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Well, a lot of accidents happen at this intersection, because in many ways poststructuralism conflicts with the anarchist tradition. anarchist theory typically assumes a greater degree of realism (in the philosophical sense -- belief in an independently existing objective reality) than some PS theorists are willing to countenance. many anarchists have a big problem with PS strictures against universalizing: if every generalization is "essentialist" or "totalitarian," how can we say, for instance, that all wage labor is exploitation? the PS theorist gilles deleuze punningly speaks of "thought without a General," but from the standpoint of activism, this ultra-specific way of thinking might look ultra-toothless. (so i tend to think.) on the other hand . . . well, have you read todd may's *The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism*, or andrew koch's essays on PS and anarchism? both see a connection in that anarchism, like PS, centers on a "rejection of representation" -- primarily in the sense of political representation (denying that a "representative" can ever adequately "speak for" a constituent, or that a leninist "vanguard party" can ever "stand for" the interests of the people), but perhaps also in the sense of symbolic representation (denying, for instance, that wages and prices can ever accurately "stand for" the value of labor -- see peter kropotkin's *The Conquest of Bread*). and as i mentioned in my last post, there is the PS critique of essentialism (the belief that things have a fixed "nature" or "essence" that makes them what they are and governs their behavior), which many anarchists find useful as a tool for attacking racist and sexist ideologies. contrary to popular belief, the anarchist tradition is by no means welded to some pollyanna notion of human beings as constituted by a "good human nature"; we know just how great a role socialization and education play in making us who we are. we're aware of what anthropology and history have to tell us about just how flexible human beings can be, how many forms human life can take, and we delight in that diversity. (however, anarchists also tend to want to argue that human beings *do* have certain things in common, even on a biological level -- for instance, our shared needs for food, shelter, and nurturance . . . and we've also historically asserted the existence of real social classes, with shared class interests -- see the writings of folks like rudolf rocker . . .) i'm working on a book right now in which i argue that the issues of representationalism and essentialism need to be rethought, because a.) while it is true that nasty ideologies entail essentialism of a certain kind, i don't think that essentialism per se is a bad thing, an error, or even avoidable, and b.) while the anarchist tradition does indeed launch a critique of representation, this critique does not and should not amount to a simple "rejection of representation." at the same time, i do think that PS offers a useful corrective to common-sense or naive realism by making us aware that how we represent reality makes a difference -- that the world does not necessarily come carved into neat chunks, and that social and political identities are not necessarily given or to be taken for granted. have you seen a recent film called *The Impostors*, a comedy with stanley tucci and oliver platt? there's a scene in it which illustrates the kind of problem that PS can help us to rethink. arthur and maurice (played by tucci and platt), two out-of-work actors during the depression, hatch a plan: maurice will insult the proprietor of the bakery, and arthur will come to the baker's defense, so that the baker will reward him with "a cornucopia of delicacies." the plan goes completely haywire, however, when arthur, getting a little too excited by the drama of his role, calls maurice a "bourgeois pig" and accuses him of "exploiting" this "hard-working gentleman" who "works like a lackey from rise to set." the baker gets confused and upset, insisting that he's *not* really "miserable." arthur calls him "a slave and an idiot" -- whereupon maurice throws *arthur* out and is rewarded by a *very* distraught baker. it's a little joke about identity. arthur tries to align himself with the baker by identifying as a "worker" as against maurice's presumed "bourgeois" identity. the problem is that the baker doesn't accept this identity -- to use a term from the theorist louis althusser, he doesn't respond to arthur's "hailing" him as a fellow proletarian. the miscommunication that ensues is disastrous. leftists of practically every stripe, from liberals to anarchists, have been playing out this scenario over and over again. we get caught up in our own representations of the world, our own accounts of how things really are, forgetting that not everyone shares them -- and then we are scandalized to see that people are behaving like "slaves and idiots," voting for their own repression, acquiescing happily to their own subjugation and destruction. we forget that others see what happens at the workplace in terms of the ideology of the "free contract," as an even exchange in which both parties benefit, rather than as exploitation of the employee/subordinate by the employer/dominator. we protest the "new slavery" of "the prison-industrial system," but others see it as a guarantor of justice and safety. we call for "liberation"; others think "liberty" is what we *have* here. we talk about "the U.S. war machine," and others bristle at this characterization of what they take to be the "defenders" of our "freedom." we talk about "the violence of the system," but our protests are seen *as* a violent disruption of a peaceful norm. our "common sense" and theirs don't match up. the easy thing to do in this frustrating situation is to call people slaves and idiots. a more difficult but better tactic would be to try to understand how others' representations of reality differ from ours and why, and to use this understanding to produce a more effective rhetoric. PS, i would argue, offers us some tools to do this with. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/postanarchism ___________________________________________ Rekombinant http://www.rekombinant.org
