Saturday, February 21, 2009
I've recently run into some major trouble with some people who seem to be interpreting anarchist pluralism or anarchism without adjectives to mean a total open-endedness that allows one to establish whatever sort of system or organization they prefer, regaurdless of the content of that preference or its compatability with any particular principle of justice. In other words, these people are trying to completely divorce anarchism from any unifying or fundamental principles, and are redefining it to mean the same thing as polyarchy. Even on an etymological level, one should be able to see the difference between anarchy (no rulers) and polyarchy (multiple rulers). While anarchism without adjectives might have the appearance of being structured as a polyarchy, it isn't polyarchy in and of itself due to a lack of institutional rulership.
As far as I understand it, anarchism without adjectives is not completely open-ended, it is based on the context of anarchism. It'sanarchism without adjectives, not anything without adjectives. It has preconditions or qualifiers, particularly at least a basic fundamental understanding or agreement as to what distinguishes voluntary interaction or organization from rulership, or a basic understanding of what distinguishes initiation from defense. Otherwise, anyone can claim that any particular authoritarian preference they have is defacto compatible with anarchism, and anarchism is more or less redefined out of existance. Anarchist pluralism is pluralism contextual to voluntary interaction, not a completely open-ended hodge-podge of whatever people happen to like. Anarchist emergence is emergence contextual to voluntary interaction, not a broader sense of emergence as in "whatever occurs over the course of history".
To be sure, polycentric order is an aspect of anarchism, or the two can overlap. However, anarchism as such should not be conflated with polycentric order per se. Technically, one could have a polycentric order, and internal to each organization things are highly authoritarian. So while decentralization is an important aspect of anarchism, it is a necessary but not sufficientelement of it. Decentralization for decentralization's sake, without regaurd for the actual qualatative content of a given association, is nonsensical and suicidal. This is part of the problem with things such as "state's rights", for while it may be a useful tool against federal governments, it may also be a tool for empowering more local authorities. On one hand, this problem is due to there not being enough decentralization (decentralization ends at individual choice), and on the other hand, this problem represents a lack of any coherant principles or basic concept of justice.
The preferential nature of anarchism without adjectives is not completely open-ended. It means that one can follow their preferences with regaurd to what affects them, but they cannot enforce their preferences on innocent bystanders or unconsenting 3rd parties of people. The basic principle is supposed to mutually apply, I.E. I cannot rule you and you cannot rule me. Anarchism without adjectives does not mean that just because things are more decentralized or on a more local level, it's suddenly okay to rule people. Neither does it mean that the meaning of rulership is completely open-ended and can be redefinined by anyone as they please in order to justify their preferences or the unilateral enforcement thereof. This error seems to be thin libertarianism on speed, which results in no libertarianism at all.
Using such an approach, one can redefine their preference for a particular kind of state or rulership to superficially appearcompatible with anarchism, by blurring the definition of anarchism and voluntarism and rulership and force, and by displaying a superficial pluralism. At such a point, one is likely engaging in obscurantism and using anarchism as a sugar-coating or tool for their more fundamental and esoteric ideology (in the case of "national anarchism", this is clearly generally being done with respect to white nationalism). Why be an anarchist in the first place if there is no real difference between your "anarchism" and a particular proposal for a state? This is counter-intuitive if not deceptive, to say the least.
Of course, different anarchists can have pragmatic differences and different preferances for how they'd prefer to voluntarily organize or what purely personal values they would like to voluntarily pursue. But these differences are reconciled under a general umbrella of anarchism without adjectives, which involves at least a basic consensus with regaurd to non-rulership and "live and let live". This also tends to imply a degree of federation between anarchists; complete isolation or atomism is clearly not desirable. The differences, when in the context of anarchism without adjectives, are not really primary ethical differances. The basic ethical norm of personal sovereignty and the non-rulership that follows from it is supposed to be what unifies anarchists, and provides the proper context for anarchism without adjectives.
Posted by Brainpolice at 3:03 PM
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