Year: 2005

Contr'un

Varieties of Mutualist History

June 30, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: Looking at this material in the context of more recent work, it’s hard to miss the extent to which a process of extrication is already central to the project. A decade ago, there was nothing particularly controversial about treating mutualism as something that might need to be pulled apart before we really understood what it was. Even the folks who objected more-or-less loudly to talk about splitting mutualism into rival camps were engaged in some splitting of their own. Now, when it is a question of pulling apart anarchism, well, a large number of anarchists seem firmly […]
Contr'un

The Historical Character of Mutualism

June 24, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1third] Contr’un Revisited: I asked some of the same questions you’ll find here in the chapter on mutualism that I just completed for the Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. I’ve finally decided that the right answers are the ones that are useful in the present situation, provided they’re backed up by a solid understanding of the history. The “mutualist tradition” has really been the battle over “mutualism,” and that’s a battle that a truly surprising number of individuals and tendencies have felt the urge to fight. As it result, it’s hard for any new analysis to be anything but yet another […]
Contr'un

EZLN on Red Alert / Americans “generally in a funk”

June 23, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Scattered thoughts today. . . Things are happening in Chiapas again. The Zapatistas have announced a General Red Alert and are withdrawing the active bases from the communities, suspending some operations, including the Good Government Committees, asking international members of civil society to leave the region of revolt, etc. The context appears to be some showy drug war maneuvers by Fox’s government, including large scale troop movements in Chiapas. Al Giordano has a summary, Mexico: The False Narco-Smear Against the Zapatistas, up at Narconews. Breaking news there indicates that there were marijuana fields siezed in the southern Mexico state, […]
Contr'un

Confessions of a latter day mutualist

June 22, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1third] Contrun Revisited: This is still one of my favorite bits of personal position-taking and much of it still rings true for me, even if I am much less eclectic in my associations these days and much more focused on that anarchy that “accepts no adjectives.” Indeed, the notion of a Babel-in-reverse in the workers’ movements is probably a pretty good summary of much of what I think has gone wrong over time among anarchists.  As for the prediction of wild swoops, well, I think it has been fulfilled. [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] What is this Mutualism of which you speak? I […]
Contr'un

A Fork in the Labyrinth (Already), pt. 1

June 21, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur
Well, dissemination seems to be at work, splitting a blog that, to my knowledge, nobody has actually read, into two blogs that may be just a bit more readable. I would like to take my own sweet time thrashing out some background and theoretical issues and journaling the last throes of my cross-town relocation in the Libertatia Lab Reports, but also feel like i should be getting on with some more direct responses to world events and ongoing critical discussions. So i’ll do the more focused stuff here. One of the conversations that seems well worth being a part of […]