I wrote about this when I was ranting about radical feminism back in 2006. This is relevant because, since rooted in anarchist thoughts, the history of radical (later understood as cultural) feminism is a template for what's going on with anarchist thought where more radical anarchist ideas and organizational practices have infiltrated youth culture.
1. although radical feminists - rooted in anarchism -- think they are an embattled minority, they are actually a powerful force because their ideas have infiltrated mainstream feminist thought and practice.
2. How? Because their 'movement' petered out and they elected to start small businesses, create alternative organizations, etc. they became the people who revivified moribund farmers' markets, built women's shelters and rape crisis centers, ran soup kitchens, created breast milk sharing programs, forged community daycare centers, staffed anti-war and peace movement efforts, outreach, and education centers, etc.
Radical feminist ideology infiltrates so much of feminist thought because, while they avoid academia, they didn't avoid bringing their ideas to their daily work - paid and volunteer. they stay capable of mobilizing political resources because they continually hone their skills in a variety of ways that appear, to the outsider, as rather apolitical. but when the shit hits the fan, they are able to quickly mobilize the resources to do accomplish stuff.
This is what has happened with left anarchist movement as well. They aren't much in academia. instead, they are at the farmer's market, in the bike advocacy group, working the counter at the coffee shop, building the latest "maker space". whatever. Since they are committed to the idea that they have to create alternative organizations and institutions, they go out and do that as best as they can. and when they do, they bring / learn/ teach the organizing skills it takes to pull this kind of thing off.
non-anarchist leftists don't share this ideology of building alternative organizations and institutions -- not these paltry little things like bookstores, food pantries, bike repair shops, community gardens, etc. -- instead, they have their eyes on these massive concepts, like parties, which are beyond the reach of small cadre of dreamers, not simply because there are so few, but because as Carrol says, pulling such a thing is impossible if 1. there isn't the confluence of events moving it forward and 2. if there aren't already in place the resources needed to pull this off.
so, Eric's friend has the right idea - though I think he's mistaken about rebuilding the wheel. He's going to have to accept that this happens. That young folks forget all the knowledge that came before, that it all feels new, etc. He's right that we might consider ways to deal with it, to try to avoid it. I guess I think we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it'll go away entirely.
> Eric, your post (or the text quoted) ends with speculation of
whether
> or
> not 'it' (OWS) will fizzle or not, and the consequences in either
case.
> It's the second long and thoughtful post (the other on Solidarity)
that
> I've read today. And both posts fail to consider a third
> 'alternative,'
> which I rather think is certain: if it PAUSES . . . . and then
breaks
> out again, a month or a year from now, and in some other equally
surprising form. What will happen in the "meantime," then is that large
> numbers of leftists (probably too many) will decide it has
"fizzled."
> Do you have thoughts on that third possibility?
> Incidentally, I think it wrong to regard OWS as the beginning.
> Wisconsin
> was the beginning, and leftists are being very wrong to think of
Wisconsin as having fizzled. It paused and arose in the present
form.
> Carrol
> P.S. My eyes have gotten much worse and I read with fucking slowness
.
> I
> haven't read all of the post yet . If you respond, please make sure
the
> first paratraph contins the meat of w hat you have to say. I'll have
ZoomText read some longer posts to me later in the day, but I really
have trouble getting grasping a complex argument when its read to
me.
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