What is Anarchist Literary Theory Sub to Anar Studies v2

8/10/2019 What is Anarchist Literary Theory Sub to Anar Studies v2

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What Is Anarchist Literary Theory?

Jesse Cohn

Abstract

Over the course of its history, the anarchist movement has produced a form of

literary theory a critical aesthetics and epistemology grounded in its emancipatory

ethics. In sketching an outline of this body of thought, this essay attempts to call

attention to several aspects which offer a promising alternative to the sterility of themodes of theory dominant within the academy.

1. he recent revival of academic interest in the anarchist tradition has drawn new

attention to its reflections in literature, particularly via the influence of the anarchist

movement on avant!garde modernisms "e.g., #ound$s poetry, #icasso$s collages%,

and via the role played by figures of &the anarchist& and 'anarchy( in certain

narratives "e.g., )oseph Conrad$s The Secret Agentor *rank +orris$ The Octopus%.1

owever, this discussion has all but entirely omitted any consideration of the

possible contributions of anarchism to literary criticism. As -oger adoun writes,

this contribution is not simply a matter of cataloging 'anarchist elements in

literature,( whether works by anarchist authors, addressing anarchist topics, or

purporting to be stylistically anarchic "1//0, translation mine%. +or is a coherent

body of anarchist theoriation on literature a mere hypothesis2 it e3ists, albeit almost

completely consigned to official oblivion, in the historical archives. 4ike other forms


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of literary theory which draw on the traditions of oppositional political movements,

e.g., ecocriticism, postcolonialism, mar3ism, feminism, 6ueer theory, etc., anarchist

literary theory draws its inspiration from the body of thought and practices which

have historically comprised the anarchist movement.

5. his tradition is manifold and still evolving2 one can trace at least two ma7or lines of

development in anarchist theory, one of which leads from #roudhon and 8akunin to

+oam Chomsky and the late 9urray 8ookchin, the other stemming primarily fom

9a3 :tirner and coming, by several twists and turns, to influence -aoul ;aneigem,

*redy #erlman, and )ohn


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relations of class or gender or race, etc., but in any and all relationship "@raeber

5BaD!E2 @ranier I.?.?8, translation mine.%.

Anarchists oppose domination as such,not only insofar as this presents itself as

the effect or byproduct of some supposedly fundamental category ':lavery may

change its form or its name its essence remains the same( "8akunin 1/05 1?0%.

hus, from the time of #roudhon on, anarchists have regarded not only Capital, the

:tate, and the Church as analogous enemies "with overlapping interests%, but also

patriarchy, racism, colonialism, heterose3ism, and so on, on the same ethical

grounds "Colson 51 5B, translation mine%. 9ar3ist theory presents itself as

'science( as an 'analytical discourse( which describes how history progresses, or

how capital works, or how class society is structured "@raeber 5Ba E%. 8y

contrast, as aniel Colson remarks, anarchist theory 'is above all an ethical pro7ect

which directly engages, in its least practice, in 7udging the value of relations and

situations( "51 1F, translation mine2 9ay and 4ance /F?!FB%. his ethics

refuses to locate the desired good in some utopian elsewhere or elsewhen, in the

afterlife or after the revolution, a deferral which authories the dualism of 'ends(

versus 'means( "and, as Colson notes, 'the mastery over time that this distinction

presupposes(% but insists that means contain their own ends, that a genuinely

transformative movement 'prefigures( the society it seeks to bring about in its

practices here and now "4andauer 6td. in 4unn 1/0? 5502 Colson 51 11/,

translation mine2 @raeber 55 E5%.

B. his means that we do not need to approach any given te3t armed with

predetermined categories that we read it against e.g., the categories of class,


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gender, race, etc.2 instead, we seek to enter a dialogue with the te3t, not only to

criti6ue it from an e3ternal perspective seen as superior, but to reconstruct our

perspective with the aid of the te3t itself.

erbert -ead protested against the pro7ect of +ew Criticism, not only for its

formalism but for its instauration of interpretive 'canons( which reduce each

particular encounter between reader and te3t to an instance of the same "'turning

every poem into a well!wrought urn or verbal icon according to these critics= special

dicta,( as ;alentine Cunningham puts it%, an e3ercise in 'false method( 'the critical

faculty, elaborating its laws too far from its immediate ob7ect, may construct

categories or ideals that are in the nature of impassive moulds. he critic then

returns to the plastic substance of art and in a moment, in the name of science, he

has presented us with a rigid shape which he would persuade us is the living reality(

"Cunningham 55 52 -ead 1/E0 ?0%. his deductive model of in6uiry is directly

analogous to the vanguardist model of political action, in which the revolutionary

Glite, possessing 'correct( theory, imposes this rigid schema upon a 'mass(

conceived as essentially homogenous and passive. 8y contrast, as ;oline puts it,

anarchists refuse to locate an ordering 'principle( in 'a center created in advance to

capture the whole and impose itself upon it,( seeking instead an order which

emerges 'from all sides( "6td. in @uGrin 1/0 B?, italics mine%. In this sense,

anarchist in6uiry refuses, as Henneth 8urke would put it, to read te3ts against 'a

symbolist dictionary= already written in advance(2 it must be 'inductive,( always

ready to rearticulate and reconstruct its own principles from inside the encounter

with the te3t "8urke 1/0B F/, italics mine2 )ablon 1//0 1!5%.


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D. *or anarchists, treating literature as 'autonomous( from the social means failing to

think autonomy in social terms2 ergo, 6uestions of literature must always be situated

in a wider social conte3t, with the aim of determining what kind of relationships the

te3t offers to bring about between ourselves and one another, between ourselves

and the world.

'Art,( declares an entry in the Encyclopdie anarchiste, 'must be social in the

most complete sense of the word( "*aure 1/?B 1BB%. As @ustav 4andauer put it,

'literature . . . cannot be viewed as an autonomous activity,( separate from the rest

of 'life,( without thereby falsifying it indeed, not without fundamentally

misconceiving the nature of autonomy, which is nothing if not a social relation 7ust

as, for 8akunin, 'I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are

e6ually free,( so we can conclude with erbert -ead that 'to escape from society "if

that were possible% is to escape from the only soil rich enough to nourish art( "4unn

1/0? BB!BD2 Castoriadis 1//F 1F2 8akunin 1/05 5?02 -ead 1/?F 5%. hus, for

-icardo *lores 9agJn, the very notion of 'art for art=s sake( is 'an absurdity(

"translation mine%. Art cannot be removed to some 'mystical, transcendental sphere(

outside of human relations2 it must be 'situated,( created and received ' en situation(

"4itvak 1/FF 0E2 #roudhon 1/?/ 50E, ??0%. 4ike other 'signs,( literary te3ts in

some sense 'help us to cope with their designates(2 a 'style of speech( is also 'a

way of being in the world( "@oodman 1/01 /F%. Ke are concerned with the quality

of the various ways of being in the world that certain uses of language might afford

us.


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E. At the same time, the particular te3t must never be simply reduced to an instance of

a conte3t, seen solely as the e3pression of some larger, fi3ed structure2 there is

always the possibility of surprise, of transformation.

If language were, in +ietsche$s phrase, an inescapable 'prison!house( "6td. in

)ameson 1/05 i%, then there would be nothing for anarchists to do but surrender or

be silent, which would amount to the same thing. owever, this conception has

never been accepted by anarchists such as #aul @oodman, who denounces it for

'abstracting language Lper seM,( i.e, what :aussure termed la langue, 'from speaking

and hearing in actual situations,( i.e., concrete utterances, la parole, so as to

privilege the 'constancy and supra!individuality( of language 'as against the

variability and interpersonality of natural language( "1/01 FE!F0%. -ather than 'take

a statistical average of speech events and abstract a structure from it,( @oodman

argues for a conception of 'language as the tensionbetween the inherited code and

what needs to be said,( a dynamic process rather than a static structure 'the power

to speak and hear continually modifies the code . . . And language is not the code

but these sentences( "1/01 1?0, 1?1, ??, italics mine%.

In other words, for anarchists, language is not only the passive 'repetition of

familiar signs( ";aneigem 1//B 11%2 it is also an 'action( "@oodman 1/EBb 5BF%.

hus, writing and reading are not only the repeated confirmation of self!referential

structures2 they can be and are a means of transformation through which 'my

preconceptions have been changed, I have been moved in ways that I had not

e3pected( "1/EBb 5?E%. 9eanings are never simply 'reducible to the sum of the

forces and elements which 7oined to produce them . . . hey are at the same time


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more and other, distinct from the forces which render them possible( "Colson 5B%.

Anarchist interpretation seeks both this ground of possibility and the possibilities

themselves, the 'more and other.(

0. :ince an anarchist ethical stance means both a refusal to dominate and a refusal to

be dominated, an ethical approach to the te3t cannot simply mean a receptive or

empathetic reading, in which we merely submit to its terms, nor can it mean a purely

active reading, reading as the 'use( or violent 'appropriation( of the te3t2 instead of

positing ourselves as the slaves or the masters of te3ts, we ought to place ourselves

into a dynamic relation with them, to see each encounter with them as a dialogue

fraught with risk and promise.

*rom one perspective, interpretation implies a cringing admission of

'indebtedness( to the te3t2 rather than submit, the 'post!interpretive( reader declares

that 'there is no longer an ob7ect to interpret,( or, as :tanley *ish and -ichard -orty

suggest, that there is no 'te3t( which 'e3istLsM independently of anything Lthe readerM

might do( "Hristeva 1/FE ?E2 -orty 1D12 *ish 1/F ?EF%. *rom another

perspective, to interpreta te3t means 'to impose a limit on that te3t, to furnish it with

a final signified, to close the writing( 'an arbitrary imposition or a violent practice(

"8arthes 1/00 1B02 :hapiro 1//5 5%. *rom the first perspective, an anti!

authoritarian interpretive practice would amount to resisting 'the tyranny of the

signifier( in the name of the reader=s 'freedom( "Owens 1/F? D/2 Culler 1/F? 05%2

from the second perspective, an anti!authoritarian ethic would call for

'undermining . . . the privileged status of the interpreter( ":panos 1/0/ 1?D%. he


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anarchist tradition suggests that both of these conceptions of freedom and

intepretation are inade6uate, and that only a dialogical conception will do.

*or #roudhon, an anarchist discourse community is incompatible with the

un6uestioned supremacy of any fi3ed ideas, any 'absolute(2 instead, it

'presupposes, as its principle, the greatest contradiction, and as its means, the

greatest multiplicity possible( "1/?D III.50, translation mine%. >ntering into this

dialogue of many voices re6uires the participants to reframe their individual

perspectives in terms of others=, so that they progressively refine and break down

'their sub7ectivity, i.e. the absolute that the me= affirms,( creating 'a common manner

of seeing, which no longer resembles, either in content or in form, what it would have

been without this debate . . .( In short, the diversity and dissensus generated by

perpetual discussion gives place to a 'new manner of seeing, constituted by

relations which have been purged of metaphysical and absolutist elements,( which

he calls 'the collective or public reason( "1/?D III.5DE!E1, translation mine%.

his dialogue cannot take place, however, unless there is a genuine interplay

between the parties involved. If I simply dominate the te3t, supplying all its meaning,

then my perspective can never be changed or enriched by reading, and the 'me(

remains "falsely% absolute2 if I cannot contribute to the construction of meaning,

however, then the te3t cannot tell me anything unless, in fact, I substitute for the

te3t as it e3ists, with all its possibilities, a preconceived interpretation, generally a

received, traditional, rigidly conventional reading, as in the case of fundamentalist

readings of the orah, 8ible, or Horan. In the latter case, I submit to the

'transcendent( authority of 'a vicariate, a priesthood . . . Li.e., aM Logos(2 in the former


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case, I enclose myself in a 'narcissism( or solipsism for which 'everything can be

made up, finally nothing is given, there are no facts( "adoun 1//0, translation mine2

#roudhon 1/?D III.?E?, translation mine2 @oodman 1/EBb F1%. Only if the te3t and

I can each contest one another, call one another into 6uestion, can there be an

e3ercise of the 'collective reason( which permits freedom to coe3ist with community.

hus the necessity of a 'reading . . . with double intent,( from perspectives which are

internal to the te3t and from perspectives e3ternal to them, of reading with

'sympathy and empathy( and of 'lookLingM for what hides behind discourses( "de

Cleyre 1/1B ?0/!?F2 -ead 1/E0 /2 @ranier 5? II, 'Introduction,( translationmine%. hrough such a 'double labor,( we come not only to 'construct( the te3t that

we 'apprehend,( but to 'respect( it, to allow it the opportunity to reconstruct

ourselves 'we make it at the same time that it makes us( "adoun 1//02 4andauer

1/0B B5, translations mine%.

F. he positive face of anarchism entails a theory of te3tual meaning as relationship

specifically, of te3tual meaning as that which emerges from two sets of relations a.%

the relations between the te3t and the forces which produced it within a given

situation, and b.% the relations between the te3t as a force and its possible effects or

uses in particular situations.

:ince 'the fact and the idea are really inseparable,( it follows that we can interpret

them '*rom all these facts, let us draw out the general idea( "#roudhon 1/?D II.5/F,

III.01, translation mine%. his 'general idea( or 'logic of things( "#roudhon 1/?D

I.1/5, translation mine% can be thought in terms of a notion shared by #roudhon,

8akunin, and Hropotkin, namely, that of the 'resultant.( In #roudhon=s words,


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'everywhere there is a group, there is a resultant which is the power of the group,

distinct not only from the particular forces or powers which compose the group, but

also of their sum, and which e3press the synthetic unity of it, the pivotal, central

function( "#roudhon 1/?D III BF!B/, translation mine%. he relevant 'group,( in the

case of a literary te3t, may include more than 7ust the specific arrangement of signs

on a specific number of pages2 it may include the entire situation from which this

arrangement emerged and any aspect of the changing situations in which a reader

arrives at it. As @oodman emphasies, an important dimension of meaning is 'the

situation( of an utterance rather than its content, i.e., the conditions of 'the e3istenceof the speech as an act( in the public rhetoric of politicians, for instance, 'the real

meaning of the speeches, the goal of profits and power, is never stated( "1/01 /02

1/EBa ED%.

e3tual meaning, from this perspective, is neither e3clusive of nor limited to

reference to an ob7ectively e3isting reality "'within a spatial deployment of things and

beings,( as Colson puts it%2 it includes the possibility of such reference within a wider

conception of the te3t as an act, an event, a 'force( "5B 1D5%. Instead of isolating

and privileging the purely performative aspect of signs 'Khat is important in a te3t

is not what it means, but what it does and incites to do( "4yotard 1/FB /!1%2

'language is the transmission of the word as order!word, not the communication of a

sign as information( "eleue and @uattari 1/F0 00% anarchist theoriations of

language refuse to 'hypostasie( the performative or the constative functions of

language, and suggest that 'the two essential attributes of the same being,( are

'reason and force,( or 'signification and power( 'any force has a signification and


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that any signification is the e3pression of a force( "#roudhon 1/?D III.?E/2 Colombo

55 1?5!1??2 Colson 55 1BB, translations mine%. 9oreover, each te3t, as an

event, must be viewed both in retrospect, as the se6uel to other events "other te3ts,

the facts of the author=s life, 'what they meant for them, in their time,( the cultural

and historical milieu, even the ob7ective referents which it may concern% and in

prospect, as the possible cause of further and future events "other occasions,

readings, receptions, and responses% "4andauer 1/0B D, translation mine%. In this

sense, the te3t is to be seen, no less than a human being, as 'at once a radically

new, autonomous reality, carrying its own force, and at the same time the e3pressionof the forces and powers which, in composing it, make it possible( "Colson 1//F%. It

is possible, then, to regard te3ts as 'representations( of an ob7ective world or

'e3pressions( of an author=s sub7ectivity without thereby reducing them to these

functions and without endorsing a naNve!realist theory of mimesis2 it is also possible

for an interpreter to claim to 'represent( the te3t without privileging a single,

reductive reading.

/. In this sense, then, anarchism is not simply a 're7ection of representation,( insofar as

representation is synonymous with communication or meaning2 for a te3t to fail to

represent, communicate, or mean anything, it would have to have no relation to

antecedents and no conse6uences, i.e., to be outside of all relationship, which is to

say, to cease to be.

On the one hand, anarchism has always posed a rigorous and profound criti6ue

of the intersection of representation with power. :o!called 'representative

democracy,( from this perspective, is largely an apparatus for the transfer of power


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from the represented to the representative, a kind of floating signifier which can

scarcely be ade6uate to the 'general will( which is its supposed signified. On the

other hand, the alternative to the :tate is not a -ousseauvian 'state of nature,( a

collection of absolutely self!contained individuals2 it is the self!management of

society. his self!management entails the establishment of a 'relationship( between

people which is the ade6uate 'representation( of society by itself to itself 'the

government, no longer distinguishing itself from LourM interests and freedoms in so

far as they place themselves in relationwith one another, ceases to eist( "#roudhon

1/?E 5FF!5/, translation and italics mine%. his relationship finds its forms in thehoriontal federation, a 'forming and disbanding of thousands of representative,

district, communal, regional, national bodies( which never subordinates the parts to

the whole, and in the practice of direct democracy, whereby members of a

collectivity assemble to formulate policy in person, sending instructed

representatives "delegates% to convey their decisions to other bodies, empowered at

any time 'to call them to order . . . to replace them( "9alatesta 1//? 1D?2 4eval

5D B0F%. -ather than a static 'harmony,( then, anarchism produces a 'continually

modified( series of arrangements, 'a temporary ad7ustment established among all

forces acting upon a given spot . . . representing every moment the resultant of all

conflicting actions( "Hropotkin 1/0 151%. Khile 'it is always an ob7ect of suspicion,(

then, 'representation . . . is thus not re7ected per se by the anarchists(2 it is not

simply abolished but reconceived as plural and mobile "@ranier 5? II,

'Introduction,( translation mine%.


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his reconstruction of representation is implicit in the anarchist conception of

freedom. -eal emancipation, as opposed to formal or 7uridical right, for 8akunin,

has to be conceived in social terms, not as independence from social relationships

'he freedom of each individual is the ever!renewing result of numerous material,

intellectual, and moral influences of the surrounding individuals and of the society

into which he is born . . . to wish to escape this influence in the name of a

transcendental, divine, absolutely self!sufficient freedom is to condemn oneself to

none3istence( "1/05 5D0%. o be, indeed, is to be 'grouped(2 e3istence means

'collective being( "#roudhon 1/BE E?, F2 1/?D III.5E?, translation mine%. hiscollectivity cannot constitute itself, however, without communication and hence

language when 'language . . . is lost,( AndrG 4Go writes, 'all that truly connects men

and consolidates their relations( perishes with it. 'As a structure of intelligibility=

necessary to communication,( Caroline @ranier elaborates, 'representation ensures

the coherence of social e3changes one could not re7ect it without attacking the

social bond( "4Go 6td. in @ranier 5? II, 'Introduction(2 @ranier 5? II,

'Introduction,( translations mine%. hus understood, it 6uickly becomes apparent

that, as Colson e3plains, although there is always a 'danger( that, if we fail to

maintain a critical awareness of them, 'signs . . . can come to substitute for the

reality that they ought to epress, to take their place,( i.e., that they can be reified

into a new 'absolute,( they nonetheless 'play an essential role in the relations of

reciprocity= which the various collective beings are able to establish among

themselves(2 it is only throughsystems of signs, moreover, that 'collective beings not

only have the possibility of increasing their power, but also, by associating with one


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another, of giving birth to much vaster collective beings endowed with a collective

reason( "51 ?1E%.

1. he primary critical 6uestion, for anarchists, is how a given te3t can be seen to

represent life.

As an ethics that demands a 'continuous evaluation of the emancipatory or

oppressive 6uality of actions, perspectives, and standpoints,( anarchism re6uires us

to investigate 'their capacity "or lack thereof% to promote a stronger and freer life(

"Colson 51 115, 5//, translation and emphases mine%. Khen we do so in the

conte3t of literary and cultural studies, we are guided by our critical understanding of

language and its representational powers.

In his criti6ue of structuralist linguistics, @oodman criti6ues 'the thesis of

8en7amin Khorf, that the language determines the metaphysics of the tribe and what

people can think,( arguing that 'language is checked by non!verbal e3perience,( that

it is 'plastic( enough to 'LsayM new things,( and that we can and do 'communicate

across the barrier of culture and language.( owever, he suggests, 'if we put Khorf$s

thesis in a more modest form, it is more rewarding. #eople use language, they are

not LmerelyM determined by it2 but when they do use it and by the language they

choose they focus their e3perience and define and limit their thoughts. A style of

speech is an hypothesis about how the world is( "1/01 101!05, italics mine%. his

'hypothesis( is not idle speculation, but what 8urke would call 'a way of siing up

reality( in order to act within it "1/0B B%, or as @oodman puts it, to 'cope with( a

given 'e3perience( "1/01 101!5%.


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he importance of this suggestion lies in its link to a kind of 'critical realism( or

even a 'promiscuous realism( "@raeber 51 D5!D?, uprG 1/F1 F5% for #roudhon,

'nature, taken as a whole( can be seen to 'lend itself( to an indefinite variety of

schemes of categoriation "1/50 1E5, translation mine2 9ay and 4ance 1//D /F%.

8ecause 'there is no single way, even no normal way, of representing the world we

e3perience,( because representation "and 'perception( and 'comprehension( per se%

is 'a selection from chaos, a definition from the amorphous, a concretion within the

terrible fluidity= of life,( it has the power to help shape our e3perience, to redetermine

how we interpret and respond to it "-ead 1/EB 512 4andauer 1/0B 0!11, 0F,translation mine2 -ead 1/E0 ?1%. In this sense, it matters greatly what 'hypothesis

about how the world is( a te3t happens to embody. he 'representation of life( that it

suggests to us, often independently of its e3plicit propositional content "and indeed,

often largely independently of any conscious intention on the part of the author or

authors%, is highly political2 'every fiction prescribes as well as "or more than% it

describes( or prescribes by describing, ac6uires its performative force through its

constativity. hat is to say, a te3t embodies 'a worldview,( a 'view of what life really=

is( and, implicitly, of what it 'should be( "Kilson 1//1 DB!DD, D0%.

11. 8y 'life,( we mean not only the actual but the plural potentialswhich are dormant

within it.

'4ife,( here, is to be thought in fully natural, ecological terms, as 'a vast,

complicated whole,( 'a world of becoming and transition in which multiple diversities

coe3ist, a world of the never!completed, of the incalculable and the ine3tricable(2 it is

a process of 'uninterrupted creation( ";oline 5D, B?B!B?D2 4andauer 1/0B 00,


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translation mine%. his living reality is conceived of as comprising both 'actuality,(

that which is, and 'potentialities,( that which could be2 the real cannot be reduced to

either without falsification "8ookchin 1//E 512 Clark 1/0E 50!5F2 9c4aughlin 55

1B!1E2 @raeber 51, Toward an Anthropological Theory D5, 5E%. here is no

potential which does not emerge from some concrete actuality2 conversely, there is

no actuality which does not harbor multiple potentialities, a 'multitude of modes of

being and possibilities,( even if some of these possibilities are indeed 'monstrous(

"8ookchin 1/01 5FB2 Colson 5B 15, Colson 51 5BE2 Cochrane 5 1EF%. o

reduce history to a linear structure with a predetermined goal, in the manner ofComte, egel, or "at times% 9ar3 and >ngels, is to obscure the dimension of

potentiality2 on the other hand, to reduce history to a collection of infinitely

interpretable, undecideable 'te3ts,( in the manner of #aul de 9an, )ean 8audrillard,

or "at times% -ichard -orty, is to overlook the dimension of actuality. -eality, from an

anarchist perspective, is neither rigidly determined nor a shapeless void2 it is a vast

'sum of transformations( which can neither be 'predetermined nor preconceived,( a

'field LwhichM is open before human spontaneity( 'the field of the possible( "8akunin

1/F III.51E2 #roudhon 1/?D III.B0, translations mine2 9c4aughlin 55 1B%.

15. ere, anarchist literary theory 7oins a larger anarchist criti6ue of ideology to the

e3tent that we can speak of a 'false consciousness,( this falsehood consists in a.%

the creation of relationships which are taken to be inescapably fi3ed "or,

ontologically, the reduction of life=s possibilities to the actually e3isting% or b.% the

attempt to escape from all relationship "the reduction of life=s reality to pure

potentiality, unanchored to any actuality%.


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Anarchist analyses do not locate power, potentia, in a sovereign, nor do they

reduce it to an epiphenomenon of economics2 instead, they view it as 'immanent in

society,( emerging from the matri3 of relationships "#roudhon 1/?D II.5E1,

translation mine2 4andauer 6td. in 4unn 1/0? 55E2 Colson 51 ?1!??, translations

mine%. his 'social power( or 'collective force,( however, has been alienated from

itself, so that it is consistently located outside of the social "8akunin 1/0 B?n2

#roudhon 1/?D II.5E/, translation mine2 de Cleyre 5B E/%. his internment of

power within a 'place of power( or displacement of power into a 'center elsewhere(

"@od, human nature, the workings of the dialectic, etc.%, itself a mystification of sociallife, is underwritten by other forms of false consciousness certain conceptions of the

world according to which 'freedom seems not only impossible . . . but pernicious,( in

a cycle of social reproduction, emerge to support the very 'social order( which 'has

permitted and profited from( the circulation of these conceptions "+ewman 51E2

errida 1/0F 50/2 Cunillera 1/00 5F/, translation mine%. Among the many vehicles

for the circulation of 'ideologies( particularly in their claim to present a 'mirror of

life( are poetry, drama, and fiction "8irrell 1///1/F2 8aginski 1/E ?E%.

If reality, however ambiguous and 'promiscuous,( is not entirely formless and

empty, if it has certain features that can be falsified, then any claim to imitate reality

as it is, to hold up a 'mirror( to 'life,( must be regarded with suspicion2 as ;oline

insists, 'we must discover and frame . . . everything that ought to be regarded as

phony, at odds with life=s reality and in need of re7ection . . . LandM everything that

ought to be registered as 7ust, wholesome, acceptable( "de Cleyre 1/1B ?E12 ;oline

5D B?D%. Khat is a priori'false, fictitious, impossible and abstract(, for anarchists,


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Cohn 1F

is what is taken to be 'fi3ed, complete, whole, inalterable( in short, the 'Absolute(

that egel stood at the end of his dialectic "#roudhon 1/BE D!D1, translation mine%.

'Khat we seek,( #roudhon writes, 'is a means of purging the ideas . . . in other

words, it is to eliminate the A8:O4> from the consideration of things( "1/?D

III.5B/, translation mine%.

As Colson writes, we are in the presence of what can be called false

consciousness when 'the relative= is transformed into the absolute,= the resultant=

into an originating principle,= the effect into the cause, and the product of human

activity into the dominatory foundation of this activity( "5B E5%. hus, for instance,

gold coin, as 'money,( the universal 'standard( of value, is taken to be the source of

wealth 'imagination attributing to the metal that which is the effect of collective

thought manifested through the metal,( this ob7ect is fetishistically endowed with a

power it does not have "#roudhon 1/5E II.88-89, translation mine). Other

forms of false consciousness entail obscuring one of the two aspects of

the real either collapsing the potential into the actual (reifying the status

quo into an unchanging orer or an inescapable necessity) or ispersing

the actual into mere potentialities (the enial of e!ery concrete limitation

or etermination in fa!or of an abstractly limitless possibility). "a#unin

inicts the latter in his attac# on theological iealism, which $isains all

that e%ists& as mere 'nite particularity, see#ing instea to foun things in

the $complete negation& of the e%isting, i.e., o as $the highest

abstraction of the min& or $absolute nothingness& he inicts the former

in his critique of materialist eterminism, which reuces $the human point


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Cohn 1/

of !iew,& the stanpoints of human sub*ects, to $ine!itable,& ob*ecti!e

necessity, thereby eliminating the categories of the ethical $shoul,& the

$ieal,& $consciousness,& will, an esire (+9 , /09-/+/).

1?. his both implies and is implicated in an anarchist aesthetic which emerged most

clearly in the late nineteenth century theory of art social, defined as the re7ection

both of +aturalism "which 'realistically( reifies life into actuality% and of :ymbolism

"which seeks to escape into an 'ideal( realm of potentiality%, and as the affirmation of

an art which would make visible the potentials within the actual, evoking the 'ideal(

within the 'real.(

*or #roudhon, since 'the ideal . . . has its base, its cause, its power of

development, in the real,( a genuinely realist art would have as its 'goal,( in fact, to

evoke 'the ideal( "1/?D III.DFD2 1/?/ D/, translation mine%. Hropotkin identified 'this

idea which so much shocked Kestern readers when #roudhon developed it( as a

'realism . . . LwithM an idealistic aim( "1/1E 5/D, FE%. *rom this perspective, realism

cannot be 'reduced to a simple photography( of the actual2 indeed, to do so would

be to e3clude the dimension of potentiality or 'the ideal( which is 'inherent in things,(

and thereby to reify reality2 likewise, to 'depart from the truth by way of the ideal,( in

the manner of premodern art, was to shield the actual world from the critical gae,

superimposing an unchanging 'dogma( on the flu3 of appearances "4itvak 1/FF 5E!

502 4aare 1F/E 5/2 #roudhon 1/?/ E1, 1FF, translations mine%.

>laborating on this conception a generation later, anarchists attacked both the

+aturalist aesthetic of Pmile


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Cohn 5

focusing our gae on 'the lowest and most degenerate aspects( of the present

reality, tends to issue in a resigned acceptance of the actual 'tout comprendre, tout

pardonner( the other, seeking to escape the banality of everyday appearances,

issues in a strikingly parallel affirmation of ' the old -omantic theory, the foundation

of which is Christian life is ab7ect, one must go outside of life( "@ranier 5? II,

'Introduction(2 4unn 1/0? BD2 4aare 1F/E 50!5F2 Hropotkin, !dealsFE2 4unn 1/0?

BD2 4aare 1F/E 5F, translations mine%.

Instead of a falsely polaried aesthetic realism or idealism, #roudhon argued,

what was needed was an art which would combine 'observation( with 'inspiration,(

revealing the possible within the actual "4itvak 1/FF 5E!502 4aare 1F/E 5/2

#roudhon 1/?/ E1, 1FF, 1/!1/5, translations mine%. )ust as anarchists practice a

prefigurative politics, they proposed to create 'a prefigurative art Lun art de

prcurseurM,( an art which would evoke the imagination of and a 'longing for( a better

world "4aare 1F/E ?1, translation and italics mine2 )acoby 5D FD%.

1B. erein lies what could be called the utopian dimension of anarchist literary theory

not in the sense of positing an abstract ideal without relation to an actual topos, but

in the sense that we are always 7ourneying from one toposto another, travelling into

the future.

@raeber proposes that an anarchist approach to the study of social te3ts might be

modeled after a certain kind of 'auto!ethnography,( a practice of 'teasing out the tacit

logic or principles underlying certain forms of radical practice, and then, not only

offering the analysis back to those communities, but using them to formulate new

visions "if one applied the same principles as you are applying to political


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Cohn 51

organiation to economics, might it not look something like thisQ= . . .%( in other

words, a 'utopian e3trapolation( of the potential from the actual "5?%. 'topia,( in

@ranier=s words, 'thus becomes a method( "5? II, 'Introduction,( translation and

italics mine%. It is in this sense that for anarchists, the act of interpretation is also a

creative act "adoun 1//0%.


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Cohn 55

Notes

1

:ee, for instance, Carol ;anderveer amilton=s 'American Kriters, 9odernism,and -epresentations of the :acco!;anetti Case( in this 7ournal "vol. F, no. 1, 9arch

5, pp. ?!5D%, . @ustav Hlaus=s study of ':ilhouettes of Anarchism in the Kork of

hree 8ritish Kriters( in @isela ermann!8rennecke and Kolf Hindermann, eds.,

Anglo"American Awareness# Arpeggios in Aesthetics"9Rnster, @ermany 4I, 5D,

pp. 101!/5% and the volume edited by Hlaus with :tephen Hnight, $To %ell &ith

'ulture(# Anarchism in Twentieth"'entury )ritish Literature "Cardiff niversity of

Kales #ress, 5D%, or Arthur >fron=s 'Kar is the ealth of the :tate An Anarchist

-eading of %enry !*, +art One( "in &ors and -aysvol. 1, no. 1, :pring 1//5 , pp.

0!0D%.

5 he dead end could be described as follows embarassed by the te3tualist

e3cesses of the Fs, theorists have pursued a certain 'return to order( via a.% a

te3tualied historical materialism, b.% a conversion of 'literary studies into cultural

studies( ">asthope 1//1%, and c.% engagement in identity politics while gingerly

seeking to avoid commitments to essentialism, totaliing narratives, and

representation. +ow we hear complaints from several 6uarters of a 'theory mess(

"-apaport 51%, reflecting a sense that in trying to have it both ways,

accommodating relativism to realism and vice versa, the whole enterprise has

become incoherent. he anarchist tradition, grounded in concrete ethico!political

commitments and possessed of surprisingly powerful critical instruments, can point

the way out of the mae.


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Cohn 5?

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