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Perspectives on Anarchist Theory the Violence of Bureaucracy 126 Is a Publication of the Institute Dalel Benbabaali for Anarchist Studies (IAS) Table of Contents Introduction 2 Lara Messersmith-Glavin Elsipogtog: River of Fire 8 Andréa Schmidt Theatre and the Art of Transgression 18 Tamara Lynne Octavia’s Brood: An Interview with Walidah Imarisha 34 Lara Messersmith-Glavin Liberating Linguistics 40 Alexander Reid Ross Do-It-Yourself Strategies for Revolutionary Study Groups 54 Mamos Rotnelli “Strict Discipline Combined with Social Equality”: Orwell on Leadership in the Spanish Militias 73 perspectives theory on anarchist Kristian Williams Building Revolutionary Anarchism 84 n.27 2014 Colin O’Malley The Heist of East 13th Street 97 Jackson Smith Editorial Collective: Lara Messersmith-Glavin, Paul Book Reviews Messersmith-Glavin, and The Black Freedom Struggle: Maia Ramnath. An Anarchist Perspective 107 Layout, Illustrations, and Cover Jonathan W. Hutto, Sr. Design: Josh MacPhee. Refusing the Planetary Work Machine 112 Photographs by the authors of Kevin Van Meter the essays. Insurgent Health 120 Javier Sethness Castro Perspectives on Anarchist Theory The Violence of Bureaucracy 126 is a publication of the Institute Dalel Benbabaali for Anarchist Studies (IAS). The We All Have a Stake, views expressed here do not We All Have Contributions to Make 131 necessarily reflect the IAS. Andrew Cornell Special Thanks: Will Munger, IAS Updates 136 Kristian Williams, Chris Dixon, Sara Anarchist Interventions 142 Rahnoma-Galindo, Harjit Singh Recent Grants 144 Gill, the Red and Black Café, Aiden About the IAS 148 and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Charles Overbeck from Eberhardt Contact us at [email protected]. Press, all the artists and writers and New articles, many not contained in our print edition, are everyone who has ever attended an continually posted on line at our website. You can see them at IAS benefit. Anarchiststudies.org, just look under “Perspectives.” o you remember the Spirograph? It has a de- ceptively simple design: Da piece of paper and a frame—a plastic ring with ridges on the inside that function as gears, and then other circles or shapes could be set inside the ring and turned with the tip of a pen. The results were dazzling portraits of geo- metric functions, often in the shapes of flowers or stars, but sometimes looping out into elliptical whorls, describing complex mathematical relationships in neat, concrete forms. Every time I picked up a pen and a new wheel, I would try to guess the shape that would Introduction bloom on the paper, and I was often surprised. There was always a system present, something clearly defining the LARA movements that were and were not MESSERSMITH-GLAVIN allowed, but it was difficult to know in advance what boundaries—and beau- for the perspectives ties—would emerge. editorial collective These images of interlocking lines, of space being sliced into ever-shrinking Lara Messersmith-Glavin teaches territories according to minute shifts developmental reading and writing at Portland in alignment or orientation, are close Community College. She is a member of the to what come to mind when I think of Guttery Writers, and is a regular performer the radical left in my community. My at the Astoria Fisher Poets Gathering. She mental image is more chaotic, more coedited the recently published Life During full of noise, but the feeling is similar. Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency I believe that we share, for the most (Oakland: AK Press, 2013), and is engaged part, a vision: we see a possible world in a number of local projects around climate in which oppressions that are systemati- change, anticapitalist organizing, and writing/ cally reproduced can be systematically literacy/education as tools of transformation. undone. We might share some ideas 4 Perspectives about what those oppressions look like; transformation of the self is intimately we certainly experience many of them linked with the transformation of all in common—some of us more than in order to produce an existence that others, some of us in different ways. is free from suffering or oppression. And yet, in the cacophony of critiques, As anarchists, we are part of a long the ease of online chatter, the frustration and storied tradition of people seek- at the slowness with which we experi- ing liberation not only for ourselves as ence (or don’t experience) social change, individuals, but for us all—now, and the longing to destroy negative patterns for future generations. And still, the and replace them with positive ones, we fundamental question of “how” remains often lose our sense of commonality. As to be answered. we each find our way through history The process of transformation and understanding, it can be difficult to can be both maddeningly gradual and be more than a line pointing this way or frighteningly quick, similar to Stephen that, carving the terrain into one side or Jay Gould’s notion of “punctuated another. It can be hard to maintain that equilibrium,” the idea of slow biological sense of collective purpose, to see the evolution being studded with mo- pattern of which we are all a part. ments of radical change. Strategizing How do we get to that possible for and anticipating social revolution world that we share in our hearts? And in this manner is often little more than how will we know when we’re there? guesswork and fortunetelling, as we Must we arrive all at once, together, or scramble through history texts to find is it a long, slow journey with a variety precedents, models, and lessons to help of destinations? show us the way forward—to recreate I take comfort in the fact that we successes while (hopefully) avoiding are not carrying these questions alone. mistakes of the past. Knowing which The puzzle of collective transforma- moments are ripe, which conditions are tion is neither new nor unique to left met or coming into being, even whether politics. In Mahayana Buddhism, for something has already shifted, can feel instance, the notion of the bodhisattva is like an impossible task at times. It is in one who vows to attain enlightenment these moments of doubt that our dif- for the sake of all sentient beings. In ferences loom large, that the noise and some traditions, this entails a profound static threaten to block out our collec- act of solidarity: a bodhisattva delays tive vision of hope. their own release from the wheel of In his book Art & Physics: Parallel suffering until all others are free, as Visions in Space, Time & Light, Leonard well. Judaic mysticism investigates the Shlain puts forth the thesis that revo- notion of tikun: a rectification for the lutionary changes in human thought soul. In some readings of Kabbalah, take place in fits and starts over time, once all souls successfully complete the and that each major shift in scientific process of rectification for wrongdoing, thinking (predominately physics, but the holy sparks that were lost when the other disciplines apply) is prefigured by vessels of the sephirot shattered will at a similar, prognostic change in contem- last be reunited, and evil will disappear porary art. Cubism, for example, both from the world. In both examples, the predicted and explored ideas of relativity on anarchist theory 5 at roughly the same time at which and the allure of underground political Albert Einstein was developing his organizing against corporations and 1905 paper “On the Electrodynamics of states. Both Beyoncé and Kanye West Moving Bodies.” The Surrealists began (with Jay-Z) have music videos that destabilizing viewers’ understanding of glorify the front lines of protest, trad- space and time well before the general ing mainstream memes for molotovs. population began to assimilate Einstein’s Many radicals rejoice at this evidence ideas. It is almost as if we, as humans, of our influence: no longer is our share a collective mind, and if scientists presence invisible outside of our own are the waking part of the brain that communities and cliques. Through plans and constructs, then artists are the translation, the struggle becomes visible dreaming mind, the one that explores to the masses, legitimized by the power the unknown territories as we—all of of pop. Millions of YouTube viewers humanity—sleep, only to awaken with watch as cultural heroes give their a brainstorm that feels, to the con- blessing to smashed windows and po- scious mind at least, like a sudden and lice cars in flames; Oscar award winners unprovoked stroke of genius, or what shoot arrows at the empire. Subversion Rainer Maria Rilke calls a “conflagration is sexy again. of clarity.” In fact, that idea or change in And yet where are those ideals we paradigm has been brewing in our col- are fighting for? Where is the vision of lective unconscious, in our products of the alternative world, beyond the bala- culture and our unarticulated views, for clavas and the barricades? Have these quite some time. “The radical innova- ideas gotten lost again in the noise? tions of art embody the preverbal stages I am neither surprised to see the of new concepts that will eventually recent years of global unrest reflected change a civilization,” Shlain writes. back to us through cinema, nor do I “Whether for an infant or a society on expect depictions of general assemblies the verge of change, a new way to think and spokescouncils to have the same about reality begins with the assimila- zing as armed revolt when translated tion of unfamiliar images. This collation to the big screen. And I’ll admit: I love leads to abstract ideas that only later Jennifer Lawrence. There were mo- give rise to a descriptive language.” ments of solidarity in Catching Fire that Does this mean, then, that we brought me to tears. Nonetheless, it is can look to art and the products of difficult for me to get genuinely excited culture to see evidence of the impact of about these representations of rebellion our organizing, of our struggles, before because they reduce the entire project we really start to feel the change on a of transformation into a free society to large scale? At the time of this writing, that insurrectionary moment, to the post-Occupy and pre-whatever comes symbolism of (usually) armed struggle next, we are seeing a new “anarchist without much framework for alternative chic” emerging from Hollywood and possibilities or dreaming.
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