Glossary

Glossary

Polity-form (External constitution)

December 5, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur
If we are to follow Proudhon’s an-archic account of social organization, we can expect the social collectivities that we encounter to be self-organizing associations of human beings, onto which some kind of governmental framework has been imposed from the outside. The authoritarian pretense is that society — human association in all its dynamic forms — has not really been established until the material relations of association have been seconded in some way by the establishment of an authority, sitting atop some kind of fundamentally political hierarchy. The anarchic response is that authority and hierarchy are inessential elements that we must learn to do without.

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Glossary

Legal Order

November 28, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur
In the anarchist context, it is common to approach the question of legal order by asking whether anarchists truly desire a society in which nothing is prohibited. This is, it seems to me, only half of the question that needs to be asked, as an anarchic society would also be one in which nothing is permitted. And it is probably this second aspect that is most helpful in evaluating the antinomian character of anarchy.

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Glossary

A New Glossary

October 20, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur
This new page will, for the time being, merge material from “A Contr’un Glossary” with new summaries prepared for use in “Constructing Anarchisms.” Anarchism — Anarchism (Schematic) — Anarchism-in-General Anarchy — Anarchy (Historical, Abstract & Resultant) Archy Authority — Authority-effect — Authority (Language of) Legal Order Neology Summary: Archy vs. Anarchy These short contrasting entries constitute an attempt to sketch out some basic principles of existing archic society and some anarchic alternatives. Those alternatives are drawn largely from what we have been calling the “neo-Proudhonian” project. As such, they are not necessarily the alternatives most often proposed by self-proclaimed anarchists. […]
Featured articles

Archy vs. Anarchy

January 28, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
These short contrasting entries constitute an attempt to sketch out some basic principles of existing archic society and some anarchic alternatives. Those alternatives are drawn largely from what we have been calling the “neo-Proudhonian” project. As such, they are not necessarily the alternatives most often proposed by self-proclaimed anarchists. They are proposed, however, as a means of approaching some baseline for a consistently anarchistic synthesis of existing anarchisms. That approach will undoubtedly require considerable elaboration and clarification of the contrasting principles and tendencies presented here—but it is important to make a start. The Polity-form: Archic social organization seems to quite […]
Glossary

Panarchy (notes)

July 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
PANARCHY (pa-nar-chî from prefix pan, and the Greek archê, command). Political. Government of all, absence of delegated authority: PANARCHY is the honest name of anarchy. PANARCHY, pantocracy or community is naturally produced by the death of the monarch or head of the family. (Proudhon.)

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Glossary

Simplism

February 6, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
Simplisme / Simplism 3. du SIMPLISME ou cause de la cataracte. Ce reproche de cataracte intellectuelle, adressé à un siècle savant sur divers points, pourrait sembler indécent si je ne l’étayais de preuves très-palpables. Je serai bref sur ce sujet peu flatteur ; il va débrouiller une vieille querelle qui s’élève entre chaque siècle et ses inventeurs. Tout siècle se hâte de dire que les inventeurs ont perdu la raison, parce qu’ils ne sont pas d’accord avec le préjugé d’impossibilité ; mais d’ordinaire, c’est le siècle entier qui, comme au temps de Colomb , manque de raison. La cause de […]
Contr'un

Neo-Proudhonian Anarchism (A Step toward Synthesis)

April 19, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
The more we learn about the history of mutualism, the clearer it becomes that the conception we have inherited was conceived—primarily by rivals of Proudhon’s thought—as a sort of theoretical foil for the communist “modern anarchism” of the late 19th century. It’s a rather complicated tale, since what Kropotkin called “modern anarchism” was, in fact, anarchism emerging for the first time, unless we count the purely literary emergence of the term in the works of Joseph Déjacque. There had, of course, been anarchists and theories of anarchy.

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Glossary

Authority (Language of)

April 1, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] In societies where authority is the dominant principle, we can expect to find that the language of authority has become ubiquitous, often adapted to describe relationships in which authority, hierarchy, etc. play no role even in existing societies. This tendency has presented difficulties for anarchists, who wish to speak in the language of the societies of which they are a part, but wish to express ideas that break with the dominant principles of those societies. That has led to a certain amount of wordplay and what we might now call a deconstructive tendency in anarchist […]
Glossary

Legal Order

February 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
  In the anarchist context, it is common to approach the question of legal order by asking whether anarchists truly desire a society in which nothing is prohibited. This is, it seems to me, only half of the question that needs to be asked, as an anarchic society would also be one in which nothing is permitted. And it is probably this second aspect that is most helpful in evaluating the antinomian character of anarchy. Legal order exists when society is guided by laws, rules or principles that are considered binding and enforceable. Legal order inevitably depends on some assertion […]