individual and community
individual and community (2019) by laurence davis
ie: networked individualism ness..
[https://research.ucc.ie/profiles/l.davis@ucc.ie]: Dr. Laurence Davis is a critical political theorist lecturing in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork. His primary research and teaching interests are in radical political thought and imagination, with an emphasis on bringing the perspectives of the Humanities to bear on the multiple and interlocking global crises of our time. A common thread linking much of his research is a focus on the political uses of utopian thinking and imagination. Drawing on this and related research, including contemporary ecological, anti-capitalist, indigenous, degrowth, feminist, queer, and post-colonial perspectives, Dr. Davis is currently completing a research project ..on the theme of ‘Grounded Utopianism’, emphasizing especially the differences between utopias associated with the imagination of and/or quest for perfection in some impossible future (transcendent utopia), and those associated with the encouragement of greater imaginative awareness of neglected or suppressed possibilities for qualitatively better forms of living latent in the present (grounded utopia).
via 22 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/laurence-davis-individual-and-community]
notes/quotes:
4
As evidence for the first of these claims, Ritter assesses the meaning and significance of individuality and community in the work of classical anarchists such as Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin. He finds that notwithstanding their many differences, all of them share a common understanding of individuality as self-development, and of community as reciprocal awareness. Moreover, and very importantly, all of them seek to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity. Contrary to popular misconception, in other words, the chief goal of the anarchists is not freedom above all else, but a society of strongly separate persons who are strongly bound together in a group..t
whether anarchist ness or not.. the thing we’ve not yet seen: ‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows.. because the thing we’ve not yet tried: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
7
In contrast to their ideological cousins and sometime political rivals, liberalism and ‘scientific’ socialism, most anarchists—like so many feminists, pacifists, ecologists, anti-imperialists, and libertarian and utopian socialists—regard the liberation of everyday life as a defining feature of both their social ideals and the means of achieving them. The political thinker Murray Bookchin articulated this point with memorable clarity in the aftermath of the rebellions of the 1960s: ‘It is plain that the goal of revolution today must be the liberation of daily life. Any revolution that fails to achieve this goal is counter-revolution..t Above all, it is we who have to be liberated, our daily lives, with all their moments, hours and days, and not universals like “History” and “Society”’
hardt revolution law: revolution – instigating utopia every day – michael hardt
revolution in reverse – david graeber
11
In short, what is now urgently needed in anarchist movement discussions of lifestyle politics is not further polarising discourse about ‘unbridgeable chasms’, *but bridge building in the form of intelligent, appropriately self-critical and context-sensitive dialogue that recognises common ground. **Bookchin’s work in the aftermath of the rebellions of the 1960s was a model of such bridge building, whereas his later writing served only to exacerbate existing splits in the movement. Sadly, his 1995 polemic was also a prelude to his ultimate break with anarchism, which in the years before his death he consistently mischaracterised as an inherently anti-social and anti-political ideology that ‘above all seeks the emancipation of individual personality from all ethical, political, and social constraints’. ***Hence the need he perceived for an international Left to advance beyond anarchism altogether—and indeed beyond Marxism, syndicalism, and ‘vague socialist framework[s]’—towards Bookchin’s own longstanding libertarian municipalist, non-anarchist democratic project, now dubbed simply Communalism.
*still cancerous distraction.. need to try imagine if we ness.. need 1st most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs.. otherwise just more whalespeak flapping and whac-a-mole-ing ness
**nothing/nobody to date trying something legit diff.. all to date have been cancerous distractions..
***something legit diff.. but we haven’t yet tried/seen
Stepping away from Bookchin’s work, I turn now to historical and contemporary debates about the relationship between anarchism and democracy. Like debates about lifestyle politics, I contend, they reveal hidden assumptions that illuminate the *ideological pitfalls involved in attempting to balance individual and community in anarchist theory and practice. I argue, more specifically, that whereas positions on the issue tend to polarise into competing camps—either anarchism and democracy are fundamentally incompatible, or they are seamlessly compatible—a more nuanced account guided by the anarchist value of communal individuality would allow for **the possibility that anarchism is the most radical form of democracy but also something qualitatively different from and beyond it. Anarchist democracy, in turn, might be conceived as what I have elsewhere termed a ***‘grounded utopian’ ideal that can renew the democratic promise by recalling its radical heritage and continually pushing it towards a horizon both revolutionary and eminently realisable.
*only because we haven’t yet let go enough.. of thinking we have to understand/explain/debate/whatever it.. to see.. the dance
**we need something legit diff.. not a re\naming of something.. otherwise holding on to and perpetuating same song
***ie of holding on ness.. because ie: heritage not radical enough to get to root of problem.. today we can do legit rev and realisable.. and we’re missing it
ie: a nother way
Anarchist Democracy
Like such terms as ‘freedom’, ‘equality’, ‘individuality’, and ‘community’, the concept of democracy is an inherently debatable and changeable idea. In other words, there is no single agreed meaning of the term valid for all peoples at all times. Rather, its meanings at any given moment in history reflect struggles among different groups who understand and practice democracy very differently. It follows that attempts to formulate a comprehensive, fixed, and static definition of the term are not only doomed to fail but are also anti-democratic, insofar as they strive to control and contain something that by its very nature must reflect the varying and complex needs and belief systems of people over time.
graeber can’t know law et al
13
Many anarchists and anarchist groups, historical and contemporary, have maintained that anarchism and democracy are fundamentally incompatible. Malatesta, for example, famously associated democracy with majority rule, and proclaimed that ‘we are neither for a majority nor for a minority government; neither for democracy nor for dictatorship… We are for anarchy’. More recently, Uri Gordon objects to the association between anarchism and democracy in part because of the element of coercive enforceability which he associates with the term ‘democracy’. According to Gordon, democratic discourse assumes ‘without exception’ that the political process results, at some point, in collectively binding decisions that are coercively enforceable. By contrast, the outcomes of anarchist process are impossible to enforce. It follows that anarchism represents ‘not the most radical form of democracy, but an altogether different paradigm of collective action’. Elsewhere, he also criticises efforts to recuperate democracy for anarchism because he believes that such efforts entangle anarchism with ‘the patriotic nature of the pride in democracy which it seeks to subvert’. In a similar vein, CrimethInc. too emphasises the coercive and exclusionary aspects of the theory and practice of democracy, from ancient Athens to modern representative democracy. Moreover, they contend that even direct democracy without the state will inevitably reproduce exclusion, and either coercion or confusion. They conclude that when we engage in collective activities, it is important that we understand what we are doing as a collective practice of freedom rather than as a form of participatory democracy.
any form of democratic admin.. but also any form of marsh label law.. we need curiosity over decision making.. as our only label.. ie: itch-in-the-soul as label via nonjudgmental expo labeling of imagine if we ness
14
Whereas partisans of what might be termed the ‘unbridgeable chasm’ thesis about the relationship between anarchism and democracy emphasise the worst (coercive and exclusionary) features of the democratic tradition, champions of the ‘seamless unity’ position uncritically focus on the best (libertarian, egalitarian, and radically participatory) aspects of the tradition. Wayne Price, for example, declares simply that ‘anarchism is democracy without the state’. According to Price, ‘democracy’ has two contradictory meanings today: on the one hand, the justification of the existing state, and *on the other hand a tradition of revolutionary popular liberation that serves as a standard for judging and condemning the state. Anarchism is ideologically aligned with the latter. To be sure, many anarchists have opposed democracy, and ‘the individualist tendencies [within anarchism] are the worst in that regard’, but these ‘weaknesses of anarchism’ can be corrected by a clear and unambiguous recognition that ‘the program of anarchism’ is to replace the bureaucratic-military state machine with a federation of decentralised popular assemblies and associations based on the principle of majority rule, in short democracy without the state. As for those anarchists such as Malatesta who have expressed principled concerns about majoritarianism from a social anarchist perspective, they are simply confused. Again according to Price, Malatesta ‘mixes up’ opposition to democratic ideology as a rationalisation for capitalism and the state with denunciation of the very concept of majority rule. Whereas the former is justified from an anarchist perspective, the latter is not, **because collective decisions agreed by a majority must be binding on dissenting minorities as well. People with minority views have the right to participate in all decision-making. ..In sum, Price concludes without leaving any room for ambiguity or doubt, ***‘when everyone is involved in governing then there is no government’.
*if so.. then anarchism is same song
**rather.. because decision making (itself) is unmooring us.. need to let go of it if want to get to root of problem.. legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do (dm is this.. ie: someone had to come up with choices).. how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
***makes no diff if still in sea world.. need global detox leap.. otherwise same song no matter what we call it
15
In other words, in place of both majority and minority rule, he (malatesta) proposed a model of decision-making that eschewed coercive enforcement in favour of an ideal of free and spontaneous agreement consistent with the anarchist principle of communal individuality. Importantly, he also acknowledged the practical difficulties likely to be faced by those committed to enacting such an ideal.
difficulties.. because we need to rather.. let go of decision making.. and try curiosity over decision making
Paul Goodman, for example, whose anarchism exercised a profound influence on the counterculture of the 1960s, maintained that ‘participatory democracy … is, of course, the essence of Anarchist social order, the voluntary federation of self-managed enterprises’ and rejected the ‘rule of the majority’ as an ‘obvious coercion that soon, moreover, becomes unconscious under the cover of an illusion of justice, fair play, etc.’. .. Saul Newman argues that democracy ‘always exceeds the limitations of the state and opposes the very principle of state sovereignty’. However, for anarchists, it has to be more than simply majority rule, because this can threaten individual liberty. Rather, it ought to be conceived as a historical project involving the questioning of all forms of political power and social hierarchies and the assertion of collective autonomy or equal liberty. In short, it has to be re-imagined as a ‘democracy of singularities’, and democracy, ‘radically conceived’ in this fashion, ‘is anarchy’. David Graeber observes that the anarchist identification with democracy goes back a long way. He conceives *anarchism as a political movement that aims to bring about a genuinely free society in which people ‘only enter those kinds of relations with one another that would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence’…t Democracy, in turn, is ‘not necessarily defined by majority voting’. Rather, it is a ‘process of **collective deliberation on the principle of full and equal participation’. Considered together, anarchism is not the negation of those aspects of democracy ordinary people have historically liked; rather, it is ‘a matter of taking those core democratic principles to their logical conclusions’.
*that would be the dance.. which we haven’t yet seen.. because we haven’t yet let go enough to try the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
16
While Gordon is correct to point out that such understandings of democracy conflict with currently dominant popular usage, this is *hardly a persuasive argument to abandon the long historical struggle to reclaim the term from those who have misused it to legitimate existing configurations of power. Moreover, **it is an odd argument for an anarchist to make, as anarchists have long battled with popular opinion over the normative connotations of the term ‘anarchism’.
*graeber model law.. et al
**again.. marsh label law and need to try curiosity (itch-in-the-soul) as our only label.. via nonjudgmental expo labeling
Anarchism thus remains a radically open-ended horizon for democracy, one in which political ‘sovereignty’ lies not in society or in the individual but in a continual unresolved tension between the two.
no tension (as you’re describing.. as we know it).. if we let go enough to see/be the dance
17
We will now consider the dramatic enactment of this tension in the *anarchist utopian literary imagination, focusing specifically on Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed (1974). My argument is that The Dispossessed **can facilitate a creative and constructive dialogue between hitherto competing anarchist perspectives on the relationship between the individual and the community. I contend, more specifically, that it can do so ***by means of its imaginative exploration of the ways in which the conflict between individual and community might be significantly reduced but not eliminated entirely in an anarcho-communist society.
*the dispossessed.. ursula le guin
**again.. dialogue ness et al.. cancerous distraction as long as all still talking whalespeak.. need global detox leap first/most
***again.. ie of not letting go enough to see that legit dance
The Anarchist Utopian Literary Imagination
The Dispossessed, a work of science fiction which depicts and critically interrogates an experiment in anarchist communism in an imaginary future, tells the story of Shevek and his experiences on two contrasting worlds, ‘Anarres’ (based on an experiment in non-authoritarian communism that has survived for 170 years) and ‘Urras’ (where Shevek encounters a hierarchical capitalist society analogous in many respects to contemporary non-fictional capitalist states). From the outset, the novel explores the evolving and frequently fraught relationship between an individual (Shevek) and the ambiguously utopian anarchist community in which his individuality is both nourished and stymied. Among its many notable artistic achievements, The Dispossessed provides not only an exceptionally well-informed, highly imaginative, and persuasive description of what everyday life might be like in an anarchist communist society but also a sensitive literary exploration of the tensions between individual and community in anarchist thought and (imaginary) practice. To the thoughtful political theorist, it offers not an ideological blueprint but an unusually suggestive account of how the anarchist ideal of communal individuality might be approximated but never fully achieved in practice.
because as artistic/imaginative as it is.. still not an ie of letting go enough to see/try the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
18
Drawing on the work of Kropotkin, whom Le Guin regarded as ‘the greatest philosopher of anarchism’, Le Guin has her omniscient narrator observe of Shevek that he was ‘brought up in a culture that relied deliberately and constantly on human solidarity, mutual aid’. Later, Shevek himself describes Anarresti society as follows: ‘We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals. We have no government but the single principle of free association’.
mutual aid ness and free association ness still voluntary compliance ness
This deeply ingrained ethic alone is *insufficient to sustain a humane community on Anarres, in part because as one of the other central characters remarks in a heated debate with Shevek, ‘the **will to dominance is as central in human beings as the impulse to mutual aid is’. In addition to the ***ethics of mutual aid, and the system of education that supports it, a wide range of social institutions, conventions, and practices are needed to ‘embody, encourage, and reinforce the ethic … and thereby ****ensure the responsible exercise of freedom by individuals’. These include forms of post-capitalist economic and post-statist political organisation that prevent the concentration of economic and political power, the decentralised and democratic self-government of economic and social life, rotation of positions of leadership within organisations, practices of communal living, *****and the like.
*because not letting go enough
**because to me.. they’re same song
***ie of red flag ness: needs ed system.. aka: people telling other people what to do
****ooof.. aka: responsibility ness as cancerous distraction
*****again.. aka: same song
*Yet for all their accomplishments, the Anarresti have not succeeded in eliminating entirely the conflict between individual and society. Moreover, Le Guin suggests paradoxically, this apparent failing is also a virtue, insofar as the realisation of the perfectionist ideal of complete harmony between the two would entail the death of individual liberty and the diversity, novelty, creativity, and vibrant life it makes possible. Like Oscar Wilde and Emma Goldman in this respect, and unlike her utopian predecessor William Morris, Le Guin acknowledges a prominent and enduring place in her utopian imagination for a socially disruptive form of individual assertiveness. In fact, it is fair to say that her representation of this disruptive assertiveness in the narrative of Shevek’s progressive rebellion against the creeping conformity and stagnation of Anarresti society constitutes the main dramatic action of the novel.
*the dispossessed.. still too steeped in red flags and cancerous distractions
Ultimately, Shevek comes to adopt a critical perspective on his home world. He criticises, in particular, the *ways in which the institutionalisation of mutual aid has transformed the legitimate interest in and demand for cooperation and community into an interest in and demand for conformity and obedience. In conversation with his partner Takver, for example, he exclaims indignantly that ‘the social conscience completely dominates the individual conscience, instead of striking a balance with it. **We don’t cooperate—we obey […] We fear our neighbor’s opinion more than we respect our own freedom of choice’. Later, in a more public setting, he declares passionately, ‘We’ve been saying, more and more often, you must work with the others, you must accept the rule of the majority. But ***any rule is tyranny. The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive’.
*if demand ness.. already conform/obey ness
**maté trump law et al.. freedom of choice is not legit freedom
***again.. responsibility ness a cancerous distraction
19
But he does not condemn Anarres absolutely. Rather, he comes to the conclusion that for all its manifest failures to live up to its high ideals, his society still holds out a promise of something very good and noble that might yet be redeemed by constructive revolutionary action. Pursuing this line of thought at a pivotal point in the novel, Shevek articulates a balanced position on the proper relationship between individual and community that recognises the vital importance of both. On the one hand, he emphasises the value of mutuality and community *in facing necessity. More specifically, he embraces the Anarresti ideal of an organic community in which all share equally the inescapable burdens of life. On the other hand, he is alert to the dangers of a tyranny of the majority, and hence also to the value of protecting individual autonomy even and perhaps especially when it conflicts with prevailing social norms. These reflections eventually yield the following important insight, ‘With the myth of the State out of the way, the real mutuality and reciprocity of society and individual became clear. Sacrifice might be demanded of the individual, but never compromise: for though **only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice—the power of change, the essential function of life’.
*to me.. part of why we can’t let go enough.. we have no idea what legit needs are.. need 1st/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs.. otherwise.. still whac-a-mole-ing ness and takes a lot of work ing ness of sea world
**meadows undisturbed law et al.. brown belonging law et al.. legit free individual stabilizes whole
Taking this philosophy to heart, Shevek makes a brave decision. He resolves to fulfil his proper function in the social organism by becoming an anarchist revolutionary in an anarchist society conceived as a *permanent revolution. In so doing, he reminds us of a truth frequently forgotten or overlooked by those theorists of revolution who conceive of it as a singular and absolute break with past structures of oppression. Specifically, he reminds us that because individual and community can never be perfectly reconciled, even in an anarchist communist society, but only balanced in a dynamic and creative tension, the revolutionary process is necessarily a never-ending one. This is not an argument for ‘reformism’. To the contrary, it is an argument for a deeper conception of revolution, based on the recognition that patterns of institutionalisation in a post-revolutionary anarchist communist society will inevitably create **new and unpredictable dangers and potential sources of oppression. Conceived in this broad historical perspective, anarchy in turn implies ***a sceptical questioning of all institutions, however democratic they might be. ..In other words, anarchy is generated by people in an anarchist state of mind, and by the actions they take in accordance with that state of mind. ****When this action ceases, when individual and popular vigilance relax, then the door is opened to a tyranny of either the minority or majority. In this sense, eternal vigilance is truly the price of liberty, individuality, and community.
*hardt revolution law et al.. but more because find the bravery to change your mind ness.. the rhythm/spontaneous/unpredictability/surprise ness of legit free people.. than **dangers/oppressions et al
***to me.. this would be a red flag we’re doing it/life wrong.. if spending our days questioning.. rather than listening to itch-in-the-soul and being/dance ing.. via that rhythm
****huge red flag if needed vigilance to dance.. the dance is the relax ness
20
Conclusion
‘The Revolution is in the *individual spirit, or it is nowhere. It is **for all, or it is nothing. If it is seen as ***having any end, it will never truly begin’..t
*itch-in-the-soul.. **none of us are free.. berners-lee everyone law.. ***embracing uncertainty et al.. graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al
—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Against those who argue that anarchism is not a coherent political ideology because of the coexistence within it of irreconcilably opposed individualist and communalist strands, I have argued in this chapter that it is indeed a coherent and distinctive ideology and that the coexistence within it of well-developed and very different individualist and communalist strands is a primary source of its ideological distinction and political strength. Far from being a weakness or sign of incoherence, *efforts by anarchists to maximise individuality and community highlight anarchism’s pluralistic and contested character, and its ideologically unique balancing of individuality and community in a dynamic and creative tension. In contrast to other political ideologies and ideologically informed social movements, **anarchists alone have explored in both theory and practice how to create, organise, and maintain a stateless society in which communal individuality flourishes.
*if only.. need 1st/most: global detox leap.. and there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. the unconditional part of left-to-own-devices ness.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
**rather.. no one has to date.. again.. because no one to date has let go enough to see/try the thing we’ve not yet tried.. aka: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
Moreover, there is room for legitimate disagreement among anarchists about how the goals of individual autonomy and social justice should be held in balance and what the best strategies are for achieving them. The responses to such questions are in part necessarily context-sensitive, which in turn suggests the need for situational critique and intelligent, appropriately self-critical and context-sensitive movement dialogue that recognises common ground.
oi.. all the red flags.. ie: intellectness as cancerous distraction et al
I illustrated these points by means of a close examination of anarchist debates about the relationships between, respectively, social anarchism and lifestyle anarchism, and anarchism and democracy. In both cases, we found that unstated assumptions about the proper relationship between individual and community impeded the sort of creative dialogue and constructive bridge building necessary to *advance such debates beyond unproductive ideological binaries. Finally, we saw how the anarchist utopian literary imagination can **facilitate such a dialogue by dramatically enacting a thought experiment of a revolutionary society in which the anarchist ideal of communal individuality is approximated but never fully realised.
*debate ness will always be binary ness.. need to try something legit diff.. graeber model law et al
**perhaps not realised because dialogue ness is still whalespeak ness..
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In contrast to this perspective, I maintain that the ideological core of anarchism is the belief that *society can and should be organised without hierarchy and domination..t
*for that.. need 1st/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs
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be you. 