Anarchist Studies
Vol. 16 #1 (2008) c/o Ruth Kinna Loughborough University Loughborough LE11 3TU 98 pages £20 subscription for two issues

This is the first full issue produced under the stewardship of Professor of European Thought Dr. Ruth Kinna (author of Anarchism: A Beginner’s Guide, reviewed in #63), and there have been some clunky transitions. First, this issue is almost half the size of its predecessors, without comment or explanation; second, two of the three main essays are dull, dull, dull. How can we get excited about Tolstoy’s Christian-pacifist quasi-anarchism? For some it may be a revelation (ahem), but for me it was tedium piled on top of irrelevance. Perhaps if I were a Christian of some kind I might find it curiously appealing to know that there was once a former Russian aristocrat who talked about ignoring the state or resisting its apparatus by playing the martyr. Christianity in all its various heresies holds a slight-to-nil interest for me; Tolstoy’s ruminations on the manifestations of institutionalized violence and deception as the antithesis of the message of Jesus are hardly inspiring. The other dull essay is called “Beyond Primitivism: Towards a 21st century Anarchist Theory and Praxis for Science and Technology.” It is an attempt to recapture the alleged skeptical spirit of the 19th century Anarchist Masters— despite their fawning (and extremely unskeptical) praise for Science as an abstract pursuit of pure knowl e d g e . Rather than a plea to move beyond a simplistic primitivist critique which holds that Science is far too intertwined with the most alienating aspects of modern industrial capitalism to be redeemed without some serious restructuring, the authors wish to turn back the clock of criticism by (re-) embracing an archaic and naïve faith in Science. The title of the essay is totally misleading. Rather than moving the discourse on Science through and then beyond the valid (but to the authors, simplistic) primitivist critique, the authors instead assure readers that there’s nothing really that interesting to learn from the modern skepticism of how Science (through the myth of Progress) has become another ideology and institutionalized practice in the toolbox of the Enlightenment project of Herrschaft, which is a real pity. The first essay is another art history/radical interpretation of art, focusing on Herbert Read; not nearly as dull as the other two, but somewhat obscure for the non-specialist.

What really bugged me about this issue was a dual review. Andy Price tries to combine an embarrassingly uncritical appreciation of Social Ecology and Communalism, a posthumous collection of four essays by Murray Bookchin, with a completely bad-faith excoriation of “Being a Bookchinite,” an essay by (former?) Bookchin follower Chuck Morse (perhaps more famous as one of the founders of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and recently as the translator of the exhaustive Abel Paz biography of Durruti). Price practically falls over himself to prove that Bookchin’s ultimate (and decades-late) renunciation of anarchism (because it “is simply not a social theory” [Bookchin]) was due to the Founder’s profound grasp of dialectics and sticking to his philosophical principles, rather than his annoyance at being continually snubbed as a leader by the vast majority of anarchists worldwide. Bookchin’s trajectory from Stalinist to Trotskyist to Anarchist to Libertarian Municipalist to Communalist—a path of continually smaller constituents, which must have been increasingly irritating for such a selfimportant politician—was what forced him to come face to face with the grim reality that his message was consistently less interesting to anyone but his closest followers (the terms colleague or collaborator are far too generous for the kind of adulation and obsequiousness that Bookchin apparently demanded—according to former followers like John Clark and Morse himself). And what were those principles and that message, the central philosophical assumption, the alpha and omega of this—according to Price— Master of Dialectics? It appears in the Founder’s last essay, “The Communalist Project” written in 2002. Price calls it

Bookchin’s final outlining of his political project. Here, the two driving motors of his work in fact become one, intertwined whole: the project to build a society that is the expression of the creative potentiality of humanity must be drawn in light of the ultimate shift in capitalism and the crisis it fosters… This response, in light of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed 53 anarchist media the fact that capitalist crisis is now generalised…must be predicated on a direct empowerment of the citizen through the community… This process would not only require substantial organisation but also leadership… [T]o engender this new social reality [by challenging “the abusive power of present leaders”—Price], the members of a community would need to be materially and politically empowered today. Therefore, Bookchin argues that, ‘adherents of Communalism mobilize themselves to electorally engage in a potentially important centre of power – the municipal council – and try to compel it to create legislatively potent neighborhood assemblies’ (Price’s emphasis).

At the end of that paragraph Price assures readers that “In light of the extent of the spread of the ethos of capitalism, now enshrined as human nature itself…this tentative, material and political empowerment [sic!] is indispensable to opening up even the idea of radical change.” And that this is “the process through which the ‘maximum program’ is hopefully brought into view…” Hopefully?! Does he mean by accident? Are we supposed to take this mealy-mouthed gradualist bourgeois bullshit seriously just because it appears in an anarchist journal? I had to take a shower after reading it.

The review got even worse when Price started having a go at my old pal Chuck (we collaborated on several projects in San Francisco in the years just before he ventured off to Vermont; later in personal correspondence, I unhesitatingly called him a Bookchinite—maybe for the first time?—and that was pretty much the end of any contact between us), whose twenty-seven page pamphlet is held up, not as the self-conscious distancing of a former disciple, but as a hatchet job that follows the same patterns of much of the critiques of Bookchin of the 1990s: it offers an analysis of Bookchin and his work without paying sufficient attention to his theoretical and practical programme. Instead, Morse relies on the insinuation of personal failings and insidious motives in Bookchin that render his revolutionary [sic!—see above] project a failure.

Not having read Morse’s pamphlet (or the issue of the IAS journal Perspectives, in which it also appears), I can’t comment on how much attention he does or doesn’t pay to the supposed dialectical mastery of his former Master when it comes to what I would characterize as Bookchin’s descent into irrelevance to any kind of anarchist vision. But I can comment on Price’s cheap shots.

Price complains that Morse expresses how he felt and perceived his time sitting at the feet of his chosen master, and how almost two decades later, he finds those years lacking in terms of Bookchin’s personal issues and how they played out on Morse’s studies and those of his colleagues. Price seems blissfully unaware of the dynamics between master and disciple (a more generous term than the usual Hegelian one!), and the emotional cost of subsuming one’s own identity into the project(s) of another; Morse’s anguish came through even in the chopped up citations that Price offers. He also misconstrues and misunderstands Morse’s complaint about being closed off from other thinkers: since Bookchin had apparently discovered “the principles of social development,” [Price] he was revered as “something of a prophet” [Morse], meaning “that Bookchin advanced the truth, [while] other theorists advanced deceptions by default” [Morse, emphasis in original]. Price tries to score some points by quoting Morse against himself, mentioning that Morse says that it was possible “to participate in weekly study groups on Marx, Hegel, the French Revolution, cities, and other weighty topics and theorists.” Bookchin of course would have no fear of being contradicted by Marx or Hegel, especially if nobody else among the faculty or student body knew more about them than Bookchin. Who were those weighty theorists? Other 19th century political philosophers? No fear of scholarly threats from beyond the grave.

Morse further complains about Bookchin’s “obsession with defending his views” and his “endless stream of polemics,” which annoys Price so much that he is forced to betray his colossal ignorance. He can only stupidly say that this allegation is “unexplained”—as if he’d never heard of or read “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism” or “Wither Anarchism?”, certainly two of Bookchin’s most memorable contributions to modern intra-anarchist polemics. Another area where Morse bristles and Price pooh-poohs is the question 54 Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed anarchist media of Bookchin’s relationship to racism, which, Morse says, he “never addressed in any but the most cursory fashion”; Price’s riposte is to score another rhetorical point by saying that “prejudice is insinuated by noting its very absence.” However, as I pointed out in my review of Bookchin’s Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left (in which “Wither Anarchism?” appears), Bookchin’s respective views on women’s liberation and black power were very different, to say the least. My very reluctant conclusion was that Bookchin was probably an unconscious racist. I don’t know if Morse’s conclusion is similar, but Price’s dismissal is ludicrous. He lamely repeats the typically myopic excuse that after all, really and truly, “to argue for the dissolution of hierarchy as such in society is to argue for the end of white supremacy” (Price’s emphasis of what Bob Black has labeled “a Bookchin tic”). Further, astonishingly and transparently manipulative—even bordering on the dishonest— is this gem: “The instances where Bookchin discusses these hierarchies specifically are there in his work, and too numerous to list here…” In the name of fair play, honesty, and scholarly integrity I must protest. Anyone attempting to prove such an important point would need to cite at least one clear example, or risk being called a charlatan (or worse).

Social Ecology and Communalism is a book expounding Murray Bookchin Thought, while “Being a Bookchinite” is an essay by and about the experiences of a person trying to break free from it. The former is by and about Murray Bookchin, while the latter is by and about Chuck Morse. Even the title of Price’s article, “Communalism or caricature: patterns of Bookchin critique,” sets up the bad faith that runs through his attempted demolition of Morse. Price doesn’t bother trying to prove that Morse’s analysis of his first-hand experiences are caricatures or whether they are substantially or coincidentally similar to the criticisms of Bookchin others have written- perhaps the examples of that are “too numerous to list” as well. Ultimately, readers just have to take Price’s word for it, which is as unsatisfying as it is obnoxious. [LJ]