Changing Anarchism

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The massive protests against globalisation in recent years have re-awoken interest in anarchism. Changing anarchism sets out to reposition anarchist theory and practice by documenting contemporary anarchist practice and providing a viable analytical framework for understanding it. The contributions here, from both academics and activists, raise challenging and sometimes provocative questions about the complex nature of power and resistance to it. The areas covered include: sexuality and identity; psychological dependency on technology; libertarian education; religion and spirituality; protest tactics; mental health and artistic expression; and the ongoing ‘metaphorical wars’ against drugs and terror. This collection epitomises the rich diversity that exists within contemporary anarchism as well as demonstrating its ongoing relevance as a sociological tool.

The turn of the Millennium demonstrated a fully-fledged revival and fusion of various left-wing social movements with differing agendas. Movements for women's, black, indigenous, LGTB and animal liberation as well as ecological, anti-nuclear and anti-war groups unified against the global capital. Considering the diverse emphases of these movements, is there a philosophical framework that could help us understand their nature and their modes of operation in the 21st century? This book provides a set of conceptual tools offering a theoretical model of 'slow' social transformation, a modality of social change that explicitly differs from the irruptive model of a revolution or a paradigm-changing event. Instead, it proposes the two concepts of mimetic contagion and solidarity with singularity which allow us to understand what is currently happening in the activist milieu. By bringing together some of today's most important thinkers, including Butler, Girard, Badiou, and Sloterdijk this book suggests a philosophical lens to look at the alternative living projects that contemporary left-wing activists undertake in practice. At the heart of their projects lie the pressing concerns that these contemporary philosophers currently debate. Breaking from the conceptual apparatus of the Marxian tradition, Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism instead takes Hegelian concepts and feeds them through the thought of contemporary theorists in order to form an original, productive, and inclusive scaffold with which to understand today's world of social and political movements.

Gesterton, and other narratives of the times - fiction and nonfiction, journalism and academic writing, canonical and obscure writers - this study traces the discourse surrounding anarchism in order to understand the cultural practices that supported the rise of modern capitalist culture."--BOOK JACKET.

A revolutionary classic that introduced the Black movement to anarchist ideals

This original and impressively researched book explores the concept of anarchy—"unimposed order"—as the most humane and stable form of order in a chaotic world. Mohammed A. Bamyeh traces the historical foundations of anarchy and convincingly presents it as an alternative to both tyranny and democracy. He shows how anarchy is the best manifestation of civic order, of a healthy civil society, and of humanity's noblest attributes. A cogent and compelling critique of the modern state, this provocative book clarifies how anarchy may be both a guide for rational social order and a science of humanity.

Anarchism--literally, a society without government--is less a political philosophy than it is a temperament. Anarchists are defiant people who seek to organize for the purpose of destroying organization. For its adherents, anarchism means a grand struggle against evil, a plea for the "new," a secular crusade against the debasement of self, a fight against the degradation of mankind that organized society seems to represent. Anarchism is anti-politics, anti-economics, anti-authoritarianism in all forms. Anarchism is a mood of perpetual rebellion. The decade of the sixties witnessed a revival in the anarchist temperament, which Perlin finds evident in such diverse efforts as the women's liberation movement, student demonstrations, civil rights marches, free schools, the "back to the land" movement, demands for birth control and other--usually controversial-causes and activities. This new anarchism had few conscious links with the old anarchism. It was instead a response to changed conditions in the social fabric of American and European life, a reflex to the structural, cultural and psychological tensions that made those years turbulent, strife-filled and rebellious. Perlin concludes that while a revolution was not made in the sixties, a revolutionary life-style became a possibility. The spokesmen for the marginal groups whose interests achieved a new kind of legitimacy during the sixties were anarchists or their sympathizers. A representative cross-section of their writings is included in this volume.

Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism is an introduction to the principles of anarchism and anarchist communism written by Alexander Berkman. The anarchist movement was under siege during the 1920s and, in an effort to revive the movement, the Jewish Anarchist Federation in New York asked Berkman to write an introduction to anarchism intended for the general public. By presenting the principles of anarchism in plain language, the New York anarchists hoped that readers might be swayed to support the movement or, at a minimum, that the book might improve the image of anarchism and anarchists in the public's eyes. Berkman's work explains anarchist philosophy in terms that uninitiated readers can understand. Because of its presentation of anarchist philosophy in plain language, Now and After has become one of the best-known introductions to anarchism in print.

An expansive and accessible account of anarchism as a theory of practice. A new, in-depth look at the revolutionary strategy of anarchism in Europe and the United States between 1868 and 1939. Zoe Baker, creator of a popular Youtube series on radical history and political theory, brings her trademark clarity and accessibility to this debut book. Cutting through misperceptions and historical inaccuracies, she shows how the reasons anarchists gave for supporting or opposing particular strategies were grounded in a specific theoretical framework—a theory of practice. The consistent and coherent heart of anarchism, Baker shows, is the understanding that, as people engage in activity—political or otherwise—they simultaneously change the world and themselves. Put another way, the means that revolutionaries propose to achieve social change have to involve forms of activity through which people can become individuals capable of overthrowing capitalism and the state as well as building a better society. Behind this simple premise—that anarchist ends can only be achieved through anarchist means—lies a wealth of fascinating historical and theoretical detail that Baker presents clearly and engagingly.

Anarchism re-emerged on the world stage at the end of 1999 on the streets of Seattle when the World Trade Organization was brought close to collapse. Anarchist groups shared pavement space with environmentalists, pacifists and a whole host of other groups. The anti-capitalism, anti-globalization movement can be seen as a post-Cold War development, rejecting the terms of the old debate – whether capitalism or Soviet-style Communism. This new oppositional voice is allied to anarchism not just because specific anarchist groups are part of the movement, sharing a common criticism of the status quo, but also in a broader sense arising from the non-hierarchical nature of the movement and its rejection of traditional party politics. Anarchism is as much an attitude as it is a set of formulated doctrines and in this book Sean Sheehan provides an engaging introduction to what anarchism means, describing its history through anecdote and dramatic events, and offering explanations of the issues behind this "movement". He avoids a narrowly political or polemical viewpoint, using examples from all over the world and images from anarchist-inspired ideas and forms. Anarchist thinking and influences emerge in many different aspects of contemporary culture and history, and the author looks at instances in areas of political thought, history of ideas, philosophy, theories of education and ecology, as well as film and literary criticism. Systems of thought such as Buddhism and Taoism, art movements such as Dada and Surrealism, literary treatments of anarchist ideas in the work of Blake, Wilde, Whitman, Kafka and Eugene O’Neill, anarchism in relation to sex and psychology in the work of Reich and Fromm, as well as aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy as expressions of anarchist individualism – all these and other topics are also tackled. This combination of history, anecdote and cultural analysis is an informative and lively study that is guaranteed to provoke debate.

An accessible and thorough overview of anarchist figures and tendencies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.