1 INTRODUCTION Anarchy is anarchy, it is both organiza- Anarchy is the thing we want. It is tion (along completely different lines the Beautiful Idea. It is the entirely than the ones that currently exist on impractical idea that we can be, and a broad level), and chaos. It is each of must insist on being, totally free. From us having the ability to determine our domination, of course, but also from own lives and the ways that we relate mundanity and morality. It is the id to to others, from our most intimate rela- the super-ego of society and its sham- tionships to the more far-flung. ing, fear-instilling humiliations and Anarchy is impossible and it is self-inflicted limitations. that very impossibility that makes it Anarchy is an act of faith—a leap desirable. As desirable as the eventual into the unknown—and a totally sober lover or the water at the end of a long proposition. It is an explosion and the hike. As impossible as independence, simple things we do unconsciously. autonomy, and collaboration among It is something that predates civiliza- equals. tion and cannot be tamed by cities, Long Live Anarchy! governments, exchange, or politics. 2 3 ANARCHY themselves and destroy what stands in narchy describes a particular type their way. It is a situation free of any Aof situation, one in which either moral implications, presenting to each authority does not exist or its power of us the amoral challenge to live our to control is negated. Such a situation lives without constraints. guarantees nothing—not even the Since the anarchic situation is amor- continued existence of that situation, al, the idea of an anarchist morality is but it does open up the possibility for highly suspect. Morality is a system of each of us to start creating our lives principles defining what constitutes for ourselves in terms of our own right and wrong behavior. It implies desires and passions rather than in some absolute outside of individuals terms of social roles and the demands by which they are to define themselves, of social order. Anarchy is not the goal a commonality of all people that of revolution; it is the situation which makes certain principles applicable to makes the only type of revolution that everyone. Feral Faun interests me possible—an uprising The Cops in Our Heads: Some of individuals to create their lives for thoughts on anarchy and morality 4 5 s opponents of control, we human community, but positive and Ashould not assume an adversarial creative chaos (a natural “order” which position (like the forces of counter- the advocates of order designate as control), nor identify ourselves with disorder). Chaos is homologous with the oppressed (the controlled); rather, ecological order, and social ecology we should situate ourselves within the constitutes the specifically human matrix of anarchy, and become uncon- component within that order. It is trollables. Only then can we develop from this position that we must ap- a liberatory praxis, which simultane- proach those existential problems that ously promotes the disintegration remain so troubling. of the entire control complex, and John Moore facilitates others to reintegrate within Toward a Cultural Ecology of Anarchy the creative potentialities of anarchy. We should be neither demonic, nor humanist, but anarchic. Our divine principle should not be deistic power, or demonic, Dionysian energies, or 6 7 f anarchy does not have a road map capitalism) rather than on those who Ithen we (as anarchists) are free to have no goal at all or whose goal is work together. Our projects might antithetical to an anarchist one. not be of the same scale as the general An anarchy without road map or strike, or even the halting of business- adjectives does not ignore difference as-usual in a major metropolitan area, but instead places it in the context that but they would be anarchist projects. it belongs in. When we are faced with An anarchy without road map or a moment of extreme tension, when adjectives could be one where the everything that we know appears context of the decisions that we make about to change, then we may choose together will be of our own creation different forks in the road. Until that rather than imposed upon us. It could time anarchists should approach each be an anarchy of now rather than the other with the naïvete that we ap- hope of another day. It would place the proach the world with. If we believe burden of establishing trust on those that the world can change and could who actually have a common politi- change in a radical direction from the cal goal (the abo lition of the state and one traveled the past several thousand 8 9 years then we should have some trust he goals of anarchy don’t in others who desire the same things. (T)include replacing one rul- Aragorn! ing class with another, neither in the Anarchy without guise of a fairer boss or as a party. This Road Maps or Adjectives is key because this is what separates anarchist revolutionaries from Maoist, socialist, and nationalist revolutionar- ies who from the onset do not embrace complete revolution. They cannot en- vision a truly free and equalitarian so- ciety and must to some extent embrace the socialization process that makes exploitation and oppression possible and prevalent in the first place. Kuwasi Balagoon Anarchy Can’t Fight Alone 10 11 ur anarchy is an anarchy of abun- narchy is positioned to Odance. It must be in order to sur- (A)articulate—not a program— vive against the power of our enemies. but a number of revolutionary themes We are forcing the horizons wide open with contemporary relevance and to the imagination. We believe there resonance. It is unambiguously anti- can (and must) be a world that has both political, and many people are anti- wilderness and cities—a planet where political. It is hedonistic, and many people live in hunting-gathering tribes people fail to see why life is not to be and in the diverse neighborhoods of lived enjoyably if it is to be lived at all. cities. Where the goals of both groups It is “individualistic” in the sense that are in harmony. There is enough cre- if the freedom and happiness of the ativity in our minds, enough courage in our souls, and enough passion in our individual—ie, each and every really hearts to accommodate both green and existing person, every Tom, Dick and urban anarchy. No desire need succeed Murray—is not the measure of the by destroying the other. good society, what is? Many people Curious George Brigade wonder what’s wrong with wanting to Liberate not Exterminate be happy. Post-leftist anarchy is, if not 12 13 necessarily rejective, then at least sus- it. Its self-inflicted wounds await our picious of the chronically unfulfilled salt. If you don’t believe in progress, liberatory promise of high technology. it’ll never disappoint you and you And maybe most important of all is might even make some progress. the massive revulsion against work, Bob Black an institution which has become more Anarchy after Leftism (edited) and more important, and oppressive, to people outside academia who actu- ally have to work. Most people would rather do less work than attend more oth the benign and malignant meetings. Post-leftist anarchists mostly Bforms of anarchist identity politics don’t regard our times one-dimension- can be cured by the holistic traditional ally, as either a “decadent, bourgeoisi- medicine of action and experiential fied era” of “social reaction” or as the anarchy. By leaving the coffee shop, dawning of the Age of Aquarius. The hip clothing store, discussion board, system, unstable as ever, never ceases or annual conference and taking a trip into either a wild place or tak- to create conditions which undermine 14 15 ing action beyond going to meetings makes you an anarchist, or at least one you will certainly break the spell of that’s worth anything. Anarchism as any case of anarchist identity politics. intellectual project and hip culture has Does it seem strange to anyone that sterilized the wild spirit of anarchy, so many anarchists make no priority which can only be regained through to leave the range of the police state the experience of action and wildness. ever, i.e. taking a trip to the forest or Anarchism: The New visiting tree-sit campaigns? Because it Identity Politics is not enough to say I’m an anarchist Green Anarchy Magazine #9 period. Even if an entire subculture in a hip urban scene allows this illusion to flourish, you must rebel. Because y taking for our watchword anar- the species and cultures going ex- Bchy, in its sense of no-government, tinct everyday don’t care if you are an we intend to express a pronounced anarchist, your identity means noth- tendency of human society. In his- ing, its your action towards anarchy tory we see that precisely those epochs and your experience of anarchy that when small parts of humanity broke 16 17 down the power of their rulers and limiting more and more the sphere of reassumed their freedom were epochs action of government, so as to leave of the greatest progress, economical more and more liberty to the initiative and intellectual. Be it the growth of the of the individual. After having tried all free cities, whose unrivalled monu- kinds of government, and endeavor- ments—free work of free associations ing to solve the insoluble problem of of workers—still testify of the revival having a government ‘which might of mind and of the well-being of the compel the individual to obedience, citizen; be it the great movement without escaping itself from obedience which gave birth to the Reforma- to collectively,’ humanity is trying now tion—those epochs witnessed the to free itself from the bonds of any greatest progress when the individual government whatever, and to respond recovered some part of his freedom.