Chuck Munson wrote, re: Zizek
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> This is complete bullshit!
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It may or may not be... But what problem should this pose to anarchists anyway? There are anti-hierarchical anarchists, folks who are bent on operating without any formal structures - everyone can see that they end up replicating informally the authority they despise, or alternatively creating structures to put a check on this. On the other hand, a (somewhat liberalist) anarchist of the anti-authoritarian variety could subscribe to the view that if Zizekian Puppet Masters start popping up, its time to put in minimal formal controls, or revise the procedures at meetings.
I think it is unfortunate that anarchists react to Zizek's criticism by pleading misrepresentation only. My experience with anarchist groups has been that they are full of informal social relations which sometimes can become quite authoritarian: don't like the de-facto party line, well, see you later. In an ideal world filled with unfeeling ubermensch, such ostracism would mean nothing, but when there are only a few anarchists, boos from your mates have a strong normative effect. You really would not want to be accused of being a trot...or an entrist!
This is, of course, a criticism of anarchist groups as social entities - rather than of their procedures and formal organization. The relevance of such criticism is that, at least in my observation, there is some merit to Zizek's description of anarchists groups - as social entities, anarchist groups often do cluster around de-facto leaders. It is clear that he is somewhat off the mark though, since anarchists (at least the ones I like) have become aware of this, and created procedures for coping with it.
If these procedures fail to prevent authority, as Zizek claims, or become ridiculous, as Cooper claims, then they should be revised. They should be continuously revised anyway, since anarchists are committed to a minimalist program of formal institutions - only those necessary to prevent unjustified authority. In light of this, it is a little hard to see what enormous gulf separates Nathan and Chuck, since self-serving representatives and overrepresentation on account of not having babies are both unjustified forms of authority.
Thiago