DOCSLIB.ORG

Buildings on Fire: the Situationist International and the Red Army Faction Author(S): Charity Scribner Reviewed Work(S): Source: Grey Room, No

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Buildings on Fire: the Situationist International and the Red Army Faction Author(S): Charity Scribner Reviewed Work(S): Source: Grey Room, No Grey Room, Inc. Buildings on Fire: The Situationist International and the Red Army Faction Author(s): Charity Scribner Reviewed work(s): Source: Grey Room, No. 26 (Winter, 2007), pp. 30-55 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20442749 . Accessed: 08/02/2013 22:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The MIT Press and Grey Room, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Grey Room. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Feb 2013 22:26:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions INTERNATIONALE SITUATIONNISTE CRITIQUE DE L'URBANISME (Supermarket A Los Angeles, aofit 1965). aton1t10" (Mrc 96) 30~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy:' Intemnationale situ This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Feb 2013 22:26:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Buildngs on Fre: Te Stuation ist International and the Red Armyacton CHARITY SCRIBNER In Guy Debord's late film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (1978), a correspondence between the Situationist International (SI) and the Red Army Faction (RAF) comes into view. In themiddle of the film, the camera rests on two photographs: the exterior of the Stuttgart-Stammheim maximum-security facility, where the RAF's first generation committed suicide in 1976 and 1977 and an earlier press shot of the leftistmilitants Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin on trial in 1968.1 "La plus belle jeunesse meurt en prison," reads the narrator.' The flower of youth dies in prison. From these two documents of theRAF, Debord looks back over thewould-be revolution that rocked Europe in the late sixties and the consequences itproduced. The sequence calculates a melancholy sum ofwhat the situationists hoped to effect by "putting an end to art," as Debord described it,by "iannouncing right in themiddle of the cathedral that God was dead," by "plotting to blow up the Eiffel Tower."3 This recollection of 1968 prompts the narrator to ask a series of questions why certain struggles failed, whether the proletariat still existed, and if so, what itmight be. Images of a lost Paris flicker across the screen-girls at the thresholds of forgotten caf6s, night shots of the Les Halles markets before their condemna tion by Pompidou planners-while Debord reminds the viewer of the fate of the 1968-ers: "Suicide carried offmany."14 But then the voice translates the film's obscure title:we turn in the night, consumed by fire.Debord awakens desire for a turning, a return-out of the ruins, back to the impulses that propelled the SI, the RAF, and other aesthetic and social movements of the time. Debord wasn't alone in linking the RAF to the situationists. Especially in recent years, several cultural historians and artists have associated Debord's "csituations" with Baader-Meinhof strikes, although no study has yet explored the relationship between the two groups. Thomas Elsaesser was one of the first scholars to align the movements. In an essay on the mediation of the RAF in teleTvzisin and fiM, heP idePntifies thePcofMMon grou1nd ofccupnied byXartists a-nd This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Feb 2013 22:26:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions tionistsand theRAF worked todisrupt the complacencies of liberaldemocracy, sometimes takingsimilar approaches. They drew fromthe arsenals of anar chism andMarxism and testedtheir powers in themodern cityscapes thatpost war plannersbrought to life.The SI wanted to screen theiraesthetic imagination ontomodern Paris; theRAF tookrefuge in thehigh-rises of Frankfurt and Hamburg toplot theirterror on theGerman public.Members ofboth groupswere alert to thepolitics of the image.They worked bothwith and against thepopular press and broadcast television.But whereas Debord critiqued thesociety of thespec tacle-the condition inwhich capital accumulates and "becomes image"-the leadersof theRAF became fodderfor the media machine, leavinga legacyheavy on stylebut lighton political analysis. An adequate comparison of theRAF and theSI must discern thecorrespon dences between theirconceptual and tacticalprograms; itmust also establish thetension between militarization and theradical thoughtof "ethicalmilitance" thatEmily Apter has recentlyelaborated.6 To thisend, thisessay exploreshow the SI and theRAF's differentdefinitions of autonomyproduced divergent modes of resistance.Debord articulatedan institutionalcritique of theculture industryand reactivatedthe modernist critical impulse.The RAF,meanwhile, rejected theoretical reflection in favor of direct action; their intellectual backlash threatenedto inflamefascism.7 The Germanmilitants tookwhat they considered to be a concrete and practical approach to revolution, but their attemptsto gain autonomyended, paradoxically, in the spectacle thatDebord had alreadyanalyzed. The Situation As Europe recoveredfrom World War II, itencountered challenges to itsimperial powers, altered itsmodes of statecraft,and rushed into technologicalmodern ization.The situationistsand theRAF both respondedto thishistorical moment, but theirinitial impulses and dispositions contrasted.Taking an early interest in the ideas ofHenri Lefebvre,the SI used his analysis ofalienation in everyday life to sharpen theircritiques of thebuilt environment.Debord and Raoul Vaneigem, in particular,saw thecity as a prime locus of social transformation and envisioned alternativepsychogeographies. Condemning thearchitecture of Le Corbusierand othermodernists, they raged against theapartment blocks that were rapidly standardizingFrench cities and denounced theautoroutes that seemed engineeredto levelall culturaland historicaldifference. Debord pitched the program of detournement, or artful diversion, to skew both the Cartesian grids that formatted French cities and the lives thatwere led in them. Against theconventions of urban planning,the situationists sought to undo designwith 32 Grev Rcoom 2 This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Feb 2013 22:26:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions the forcesof desire. Like theSI, who wanted torework and subvertthe prefab city and itsexpanding periphery,the RAF operatedwithin themodern metropolis, calling themselves Stadtguerillas or "urban guerrillas."8Breaking away fromthe protests of the studentmovement, theymoved stealthily between Frankfurt,Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Berlin, rentingout high-riseflats and convertingthem into hold ingcells fortheir hostages, as ifto detourne the logicof postwar planners. Both theSI and theRAF located thegerm of fascismin theprocesses and productsof modernization. As theRAF understood it,the regulationof German metropo lisesbecame ametaphor forthe homogenization of lifein factoriesand concen trationcamps. The shopping arcades and housing blocs ofWest Germany's Wirtschaftswunderwere an extensionof thispredicament. Exploiting thiscul turewould disruptauthoritarian structures of politics and society.As theRAF leaderGudrun Ensslin saw it,well-executed acts of insurgencywould provoke theGerman state to clamp down and thusbetray itswill towarddomination. Beneath the tenuous institutionsof postwar democracy, theRAF sensed the unquelled fervorthat drove theNazi military-industrialcomplex. RAF attacks would work a homeopathic effecton thebody politic, theyimagined, strategi cally conjuring the virus of fascism and inciting Germans to finally kill it off with theirown hands. Vaneigem plotted themain points of the situationist critique of postwar European cities, identifyinga concentrationaryorder in everyday life. In his "Comments against Urbanism," he surmised that "if the Nazis had known con temporaryurbanists, theywould have transformedtheir concentration camps intolow-income housing."9 The SI's perspectiveon Auschwitz exemplifiestheir analysis of the spectacle. Vaneigem saw urban planning, advertising, and ideologyas interlinkedcogs in an "immenseconditioning machine."10 Debord's Society of theSpectacle illustratesthis with cinematicmeans, focusingon the "mass character" and "formal poverty" of the new city.11A key sequence of the filmilluminates the situationist concern with German cultural politics, juxta posing images ofHitler's concentration camps with several shots of Paris, includingone of thebarricades of 1968. Edited into thisprogression are lines that present situationism as a response to the traumas of European totalitarian ism: "Social peace, reestablishedwith such greatdifficulty, had only lasted a few years when, to herald its end, there appeared those who will enter the annals of crime under the name 'situationists.'''12 Of the images that appear in thismontage, twocome forthwith particular intensity.Marking theflashpoints of situationist history, they show buildings on fire: the Reichstag in 1933 and the Watts districtof Los Angeles in 1965.13 C o v ogtt}n E Ct.e .S S gtuoetK|On E>tgn4ernati SW R ed + ':m ~ on 33 This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Feb 2013 22:26:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions IncendiaryLogic The trajectoriesof theSI and theRAF parted and convergedat severalpoints,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Diogene Éditions Libres
    diogene éditions libres publié en pdf par diogene.ch copyright/copyleft l'or des fous/diogene.ch 2008. Le texte est disponible selon les termes de la licence libre "créative commons" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/fr/%20) La Volonté de paresse Philippe Godard Paul Lafargue Pauline Wagner Raoul Vaneigem L'or des fous É D I T E U R 2 Merci à Jean-Luc Oudry pour l’illustration de la couverture, à Pascal Lécaille pour la préparation des textes, à Frédérique Béchu pour la réalisation du livre et à Jean Pencreac’h pour la correction. © L’or des fous éditeur, Nyons, 2006 ISBN : 2-915995-06-0 3 « La paresse est jouissance de soi ou n’est pas. N’espérez pas qu’elle vous soit accordée par vos maîtres ou par leurs dieux. On y vient comme l’enfant par une naturelle inclination à chercher le plaisir et à tourner ce qui le contrarie. C’est une simplicité que l’âge adulte excelle à compliquer. » Raoul Vaneigem Réaffirmant follement le désir de désirer un autre monde, de rêver, de poétiser et de vivre une vie authentique, voici ce livre qui, cheminant de Philippe Godard à Raoul Vaneigem, en compagnie de Paul Lafargue et de Pauline Wagner, chante la mélodie du vivant et le droit à l’amour. Trois chevaliers et une dame récusent la quête frénétique du travail, qui ravage aujourd’hui les esprits pour appeler la paresse à la rescousse. En 1880, Le Droit à la paresse ou La Réfutation du droit au travail de Paul Lafargue paraissait en feuilleton dans l’hebdomadaire L’Égalité ; incarcéré à la prison de Sainte-Pélagie en 1883, il ajoute quelques notes pour une prochaine réédition.
    [Show full text]
  • The Revolution of Everyday Life
    The Revolution of Everyday Life Raoul Vaneigem 1963–1965 Contents Dedication ............................................. 5 Introduction ............................................ 5 Part I. The Perspective of Power 7 Chapter 1. The Insignificant Signified .............................. 8 1 ................................................ 8 2 ................................................ 9 3 ................................................ 9 4 ................................................ 11 Impossible Participation or Power as the Sum of Constraints 12 Chapter 2. Humiliation ...................................... 12 1 ................................................ 12 2 ................................................ 14 3 ................................................ 16 4 ................................................ 17 Chapter 3. Isolation ........................................ 17 1 ................................................ 17 2 ................................................ 19 Chapter 4. Suffering ........................................ 20 2 ................................................ 22 3 ................................................ 23 4 ................................................ 24 Chapter 5. The Decline and Fall of Work ............................. 25 Chapter 6. Decompression and the Third Force ......................... 28 Impossible Communication or Power as Universal Mediation 32 Chapter 7. The Age of Happiness ................................. 32 1 ...............................................
    [Show full text]
  • German History Reflected
    The Detlev Rohwedder Building German history reflected GFE = 1/2 Formathöhe The Detlev Rohwedder Building German history reflected Contents 3 Introduction 44 Reunification and Change 46 The euphoria of unity 4 The Reich Aviation Ministry 48 A tainted place 50 The Treuhandanstalt 6 Inception 53 The architecture of reunification 10 The nerve centre of power 56 In conversation with 14 Courage to resist: the Rote Kapelle Hans-Michael Meyer-Sebastian 18 Architecture under the Nazis 58 The Federal Ministry of Finance 22 The House of Ministries 60 A living place today 24 The changing face of a colossus 64 Experiencing and creating history 28 The government clashes with the people 66 How do you feel about working in this building? 32 Socialist aspirations meet social reality 69 A stroll along Wilhelmstrasse 34 Isolation and separation 36 Escape from the state 38 New paths and a dead-end 72 Chronicle of the Detlev Rohwedder Building 40 Architecture after the war – 77 Further reading a building is transformed 79 Imprint 42 In conversation with Jürgen Dröse 2 Contents Introduction The Detlev Rohwedder Building, home to Germany’s the House of Ministries, foreshadowing the country- Federal Ministry of Finance since 1999, bears wide uprising on 17 June. Eight years later, the Berlin witness to the upheavals of recent German history Wall began to cast its shadow just a few steps away. like almost no other structure. After reunification, the Treuhandanstalt, the body Constructed as the Reich Aviation Ministry, the charged with the GDR’s financial liquidation, moved vast site was the nerve centre of power under into the building.
    [Show full text]
  • 27/Die 68Er/Kommune 1
    Gesellschaft Die 68er (V): Sie tranken Jasmintee, diskutierten nonstop und hielten Sex vor allem für ein Problem – die Mitglieder der Kommune 1 wurden zu Popstars der Studentenrevolte und veränderten den deutschen Alltag. Von Thomas Hüetlin Die Tage der Kommune atürlich gibt es Erfindungen, die sel schuld sei, weshalb über den „Trans- prall gefüllten Fleischtheken zwischen 25 braucht kein Mensch, wie zum missionsriemen“ Dritte Welt die „Revolu- Sorten Wurst wählen zu können oder NBeispiel fertiggemixten Whiskey- tion“ in die Erste Welt getragen werden Weihnachtsbäume an die GIs in Vietnam Cola in der Dose, UV-durchlässige Bade- sollte, und alles würde gut werden. zu schicken, wo in einem makaberen Krieg anzüge oder Duftbäume am Autorück- Tolles Programm, aber natürlich hatten angeblich die Freiheit West-Berlins vertei- spiegel – aber gibt es wirklich Leute, die 16 Leute, die im Sommer 1966 in einer digt wurde. die den Sinn von Toilettentüren bezwei- Großbürgervilla am Kochelsee ein paar Ta- Und diese Leute trafen sich nicht wie feln? ge herumsaßen, sich vom Hausmeisterehe- heute in Cafés, Diskotheken und im Inter- Gab es – die Leute von der K 1 und spä- paar Schweinebraten auftischen ließen, auf net, sondern sie hatten das Gefühl, daß ter in den Siebzigern viele junge Men- den vor der Tür aufragenden Bergen her- sich in der Gesellschaft etwas ganz Großes schen, die wie ihre Helden Kommunar- umkletterten und Fußballweltmeisterschaft ändern müsse und gingen in den Soziali- den wurden und die Toilettentüren ein- schauten, noch keine Ahnung, daß ein paar stischen Deutschen Studentenbund (SDS). traten, zersägten oder einfach aushängten von ihnen damit später zu den Popstars der Auch dort waren sie bald unzufrieden.
    [Show full text]
  • The Establishment Responds Power, Politics, and Protest Since 1945
    PALGRAVE MACMILLAN TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY SERIES Akira Iriye (Harvard University) and Rana Mitter (University of Oxford) Series Editors This distinguished series seeks to: develop scholarship on the transnational connections of societies and peoples in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; provide a forum in which work on transnational history from different periods, subjects, and regions of the world can be brought together in fruitful connection; and explore the theoretical and methodological links between transnational and other related approaches such as comparative history and world history. Editorial board: Thomas Bender University Professor of the Humanities, Professor of History, and Director of the International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University Jane Carruthers Professor of History, University of South Africa Mariano Plotkin Professor, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, and mem- ber of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research, Argentina Pierre- Yves Saunier Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France Ian Tyrrell Professor of History, University of New South Wales. Published by Palgrave Macmillan: THE NATION, PSYCHOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, 1870–1919 By Glenda Sluga COMPETING VISIONS OF WORLD ORDER: GLOBAL MOMENTS AND MOVEMENTS, 1880s–1930s Edited by Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier PAN-ASIANISM AND JAPAN’S WAR, 1931–1945 By Eri Hotta THE CHINESE IN BRITAIN, 1800–PRESENT: ECONOMY, TRANSNATIONALISM, IDENTITY By Gregor Benton and Terence
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Ambivalence of Resistance: West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2c73n9k4 Author Boyle, Michael Shane Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Ambivalence of Resistance West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence By Michael Shane Boyle A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair Professor Anton Kaes Professor Shannon Steen Fall 2012 The Ambivalence of Resistance West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence © Michael Shane Boyle All Rights Reserved, 2012 Abstract The Ambivalence of Resistance West German Antiauthoritarian Performance After the Age of Affluence by Michael Shane Boyle Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair While much humanities scholarship focuses on the consequence of late capitalism’s cultural logic for artistic production and cultural consumption, this dissertation asks us to consider how the restructuring of capital accumulation in the postwar period similarly shaped activist practices in West Germany. From within the fields of theater and performance studies, “The Ambivalence of Resistance: West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence” approaches this question historically. It surveys the types of performance that decolonization and New Left movements in 1960s West Germany used to engage reconfigurations in the global labor process and the emergence of anti-imperialist struggles internationally, from documentary drama and happenings to direct action tactics like street blockades and building occupations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Commune Movement During the 1960S and the 1970S in Britain, Denmark and The
    The Commune Movement during the 1960s and the 1970s in Britain, Denmark and the United States Sangdon Lee Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History September 2016 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement ⓒ 2016 The University of Leeds and Sangdon Lee The right of Sangdon Lee to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ii Abstract The communal revival that began in the mid-1960s developed into a new mode of activism, ‘communal activism’ or the ‘commune movement’, forming its own politics, lifestyle and ideology. Communal activism spread and flourished until the mid-1970s in many parts of the world. To analyse this global phenomenon, this thesis explores the similarities and differences between the commune movements of Denmark, UK and the US. By examining the motivations for the communal revival, links with 1960s radicalism, communes’ praxis and outward-facing activities, and the crisis within the commune movement and responses to it, this thesis places communal activism within the context of wider social movements for social change. Challenging existing interpretations which have understood the communal revival as an alternative living experiment to the nuclear family, or as a smaller part of the counter-culture, this thesis argues that the commune participants created varied and new experiments for a total revolution against the prevailing social order and its dominant values and institutions, including the patriarchal family and capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Barefoot Into Cyberspace Adventures in Search of Techno-Utopia
    Barefoot into Cyberspace Adventures in search of techno-Utopia By Becky Hogge July 2011 http://www,barefootintocyberspace.com Barefoot into Cyberspace Becky Hogge Read This First This text is distributed by Barefoot Publishing Limited under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence. That means: You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work to make derivative works to make commercial use of the work Under the following conditions Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar licence to this one. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to http://barefootintocyberspace.com/book/hypertext Any of these conditions may be waived by seeking permission from Barefoot Publishing Limited. To contact Barefoot Publishing Limited, email barefootpublishing [AT] gmail [DOT] com. More information available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/2.0/uk/. See the end of this file for complete legalese 2 Barefoot into Cyberspace Becky Hogge Contents Prologue: Fierce Dancing ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1: Digging the command line ............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Raoul Vaneigem: “Humanity Dies So That an Economy in Which Mad Money Goes Round and Round Can Survive”1
    The Elementary Roots of Raoul Vaneigem: “Humanity Dies So That An Economy in Which Mad Money Goes Round and Round Can Survive”1 What kind of environment did you grow up in? Did your childhood prepare the way for the rest of your journey? My childhood took place in Lessines, a small working-class town [in Belgium].2 The rock quarries defined the slums in which I lived, as opposed to the nice places, which were principally occupied by the bourgeoisie. At the time, class consciousness was, you might say, punctuated by the sirens that at specific times signaled the beginning and the end of work, pauses and accidents. My father, a railroad worker, regretted not being able to pursue university studies due to a lack of financial resources. He dreamed of a better fate for me, but not without warning me about those who became “traitors to their class” by climbing the social ladder. I owe to him the reservations that I had early on about the roles of the intellectual – guide, tribune, master thinker. The repugnance that is felt today concerning the deterioration of the so-called “elites” confirms the soundness of my reluctance. In La liberté enfin s’éveille au souffle de la vie,3 I show how and why the rulers are becoming increasingly stupid. Anyone who takes a step back from the harassment of media lies can easily verify the following: intellectual intelligence decreases with an increase in power, and sensible intelligence progresses in the presence of what is truly human. I have always accorded pride of place to the pleasures of knowledge, exploration, and the dissemination of acquired knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Real.Izing the Utopian Longing of Experimental Poetry
    REAL.IZING THE UTOPIAN LONGING OF EXPERIMENTAL POETRY by Justin Katko Printed version bound in an edition of 20 @ Critical Documents 112 North College #4 Oxford, Ohio 45056 USA http://plantarchy.us REEL EYE SING THO YOU DOH PEON LAWN INC O V.EXPER(T?) I MEANT ALL POET RE: Submitted to the School of Interdisciplinary Studies (Western College Program) in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy Interdisciplinary Studies by Justin Katko Miami University Oxford, Ohio April 10, 2006 APPROVED Advisor: _________________ Xiuwu Liu ABSTRACT Capitalist social structure obstructs the potentials of radical subjectivities by over-determining life as a hierarchy of discrete labors. Structural analyses of grammatical syntax reveal the reproduction of capitalist social structure within linguistic structure. Consider how the struggle of articulation is the struggle to make language work.* Assuming an analog mesh between social and docu-textual structures, certain experimental poetries can be read as fractal imaginations of anarcho-Marxist utopianism in their fierce disruption of linguistic convention. An experimental poetry of radical political efficacy must be instantiated by and within micro-social structures negotiated by practically critical attentions to the material conditions of the social web that upholds the writing, starting with writing’s primary dispersion into the social—publishing. There are recent historical moments where such demands were being put into practice. This is a critical supplement to the first issue of Plantarchy, a hand-bound journal of contemporary experimental poetry by American, British, and Canadian practitioners. * Language work you. iii ...as an object of hatred, as the personification of Capital, as the font of the Spectacle.
    [Show full text]
  • Anarchism, Individualism and Communism: William Morris's Critique of Anarcho-Communism
    Loughborough University Institutional Repository Anarchism, individualism and communism: William Morris's critique of anarcho-communism This item was submitted to Loughborough University's Institutional Repository by the/an author. Citation: KINNA, R., 2012. Anarchism, individualism and communism: William Morris's critique of anarcho-communism. IN: Prichard, A. ... et al (eds). Liber- tarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.35-56. Additional Information: • This is a book chapter. It is reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: www.palgrave.com Metadata Record: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/12730 Version: Accepted for publication Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan ( c Alex Prichard, Ruth Kinna, Saku Pinta and Dave Berry) Please cite the published version. This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ 3 Anarchism, Individualism and Communism: William Morris’s Critique of Anarcho- communism Ruth Kinna Introduction William Morris’s commitment to revolutionary socialism is now well established, but the nature of his politics, specifically his relationship to Marxism and anarchist thought, is still contested. Perhaps, as Mark Bevir has argued, the ideological label pinned to Morris’s socialism is of ‘little importance’ for as long as his political thought is described adequately. Nevertheless, the starting point for this essay is that thinking about the application of ideological descriptors is a useful exercise and one which sheds important light on Morris’s socialism and the process of ideological formation in the late nineteenth-century socialist movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Kropotkin: Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition
    Kropotkin Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition Ruth Kinna © Ruth Kinna, 2016 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4229 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 1041 0 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 0501 0 (epub) The right of Ruth Kinna to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 Part 1 Portrait of the Anarchist as an Old Man 1. Out with the Old, in with the New 9 2. From New Anarchism to Post-anarchism 25 Conclusion to Part 1 45 Part 2 Coming Out of Russia Introduction to Part 2: (A Beautiful White Christ) Coming Out of Russia 49 3. Nihilism 55 4. Mapping the State 79 Conclusion to Part 2 105 Part 3 Revolution and Evolution Introduction to Part 3: The General Idea of Anarchy 119 5. Anarchism: Utopian and Scientifi c 127 6. The Revolution Will Not Be Historicised 155 Conclusion to Part 3 185 Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition 197 Notes 205 Bibliography 237 Index 259 iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Edinburgh University Press (EUP) for supporting this project, particularly James Dale who fi rst talked to me about the book and Nicola Ramsey and Michelle Houston who took the project over.
    [Show full text]