[lbo-talk] Corey Robin on AJE on Bluestocking panel

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Tue Nov 15 14:19:55 PST 2011


On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:


> This just isn't true.
>
> Let's go back to the article and keep to its main thread:

On his blog, he titled it "Fear, American Style: What the Anarchist and Libertarian Don’t Understand about the US" and had something in the first couple graphs about what "the left and the right don't understand." I actually read the part about Lennard as a digression on his way to pointing out anarchist myopia.


> That is really only point Robin is making in this very short article: that
> getting fired for your views is a form of repression that is enormously
> pervasive; that it has always played a huge role in cowing people in America
> from expressing themselves; and that given how pervasive it is, it's
> remarkable how little it's ever mentioned.

But this last is just untrue, especially when you drag anarchists into the mix as Robin does. Anarchist are acutely aware of this. Why do you think so many anarchists use pseudonyms in public forums?


> I think he's totally right, and I can't imagine that you disagree with him.

Of course not.


> But again, that last paragraph is just a rhetorical wrap up to tie 1200
> words up in a bow.  To pounce on the bow is unfair to the article.  It's not
> at all Corey's thesis here,

Again, he put the anarchist bit in the headline. And there's no "just" about this. In a 1200-word article, every word should count, so lazy--if it's simply a matter of being lazy--inclusion of anarchists is even less forgivable, especially when it's a mischaracterization and when it oversimplifies the relation between public and private to such a huge degree.



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