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David Graeber What is Anarchism? { excerpt from Direct Action } David Graeber What is Anarchism? { Excerpt from Direct Action p 211-222 } reason I started the chapter product of those anarchist organizations, much larger movements that eventually came to be producers railing against the bigger ones. ONEas I did was because I also less were their actions planned or sponsored inspired by those ideas, and then document They had nothing to teach revolutionaries. wanted to convey something of the flavor by them; rather they almost invariably turned the political struggles, wars, revolutions, and Only the industrial proletariat, who had of anarchist debate, which has always tended out to be isolated individuals with no more projects of social reform which ensued. But absolutely no stake in the existing system, to differ from the more familiar, Marxist style ongoing ties to anarchist life than the if one looks at what those supposed found- could be a genuinely revolutionary class. in focusing more on these kind of concrete Unabomber, and usually about a roughly ing figures actually said, one finds most of Some would no doubt object that this view of questions of practice. Many have complained equivalent hold on sanity. It was rather as them did not really see themselves as creat- Marx’s thought is a bit crude and unnuanced that anarchism lacks high theory. Even those if the existence of anarchist gave lone gun- ing some great new theory. They were more and probably they’d be right. But it represents who are considered its founding figures— men something to call themselves. But the likely to see themselves as giving a name and 6 the view that soon became canonical among Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin— situation created endless moral dilemmas voice to a certain kind of insurgent common those who claimed to speak in the name of often seem more pamphleteers and moralists for anarchist writers and lecturers like Peter sense, one they assumed to be as old as history. Marxism. My purpose here is not to argue the than true philosophers, and the best-known Kropotkin or Emma Goldman. By what right While anarchism, as a movement, tended to merits of the case but to emphasize the degree anarchists of more recent times have been could an anarchist denounce an individual who be very strongly rooted in mass organizing of to which we have been viewing the entire more likely to produce witty slogans, wild kills a tyrant, no matter how disastrous the the industrial proletariat, anarchists (including anarchist project, essentially, through the eyes poetic rants, or science fiction novels than results for the larger movement? The whole those who were themselves industrial workers) of its rivals. Even more, that anarchism tends sophisticated political economy or dialectical issue was the subject of endless intense moral also tended to draw inspiration from exist- to involve a different relation of theory and analysis.5 There are thousands of Marxists debate: not only about whether such acts ing modes of practice, notably on the part practice than what came to be called ‘Marxism’. academics but very few Anarchist ones. This were (or could ever be) legitimate, but about of peasants, skilled artisans, or even, to some The latter is—for all materialist pretensions— is not because anarchism is anti-intellectual whether it was legitimate for anarchist who did degree, outlaws, hobos, vagabonds, and profoundly idealist. The history of Marxism is so much as because it does not see itself as not feel such acts were wise or even legitimate others who lived by their wits—in other words, presented to us as a history of great thinkers— fundamentally project of analysis. It is more a to publicly condemn them. It has always been those who were to some degree in control of there are Leninists, Maoists, Trotskyites, moral project. these kinds of practical, moral questions that their own lives and conditions of work, who Gramscians, Althusserians—even brutal have tended to stir anarchist passions: What is might be considered, at least to some degree, As I’ve written elsewhere (Graeber 2002, dictators like Stalin or Enver Hoxha had to direct action? What kind of tactics are beyond autonomous elements. One might say, in 2004), Marxism has tended to be a theoreti- pretend to be great philosophers, because the the pale and what sort of solidarity do we owe Marxist terms, that they were people with cal or analytical discourse about revolutionary idea was always that one starts with one man’s to those who employ them? Or: what is the some experience of non-alienated production. strategy: anarchism, an ethical discourse about profound theoretical insight and the political most democratic way to conduct a meeting? Such people had experience of life outside the revolutionary practice. The basic principles tendency follows from that. Anarchist tenden- At what point does organization stop being state or capitalist bureaucracies, salaries and of anarchism—self-organization, voluntary cies, in contrast, never trace back to a single empowering and become stifling and wage labor; they were aware such relations association, mutual aid, the opposition to all theorist’s insights—we don’t have Proudhoni- bureaucratic? For analyses of the nature of were not inevitable; quite often, they viewed forms of coercive authority—are essentially ans and Kropotkinites—but Associationalists, the commodity form or the mechanics of them as intrinsically immoral. They were moral and organizational. Individualists, Syndicalists, and Platformists. alienation, most have been content to draw often themselves more drawn to anarchism In just about every case, divisions are based on Admittedly, this flies in the face of the popular on the written work of Marxist intellectuals as an explicit political philosophy, and at least a difference of organizational philosophy and image of anarchist as bomb-throwing crazies (which are usually, themselves, drawn from in some times and places (Spanish peasants, revolutionary practice. opposed to all forms of organization—but, ideas that originally percolated through Swiss watchmakers) formed en mass base— if one examines how this reputation came a broader worker’s movement in which what’s more, those elements of the industrial How, then, do we think about a political about, it tends to reinforce my point. The anarchists were very much involved). Which proletariat that tended to find the most affinity movement in which the practice comes first period of roughly 1875 to 1925 marked the also means that, for all the bitter and often with anarchism were those who were the least and theory is essentially, secondary? peak of a certain phase of anarchist organiz- violent disagreements anarchists have had removed from other modes of life. Marx It strikes me that it might be helpful, rather ing: there were hundreds of anarchist unions, with Marxists about how to go about making himself tended to dismiss the anarchist base than starting from the word “anarchism,” to confederations, revolutionary leagues, and so a revolution, there has always been a kind of as a particularly inauspicious combination of start from the word “anarchist.” What sorts on. There was a spurt, towards the beginning, complementarily here, at least in potentia.7 “petty bourgeoisie” and “lumpen proletariat,” of people, or ideas or institutions, can this of calls for the assassination of heads of and considered the notion that they could in This is why I think it’s deceptive to write the word refer to? Generally speaking, one finds state (Anderson, 2006), it was quite brief and any way stand outside capitalism ridiculous. history of anarchism in the same way one three different ways the term can be employed. anarchist spokesmen and organized groups Capitalism, for Marx, was a totalizing system. would write the history of an intellectual First, one can refer to people who endorse quickly withdrew support from this strategy It shaped the consciousness of all those who tradition like Marxism. It is not that one can- an explicit doctrine known as “anarchism” as counterproductive. Nonetheless, following lived under it in the most intimate fashion. not tell the story of this way if one wants to. (or sometimes “anarchy”)—or perhaps more decades saw a continual stream of dramatic The kind of critiques of capitalism one saw Most books on anarchism do. They start with precisely, a certain vision of human possi- assassinations by people calling themselves an- in authors like Proudhon or Bakunin, Marx certain founding intellectual figures (Godwin, bilities. This is more or less the conventional archists. I am not aware of any actual assassin argued, were simply the voice of a petit bour- Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin), explain the radi- definition. Anarchists become the bearers of during this particular period who actually was a geois morality, the small-scale merchants and cal ideas they developed, tell the story of the an intellectual tradition: one whose history can indeed be traced back to the founding figures their best to find ways to live without it. Still, some things that would otherwise be extremely ideology anything like the traditional sense in the nineteenth century, that spread quite in the first case, an egalitarian ethos may well puzzling. For example: why what passes as of the term. Let me take one example— rapidly by the turn of the century to the remain largely inchoate. In theory, at least, anarchist theory often bears so little relation Primitivism— perhaps the most obvious outré. point where anarchist literature was being one living in an anarchistic society might be to what the majority of anarchists say and In America, Primitivist ideas first began to take avidly read in places like China and India well entirely unaware that there is any other way to do? If one were to try and understand North form in circles surrounding a journal called before Marxism or other strains of Western live; anyway, such a person will probably only American anarchism simply by reading the Fifth Estate, in Detroit, in the 1970s and revolutionary thought had made much of develop explicit anti-authoritarian attitudes theoretical or ideological statements in the 1980s. The argument began as a synthesis of an impression (e.g., Dirlik 1991), but over once she encounters someone with very differ- best known and widely distributed explicitly a certain strain of Marxism with ideas first the course of the early twentieth century ent assumptions—say, for example, a foreign anarchist periodicals, one would end up with articulated by socialist heretics such as Jacques was largely displaced by it.8 Any number of conqueror. Similarly, those indignant about an impression that most anarchist were either Ellul and Jacques Camatte, who came to see prominent figures of the time, from Picasso to being pushed around by social superiors will Primitivists opposed to all forms of technol- the nature of technology itself as lying at the Mao, began their political lives as anarchist and often examine their own ways of dealing with ogy, even agriculture, or extreme anti-organi- core of more of what Marx saw as alienating ended up Communists. But one can also speak friends and neighbors as evidence that hierar- zationalists, suspicious of any group of more and oppressive about capital, and thus rejected more broadly. It’s certainly not unheard of chy is not a natural and inevitable feature of than six or seven people—and that most of the idea that the proletariat, as an essential part to hear historians refer to, say, peasant rebels human life. They might very well start valuing the remainder had declared their allegiance to a of the global “megamachine,” could possibly in early China, or religious radicals in medi- the equality of those relations, or even try to document called “The Organizational Platform be the agents of a revolution (Miller 2004). As eval Europe as “anarchists”—meaning that deal with such people in more self-consciously of the General Union of Anarchists” written part of a broader critique developing around they rejected the authority of governments, egalitarian fashion than they had before. The by Russian émigrés in Paris in 1924. One that time of the productivist bias in traditional and believed people would be better off in a nineteenth-century Spanish peasant and Swiss might also come to the conclusion that the leftist thought, it’s hard to see this as anything world without hierarchies. In this sense, there watchmakers who found the ideas of Proud- popular impression of anarchists as wild-eyed, but perfectly normal debate. By the 1990s, have always been anarchists, and there is no hon or Bakunin so amenable—and who Marx impractical nihilists dedicated to rebellion for however, the most aggressive strain of Primi- great intellectual tradition that hasn’t seen the denounced as petit bourgeois—were clearly its own sake was probably not that far from tivist thought began to coalesce around the development of anarchist ideas in one form doing exactly that. the truth; or, at least, that anarchists seemed figure of John Zerzan, one time ultra-leftist, or another. (This is of course why the ideas of to be divided between nihilists and fervent sec- who began expressing utter hostility not only What I would like to argue is that “anarchism” the nineteenth-century European anarchists tarians whose main form of political practice to “the Left” but to “civilization” itself. Zerzan is the best thought of, not as any one of these could make sense to people in other parts is mutual denunciations. Examining anarchist basically took the most radical position that it things—not as a vision, but neither quite as of the world to begin with.) Finally, there is discussion pages on the internet would do little was possible to take, arguing that everything an attitude of set of practices. It is, rather, a third sense. When an anthropologists like to disabuse them of this impression. When from plan domestication to music, writing, best thought of as that very movement back 9 Evans-Pritchard refers to the Nuer as living in I first became involved in anarchist politics, math, art, and ultimately, even speech— and forth between these three. After all, the an “ordered anarchy” (1940), or Joanna Over- therefore, I was surprised to discover that not basically all forms of symbolic representation, experience of foreign conquest or subordina- ing uses the word to describe the Amazonian only did the overwhelming majority of activist anything other than absolute, direct, unmedi- tion will not necessarily cause once egalitarian Piaroa (1986, 1988), they are not referring who considered themselves anarchists not ated experience—were really forms of alien- communities to reject the very idea of hierar- to either doctrines or, even, quite, to anti- identify with any of these positions, many were ation that could only be overcome through the chy, or to become more assiduously egalitarian authoritarian rebelliousness. They are referring not even aware of them. Others, who do read destruction of civilization in its entirety, and a in their way of dealing with each other: the primarily to institutions, habits, and practices. the magazines, read them mainly for entertain- return to the stone age. Now, the influence of effect might well be exactly the opposite. It’s That is, there are certain societies characterized ment value. Elsewhere, I’ve referred to these Zerzan on anarchism has been considerably when the three reinforce each other—when a by egalitarian forms of organization—whether non-sectarians as “small-a” anarchists, to overstated in the media, but, there are a signifi- revulsion against oppression causes people to systems of exchange, forms of decision- distinguish them from those who identify cant of Green Anarchists who take these ideas try to live their lives in a more self-consciously making, or simply the accustomed ways of with any one particular strain: Green Anachist, very seriously, and these Green Anarchists egalitarian fashion, when they draw on those going about everyday life—and this tends Individualists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, post-Left- produce any number of zines and journals experiences to produce visions of a more to inculcate, and be supported by, a broadly ists, Platformists, and so on. While statistics are that aggressively tout these ideas, engaging just society, when those visions, in turn, cause egalitarian ethos. Anarchism, in this sense, is unavailable, Chuck Munson, who occasionally in constant vitriolic debates with anyone them to see existing social arrangements as a way of living, or at least, a set of practices. surveys those who frequent infoshop.com— willing to cast doubt on any aspect even more illegitimate and obnoxious—that informs me that about 90% of American of the ultra-Primitivist position. In other words, one can see “anarchism” one can being to talk about anarchism. Hence 10 anarchists would seem to fit into the small-a either as a vision, as an attitude, or as a set of anarchism is in no sense a doctrine. It’s a The idea of a return to the paleolithic—the category, sine only about 10% are willing to practices. The distinction between the last two movement, a relationship, a process of purifi- rejection of plant domestication, let along identify themselves with any particular subset. is admittedly somewhat fuzzy. Those who go cation, inspiration, and experiment. This is its language—is obviously absurd. It would about their daily lives on an egalitarian basis very substance. All that really changed in the What’s more, even many of those who do require reducing the earth’s population by tend to do so because they feel that is what nineteenth century is that some people began identify themselves with on particular strain at least 99.9% Nor are Primitivists entirely people ought to do; those who find all forms to give this process a name. Looking at it this act in ways that would be impossible to unaware of this: the Fifth Estate people had of hierarchy objectionable will, ordinarily, do way does make it much easier to understand understand if we were dealing with a political long debate about the problem back in the 1970s, the editors coming to the conclusion networks, feminists groups, bicycle campaigns, anarchist rejection of political representation political authority. Thus no anarchist writings that, since they didn’t really wish to see a squats, cooperative bookstores, anti-war cam- becomes a rejection of representation in any are authoritative or definitive in the sense global catastrophe such as nuclear war, paigns, campaigns for the rights of immigrants, for, even art or language. For most Primitivists, that Marx’s writing have been regarded by the best one could hope for was a gradual housing rights, cop-watch programs, and pretty this is what we are mainly dealing with: a com- his followings (1971: ix).” process of negative population growth. much every other major manifestation of prehensive critique of alienating institutions, In fact, most of what serves the same role Most current Primitivists seem to alternate anarchist organizing. Often, in fact, Primitivists and a kind of impossible dream-vision of total as theory in anarchism makes some gesture between openly espousing industrial and turn out to be amongst the most reliable and liberation that can, if nothing else, provide to subvert any possibility of its being used demographic collapse—I have heard some dedicated activists around. inspiration and continually remind one why as an authoritative text. Primitivism perhaps argue that humankind is a virus which needs one is in rebellion to begin with. For many, Confronted with this sort of contradiction, most closely resembles a traditional sectarian to be largely eradicated—to, in defiance of all the fact that this makes no sense whatsoever it’s hard to avoid asking the same question ideology in trying to vanquish all opposing logic and common sense, denying that massive to outsiders is probably a major element in Evans-Pritchard asked about Zande witchcraft: positions, but its content is palpably fantastic population decline would even be necessary its appeal. “how can otherwise reasonable people claim and for the most part could not possibly be (Zerzan often does this before non-anarchist to believe this sort of thing?” If one points Let me take an apparently very different reflected in practice. Some visions take the audiences). At the same time, these same out some of these contradictions to actual example. One of the main forms for the form of novels. Others read like comedy authors will regularly denounce anyone who advocates of Primitivism—for instance, asking dissemination of anarchist ideas in recent years routines. One of the more popular anarchist advocates the classic anarchist strategy of them to reflect on what would actually happen in America have been feminist science fiction authors of the 1990s—the inventor, for “building a new society in the shell of the if the population of, say, Bangladesh were to novels: from Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed instance, of the concept of the “Tempo- old.” They ridicule any talk of the slow, one day decide to stop practicing agriculture— (1974) to Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing rary Autonomous Zone”—writes under the painful creation of new institutions as out- the usual reply will be “but its not a program! (1993). They operate in a similar way. They persona of Hakim Bey, an insane Ismaili poet moded “Leftism,” arguing that only the It’s a critique.” Alternately, they might chal- are crystallizations of certain tendencies of with an erotic obsession with young boys, his complete destruction of all existing structures lenge the very logical pragmatic terms of thought, extrapolations from certain forms writing taking the form of communiqués from and institutions, followed by a return to our the argument, and insist these are poetic, of practice, experiments in utopian imagining. a non-existent Moorish Orthodox Church. instinctual “wildness,” could possibly bring intuitive understanding about the state of The main difference is that sine the visions about real liberation. Bey’s mystical pretensions typify another a world that is fundamentally dislocated and developed in novels are not claiming to be any- tendency: to identify the space that might My purpose is not to critique the Primitivist wrong. Similarly, even the most avid fans of thing but fiction, those who enjoy reading (or otherwise be filled by theory, the transcenden- position: this is obviously pointless. It clearly Zerzan will usually admit, if pressed, that writing) them do not tend to claim alternative tal position, as it were, with the sacred, but makes no sense to attach any strategy other they aren’t really in favor of the abolition of visions are wrong. In the case of Green then to make the sacred ridiculous. I’ll be than waiting for catastrophe, and then deny language, but instead emphasize the degree to Anarchism, the vitriolic quality of so much talking about this habit later on when I discuss one is advocating catastrophe. My real point which language can be deceptive, ideological, of the writing seems to result from the conflu- the role of giant puppets—what might be is: if this were classic ideological position, or mask and occlude more direct forms ence of two factors. On the one hand, the called the main sacred objects of the move- one should expect the effects to be utterly of experience. urgency of the ecological cause, the sense ment (but also self-consciously foolish ones). de-politicizing. If one were really looking that the planet is being destroyed and we are All this, I think, does much to explain the Here, suffice it to say that the relation of forward to industrial collapse or some similar all doomed anyway if something isn’t done appeal, and the reason Primitivism tends anarchism to spirituality has always been apocalypse, the most obvious course of action very quickly, and a certain habit of extremely towards such absolutes. It is really an attempt complex and ambivalent. In the nineteenth and would be that followed by right-wing surviv- contentious argument inherited from the to take absolutely seriously those feelings of early twentieth centuries, European anarchism alists in the 1980s: take to the woods, dig a sectarian Marxist origins of so many of utter alienation that drive so many middle- always tended to be strongest in countries— bunker, and begin stockpiling canned food and the original participants. class, white teenagers to anarchism in the first 11 Russia, Spain, Italy—with a powerful church, automatic weapons. Or, alternately, perhaps, place, and to at least try to imagine a world In this, they are unusual. As I mentioned, and tended to take on a radically atheist tone, find a distant island and try to begin reviving in which every aspect of alienation would be anarchists have long tended to shun high identifying the very notion of God with the stone-age technologies. To my knowledge no totally extinguished. The result can only be a theory. As David Wieck put it back in 1971 principle of hierarchy and unquestioning proponent of Green Anarchism has ever done kind of myth. Primitivists will often admit this (long before anyone had thought of the term authority. (So Bakunin’s famous phrase anything of either sort. Instead, they tend to too, claiming that widespread myths of apoca- ‘postmodern’): “if God really existed, it would be necessary act very much like any other anarchist. Primi- lypse, and of the garden of Eden, are intuitive to abolish him.” There were exceptions— tivists may be more likely to become involved “Anarchism has always been anti-ideological: understandings of real truths: that we once Christian anarchists like Tolstoy—but they in ecological or animal rights campaigns than anarchists have always insisted on the priority did live in a kind of paradise, that we lost it, were usually not closely related to social in, say, union-organizing, but in New York, of life and action to theory and system. and that through a catastrophic collapse of movements.) Some have argued that Spanish for instance, I know ardent Green Anarchists Subjection to a theory implies, in practice, industrial society, we will get it back again. The anarchism, particularly in its rural manifesta- who’ve worked with the Independent Media subjection to an authority (a party) which myth of apocalypse comes to substitute for tions, itself took on some of the qualities of Center, in Direct Action Network (DAN), interprets the theory authoritatively, and the faith in revolution. It is, in a way, the same a prophetic, millenarian religion (Brenan 1943; in video collectives, Food Not Bombs chap- this subjection would fatally undermine the thing, except more absolute: the traditional cf. Borkenau 1937)—but, if so, it was one ters, community gardens, prisoner-support intention of creating a society without central whose main rituals involved acts like burning understanding that will instruct others in churches, or removing the mummified bodies the proper conduct of revolution. It is not an of nuns from church crypts to reveal the ideology, a theory of history. It tends, rather, corruption lurking below (Lincoln 1991). towards a kind of inspirational, creative play. In contemporary anarchism this hostility has It is more than anything else an extrapolation notes largely faded away: in part because in many from the imaginative projection of certain countries, the church has lost so much of its forms of practice: the experience of working power; in part because so many anarchist allies in a small affinity group becomes the model 5 In fact anarchists have long taken much 11 One might say, in fact, that Zerzan’s, (indigenous peoples, for example, or in the for Primitivist idealizations of the hunter/ of their political economy from Marxists—a or Bob Black’s, endless blanket denunciations United States, Quakers, radical priests and gatherer band, assumed to be the only social tradition which goes back to Bakunin, who of “Leftism” are themselves an extreme version ministers) are likely to have come to their unit for most of human history; the experience though he was a political rival of Marx, also of one tendency within the very Leftism they politics through religious convictions; in of real experiments in worker control becomes was responsible for the first translation of condemn. part, too, because of the development of the basis for an imaginary planet in the science Capital into Russian—rather than feeling 12 Barbara Epstein was already puzzling over specifically anarchist forms of spirituality fiction story; the experience of sisterhood obliged to set up some anarchist school or the phenomenon when discussing the role of such as feminist paganism. At the same time, becomes the model for a matriarchal Goddess political economy of their own. Though to feminist spirituality in the direct action move- specifically anarchist forms of spirituality religion; the experience of a wild moment be fair, early anarchists also tended to point ment of the early 1980s—the fact that “many are—in addition to being inherently pluralistic of collective poetic inspiration or even a out that almost all the concepts attributed to Pagans simultaneously believe in the Goddess and open-ended (hence polytheism)—almost particularly good party becomes the basis of Marx (or for that matter Proudhon) were really as reality and the Goddess as metaphor for the always at least a trifle self-effacing and capable a theory of the Temporary Autonomous Zone. developed within the worker’s movement of the power of human collectivity and human bonds of distance from themselves.12 Many pagans Even when contemporary anarchist turn to time, and merely systematized and elaborated with nature. In the same way, many participants have a striking ability to see their views as Marxism, their overwhelming favorite theorists by theorists. profoundly true, and simultaneously, as a kind are the Situations Raouls Vaneigem (1967) and in the direct action movement have simultane- of whimsical comedy. Often they seem to be Guy Debord (1967) the Marxist theorist closes 6 Malatesta made exactly this argument at ously held naïve and sophisticated concepts of engaging at the same time in a ritual and the to the avant-garde tradition of trying to unify the time (1913). magical politics” (Epstein 1991: 184). By which parody of a ritual; the point where laughter theory, art, and life. 7 If existing Marxists were to abandon practical she means, both the belief that a blockade and self-mockery are likeliest to come into in itself can shut down a nuclear plant, and If anarchism is not an attempt to put a politics entirely and retreat into the academy, the picture is precisely the point where one that it can raise consciousness and change certain sort of theoretical vision into practice, producing endless volumes of Marxist analyses approaches the most numinous, unknowable, the public’s frameworks of understanding in but is instead a constant mutual exchange on every topic under the sun and overwhelm- or profound. The same whimsical, playful such a way that it can contribute to its closing. between inspirational visions, anti-authoritarian ing all other intellectual tendencies, then most quality is reflected in a good deal of pagan Actually, I’ve argued elsewhere that this kind of attitudes, and egalitarian practices, it’s easy to anarchists would consider this an altogether feminist literature, as in other branches of doublethink is typical of magical practice pretty see how ethnography could become such an positive development. anarchist theory, and appears to reflect a much anywhere, from Madagascar to Nepal appropriate tool for its analysis. This is precise- 8 Even here things are a bit more subtle— sensibility that, at its best, sees “theory” as, (Graeber 2002) ly what ethnography is supposed to do: tease many of the founding figures of anarchism were if anything, a form of creative writing, both out the implicit logic in a way of life, along Russians, who did not really identify with what 13 As Bob Black puts it in “The Abolition of profoundly true because its highlights certain with its related myths and rituals, to grasp the they thought of as “the West”—but this is how Work”: “You may be wondering if I’m joking or otherwise invisible aspects of reality, but at the sense of a set of practices. Of course, another the story is normally told. serious. I’m joking and serious.” same time profoundly foolish, in that it does way of doing so would be simply to follow so by being willingly blind to other aspects. 9 Many anarchist newsgroups, for example, 13 anarchist debates, as I did at the beginning, Also, one in which imagination, the ability to tend to be dominated by right-wing free- since these have tended to center on ethical create new theories, visions, or anything else, market enthusiasts who call themselves and organizational questions. Nowadays, these is itself the ultimate, unknowable, sacred thing. “anarcho-capitalists,” who seem to exist only debates center most of all on how to combat on the Internet; at least, I have been involved in All this is perhaps a bit overstated: the reader racism and sexism in the movement, about anarchist politics for five or six years now and should probably not take my own theoretical forms of decision-making, and questions of have yet to actually meet one. effusion too much more seriously than those violence and non-violence. […] about which I’m writing. The main point, 10 Zerzan became famous immediately after though, is that—unlike some of the “classi- Seattle in part because journalists all suddenly cal” works of Proudhon, Kropotkin, Rocker, wanted to speak to an anarchist, and he was Malatesta, De Santillan, and others, written the only one most had in their Rolodex, since in the shadow of Marxism—contemporary he was for a while a suspect in the Unabomber anarchist “theory,” such as it is, is most explic- case. itly not intended to provide a comprehensive 1000littlehammers.wordpress.com