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'{{multiple issues| {{refimprove|date=November 2012}} {{third-party|date=November 2012}} }} {{Anarchism sidebar |Schools}} '''Post-anarchism''' or '''postanarchism''' is an [[anarchism|anarchist]] [[philosophy]] that employs [[post-structuralism|post-structuralist]] and [[postmodernism|postmodernist]] approaches (the term '''post-structuralist anarchism''' is used as well, so as not to suggest having moved beyond anarchism). Post-anarchism is not a single coherent theory, but rather refers to the combined works of any number of post-modernists and post-structuralists such as [[Michel Foucault]], [[Gilles Deleuze]], [[Jacques Lacan]], [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Jean Baudrillard]]; [[postmodern feminism|postmodern feminists]] such as [[Judith Butler]]; and alongside those of classical anarchist and libertarian philosophers such as [[Zhuang Zhou]], [[Emma Goldman]], [[Max Stirner]], and [[Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche|Friedrich Nietzsche]]. Thus, the terminology can vary widely in both approach and outcome. == Approaches == {{Postmodernism}} The term "post-anarchism" was coined by philosopher of [[post-left anarchy]] [[Hakim Bey]] in his 1987 essay "Post-Anarchism Anarchy".<ref name=aoa>{{cite web|last=Bey |first=Hakim |authorlink=Peter Lamborn Wilson |url=http://deoxy.org/meme/Post-Anarchism_Anarchy |date=March 1987 |title=Post-Anarchism Anarchy |work=Deoxy.net |accessdate=December 30, 2008}}</ref><ref name=adams>{{cite journal |url=http://aporiajournal.tripod.com/postanarchism.htm |title=Postanarchism in a Bombshell |first=Jason |last=Adams |journal=Aporia |issue=3 |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20091210163150/http://aporiajournal.tripod.com/postanarchism.htm |archivedate=2009-12-10 |df= }}</ref> Bey argued that anarchism had become insular and sectarian, confusing the various [[anarchist schools of thought]] for the real experience of lived anarchy.<ref name=adams/> In 1994, academic philosopher [[Todd May]] initiated what he called "poststructuralist anarchism",<ref>{{cite journal |last=Antliff |first=Allan | authorlink = Allan Antliff |title=Anarchy, Power, and Poststructuralism |journal=[[SubStance]] |volume=36 |issue=2 |year=2007 |pages=56–66 |doi=10.1353/sub.2007.0026}}</ref> arguing for a theory grounded in the post-structuralist understanding of [[power (sociology)|power]], particularly through the work of [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Emma Goldman]], while taking the anarchist approach to [[Ethics]]. The "Lacanian anarchism" proposed by [[Saul Newman]] utilizes the works of [[Jacques Lacan]] and [[Max Stirner]] more prominently. Newman criticizes classical anarchists, such as [[Michael Bakunin]] and [[Peter Kropotkin]], for assuming an objective "[[human nature]]" and a natural order; he argues that from this approach, humans progress and are well-off by nature, with only [[the Establishment]] as a limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman, this is a [[Manichaeism|Manichaen]] worldview, which depicts the reversal of [[Thomas Hobbes]]' ''[[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|Leviathan]]'', in which the "good" state is subjugated by the "evil" people. [[Lewis Call]] has attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], rejecting the [[Cartesian dualism|Cartesian]] concept of the "subject." From here, a radical form of anarchism is made possible: the anarchism of becoming. This anarchism does not have an eventual goal, nor does it flow into "being"; it is not a final state of development, nor a static form of society, but rather becomes permanent, as a means without end. Italian autonomist [[Giorgio Agamben]] has also written about this idea. In this respect it is similar to the "complex systems" view of emerging society known as [[panarchy]]. Call critiques [[Liberalism|liberal]] notions of language, consciousness, and rationality from an anarchist perspective, arguing that they are inherent in economic and political power within the capitalist state organization.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Martin |first=Edward J. |title=Call, Lewis Postmodern Anarchism |journal=Perspectives on Political Science |date=June 2003}}</ref> Recently the [[French people|French]] [[hedonist]] philosopher [[Michel Onfray]] has embraced the term ''post-anarchism'' to describe his approach to politics and ethics.<ref>[http://www.maglm.fr/post/2009/11/08/Michel-Onfray-:-le-post-anarchisme-explique-a-ma-grand-mere Michel Onfray: le post anarchisme expliqué à ma grand-mère]</ref> He advocates for an anarchism in line with such intellectuals as "[[George Orwell|Orwell]], ''la philosophe'' [[Simone Weil]], [[Jean Grenier]], ''la French Theory avec'' [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Deleuze]], [[Bourdieu]], [[Guattari]], [[Lyotard]], ''le'' [[Derrida]] ''de'' ''Politiques de l'amitié'' et du ''Droit à la philosophie'', ''mais aussi'' [[Mai 68]]" which for him was "a [[Nietzsche]]an revolt in order to put an end to the 'One' truth, revealed, and to put in evidence the diversity of truths, in order to make disappear ascetic Christian ideas and to help arise new possibilities of existence." <ref>"qu'il considère comme une révolte nietzschéenne pour avoir mis fin à la Vérité "Une", révélée, en mettant en évidence la diversité de vérités, pour avoir fait disparaître les idéaux ascétiques chrétiens et fait surgir de nouvelles possibilités d'existence."[http://www.maglm.fr/post/2009/11/08/Michel-Onfray-:-le-post-anarchisme-explique-a-ma-grand-mere Michel Onfray: le post anarchisme expliqué à ma grand-mère]</ref>Another way at looking at Foucault's critique of modern society which has often been characterize as close to the [[Islamic Golden Age]] of [[Science]] which is akin to the [[Polymath]] method this is because of Foucault's use of a wider variation in analysis(an holistic approach), Foucault is very often compared to these thinkers,such as [[Ibn Khaldun]] etc.<ref> ''Foucault Critical Reader:A Critical Reader'' pp.149-157 1986</ref> == Post-anarchism and space == Postanarchist theory has many implications for social and political space and, seeing as space is always political, seriously considers the question of space for radical politics and movements today. Much postanarchist theory is centered around an extensive critique of hegemony and the neoliberal societies of control. The logic of hegemony contains all conceptions of freedom and justice narrowly within the confines of the state, creating a “political climate in which radical notions of justice are seen as a threat to the very existence of” society, perpetuating the liberal ideological myth that “unity requires homogeneity”.<ref name="Alfred">[Alfred, Taiaiake. Wasase: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. p. 112]</ref> Postanarchism “conceives of a political space which is indeterminate, contingent and heterogeneous – a space whose lines and contours are undecidable and therefore contestable”.<ref name="Newman">[Newman, Saul. “Postanarchism and Space: Revolutionary fantasies and autonomous zones.” Planning Theory 10 (2011): 344-365]</ref> Saul Newman defines this postanarchist conception of political space as “a space of becoming”.<ref name="Newman"/> If we see current conceptions and arrangements of space as frameworks for “dominant political and economic interests,” postanarchist theory explores the “ways in which this hegemonic space is challenged, contested and reconfigured, as well as the fantasies and desires invested in political spaces <ref name="Newman"/> and looks to the occupation of space as a means to “prefigure and create autonomous alternatives”.<ref name="Day">[Day, Richard. Gramsci is Dead: Anarchistic Currents in the Newest Social Movements. New York: Pluto Press, 2005. p. 42, 123-129, 140-141, 163-177, 203]</ref> Newman sees postanarchist political space as “based around the project of autonomy”.<ref name="Newman"/> In keeping with a postanarchist affinity with contingency, Newman theorizes autonomy as “an ongoing project of political spatialization, rather than a fully achieved form of social organization”.<ref name="Newman"/> These autonomous political spaces can be considered insurrectional as they “defy the idea of a plan imposed upon society by institutions”,<ref name="Newman"/> engendering forms of organization that emerge “spontaneously, and which people determine freely for themselves”.<ref name="Newman"/> These insurrectional spaces work to foster alternative ways of being while continually undermining the logic of hegemony as they work non- rather than counter-hegemonically, exposing the cracks within the “dominant social, political, and economic order”.<ref name="Newman"/> A distinctly postanarchist conception of politics can be “understood in terms of an ongoing project of autonomy and a pluralization of insurrectional spaces and desires”,<ref name="Newman"/> exemplifying “prefigurative practices, which seek to realize alternatives to capitalism and statism within the current order”.<ref name="Newman"/> Newman sees this “re-situation of the political dimension away from the hegemony of the state [...] as central to postanarchism”.<ref name="Newman"/> In his book, ''Gramsci is Dead'', [[Richard J. F. Day|Richard Day]] examines many such insurrectional spaces and non-hegemonic movements and practices. The TAZ concept is one such example and the utilization of such a tactic is seen regularly throughout contemporary society. Critical of the fleeting and potentially over-individualistic nature of the [[Temporary Autonomous Zone|TAZ]], Day posits the Semi-Permanent Autonomous Zone, the SPAZ, as a potential mode of organization that is “neither utterly fleeting nor totally enslaving”,<ref name="Day"/> “breaking out of the temporary/permanent dichotomy”.<ref name="Day"/> Day theorizes the SPAZ as “a form that allows the construction of non-hegemonic alternatives to the neoliberal order here and now, with an eye to surviving the dangers of capture, exploitation and division inevitably arising from within and being imposed from without”.<ref name="Day"/> The SPAZ embraces a postanarchist spirit of contingency and indeterminancy, fostering relationships and links of solidarity based on voluntary association without falling into the trap of hegemony by refusing the aspiration of total permanence. [[Gustav Landauer]]’s concept of structural renewal features prominently in much postanarchist theory and practice, influencing concepts such as Day’s idea of the SPAZ, as well as the deeply ethical aspects of postanarchist theory and practice. Structural renewal advocates for the creation of new institutions “alongside, rather than inside, existing modes of social organization,” involving “a complementary pairing of disengagement and reconstruction”.<ref name="Day"/> Structural renewal aims to reduce the efficacy and reach of hegemonic institutions “by withdrawing energy from them and rendering them redundant,” appearing “simultaneously as a negative force working against the colonization of everyday life by the state and corporations, and as a positive force acting to reverse this process via mutual aid”.<ref name="Day"/> Most important for contemporary postanarchism is Landauer’s analysis of the state as a “certain relation between people: a mode of behaviour and interaction”.<ref name="Newman 2">[Newman, Saul. The Politics of Postanarchism. Edinburgh University Press, 2010. p.139-180]</ref> Following this logic, the state can be “transcended only through a certain spiritual transformation of relationships,” without such a transformation “the state will be simply reinvented in a different form during the revolution”.<ref name="Newman 2"/> Postanarchism consistently takes up this notion, seeing the political as intimately tied up with the social and guided by a deeply ethical framework geared towards transforming social space. According to Landauer’s analysis, although it is possible to “rid ourselves of particular states, we can never rid ourselves of the state form [as] it is always already with us, and so must be consistently and carefully warded off”.<ref name="Day"/> Postanarchism recognizes that “states require subjects who desire not only to repress others, but also desire their own repression,” and that, consequently, “warding off the state [...] means primarily enabling and empowering individuals and communities”.<ref name="Day"/> Postanarchism takes up the problem of voluntary servitude in order to figure out “how to get more people in more places to overcome not only their desire to dominate others, but their own desire to be dominated as well”.<ref name="Day"/> This involves an “unbinding of the self from his or her own attachment to power”<ref name="Newman"/> and the creation of spaces and subjectivities “which rely upon an amoral, postmodern ethics of shared commitments based on affinities rather than duties based on hegemonic imperatives”.<ref name="Day"/> Day identifies the “interlocking ethico-political commitments of groundless solidarity and infinite responsibility” as central to postanarchist ethics. He defines groundless solidarity as “seeing one’s own privilege and oppression in the context of other privileges and oppressions, as so interlinked that no particular form of inequality [...] can be postulated as the central axis of struggle,” while infinite responsibility “means always being open to the challenge of another Other, always being ready to hear a voice that points out how one is not adequately in solidarity, despite one’s best efforts”.<ref name="Day"/> He identifies these commitments as central in guiding affinity-based relationships, rejecting a hegemonic conception of community in order to embrace “the coming communities, in the plural”.<ref name="Day"/> Postanarchism conceives of ethics as “open to a certain spontaneous and free self-determination by individuals, rather than imposed upon them from above through abstract moral codes and strictures”,<ref name="Newman 2"/> conceiving of freedom as an “ongoing ethical practice, in which one’s relationship with oneself and others is subject to a continual ethical interrogation”.<ref name="Newman 2"/> The intensely ethical dimension of postanarchism allows for the conception of a “system of networks and popular bases, organized along rhizomatic lines [...] and populated by subjects who neither ask for gifts from the state [...] nor seek state power for themselves,” conceiving of movements that “take up ethico-political positions while refusing to try to coercively generalize these positions by making foundational claims”,<ref name="Day"/> empowering subjects that are capable of thriving outside of existing paradigms and contributing to real and lasting social and political change. Postanarchism is intensely critical of current forms of representative democracy, “favouring people’s self-organization”<ref name="Newman 2"/> and seeking to “open the political space to alternative and more democratic modes of democracy”,<ref name="Newman 2"/> understanding democracy not “primarily as a mechanism for expressing a unified popular will, but rather as a way of pluralizing this will – opening up within it different and even dissenting spaces and perspectives”.<ref name="Newman 2"/> This notion of democracy beyond the state is in keeping with postanarchist ethics and commitments, “imposing a certain ethical responsibility upon people themselves to resolve, through ongoing practices of negotiation, tensions that may arise”.<ref name="Newman 2"/> Saul Newman emphasizes democracy’s own “perfectibility,” the fact that democracy “always points to a horizon beyond, to the future,” that it is “always ‘to come’”.<ref name="Newman 2"/> He states that, “we should never be satisfied with existing forms taken by democracy and should always be working towards a greater democratization in the here and now; towards an ongoing articulation of democracy’s im/possible promise of perfect liberty with perfect equality".<ref name="Newman 2"/> This is a “politics of anti-politics [...] outside, and ultimately transcendent of, the state and all hierarchical structures of power and authority,” requiring the continual “development of alternative libertarian and egalitarian structures and practices, coupled with a constant awareness of the authoritarian potential that lies in any structure".<ref name="Newman 2"/> == After post-anarchism == [[Duane Rousselle]] has claimed post-anarchism is beginning to move away from the epistemological characterization and toward an ontological characterization.<ref name=poa>{{cite web|last=Rousselle |first=Duane |authorlink=Duane Rousselle |url=https://www.academia.edu/1141873/Max_Stirners_Post-Post-Anarchism |date=November 2012 |title=Max Stirner's Post-Post-Anarchism |work=Journal for the Study of Radicalism |accessdate=November 14, 2012}}</ref> He has written numerous articles and books on the topic.<ref name=ppoa>{{cite web|last=Rousselle |first=Duane |authorlink=Duane Rousselle |url=https://trentu.academia.edu/DuaneRousselle |title=Duane Rousselle's Academia Page |accessdate=November 14, 2012}}</ref> His book ''After Post-Anarchism'' is described by Repartee Press as follows: {{Quotation|Post-anarchists have hitherto relied on post-structuralist critiques of ontological essentialism in order to situate their discourse in relation to the traditional anarchist discourse. Post-anarchism requires the elaboration of another important line of critique against epistemological foundationalism – to accomplish this task, this book takes post-anarchism to its limit through a reading of the philosophy of Georges Bataille. Georges Bataille’s philosophy allows for new ways of conceiving anarchist ethics that are not predicated upon essentialist categories, foundationalist truth-claims, or the agency of the subject in the political context. After Post-Anarchism, we challenge the hegemony that epistemology has enjoyed for several centuries of political and philosophical thought.<ref name=aftpoa>{{cite web|last=Rousselle |first=Duane |authorlink=Duane Rousselle |url=http://littleblackcart.com/After-Post-Anarchism.html |date=November 2012 |title=After Post-Anarchism |work=Repartee Books |accessdate=November 14, 2012}}</ref>}} In "What Comes After Post-Anarchism," an article for ''Continent Journal'', Rousselle has claimed that: {{Quotation|By dismissing all ontologies as suspiciously representative and as incessantly harbouring a dangerous form of essentialism, post-anarchists have overlooked the privilege that they have placed on the human subject, language, and discourse, at the expense of the democracy that the human subject shares with other animals, objects, and beings in the world. This epistemological characterization of post-anarchism has held sway for far too long. It is not by chance that post-anarchism, as a concept, was first formulated by Hakim Bey as an “ontological anarchism,” and subsequently repressed by the canon of post-anarchist authors. ... I want to challenge this reluctance and revive the roots of post-anarchism.}} == See also == *[[Existentialist anarchism]] == References == {{reflist|30em}} == Further reading == {{refbegin}} * Rousselle, Duane and Evren, Süreyyya (eds) ''Post-Anarchism: A Reader''. London: Pluto Press. (2011) *{{cite book | last = Call | first = Lewis | authorlink = Lewis Call | title = Postmodern Anarchism | publisher = Lexington Books | location = Lexington | year = 2002 | isbn = 0-7391-0522-1 }} * Fabbri, Lorenzo. [https://academia.edu/998053/From_Inoperativeness_to_Action_On_Giorgio_Agambens_Anarchism "From Inoperativeness to Action: On Giorgio Agamben’s Anarchism"], "Radical Philosophy Review," Volume 4, Number 1, 2011. *{{cite book | last = Ferguson | first = Kathy | title = The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy | publisher = Temple University Press | location = Philadelphia | year = 1984 | isbn = 0-87722-400-5 }} *{{cite journal |last = Franks | first = Benjamin |title=Postanarchism: A critical assessment |journal=Journal of Political Ideologies | volume=12 | issue= 2 |date=June 2007 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |issn=1356-9317}} *{{cite book | last = May | first = Todd | authorlink = Todd May | title = The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism | publisher = Pennsylvania State University Press | location = University Park | year = 1994 | isbn = 0-271-01046-0 }} *{{cite book | last = Mümken | first = Jürgen | title = Freiheit, Individualität und Subjektivität. Staat und Subjekt in der Postmoderne aus anarchistischer Perspektive | publisher = Edition AV | location = Frankfurt am Main | year = 2003 | isbn = 3-936049-12-2 }} *{{cite book | last = Mümken (editor) | first = Jürgen | title = Anarchismus in der Postmoderne. Beiträge zur anarchistischen Theorie und Praxis | publisher = Edition AV, Verlag | location = Frankfurt am Main | year = 2005 | isbn = 3-936049-37-8 }} *{{cite book | last = Newman | first = Saul | authorlink = Saul Newman | title = [[From Bakunin to Lacan. Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power]] | publisher = Lexington Books | location = Lexington | year = 2001 | isbn = 0-7391-0240-0 }} * {{cite book |last=Moore |first=John |authorlink=John Moore (anarchist) |title=[[I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite!: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition]] |publisher=[[Autonomedia]] |year=2004 |doi= |isbn=1-57027-121-6 |page=}} *[[Michel Onfray]] ''La puissance d'exister'', Paris, Grasset, (2006) {{ISBN|2-246-71691-8}} *[[Michel Onfray]] ''Politique du rebelle: traité de résistance et d'insoumission'' (1997) *Michel Onfray ''La philosophie féroce : exercices anarchistes''. (2004) *Colson, Daniel. [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Daniel_Colson__Anarchist_Subjectivities_and_Modern_Subjectivity.html "Anarchist Subjectivities and Modern Subjectivity".] *Colson, Daniel. [http://raforum.info/spip.php?article3139&lang=fr "Deleuze et le renouveau de la pensée libertaire"] *Call, Lewis et al. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110113164838/http://www.anarchist-developments.org/index.php/adcs/issue/current/showToc "Post-anarchism today"], ''Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies'', volume 1, 2010. *[[Springer, S.]] 2012. [https://uvic.academia.edu/SimonSpringer/Papers/319555/Violent_accumulation_a_postanarchist_critique_of_property_dispossession_and_the_state_of_exception_in_neoliberalizing_Cambodia "Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia."] Annals of the Association of American Geographers. {{refend}} == External links == * [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/topics/post_anarchism.html Archive of post-anarchist articles at the Anarchist Library] {{DEFAULTSORT:Post-Anarchism}} [[Category:Postanarchism| ]]<!--eponymous category first--> [[Category:Postmodern theory]] [[Category:Post-structuralism]]'