Propositions for Discussion

Contr'un

Anarchy and its Uses

September 23, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Contr’un Revisited: What is anarchy good for? I will admit that I have been prone at times to think of anarchy as good for all purposes, at least as an antidote to the pervasive influence of authority. And there is undoubtedly something in that. But as I’ve delved deeper into the work on anarchist synthesis and into Max Nettlau’s critiques of generalizing anarchism, I’ve gained an increasing appreciation for the limits of anarchy as well. This is not exactly a new consideration for me, as you can see here, but if I was writing this post now, I expect that […]
Contr'un

But What About the Children? (A Note on Tutelage)

September 5, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s a question again of “legitimate authority” and “justified hierarchy,” and specifically of the favorite example used by those who want to leave a space within anarchist theory for those things: the care of very young children. The argument I have encountered repeatedly is that parenting is, at least in the case of those very young children, a necessarily authoritarian relation: children must be ordered about in order to protect them from hazards; parents have a duty and presumably also a right to dictate to their children; and children have an obligation to obey. It’s one of those debates that […]
Contr'un

Anarchism, Plain and Simple

December 22, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
  I’ll do a proper year-end round-up sometime soon and talk about a number of changes coming to the Libertarian Labyrinth, but I’ll start with some updates on publishing and translating projects. If things have been fairly quiet on the blog, it’s because virtually all my time and energy has been invested in attempting to finish up the manuscript of Anarchist Beginnings: Declarations and Professions of Faith, 1840-1920 (the book previously known as Anarchies and Anarchisms.) And that project has been a learning (and unlearning, and relearning) experience on a scale that I couldn’t have imagined when I started it, […]
Contr'un

Anarchy and Anarchism, Insides and Outsides

October 7, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
  “Dad blame anything a man can’t quit.”—Roger Miller Make a more or less angry break with the anarchist milieu. Settle down to write a book about anarchism. It might all seem a bit bizarre if it wasn’t, for a certain sort of anarchist, pretty much inevitable. I know that there are people who move from the anarchist scene to other political scenes, who trade in the beautiful idea for other ideas. Honestly, though, I don’t understand them and don’t imagine I have much in common with them. For me, the encounter with anarchy was a sort of Rubicon—or perhaps […]
Contr'un

Toward a General Theory of Archy

October 3, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
   A lot of my frustrations with the anarchist milieu have less to do with the sorts of internal problems we face, which seem to me to be logical manifestations of the larger social environment, and more to do with the fact that, even if we had the will to address the various things that hold us back, we might not have enough shared theory and vocabulary to get the job done. But, as I have said, my feelings of alienation have been parallel to, and undoubtedly also arise from, a very strong sense of having finally plumbed a lot […]
Contr'un

Propositions for Discussion: The Scope of Anarchy

October 2, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Here is a rough outline for the second section of the “Propositions:] The Scope of Anarchy To claim that anarchy is sufficient as an anarchist goal or ideal is not, of course, to claim that it is in some way all-sufficient. Most of our arguments about the definition of anarchy turn out to be, on closer inspection, arguments about its proper scope of application—and there are questions still to be answered. On the one hand, we have defenders of various archic systems—capitalism, nationalism, racial and gender-based hierarchies—attempting to identify their systems with anarchy, on the basis that the proper scope […]
Contr'un

Propositions for Discussion (on Anarchy and Anarchism) — I

September 7, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Anarchy is a simple, accessible notion, sufficient to provide the necessary glue for a real anarchist current or movement. I’ve been struck by the number of times recently that I have encountered the argument that a really thoroughgoing idea of anarchy was an impediment, and perhaps the great impediment, to the anarchist movement. It seems obvious that attempting to do justice to the notion of anarchy could be an impediment to any number of other kinds of products or movements, but it is hard for me to wrap my head around the notion that anarchism—as an ideology, movement, individual aspiration […]