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anarchist rejections of the state 79 have different sociological theories about the ways in which free individuals enter into social relationships. Bookchin’s ‘social’ view is strongly communitarian, Brown’s ‘lifestyle’ conception, libertarian. 73 The communitarian view, supported by Biehl and Bookchin, is that individuals are legitimately shaped by the moral, social and cultural mores of their communities. In Bookchin’s view ‘the making of that “whole” we call a rounded, creative, and richly variegated human being crucially depends upon community supports’. Individual socialization does not inhibit individuals from leading autonomous lives. To the contrary, it provides them with the wherewithal to exercise their freedom. Without community, ‘there would be no real self to distort – only a fragmented, wriggling, frail, and pathological thing’. His pithy conclusion is that ‘the making of a human being … is a collective process’. 74 For libertarian or ‘lifestyle’ critics like Brown, Bookchin’s collective processes threaten to cut down the individual’s realm of free decision-making and are sources of potential oppression. The sociological differences between anarchist communitarians and libertarians do not necessarily inhibit political agreement. To give an illustration, there is a long tradition in anarchist thought which defines individuality in terms of sexuality. The general insight is that ‘sex undermines Authority’. More precisely, as Alex Comfort argued, ‘anti-sexualism of authoritarian societies’ springs from ‘the vague perception that freedom here might lead to a liking for freedom elsewhere’; and that ‘[p]eople who have eroticised their experience of themselves … are … inconveniently unwarlike’. 75 This tradition of anti-authoritarianism has a number of dimensions, but is strongly associated with feminism. In this context, ‘lifestyle’ and ‘social’ anarchists have been able to develop a common politics. For example, Emma Goldman’s view (which was founded on the broadly existentialist idea that woman’s emancipation depended on ‘her inner regeneration’ and her ability ‘to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs’) was that anarchy would liberate women from the subordinate social role associated with marriage and enable them to find fulfilment in heterosexual, family relationships. From a starting point that is closer to ‘social’ anarchism, the Anarcha-feminist International arrives at a similar conclusion. Liberation requires that the ‘traditional patriarchal nuclear family should be replaced by free associations between men and women based on equal right to decide for both parts and with respect for the individual person’s autonomy and integrity’. 76
80 anarchism: a beginner’s guide Where anarchists have had political disagreements it is often because they dispute the sources of domination or oppression in the state, not because they have different ideas about what constitutes ‘woman’ (though this is an important debate in other feminist circles). Anarcha-feminists like Nicki Clarke link liberation to overcoming the alienation exhibited in and through the pornographic objectification of women in commodity culture. Anarchists associated with Class War divorce ‘middle class’ feminist concerns with pornography from the power relations that support capitalist forms of exploitation: the problem is not the ‘pictures of naked adults having sex’ it is the ‘damaging, hierarchical and sexist class society that introduces the idea of sexual abuse and male power and dominance over women’. 77 The debate between communitarians and libertarians adds an important dimension to anarchist discussions of the state and the organization of anarchy but it does not suggest any particular mapping between state critiques and anarchist ideals. It is possible to argue – as Guérin did – that the collective struggle against exploitation will support libertarian ends or, as Tolstoy held, that life in community – Christian fellowship – is based on the exercise of individual conscience. The possible mappings are represented in the diagram below: Mapping Collectivism, Individualism, Communitarianism and Libertarianism Authority Power Liberty Anarchy Struggle against alienation/exploitation collective communitarian Command Autonomy Individual collective libertarian communitarian Control Individuality Individual collective libertarian communitarian Corruption Altruism Individual libertarian
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contents Acknowledgements vii intro
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acknowledgements A number of people
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index Page numbers in italic denote
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index 177 Farrow, Lynne 119 fascism
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index 179 and state 30, 45-6, 50, 5
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