Post-anarchism

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Under postanarchism various theoretical arguments with be poststructuralist and postmodern theories of anarchist summarized perspective. Post-anarchism is not a coherent theory, but, like post-structuralism ( Michel Foucault , Gilles Deleuze ), post-feminism ( Judith Butler ) and post- Marxism ( Ernesto Laclau , Chantal Mouffe ) , encompasses a whole range of different theoretical discussions.

The prefix Post stands for a questioning and rejection of some of the basic assumptions of classical anarchism. Anarchist goals are not given up, but the point is "to critically reflect on the social transformations of the last decades, the new insights and social discourses."

theory

Within post-anarchism, the view of people and the world of classical anarchism is considered outdated. The understanding of domination has changed and expanded. Since the establishment of classical anarchism, the reality of the state and capitalism has changed. In order to analyze them in the sense of anarchism, it is necessary to use the post-modern and post-structuralist toolbox. Deleuze, Derrida , Judith Butler, Lacan , Lyotard , Michel Foucault and others are not anarchists, but their theoretical work is of great importance for an actualization of anarchism.

In post-anarchism, some approaches from post-structuralism are adopted: the decentration of the subject and its discursive production, the denaturalization of body and sexuality , the rejection of the repression hypothesis , the deconstruction of the binary order of Western systems of thought, above all nature and culture, female and male, public and private, mind and matter and the deconstruction of the category “gender” by feminist post-structuralism. Foucault's genealogy of power also flows into post-anarchism, where power is productive and there is “no one outside of power”. Only when it freezes does it become dominion.

Within post-anarchism , Todd May stands for a “post-structuralist anarchism”, the basis of which is Foucault's post-structuralist conceptions of power and rule. He also refers to Lyotard.

In addition to Foucault, Saul Newman refers to Deleuze, Lacan and Derrida. He criticizes the classical anarchists, such as Mikhail A. Bakunin or Pyotr A. Kropotkin , because they refer to a good human nature as "essentialist" . The state as their corrupter must be abolished. For Newman this is a Manichaean worldview, which is merely the reverse of Thomas Hobbes ' Leviathan , where the “good” state subdues “bad” human nature. Newman holds these ideas of power and domination after the investigations of Foucault et al. a. no longer considered durable. However, it refers not only to the post-structuralist thinkers, but surprisingly also to Max Stirner , who was at work 150 years before them and who was not valued by Bakunin, Kropotkin and most anarchists . He describes him as a “proto-poststructuralist”, who even spoke of Foucault et al. and, in contrast to these, found a starting point for today's ideological criticism.

Lewis Call sees an anarchist politics in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche . He refers to the critique of the Cartesian concept of the subject. In Nietzsche we find an anarchy of the subject that enables a radical form of anarchy : the anarchy of becoming . The becoming of anarchy has no goal state, does not lead to a “ being ”. Anarchy is not a final state of development, not a static form of society , but a permanent becoming.

Post-anarchism demands

The term does not play an essential role in the anarchist debates in German-speaking countries. The discussions that are summarized elsewhere under post-anarchism take place in the general anarchist discourse.

The author Oskar Lubin writes: “Classical anarchism is not a thing of the past, but needs some revisions in view of theoretical developments and changed circumstances”. (In Grass Roots Revolution No. 318, 2001).

Classical anarchism, such as that of PJ Proudhon , M. Bakunin , P. Kropotkin , Gustav Landauer , John Henry Mackay and Erich Mühsam , had to take into account the political repression and exploitation practices that were in force at the time, which changed in the 21st century to have. The relations of rule and power in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were organized differently. Post-anarchism tries to confront traditional or classical anarchism with the theories and findings of social movements, which have now been expanded, with the idea that anarchy (lack of domination ) affects the realities of today's capitalism, the changed production conditions and the political conditions in the western industrialized countries Example of democracy ( people's rule ). Accordingly, anarchism should be shaped in a different way. It would be necessary to rethink anarchism in theory and practice and to undertake a revision.

“Where anarchism is based on the Enlightenment and relies on its subject, it must - measured against its own claim to a world free of domination! - be renewed, revised, revised. On the second level, the need to rethink anarchism arises from the changed social conditions: from lost battles and changed regimes of production and reproduction ”.

The different discussions and theories on this topic, how anarchism should be redesigned in the 21st century, have not yet been clearly crystallized and the debates on this will probably be continued by the representatives of post-anarchism.

literature

  • Lewis Call: Postmodern Anarchism , Lanham, Lexington Books 2002
  • Richard JF Day: Gramsci is dead. Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements, London (Pluto Press) / Toronto (Between the Lines)
  • Jens Kastner: Politics and Postmodernism. Libertarian Aspects in Sociology Zygmunt Baumans, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-89771-403-5
  • Gabriel Kuhn : Tier-Werden, Schwarz-Werden, Frau-Werden An introduction to the political philosophy of post-structuralism, Unrast Verlag Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89771-441-8
  • Todd May : The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism , The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 1994, ISBN 0-271-01046-0
  • Jürgen Mümken : Freedom, individuality and subjectivity. State and subject in postmodernism from an anarchist perspective, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-936049-12-2
  • Jürgen Mümken (Ed.): Anarchism in Postmodernism. Contributions to anarchist theory and practice, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-936049-37-8
  • Saul Newman : From Bakunin to Lacan. Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, Lanham, Lexington Books 2001, ISBN 0-7391-0240-0
  • Saul Newman: Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought , London and New York: Routledge 2005, ISBN 0-415-36456-6
  • Saul Newman: The politics of postanarchism , Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press 2010, ISBN 978-0-7486-3495-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. after Mümken, Jürgen: Anarchism in Postmodernism. An introduction. In: Mümken, Jürgen (Ed.): Anarchism in Postmodernism. Contributions to anarchist theory and practice. Frankfurt a. M. 2005.
  2. ^ Oskar Lubin: Post-anarchism. Classic anarchism is not a thing of the past, but needs some revisions in view of theoretical developments and changed conditions. A sketch. In: Grassroots Revolution No. 318 April 2007, accessed March 29, 2013 .