (Ibid: 250, 315-319).
Sloterdijk identifies his (non) strategy to achieve this goal as "Kinichism": an attempt to break the social conditions and disciplinary mechanisms, confirming our ability to enjoy life despite its constraints, for example, cites the example with great joy Diogenes, who is opposed to the discourses of Plato picked on 'Eros' masturbating in public in the marketplace of Athens.
The Kinichism not imply the creation of new identities, because all identities are disciplinary, normalizing, embarrassing: it is rather the search for a life experience 'effective' ('eigentlich', as opposed to improperly built, "uneigentlich ') we can not achieve through politics (Sloterdijk clearly states that his is a struggle "not to change history, but to change the life" (ibid: 242), rather than 'sexual ecstasy through love, humor and laughter, with creativity and responsibility, meditation and ecstasy "(ibid.: 390).
How do we then leave the (non) policy of Sloterdijk, which I consider representative of all those tendencies of anarchism and post-structuralism which incorporate by critics of the policy to abandon the policy? In my opinion, with a number of apparent inconsistencies. The first and perhaps the most damaging for the position of Sloterdijk, is the fact that even non-political is necessarily embody power relations, and therefore are in fact political. To get away from the "established society" or to challenge you physically disciplinary mechanisms of society must have a good number of privileges, many activists of the anarchists who currently enjoy unemployment benefits tend to forget that this grant is the result of the diversion of part of the state surplus value produced by workers in their respective countries or in another, set up requires at least a common intellectual and financial resources (skills and money), which are products of power and, finally, while Diogenes of Sloterdijk and could masturbate and shit in the public square of Athens with a good success, we can assume that a person called "mad" or "homeless" has no effect with similar acts, in addition to being arrested or worse ignored.
Of course, public masturbation of prof. Sloterdijk would certainly have an interesting effect 'Kinich, "but that presupposes that has reached the position (head of a department at a German university), a result of power. Therefore, the Kinichism, or any other "non-practical 'apparently' non-political" (Ibid: 939-53) which aims to avoid the policy in order to avoid the power falls into the old mistake of ignoring the power relations on which itself is based and which help to produce it as a practice. In other words, the attempt to circumvent the power relations leads to reaffirm them, and denied any ability to do something about it.
The second criticism is related to the first, but it is different: having said that power is inevitable, I argue now that the 'identity' - a distinction between inside and out, more or less consciously - is simply a generic condition for communication and social existence, and by definition is not only inevitable but necessary enabler.
However Sloterdijk has already anticipated this move: it says that the desire to constantly dip into new identifications when the old is shattered part of a more fundamental 'programming' of ourselves, so we tend to think of our subjectivity as necessarily connected an identity. Furthermore, the claim that there is such a trend is identified by Sloterdijk as an exercise of "higher knowledge", which subtly suggests that most people would prefer a safer rather than more freedom, a position which in turn leads to representatives of this claim as "poor people" to exercise power over them, domination (ibid: 155-6, 348).
Once again, these apparently esoteric questions are not then they may seem distant from practical anarchist concrete: the pamphlet Give up Activism recently requested the libertarians on the left that their policies do not engage in the construction of new identities, but in the destruction of old ones (especially the identity of "activist") and the creation of a state of radical openness to the expression of what could perhaps be called an "identity-identity" (Anonymous2: 2000a).
You can contrast three arguments to this view. First, arguing that any declaration of identity is oppressive and therefore concluded that the 'essence' of human freedom is not linked to any identity, Sloterdijk has missed the target. He built a new "identity" or human essence, that of a person who is constantly trying to escape from his being compelled him / her as an identity. For a necessary consequence, any quest for "equality", community, collective identity is an expression of that "deep programming" identified above, and therefore "essentially" non-free and human. Which leads directly to anyone who does not constantly trying to break the identity and constantly redefine him / herself should change their behavior and conform to standards set by Sloterdijk, or the author of Give Up Activism. It is clear that this claim to know an 'essence' is even human yet another form of hierarchical construction, with those that permanently escape identity at the top, and those who do not at the bottom.
Having deconstructed all the woods, we ended up with a new essence, and this time mobile(4) hyper-essence. Side by side, it seems that the practice of "social hyper-mobility ', a bit' as Kinichi Sloterdijk, presupposes the need for a lot of resources to maintain such a life: in other words, is a strategy for the privileged.
The second argument against the hyper-mobility is exactly what Sloterdijk has advanced: the human need for identity. Let me start with the example of language. It seems clear that we understand, to some extent, language and through language use: After all, Sloterdijk's arguments were expressed in German. Since language is a powerful element in the construction of collective identities, even Sloterdijk is evidently imprisoned in an identity, not that of 'German' but of 'German-speaking world. " How is identity? Quite simply because it defines a group of "internal" or "we" (those who speak a language) and "external" or "them / other" (those who do not speak it).
In other words, the writing is based on language, language on identity, identity on power, suggesting that in any way try to communicate we are already involved in the construction of collective identities (Lyotard 1984: 15) and therefore not Sloterdijk can be said to have escaped from the power and the identity with his non-practice non-political.
But you could say that maybe you can at least build identities that do not involve disciplinary normalization (usually?) it's the identity, which leads us to the third and final practice of non-critical non-political identity is not only necessarily exclusive, as shown above, moreover, it is desirable not to have any form of disciplinary mechanism in a society. For example, an anarchist perspective, the sexist behavior does not affect the fact entitled to assert their difference, but it is simply unacceptable and oppressive. Therefore it would be necessary to create social structures, or disciplinary mechanisms, which prevent the development of sexist behavior and, if it develops, there should be mechanisms to address it.
In other words: Even the most perfect anarchist community needs to be disciplined, any other solution would mean the freedom of everyone to do anything without paying attention to what a given action may be oppressive to others. So one thing to put a demand for "real" radicalism, declaring that the non-identity is appropriate because the identities are oppressive and disciplinary (which is not consistent even from a theoretical point of view) is quite another to build radical political spaces that seek to put into practice what anarchism and poststructuralism really are: the critical active power and oppression.
Anarchism, power and hegemony
To illustrate this point, I will focus on an increasingly widespread practice among contemporary anarchists: the structuring of political meetings so that decisions can only be reached through consensus. The argument for this organizational model, the method of consensus(5) is quite simple: having long rejected representative democracy as oppressive, some anarchists have begun to criticize any structure that would involve a vote, considering it unacceptable. They argue that the vote necessarily entail the oppression of a minority by a majority, and give priority to those who have the means to create a majority, i.e. those who have experienced, capable of speech, etc..
Consequently, it was concluded that the only consensus decisions were legitimate, because in this way would ensure that no one was oppressed.
What are the assumptions behind this organizational model? First, the idea that in the absence of oppressive structures and processes of oppression, people naturally tend to consent in the event that this does not happen, a structure in which everyone is free to express themselves in an optimal manner would lead to dissent rather than (common among the anarchists and the assumption is that the use of the method of consent will, at least in the long course, not less effective decision-making).
In turn, this view can only be based on the belief, common to both strands of anarchism, that when you remove all the structures of oppression, we can all meet in practice free from the power of acting, which, as we are essentially equal , necessarily lead to consensus.
The model is then based on the idea that the non-power is possible and that you can share an essence / human "free" identity: ideas challenged both above. As Koch points out: Since it can be shown as any statement that forms the basis for a possible consensus is ultimately a subjective statement without any absolute, "the political consensus is reduced to an expression of power '( Koch 1993: 345; see also Laclau and Mouffe 2001: xviii). Lyotard goes so far as to regard any attempt to overcome the inherent heterogeneity of views and positions to the consensus as "terrorist" (Lyotard 1984: 66).
What are the practical consequences of this? When it was applied, the method of consensus has led to a shift of power from majorities to minorities that dominate the hierarchy of unelected people with knowledge, expertise, time, authority.
Imagine this case: it is called a meeting aimed at consensus. The aim is to agree the action to take during a rally the next day. Since there are no hierarchical structures, each is free to say what he thinks. During the discussion that follows, a) those with a higher degree of knowledge about events dominate b) men (usually) dominate, c) those with more time to dominate d) those who are more devoted to the issue domain, because other people will not take the trouble to sit for hours and hours. Ultimately, a group of males, long-time activists, probably no other pressing commitments, particularly devoted to their cause, will make a proposal, and about half of those say they still agree, and others simply do not bother to express their opinion.
Victory by attrition, the power of default, and a power even more insidious than structured groups, because it can not easily be questioned during the meeting: after all, at least officially, it does not exist (6). Or, as Max Weber says: replace the majority voting with the consent does not mean abolishing the authority, is a mere replacement of the "legal-rational" person or the structured and coded with the "charismatic" authority (popularity) of some individuals (Weber 1964: 151, 159).
Tadzio Mueller
Notes
- For a critique, see for example Bewes 1997, and for resuming the work of Slavoj Zizek positive, particularly Zizek 1989.
- Compare with Joll 1969: 17-39.
- All translations from non-English sources are Tadzio Mueller.
- Compare this with the idea that most of Newman's analysis of post-structuralist "making them essential 'difference (Newman 2001: 119-124).
- For an introduction to this issue, see Graeber 2002.
- This critique closely mirrors the classic critique of 'no structure' emerged from the feminist movement, which reintroduced the organizational model "anarchic" of Western activism (Freeman 1984). Per una critica, si veda ad esempio Bewes 1997, e per una ripresa positiva l’opera di Slavoj Zizek, in particolare Zizek 1989.
| consigli bibliografici • consigli bibliografici • consigli bibliografici • consigli bibliografici • consigli bibliografici • |
Anonymous2, «Give up Activism», Do or Die 9, 2000a, pp. 160-166.
Bewes, T., Cynicism and Postmodernity. Verso, London – New York, 1997.
Freeman, J. «The Tyranny of Structurelessness», in Anonymous10 (ed.) Untying the
Knot: Feminism, Anarchism and Organisation, London: Dark Star & Rebel Press, 1989, pp. 5 -16 – Online http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm – http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm – http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm – http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm (ultimo accesso 12/8/02).
Graeber, D. «The New Anarchists», New Left Review 13, 2002, pp. 61-73. Laclau, E. e Mouffe, C., Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, Verso, London, New York, 2001/1985.
Lyotard, J.-F., The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984 (ed. or.: La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir, Minuit, Paris, 1979; ed. it. La Condizione Postmoderna: rapporto sul sapere, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2002).
Joll, J., The Anarchists, Methuen, London, 1969.
Koch, A., «Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism»,
Philosophy of the Social Sciences 23 (2), 1993, pp. 327-351.
Newman, S., From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, Lexington Books, Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford, 2001.
Sloterdijk, P., Kritik der Zynischen Vernunft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1983. Weber, M., Soziologie, Weltgeschichtliche Analysen, Politik, Alfred Kroener Verlag, Stuttgart, 1964 (ed. it. Sociologia Politica, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano, 1980) Zizek, S., The sublime object of ideology. Verso, London – New York, 1989.
traduzione: Carlo Milani
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Andrea Staid
Not only complaint even fight
It was released a few months ago, for editions of Turin Porfido the translation of a small and interesting essay titled, L’insurrezione che viene - The insurgency that is, Paris 2007 (ed. Italian, June 2010). The book, written by the invisible commetee makes a careful analysis of what exists, a strong criticism of the system of capitalist domination. Written in a clear and decisive way is a good read for those interested in a vision of anarchism that does not wait for the day of the revolution ...
From every point of view, this is no way out.
Under no small matter. Those who insist on hope does not find
no hold, while those who propose solutions can be found regularly denied. It gives it for granted that things
can only get worse. Under the guise of pageantry
normality, our age has reached the level of awareness of early punk, "The future has no tomorrow."
This is a book that gets rid of the usual predictions about the end of politics. A script is crossed by a desire to practice, which constantly tries to link analysis to action perspectives. Unlike many others, this text is not content to excel in radical pessimism, disenchantment in shiny, try instead to return the account of the expenditure side of the political question: what to do now in this situation?
Clearly tells us that today's actions are possible, actions are able to suspend the temporality of the infinite domain of the actions that we revive the figure of a conflict in the heart of public spaces, the actions "self" with which to restore consistency to the figures of the sacrificial modern politics: the commune, the riot, insurrection.
It is a book that raises questions about the possible forms of resistance to the establishment, in the folds of democratic police, a state of permanent exception and sneak in the filing, biometrics, remote monitoring, holding up so far, the security laws are the different performers. A book that is not afraid to say that the new governance arrangements of the living should not be simply reported, but actively opposed.
anno
41 n. 363
