Editorial — Post-anarchism Today

8/13/2019 Editorial Post-anarchism Today

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Anar ist Developments in Cultural Studies Post-Anar ism today 2010.1

Editorial Post-anar ism TodayLewis Call

We lcome to Post-ana rchism Today. i s is certainly not US AToday , et ce nest certainemen t pas Aujourdhui en France. Indeed ,it is a refresh ing an tidote to all such discourses of modern statecapitalism. During its short but colourful existence, post-anarchismhas a lways been libertarian and socialist in its basic philosoph icaloutlook: thats the anar ism part. But post-@ has also maintainedits independence from mode rn rationa lism and mode rn concep tsof sub jectivity: t ha ts the post - part. As I survey post-ana rchismtoday, I nd to my surprise and delight that both parts are strongerthan e ver. Its now clear tha t post-@ is a part of anarchism, notsomething that stands aga inst it. Its equally clear that post-@ haschanged anarchism in some interesting and important ways.

I speak of post-anarchism today because I believe that we are liv-ing through a pos t-ana rchist momen t. I know, I know : the ow l of Minerva ies only at dusk, so how can I claim to understand the mo-

ment Im living in? But one of the many great things about post-@is that it means we can be done, nally, with Hegel. Minervas owlneeds to get a job. We need a new bird, faster, more intuitive, moreopen sou rce: something mo re like the Linux pengu in. i ngs hap -pen faster than they used to, and the rate of change is accelerating.Our ability to comment on these things must also accelerate. us Imaintain that we may, in fact, study our own political and intellec-tual environmen t. Indeed , I f eel that we must do this, or ri sk being

overtaken by events. Post-anarchism waits for no one.

Lewis Call is assistant professor of history at California Polytechnic State University,San Luis Obispo. He is an associate editor f or the journal Anar ist Studies . He is theauthor of Pos t mode r n Ana r i sm (Lexington Books, 2002). He has wri en extensivelyabout post-anarchist science ction, exploring post-anarchist themes in the novelsof Ursula K. Le Guin, the lm V for Vende a, and the television series Ba lestarGalactica. He received the 2007 Mr. Pointy Award f or best article in the eld of BuffyStudies.


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10 Lewis Call

When I speak of post-ana rchism today, I also imp ly tha t therewas pos t-ana rchism y es t e r da y . Here I invoke the pecu liar, powerf ul

alchem y of the h istorian : I declare tha t there is an ob ject of studycalled post-anarchism, and that this object already has a history. Anoutrageously brief narrative of that history might go something likethis: post-@ was born in the mid-1980s, in Hak im Beys Tempo -rary Autonomous Zone . r oughou t the 90s it grew and prosperedin that eras distributed, rhizomatic networks, the Internet and theWorld Wide Web . Post-@ wen t to schoo l in the pages o f journa lslike Britains Anar ist Studies and Turkeys Siyahi . Todd May gave it

a philosophy . Saul Newman gave it a name and an interest in psy ol- og y . I encouraged post-@ to take an interest in popular culture (andvice versa). Richard J.F. Day introduced post-@ to the newest socialmovemen ts: the beg inn ing of a beautif ul friendsh ip. ough tf ulcritics like Ben jam in Franks de veloped intriguing critiques of post-anarchism (Franks, 2007). Duane Rousselle and Sreyyya Evren gavepost-@ a Reader. And now, here we are! Using this crazy li l e thingcalled post-anarchism to inaugurate a bold new journal, one whichpromises to examine the cu ltural environmen t of our postmode rnage through an anarchist lens!

But wait just a minute. May, Day, Newman and Call sounds morelike a law rm than a revolution . Indeed , early post-@ was justlycriticized as another ivory tower phenomenon f or white, male, bour-geois intellectuals. Luckily, post-anarchism today is nothing like that.Its transna tional, transethn ic and transgende r. It speaks in popu larand popu list voices, not just on the pages of academic journals likethis one. Post-ana rchism today is a viral collection of networkeddiscou rses wh ich need no thing mo re in common than their belief that we can achieve a be er world if we say goodbye to our dear oldfriend the rationa l Cartesian se lf, and emb race instead the play of symbo l and des ire. All the kids are doing it these da ys: the BlackBloc, the queers, the culture jammers, the anti-colonialists. Post-an-archism today is a set of discourses which speaks to a large, exible,

free-wheeling coalition of anarchist groups: activists, academics andartists, perverts, post-structuralists and peasants. As Foucault oncesaid, dont ask who we are and dont expect us to remain the same.We are the whatever-singularity that lurks behind a black kerchief.We might look like Subcommander Marcos, or Guy Fawkes, or yourweirdo history professor. We are everybody and we are nobody. Wecant be stopped, because we dont even exist.


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Editorial 11

When I review the brief but exciting history of post-anarchism inthis way, it suddenly seems that post-@ might possess everything it

needs to cons titute not merely a moment , but an actual movement .Franks (2007) has suggested that such a movement might be emerg-ing . In the pas t I have hesitated to agree. A er all, one doesn tlike to be accused o f overblown , breathless revolutiona ry rhetoric.But the existence of this journal, Ana r i s t De v e l opment s i n Cu lt u r a l S t ud i es , has convinced me tha t the time to hesitate is through . Adecade into the third millennium, post-anarchism has become a self-realizing desire, a kind of Deleuzian desiring machine. According to

the Deleuzian theories which inform most of the essays in this vol-ume , such mach ines ac tually produce reality (Deleuze , 1983). Likeall good desiring machines, post-@ operates by multiplicity . In thesepages , scholars of many diff eren t nationa lities, languages , ethn ic-ities, gende rs, sexualities and theo retical perspec tives have cometogether to talk about post-anarchism, its promise, its potential, itsproblems. is journal contains thoughtful, passionate defences of post-anarchism, and equally insightf ul, equally passionate critiquesof it. Some of the essays in this volume are not particularly post-ana rchist in their outlook or method , yet even these sha re certainconce rns w ith pos t-@: concerns , f or examp le, about architecture,territ ories, the organ ization of space. ese essays f ollow lines of ight which some times intersect with pos t-ana rchism, and thesepoints of intersection are rich with potential.

At leas t f our of the articles in this issue occup y the terrain of ana rchist political ph ilosoph y, wh ich sugges ts tha t post-@ has byno means abandoned the central concerns of traditional anarchism.Saul Newman s essay exam ines one o f the mos t serious obs taclesto any ana rchist revolution : self-dom ina tion , or the des ire we f eelf or our own dom ina tion . Draw ing on the radical psychoana lytictradition, Newman argues compellingly that any effective anarchistpolitics must directly address our psychic dependence on powe r.Newman s critical pro ject is vitally impo rtan t, in tha t it motivates

us to seek strategies by which we ma y overcome ou r complicitywith political and economic power. us I have argued, for example,tha t the practices of BDSM or kink might satisfy our need f orpowe r withou t reproduc ing statist or capitalist power structures(Call, 2011b).

omas Swanns essay extends an intriguing debate about moralun iversalism. Post-@ unden iably includes a drama tic critique of such un iversalism. Ben jam in Franks (2008) has responded to this


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Editorial 13

Meanwhile, Edward Avery-Natale offers a very different kind of quee r anarchism. Avery-Natale shows how B lack Bloc ana rchists

who might normally identify themselves as straight can temporarilyand tactically embrace a quee r sub ject position . i s sugges ts tha tqueer has become much more than a sexuality. Qeer now namesa subject position so exible that it threatens to reveal the emptinessof sub jectivity it self. Sub jectivity t hen co llapses into wha t Avery-Natale, following Giorgio Agamben, calls the whatever-singularity.Qeerness here refers to the negation of identity itself. Again, thispro ject is en tirely compa tible with pos t-@. Post-ana rchism sha res

with the quee r Black Bloc the goa l of destroying no t just capitaland the state, but the ana rchist sub ject as such . In the wo rds of Alan Moores anarchist freedom ghter V, Let us raise a toast to allour bombers, all our bastards, most unlovely and most unf orgivable.Lets drink their health [. . .] then mee t with them no more (Moore& Lloyd, 1990: 248).

In the long run , the interdisciplinary f ocus of Ana r i s t De v e l op - ments in Cultural Studies may well turn ou t to be its strong su it. Iam delighted to see that this inaugural issue contains both anarchistarchitectural theory and anarchist lm criticism. Alan Antliff givesus a f ascinating study of Adrian Blackwells anarchitecture. Black-wells architecture a emp ts to eng inee r a radical perspec tive shiwhich might render static power relations more open and uid. eresult, as Antliff compellingly argues, is a unique form of anarchistarchitecture wh ich ref uses to rema in trapped w ithin the cu lturallogic of capitalism.

Meanwhile, Nathan Jun offers a very ambitious anarchist lm the-ory, one which undertakes to reveal the liberatory potential of lm.Echoing (once aga in) Gilles Deleuze , J un argues tha t a genu ine lynomadic cinema is not only possible but inevitable, and that such acinema will emerge at the juncture between producer and consumer,while blurring the distinction between the two. One need only lookat the viral prolif eration of quality amateur video produc tions on

YouTube and other sites for evidence that this is already happening.at just leaves three wild essays, one of wh ich con tains w ithinitself (in proper fractal fashion) ree Wild Interstices of Anarchismand Ph ilosoph y. Ale jand ro de Acosta suggests that anarchism hasnever been incorporated into or as an academic discipline thoughI would hasten to add, its certainly not for lack of trying. De Acostamakes anarchisms apparent theoretical weakness into a virtue, ar-guing that anarchism really ma ers not as a body of abstract theory,


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Editorial 15

References

Call, Lewis. (2011a) Buffy the Postanarchist Vampire Slayer. In Post- anar ism: A Reader (Duane Rousse lle & Sreyyya Evren , Eds.).London: Pluto Press.

(2011b) Structures of Desire: Postanarchist Kink in the Specula-tive Fiction of Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany. In Ana r i smand Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships and Power ( J am ie Hecke rt &Richard Cleminson, Eds.). New York: Routledge.

Deleuze, Gilles &Felix Gua ari. (1983) Anti- O edipus: Capitalism and S izophrenia . (R. Hurley et al., Trans.) Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press.

Franks , Ben jam in. (2007) Postana rchism: A Critical Assessmen t.Journal of Political Ideologies (12)2: 12745.

(2008) Postanarchism and Meta-Ethics. Anar ist Studies (16)2:13553.

Moore, Alan & David Lloyd. (1990) V for Vende a . New York: DCComics.


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