Bob Black

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Bob Black at a book fair (2011)

Bob Black (born January 4, 1951 ; maiden name Robert Charles Black, Jr. ) is an American anarchist and author . At the beginning of the 1970s he was one of the first representatives of what is now known as post-left anarchy , a current of anarchism that seeks to emancipate itself from left ideologies , especially left authoritarianism . In his writings, Black criticizes in a confrontational way many taboos of the left , the civil movement and the anarchists. Black is best known for his 1986 book The Abolition of Work and Other Essays , which has been translated into several languages. Because of his criticism from the point of view of the post-left anarchy and several controversial incidents, he is considered suspect by parts of the anarchist movement in the USA. Bob Black is a civil law attorney based in San Francisco .

life and work

Bob Black was part of the New Left during his student days without being part of any group. Disappointed by the ideology of authoritarian socialism , he discovered anarchism for himself, and from then on analyzed and criticized authoritarian tendencies in allegedly anti-authoritarian left groups. His work from the early 1980s (published in the anthology The Abolition of Work and Other Essays ) also contains criticism of the anti-nuclear weapons movement ("Anti-Nuclear Terror or I Feel a Chiliasm" from 1982), of radical feminists ( "Feminism as Fascism" from 1983), as well as at the Libertarian Party ("The Libertarian As Conservative" from 1984). Though not an anarcho-primitivist , Black has published in anarcho-primitivist publications and has been a major influence on this trend.

"To call yourself an anarchist is to invite identification with an unpredictable array of associations, an ensemble which is unlikely to mean the same thing to any two people, including any two anarchists."

- Bob Black : My Anarchism Problem (1994) 

Black's most influential work, The Abolition of Work , is based on the ideas of Charles Fourier , William Morris , Paul Goodman , and Marshall Sahlins . Originally the essay was a speech that Bob Black gave in February 1981 in the "Gorilla Grotto" in San Francisco. In 1986 Black revised the text, and published it for the first time.

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Bob Black: Abolition of Work and Other Essays . Loompanics Unlimited, Port Townsend (WA) 1986. ISBN 0-915-17941-5 . Text of the book (Retrieved July 27, 2008)
  2. The essay The abolition of work was published in:
    • German: The abolition of work . From the American by Daniel Kulla. Pieper and the Grüne Kraft, Löhrbach 2003. ISBN 3-922708-04-8 .
    • Italian: L 'abolizione del lavoro . Nautilus, Turin 1992.
    • Dutch: Werken is dwang . From the American by Dick Gevers and Bart Schellekens. Iris, Amsterdam 2001. In: Anarchist teksten , ISSN  1871-613X
    • Portuguese: A abolição do trabalho . From the American by Abdouline Sam Boyd and Lumir Nahodil. Crise Luxuosa, Lisbon 1998.
    • Swedish: Lägg ner arbetet . From the American by Rolf Brangstad. Spirea, Uppsala 1997. ISBN 91-972373-6-1 .
    • Spanish: La Abolición Del Trabajo . Essay online (Retrieved January 8, 2017)
  3. See Chaz Bufe: Listen Anarchist! . 1987, with a new foreword by Janet Biehl, See Sharpe Press, 2000. Text online (Retrieved July 27, 2008)
  4. ^ Anti-Nuclear Terror (Retrieved August 25, 2008)
  5. Feminism as Fascism (accessed August 25, 2008)
  6. ^ The Libertarian As Conservative (accessed August 25, 2008)
  7. ^ Translation: "Anyone who calls themselves an anarchist is associated with an unpredictable chain of associations, a chain of associations that will not be the same for any two people, not even for two anarchists."
  8. My Anarchism problem on spunk.org. (Accessed August 25, 2008)
  9. Introduction to The Abolition of Work . (Accessed August 25, 2008)