Anews Podcast 121 – 6.28.19

From Anews Podcast

Welcome to the anews podcast. This podcast covers anarchist activity, ideas, and conversations from the previous week on anarchistnews.org.

Editorial: Flashing Pans written by Jackie, read by chisel
TOTW-Engagement with Aragorn! and Ariel

sound editing by Linn O’Mable
what’s new was written by Jackie, chisel, and Dim, and narrated by Chisel and Dim
Music:
1) Michael Begg – Your Papers Are Approved
2) Yoshida/Fujii – Feirsttix
3) Homeboy Sandman & Edan – #NeverUseTheInternetAgain


Tags: 

There are 7 Comments

Regarding the editorial and the comments directly about Magpie’s piece:

It really makes me think, and I’m unsure what the point to be made is. I’ll address what’s easier for me to address first, I find it a bit unnecessary to say that a blog, and in this case one making a call to action, is something for someone burnt out. As opposed to not having a blog or decrying a blog’s call to action? Not sure what to think of that.

So I agree that certain things by themselves ideally should move people that are capable of empathy, without having to resort to calling them something that is imprecise, or using “charged language” or “magic words” or slogans or rhetoric. But if racism and the operation of the state is business as usual, and people are fine with it, what recourse is there left? Is appealing to “the public” to be avoided? I could be convinced of that for various reasons, but I’m unsure. I think some (some, i say) of these appeals are not calculated pieces, but are result of maybe being overcome with emotion around the urgency of some plight. Or am I being fooled by calculated melodrama? I’d point to the most recent episode of This Is America podcast, where Tom Nomad was moved to tears speaking of this topic of children in the ICE detainment facilities of irregular/illegal migrants (am I using acceptable terminology?). They refer to the fact of a particular image of the father and the child who drowned, and how that moved people even in the right on Fox news. Of course, all these bad things are happening all the time, some become more visible than others due to x or y, or the media cycle. But should moving images and rhetoric be suppressed when they arise or avoided (contrary to the inclinations of those in media and politics always looking for a spin and a headline)? I don’t know, I wish I could renounce controlled fire, and the spectacle. I know the risk is that people get desensitized or I don’t know really. Are call to actions the same as banner drops in solidarity? What words and what deeds are allowed or effective or i dunno i dunno idunoo

Changing topic; so what Shimson calls “oppressionism” is similar or derivative from what many have called for some time now “oppression olympics”, but this refers more to a dynamic, and “oppressionism” ostensibly is a shared ideological form?

Yo, much respect to ya’ll (for real), but put some respeck on The Final Straw’s name. when you say The Final Straw’s name, put some respeck on it. XD

I agree with all the valid reasons to avoid mileus mentioned by a! at the beginning of the discussion, and it ties in to what may be discussed in @bang about COINTELPRO (it must be written in caps each time to preserve its chilling effects, suspenseful background music also helps).

what a great comment. i share most (maybe not all) of your "i dunno"s.

shit! How many more kids are taking that controlled fire shit seriously?! DAMNIT

calm yourself gramps, it's only just me spamming that term, and it's always in jest ; )

i don't think anyone but Ria takes that seriously

the best memes come back to annoy you like resentful teenagers and you regret giving birth in the first place

I’m glad I got a dramatic reading from Chisel. Made my day

I don't think anyone else is really going to defend this project of examining Sartre as a contributing thinker to anarchism, so it is left to me..

1) Yes, this is from a mainstream source but it is written by the author of Sartre's Anarchist Philosophy: https://www.bloomsbury.com/author/william-l-remley

2) The article would be more interesting if it were written for anarchists (and maybe it is?), but overall Remley's work would be more interesting if it wasn't written for academics.

3) Sartre and Marxism: Remley's project of (correctly) classifying Sartre as an anarchist isn't an attempt to correct Marxist appropriations of Sartre. Sartre was a Marxist in some important ways... he was also critical of Marx and Marxists in some other important ways which happen to be the same ways anarchists have been critical of Marx and Marxism. Since he also expressed his affinity with anarchists and called himself one, it is fair to also classify him as an anarchist. But, it's especially fair to call him one when his philosophy is compared with various forms of anarchism.

3.1) Sartre's Marxism: Sartre was a Marxist in the sense that he accepted Marx's conception of historical development as a dialectical relationship among human beings amidst the conditions they find themselves in, modified by how they change those conditions. Sartre was a Marxist in the sense that he opposed the class societies that have emerged throughout history due to various forms of social relations. In other words, Sartre was a historical materialist to the extent that he viewed the way societies change in terms of how societies collaborate in the modification of their given material context.

3.2) Sartre's criticisms of Marxism: However, Sartre thought it was absurd and idealistic to assume that the dialectical processes that apply to human societies can also be found in "nature" itself. This sort of Dialectics of Nature was proposed by Engles and made official in the USSR by Stalin. The PCF made it doctrine and the PCF were the primary object of Sartre's critique of Marxists. He was also extremely critical of Marxists for understanding historical dialectic as a form of determinism and thought that this was a misunderstanding of Marx.But more fundamentally he thought that Marx himself had failed to understand the dialectic ontologically, therefor missing the centrality of freedom and individual praxis in the unfolding, open-ended, dialectic of historical development.

But most relevant to anarchists, Sartre developed a thorough critique of organizations and institutions, including the State and political parties. There will be more on this momentarily...

4) Sartre as another dead white man. This is a dumb comment to make, but it's dumb for an interesting reason. Sartre was extremely influential in anti-colonialist, anti-racist, and anti-semitic thought. Some of his major contributions to social theory are exactly these.

5) What can Sartre offer living anarchists? At the very least, some thorough critique of Marxism. But I think what is more important is that Sartre (more than any other philosopher I have read) developed a solid conception of individual freedom and elaborated on the way that free individuals form various types of groups, why they form them, the consequences of forming them on individual freedom, etc. He is also one of the strongest anti-essentialist thinkers. As mentioned above, his critiques of colonialism, anti-semitism, racism, etc. are also excellent contributions. And his notion of praxis as the touchstone of dialectical history is top notch.

I also think that the differences between Sartre and Stirner are extremely relevant to today's anarchist trends. Stirner's Union of Egoists is underetheorized, Sartre's voluminous writings on praxis and group formation is much more useful.

Anway, let me turn these questions around...

What good is an anarchist theory (or philosophy) that isn't capable of articulating how individual freedom is even possible, how this freedom operates ontologically, psychologically, and socially? How useful is anarchist theories of action without a working comprehension of praxis? What are the best anarchist critiques of Marx and Marxism at the theoretical level? What does "context" or "situation" actually mean? What is an "affinity group" if it isn't what Sartre writes about as a "group-in-fusion" and what are its structural limitations?

Add new comment