>My first reaction on reading this was that the reason anarchism has
>received so little academic attention is that few people remain anarchists
>after their 30th birthday. But I dismissed the thought as too cruel & glib.
>
>Doug
I think the biggest problem is that anarchists don't theorize about much. There is plenty of room for theory, but the antipathy to it is so widespread, it seems to me, that it's unlikely you'll end up studying anarchist ideas in academia. People do study them, they just aren't labeled as such.
I mean, look, is there an anarchist theory of human nature/being? Is there an anarchist position or positions on the relationship between the individual and society. Do they put forth any ideas about how social change works (or doesn't)? The relationship between the market/state/civil society? Any theory of knowledge -- how do we know--and, relatedly, what is 'it' that we're trying to know?
I realize that about half the members of this list think these things aren't important. But, in my experience, that's not the case at all. As Chuck pointed out the other day (re: the sep. of church and state and questions of knowledge), these things are all bound up together. If you don't have any idea how social change happens, if you never ask why or study it, then you're just going to proceed on your merry way, assuming that whatever view you hold is The way, regardless of the reality around you.
Feminist theory, practice, and movement was a pretty good model of how to combine the three--still is.
Observation: something's wrong with the way things are now.
Ask Why: what's wrong, exactly? Why? How did it get that way?
Research: Do our observations that something's wrong hold up? Our theories as to how it got this way, do they hold up? Once we got this way, how is this system maintained and reproduced? Who benefits? Who is harmed?
How can we change this? The answer depends on the other things, doesn't it?
But, anarchists don't really much give a crap about this sort of thing, do they? I'd be interested and relieved to here otherwise. But, most of the peole with anarchist sympathies on this list seem to snarl about academia and theory.
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling