AUT: vanguardism, moralism, and anarchism

["Chris Hurl" <munkah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Harald,

First, it seems like you are saying first that a certain form of analysis is more adequate than others in understanding and addressing social issues.  Further, this form of analysis refuses to fall back into a grounding on identities.  As you mentioned, simply being against racism, rather than understanding the social dynamics that create racism.

Second, as a result of this, you seem to argue that vanguards are not only unavoidable but in some circumstances desirable.  Against Hardt and Negri's quite mechanical view of the multitude, it seems that some social movements "move" further than others and this is often based on the adoption of an analysis that refuses to fall back on identities, refusing to fall back on a "moralistic" grounding.  Rather the adoption of morals as a basis for action seems to suggest that there can never be an absolute foundation for analysis.  Rather, any analysis is necessarily grounded in the context in which it emerges.

Your standpoint reminds of the anarcho-communist position, specifically the idea of platformism.  This is to say, that there is a necessity for an explicit anti-capitalist anti-authoritarian "vanguard" of sorts in social struggle.  This organization is founded on theoretical and tactical unity and collective responsibility.  There is a necessity to develop a common analysis that rejects the moralistic grounding of social struggle.  This grounds action which is organized in a directly democratic and accountable fashion.  Further, this organization does not lead through compulsory membership or coercion, but rather through moral suasion.  Of course, such a position might be considered to be in itself a little stiff, abstracted from its specific histirical context.

Do you identify at all with an anarcho-communist standpoint?

It seems like such a standpoint ultimately depends on the power of reason, the power of solid analysis that can be generally agreed and acted upon by others.  Here, there seems to be a gap between theory and practice.  So my question simply stated is how can social movements resist imploding into such identities?  How can such "analysis" be practiced? If vanguards are necessary how can they be formed in a manner that does not fundamentally alienate people and does not in itself become fetishized into a rigid stagnant oppressive beast?


--chris



>From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba@xxxxxxxxx>

>Reply-To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>Subject: Re: Fambly Values was - RE: AUT: America Implodes

>Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:44:20 +0100

>

>

>----- Original Message -----

>From: ".: s0metim3s :." <s0metim3s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 6:26 AM

>Subject: RE: Fambly Values was - RE: AUT: America Implodes

>

>Angela, your reply certainly made it clear that we

>are dealing here with some misunderstandings. Which might

>very well be my fault. But to writ it large, to me

>National-Socialism (Nazism) 'must in certain sense

>also be understood as anti-capitalist response'. And

>there is nothing idiosyncratic in such perspective, and

>the usage of 'anti-capitalism' on that sense. It has a

>long history, in particular in relation to rightwing-

>populism. And I do think it important, as such movements

>as a rule are contradictory. This  being an essential

>part of their overall irrationality, and what makes

>them at all possible to grow beyond the level of

>small sects. (To make sure not to be the cause of another misunderstanding,

>I am not suggesting the Bush

>voters are Nazis. )

>

>

>Further, contrary to what you understood me as, "the kinds

>of politics which are expressed in "family values" is very

>much a form of particularism in my book. Which does not

>in any way rule out -- very far from it --  that the term

>'familily values', whether in the U.S. Mid-West, or in the

>inner cites of dominantly 'non-white' neighbourhoods, will

>also be assocated with far more communist values; be also

>a reaction against capitalist atomism,  and bring forth thoughts of

>sons or daughters lost to drug addiction, and to fathers

>who run away from all responsibilities.

>In other words, it is very much possible to have more than

>one thought in one head at the same time. And it is absolutly

>critical to any social revolutionary thought, or a reform

>movement for that, to ble able to see such contradictions, and

>also be able to discern the true within the false. If not, some

>kind of fascoid turn comes far more likely.

>         One problem with so much of 'the left' is that it too

>often tend to cultivate an unability to see through more than

>one eye, and thus to some extent be caught within the same

>moralistic web that the advocates of 'family values'. The Good

>against the Evil in good old evangelical fashion.

>

>And Angela, I am perfetly aware that  you are not interested in

>supporting struggles for recognition or representation (including

>'Gay Marriage' campaigns, 'Gays in the Military,' etc) -- .

>I am in no way suggesting that the above fits you. I does not.

>That was why I was somewhat surprised by your reaction.

>

>If I wrote that  your response was knee-jerk, it was because

>you in this instance seemed unable to to distinguish between

>descriptive and prescriptive.  Perhaps this was in part

>my fault, not articualting myself clearly enough. But just

>because Negri & Hardt do not seem to find the distinction

>between descriptive and prescriptive too important, or at

>least tends to blur it, this does not automatically translate

>into that every one else follows that course.

>

><< I'm sure you can make an argument that  "family values"

>includes many aspects which are not reducible to homophobia;

>but it would be bad faith to argue that on this occassion

>the prompt for your post was not a discussion about the

>Marriage Act and the paranoiac 'defense' (assuming

>that it needs defending) of heteronormativity. >>

>

>I just have some very great doubts that it can be reduced to

>homophobia *alone*, even in this particular context.  That

>seems to me a bit too simplistic and too much of a crude

>positivisism. The homophobia part is very much there, that

>is self-evident. But there is something to be said for an under-

>standing that takes into account mutually reinforcing forces.

>And the interesting part here is not the die-heart

>homophobes, and hardly ever is.

>

>The problems I have with the line, "the paradigmatic elevation of

>'white, straight men' (or the 'cognitariat' or the 'industrial

>working class' or whomever) to the pantheon of a representational politics,"

>is amongst others:

>         It is far too often merely a automised reductionist phrase,

>that may or may not be relevant to what is discussed. It tends to

>turn into a stupefying moralism, where any effort to understand

>social dynamics is made into an absolutized taboo. It is in fact

>very possible to be very much opposed to that a child with

>freckles gets mobbed by her or his schoolmates, without believing

>that putting and end to such behaviour will threaten the rule

>of capitalism. Many struggles simply have a value in themselves.

>Apart from that, most of those who talk about class reductionism

>tend to have a extremly reductionst perspective on what

>class relations implies, most of the time arguing with some

>further reduced Komintern notion of class. While even if we

>were to confine the question  to the micro-level of taking part

>in a workplace struggle, almost every aspect of life is involved.

>That is because these questions are interconnected, due

>again to that people's lifes are so. And within a struggle all

>these different aspects tends surface, all the more so as

>a workplace may also be defined as space where people are

>more or less randomly thrown together.

>

>

>There is every reason to believe that there does in fact

>exist an 'hiearchical order' in how social dynamics tend

>to unfold. And that in such a sense 'vanguards' are

>absolutly unavoidable. The real problem occurs when 'the

>vanguards' (note the plural) gets frozen in time (as in

>once a 'vanguard' always 'vanguard' ) and thus also

>arrests the social dynamics. But it is still true most of

>the times, and to keep to the immediate sphere of wage-

>wor,k that it is easier to organize all restaurants and

>hotels in a town, if you manage to build a base in some

>of the largest ones first, or within the chains, even if

>the actually worksites making up the chain are very

>much dispersed, and not very large . There are very

>common-sense logistical, empirical as well as psycolgical

>reasons for this. Which does not mean that this always,

>without exception will be so. Far less that you should

>not start the struggle where you are. Nor does it in any

>way imply that some of the smaller worksites which are

>not any part of a chain, combined in the next turn can

>beome the ' vanguard'. I could easily venture further

>into this. But I leave it here, while adding, that I do not

>for a moment believe that one should social-dynamic

>strategical terms avoid distinguishing between library-

>workers and transport workers.  Or for that, not

>distinguish between transport workers. As long as one does

>not loose the perspective, that the end is all along to

>include and bring out the force of all, and that the combined

>force is what ultimately counts. Something the story of the

>Liverpool dockers illustrate well. And they were very much

>aware of it too. That I here chose to focus on the work-

>place level, it is not in any way due to that my perspective

>does not go beyond that. It just seemed easier here and

>now. And then I am in fact still convined that there exist

>a 'hierarchical' order here, in the terms as just desribed,

>without going into the complexity of that

>wider question here and now.

>

>

>Further, 99,9 per cent of those conducting endless 'discourses'

>against 'representatnation' in langauge, have little problem with

>representation in politics. Then they sudddenly become the

>pragmatists, if they give the question athought at all.  I know this

>is not so in your case. But that seems to be more (one of) the

>(few) excpetion(s) that proves the rule.

>

>I'll end now. Better to come back to try to to clear up any

>new misunderstandings the above may have caused

>

>Harald

>

>

>

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