[lbo-talk] Benazir Bhutto reportedly assasinated in a suicide bomb attack

[bitch at pulpculture.org]

At 05:37 PM 12/28/2007, you wrote:
>      I think you missed my point.  I'm not particularly invested in the
>notion of liberalism, nor am I overly concerned about the death of
>Bhutto per se (the aftermath may prove somewhat troubling on the
>other hand.)  My problem is with a certain implicit naive humanism
>that runs through your arguments that can be found in a lot of
>anarchist theory, which posits that structures of authority are
>somehow alien to this essential nature.  The difficulty is that these
>modes of authority are both structural in nature, and are not merely
>supported through repressive power, but also occur through the
>spontaneous 'consent' of its subjects.  I think that its worth noting
>that the various attempts at transforming authoritarian societies
>through assassination have not been overly successful.  If anything,
>the reverse has occurred.  I am sympathetic with the goals of the
>anarchist political project, but to cut off the head of a political
>structure without transforming its body will inevitably lead to
>disaster (to paraphrase Spinoza from the political treatise.) robert
>wood

this is excellent. However, I do think anarchists *do* think quite a bit 
about transforming the body while cutting off the head. e.g., in their 
concerted effort to create alternative social and political institutions. 
whatever anyone thinks about the ideological uses of 'civil society' there 
is something to it, and anarchists, when they are more thoughtful, *do* 
address this issue -- of creating normative practices that transform human 
being.

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