Post-anarchism

Post-anarchism or postanarchism is an anarchistphilosophy that employs post-structuralist andpostmodernist approaches (the term post-structuralistanarchism is used as well, so as not to suggest havingmoved beyond anarchism). Post-anarchism is not a singlecoherent theory, but rather refers to the combined worksof any number of post-structuralists such as MichelFoucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan; postmodernfeminists such as Judith Butler; and post-Marxists suchas Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière;with those of the classical anarchists, with particularconcentration on Emma Goldman, Max Stirner, andFriedrich Nietzsche. Thus, the terminology can varywidely in both approach and outcome.

1 Background

See also: Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche

The prefix post- is not used to denote a philosophy“after anarchism”, but instead refers to the challengingand disruption of typically accepted assumptions withinframeworks that emerged during the Enlightenment era.This means a basic rejection of the epistemologicalfoundations of classical anarchist theories, due to theirtendency towards essentialist or reductionist notions—although post-anarchists are generally quick to point outthe many outstanding exceptions, such as those notedabove. This approach is considered to be important in-sofar as it widens the conception of what it means to haveor to be produced, rather than only repressed, by power,thus encouraging those who act against power in the formof domination to become aware of how their resistanceoften becomes overdetermined by power-effects as well.It argues against earlier approaches that capitalism andthe state are not the only sources of domination in themoment in which we live, and that new approaches needto be developed to combat the network-centric struc-tures of domination that characterize late modernity. Al-though thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, But-ler, Lacan, and Lyotard are not explicitly self-describedanarchists, their ideas nevertheless serve of great impor-tance, given the anti-authoritarian nature of their thought.Some of them also showed interest, to varying degrees, inthe events of May 1968 in France.Common concepts within post-anarchism include:

• the misalignment of the subject in relation to

discourse

• the denaturalization of the body and sexuality

• the rejection of the repressive hypothesis

• Foucault’s genealogy

• the deconstruction of the binary oppositions ofWestern thought

• the deconstruction of gender roles through feministpost-structuralism[1]

2 Approaches

The term “post-anarchism” was coined by philosopher ofpost-left anarchy Hakim Bey in his 1987 essay “Post-Anarchism Anarchy”.[2][3] Bey argued that anarchismhad become insular and sectarian, confusing the var-ious anarchist schools of thought for the real experi-ence of lived anarchy.[3] In 1994, academic philoso-pher Todd May initiated what he called “poststructuralistanarchism”,[4] arguing for a theory grounded in the post-structuralist understanding of power, particularly throughthe work of Michel Foucault and Emma Goldman, whiletaking the anarchist approach to Ethics.The “Lacanian anarchism” proposed by Saul Newmanutilizes the works of Jacques Lacan and Max Stirnermore prominently. Newman criticizes classical anar-chists, such as Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, forassuming an objective "human nature" and a natural or-der; he argues that from this approach, humans progressand are well-off by nature, with only the Establishment asa limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman,this is a Manichaen worldview, which depicts the reversalof Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, in which the “good” stateis subjugated by the “evil” people.Lewis Call has attempted to develop post-anarchist the-ory through the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, rejectingthe Cartesian concept of the “subject.” From here, a rad-ical form of anarchism is made possible: the anarchismof becoming. This anarchism does not have an eventualgoal, nor does it flow into “being"; it is not a final stateof development, nor a static form of society, but ratherbecomes permanent, as a means without end. Italian au-tonomist Giorgio Agamben has also written about thisidea. In this respect it is similar to the “complex systems”

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2 3 POST-ANARCHISM AND SPACE

view of emerging society known as panarchy. Call cri-tiques liberal notions of language, consciousness, and ra-tionality from an anarchist perspective, arguing that theyare inherent in economic and political power within thecapitalist state organization.[5]

Recently the French hedonist philosopher Michel Onfrayhas embraced the term post-anarchism to describe hisapproach to politics and ethics.[6] He advocates for ananarchism in line with such intellectuals as "Orwell, laphilosophe Simone Weil, Jean Grenier, la French The-ory avec Foucault, Deleuze, Bourdieu, Guattari, Lyotard,le Derrida de Politiques de l'amitié et du Droit à laphilosophie, mais aussi Mai 68" which for him was “aNietzschean revolt in order to put an end to the 'One'truth, revealed, and to put in evidence the diversity oftruths, in order to make disappear ascetic Christian ideasand to help arise new possibilities of existence.” [7]

Another anarchist and French intellectual with a dedica-tion to post-structuralism is Daniel Colson who publishedPetit lexique philosophique de l'anarchisme de Proudhon àDeleuze in 2001.

3 Post-anarchism and space

Postanarchist theory has many implications for social andpolitical space and, seeing as space is always political, se-riously considers the question of space for radical pol-itics and movements today. Much postanarchist theoryis centered around an extensive critique of hegemonyand the neoliberal societies of control. The logic ofhegemony contains all conceptions of freedom and jus-tice narrowly within the confines of the state, creating a“political climate in which radical notions of justice areseen as a threat to the very existence of” society, per-petuating the liberal ideological myth that “unity requireshomogeneity”.[8] Postanarchism “conceives of a politicalspace which is indeterminate, contingent and heteroge-neous – a space whose lines and contours are undecidableand therefore contestable”.[9] Saul Newman defines thispostanarchist conception of political space as “a spaceof becoming”.[9] If we see current conceptions and ar-rangements of space as frameworks for “dominant po-litical and economic interests,” postanarchist theory ex-plores the “ways in which this hegemonic space is chal-lenged, contested and reconfigured, as well as the fan-tasies and desires invested in political spaces [9] and looksto the occupation of space as a means to “prefigure andcreate autonomous alternatives”.[10]

Newman sees postanarchist political space as “basedaround the project of autonomy”.[9] In keeping with apostanarchist affinity with contingency, Newman theo-rizes autonomy as “an ongoing project of political spa-tialization, rather than a fully achieved form of socialorganization”.[9] These autonomous political spaces canbe considered insurrectional as they “defy the idea of a

plan imposed upon society by institutions”,[9] engender-ing forms of organization that emerge “spontaneously,and which people determine freely for themselves”.[9]These insurrectional spaces work to foster alternativeways of being while continually undermining the logicof hegemony as they work non- rather than counter-hegemonically, exposing the cracks within the “domi-nant social, political, and economic order”.[9] A distinctlypostanarchist conception of politics can be “understood interms of an ongoing project of autonomy and a pluraliza-tion of insurrectional spaces and desires”,[9] exemplify-ing “prefigurative practices, which seek to realize alterna-tives to capitalism and statismwithin the current order”.[9]Newman sees this “re-situation of the political dimensionaway from the hegemony of the state [...] as central topostanarchism”.[9]

In his book,Gramsci is Dead, Richard Day examinesmany such insurrectional spaces and non-hegemonicmovements and practices. The TAZ concept is one suchexample and the utilization of such a tactic is seen reg-ularly throughout contemporary society. Critical of thefleeting and potentially over-individualistic nature of theTAZ, Day posits the Semi-Permanent Autonomous Zone,the SPAZ, as a potential mode of organization that is“neither utterly fleeting nor totally enslaving”,[10] “break-ing out of the temporary/permanent dichotomy”.[10] Daytheorizes the SPAZ as “a form that allows the construc-tion of non-hegemonic alternatives to the neoliberal or-der here and now, with an eye to surviving the dangers ofcapture, exploitation and division inevitably arising fromwithin and being imposed from without”.[10] The SPAZembraces a postanarchist spirit of contingency and inde-terminancy, fostering relationships and links of solidar-ity based on voluntary association without falling into thetrap of hegemony by refusing the aspiration of total per-manence.Gustav Landauer’s concept of Structural Renewal fea-tures prominently in much postanarchist theory and prac-tice, influencing concepts such as Day’s idea of theSPAZ, as well as the deeply ethical aspects of posta-narchist theory and practice. Structural Renewal ad-vocates for the creation of new institutions “alongside,rather than inside, existing modes of social organization,”involving “a complementary pairing of disengagementand reconstruction”.[10] Structural Renewal aims to re-duce the efficacy and reach of hegemonic institutions “bywithdrawing energy from them and rendering them re-dundant,” appearing “simultaneously as a negative forceworking against the colonization of everyday life by thestate and corporations, and as a positive force acting toreverse this process via mutual aid”.[10]

Most important for contemporary postanarchism is Lan-dauer’s analysis of the state as a “certain relation betweenpeople: a mode of behaviour and interaction”.[11] Follow-ing this logic, the state can be “transcended only through acertain spiritual transformation of relationships,” withoutsuch a transformation “the state will be simply reinvented

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in a different form during the revolution”.[11] Postanar-chism consistently takes up this notion, seeing the polit-ical as intimately tied up with the social and guided bya deeply ethical framework geared towards transformingsocial space. According to Landauer’s analysis, althoughit is possible to “rid ourselves of particular states, we cannever rid ourselves of the state form [as] it is always al-ready with us, and so must be consistently and carefullywarded off”.[10] Postanarchism recognizes that “states re-quire subjects who desire not only to repress others, butalso desire their own repression,” and that, consequently,“warding off the state [...] means primarily enabling andempowering individuals and communities”.[10] Postanar-chism takes up the problem of voluntary servitude in or-der to figure out “how to get more people in more placesto overcome not only their desire to dominate others, buttheir own desire to be dominated as well”.[10] This in-volves an “unbinding of the self from his or her own at-tachment to power”[9] and the creation of spaces and sub-jectivities “which rely upon an amoral, postmodern ethicsof shared commitments based on affinities rather than du-ties based on hegemonic imperatives”.[10]

Day identifies the “interlocking ethico-political commit-ments of groundless solidarity and infinite responsibility”as central to postanarchist ethics. He defines ground-less solidarity as “seeing one’s own privilege and oppres-sion in the context of other privileges and oppressions, asso interlinked that no particular form of inequality [...]can be postulated as the central axis of struggle,” whileinfinite responsibility “means always being open to thechallenge of another Other, always being ready to heara voice that points out how one is not adequately in sol-idarity, despite one’s best efforts”.[10] He identifies thesecommitments as central in guiding affinity-based relation-ships, rejecting a hegemonic conception of communityin order to embrace “the coming communities, in theplural”.[10] Postanarchism conceives of ethics as “opento a certain spontaneous and free self-determination byindividuals, rather than imposed upon them from abovethrough abstract moral codes and strictures”,[11] conceiv-ing of freedom as an “ongoing ethical practice, in whichone’s relationship with oneself and others is subject toa continual ethical interrogation”.[11] The intensely ethi-cal dimension of postanarchism allows for the conceptionof a “system of networks and popular bases, organizedalong rhizomatic lines [...] and populated by subjects whoneither ask for gifts from the state [...] nor seek statepower for themselves,” conceiving of movements that“take up ethico-political positions while refusing to try tocoercively generalize these positions by making founda-tional claims”,[10] empowering subjects that are capableof thriving outside of existing paradigms and contributingto real and lasting social and political change.Postanarchism is intensely critical of current formsof representative democracy, “favouring people’s self-organization”[11] and seeking to “open the politicalspace to alternative and more democratic modes of

democracy”,[11] understanding democracy not “primar-ily as a mechanism for expressing a unified popular will,but rather as a way of pluralizing this will – openingup within it different and even dissenting spaces andperspectives”.[11] This notion of democracy beyond thestate is in keeping with postanarchist ethics and com-mitments, “imposing a certain ethical responsibility uponpeople themselves to resolve, through ongoing practicesof negotiation, tensions that may arise”.[11] Saul New-man emphasizes democracy’s own “perfectibility,” thefact that democracy “always points to a horizon beyond,to the future,” that it is “always ‘to come’”.[11] He statesthat, “we should never be satisfied with existing formstaken by democracy and should always be working to-wards a greater democratization in the her and now; to-wards an ongoing articulation of democracy’s im/possiblepromise of perfect liberty with perfect equality”.[11] Thisis a “politics of anti-politics [...] outside, and ultimatelytranscendent of, the state and all hierarchical structures ofpower and authority,” requiring the continual “develop-ment of alternative libertarian and egalitarian structuresand practices, coupled with a constant awareness of theauthoritarian potential that lies in any structure”.[11]

4 After post-anarchism

Duane Rousselle has claimed post-anarchism is begin-ning to move away from the epistemological character-ization and toward an ontological characterization.[12] Hehas written numerous articles and books on the topic.[13]

His book After Post-Anarchism is described by ReparteePress as follows:

Post-anarchists have hitherto relied onpost-structuralist critiques of ontological es-sentialism in order to situate their discourse inrelation to the traditional anarchist discourse.Post-anarchism requires the elaboration ofanother important line of critique against epis-temological foundationalism – to accomplishthis task, this book takes post-anarchism toits limit through a reading of the philosophyof Georges Bataille. Georges Bataille’s phi-losophy allows for new ways of conceivinganarchist ethics that are not predicated uponessentialist categories, foundationalist truth-claims, or the agency of the subject in thepolitical context. After Post-Anarchism, wechallenge the hegemony that epistemology hasenjoyed for several centuries of political andphilosophical thought.[14]

In “What Comes After Post-Anarchism,” an article forContinent Journal, Rousselle has claimed that:

4 7 FURTHER READING

By dismissing all ontologies as suspi-ciously representative and as incessantlyharbouring a dangerous form of essentialism,post-anarchists have overlooked the privilegethat they have placed on the human subject,language, and discourse, at the expense of thedemocracy that the human subject shares withother animals, objects, and beings in the world.This epistemological characterization of post-anarchism has held sway for far too long. Itis not by chance that post-anarchism, as aconcept, was first formulated by Hakim Bey asan “ontological anarchism,” and subsequentlyrepressed by the canon of post-anarchistauthors. ... I want to challenge this reluctanceand revive the roots of post-anarchism.

5 See also• Existentialist anarchism

6 References[1] see generally Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism

and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge 1990.

[2] Bey, Hakim (March 1987). “Post-Anarchism Anarchy”.Deoxy.net. Retrieved December 30, 2008.

[3] Adams, Jason. “Postanarchism in a Bombshell”. Aporia(3).

[4] Antliff, Allan (2007). “Anarchy, Power, andPoststructuralism”. SubStance 36 (2): 56–66.doi:10.1353/sub.2007.0026.

[5] Martin, Edward J. (June 2003). “Call, Lewis PostmodernAnarchism”. Perspectives on Political Science.

[6] Michel Onfray: le post anarchisme expliqué à ma grand-mère

[7] “qu'il considère comme une révolte nietzschéenne pouravoir mis fin à la Vérité “Une”, révélée, en mettant en évi-dence la diversité de vérités, pour avoir fait disparaître lesidéaux ascétiques chrétiens et fait surgir de nouvelles pos-sibilités d'existence.”Michel Onfray: le post anarchismeexpliqué à ma grand-mère

[8] [Alfred, Taiaiake. Wasase: Indigenous Pathways of Ac-tion and Freedom. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,2005. p. 112]

[9] [Newman, Saul. “Postanarchism and Space: Revolution-ary fantasies and autonomous zones.” Planning Theory 10(2011): 344- 365. p. 355]

[10] [Day, Richard. Gramsci is Dead: Anarchistic Currents inthe Newest Social Movements. New York: Pluto Press,2005. p. 42]

[11] [Newman, Saul. The Politics of Postanarchism. Edin-burgh University Press, 2010. p.162]

[12] Rousselle, Duane (November 2012). “Max Stirner’s Post-Post-Anarchism”. Journal for the Study of Radicalism.Retrieved November 14, 2012.

[13] Rousselle, Duane. “Duane Rousselle’s Academia Page”.Retrieved November 14, 2012.

[14] Rousselle, Duane (November 2012). “After Post-Anarchism”. Repartee Books. Retrieved November 14,2012.

7 Further reading

• Rousselle, Duane and Evren, Süreyyya (eds) Post-Anarchism: A Reader. London: Pluto Press. (2011)

• Call, Lewis (2002). Postmodern Anarchism. Lex-ington: Lexington Books. ISBN 0-7391-0522-1.

• Fabbri, Lorenzo. “From Inoperativeness to Action:On Giorgio Agamben’s Anarchism”, “Radical Phi-losophy Review,” Volume 4, Number 1, 2011.

• Ferguson, Kathy (1984). The Feminist Case againstBureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress. ISBN 0-87722-400-5.

• Franks, Benjamin (June 2007). “Postanarchism: Acritical assessment”. Journal of Political Ideologies(Routledge) 12 (2). ISSN 1356-9317.

• May, Todd (1994). The Political Philosophy of Post-structuralist Anarchism. University Park: Pennsyl-vania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01046-0.

• Mümken, Jürgen (2003). Freiheit, Individualitätund Subjektivität. Staat und Subjekt in der Postmod-erne aus anarchistischer Perspektive. Frankfurt amMain: Edition AV. ISBN 3-936049-12-2.

• Mümken (editor), Jürgen (2005). Anarchismus inder Postmoderne. Beiträge zur anarchistischen The-orie und Praxis. Frankfurt am Main: Edition AV,Verlag. ISBN 3-936049-37-8.

• Newman, Saul (2001). From Bakunin to Lacan.Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power.Lexington: Lexington Books. ISBN 0-7391-0240-0.

• Moore, John (2004). I Am Not a Man, I Am Dyna-mite!: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradi-tion. Autonomedia. ISBN 1-57027-121-6.

• Michel Onfray La puissance d'exister, Paris, Grasset,(2006) ISBN 2-246-71691-8

• Michel Onfray Politique du rebelle: traité de résis-tance et d'insoumission (1997)

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• Michel Onfray La philosophie féroce : exercices an-archistes. (2004)

• Colson, Daniel. “Anarchist Subjectivities and Mod-ern Subjectivity”.

• Colson, Daniel. “Deleuze et le renouveau de la pen-sée libertaire”

• Call, Lewis et al. “Post-anarchism today”, AnarchistDevelopments in Cultural Studies, volume 1, 2010.

• Springer, S. 2012. “Violent accumulation: a posta-narchist critique of property, dispossession, and thestate of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia.”Annals of the Association of American Geogra-phers.

8 External links• Archive of Post anarchist articles and on post-anarchism in english at the Anarchist Library

• “Postanarchism in a Nutshell” by Jason Adams.

• “Post-Anarchism and Social War: Post-structuralism, and the Revival of an AnarchistSubterranean” by Torrance.

• “Toward a Post-Anarchist Critique of AnarchistBusinesses” by Saint Schmidt.

• “Postanarchism is not what you think: The role ofpostanarchist theory after the backlash” By SaintSchmidt.

• Accursed Anarchism: Five Post-Anarchist Medita-tions on Bataille by Saint Schmidt.

• Derrida’s Deconstruction Of Authority by SaulNewman.

• “Anarchism and the politics of ressentiment” by SaulNewman.

• “Anarchist Subjectivities and Modern Subjectivity”by Daniel Colson.

• What’s Wrong With Postanarchism? by Jesse Cohnand Shawn Wilbur.

• Anarsi, postanarchist texts in Turkish and translatedfrom other languages.

6 9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

9 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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