> Someone else on the list made the comment that the publish-or-perish
> system drove social scientists and other analysts to come up with a "new,
> revolutionary" idea about class composition etc every other year whether
> social circumstances merited this or not. This is similar to how I feel
> about Post Left Anarchism.
>
> Post Left Anarchy seems, to me, to be the product of a few people wanting
> to position themselves as founders of a "seminal, new idea" and thus as
> "important" analysts, whether or not their analysis reflects anything
> really existing. All
> the things that are supposed to be hallmarks of "post leftism" -
> autonomism, direct action, anti-auhtoritarianism - have been notable,
> major strands of the left since well into the early 19th century. It has
> existed side by side along with the auhtoritarian or statist tendencies.
> It is not "post"-anything. The fetish for everything being "post"-this or
> "post"-that taken to its logically absurd conclusion is exactly what
> "post-left" anarchy is.
Brian is way off base here and I'm going to call him on it. Post-leftism isn't really that new and it's more of a dialougue than it is some kind of unified ideology. What really pisses me off about Brian and other anarchist of his ilk, is that they are so preoccupied with lumping the people who talk about Post-Leftism into their little conspiracy containers that they can't see that THEY have a stake in this discussion too. I would argue that post-Leftism is a relevant idea for all varieties of anarchists and radicals. It isn't OWNED by any one group of people, including people who have written books about it.
Yes, these threads have been around for a long time, but post-Leftism is about a *historical moment*: i.e. the left after the fall of the Soviet Union and other centralized, big "experiments" in Marxist-Leninism-Maoism.
Do you understand now? Post-leftism is different because it is tied in with the current era. Anarchism has become more popular and M-L-M has benn discredited. The Left is even looking in new directions, i.e. "Empire."
<< Chuck0 >>
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)