TOTW: Outsiders

Anarchists love an outsider narrative. Stories of rebels, tricksters, outlaws, criminals, queers, and wingnuts echo throughout our circles as examples of inspiring non-comformity.

Due to the immensities of challenging the status quo, anarchists, much like the outsiders they emulate, find others to commiserate and collaborate with along the way. This results in a funny social dynamic that can (and often does), ironically, produce an in-crowd even within the outsiders!

Thankfully, anarchists excel in finger-pointing and calling bullshit when they see it (I say this with a generous pinch of salt). This often reveals itself as bombastic drama, though it can also result in thoughtful conversation among friends and strangers online and off.

Klee Benally speaks to this process as a strength1:

Anarchism, with its flawed legacy, is dynamic enough to actually become a stronger position through the scrutiny; this is primarily due to the matter that as a tension of tensions against domination, anarchism has the unique character of resisting urges towards intransigence. It has been developed and redeveloped as a dynamic position that strengthens with its contortions. Anarchists have constantly looked inward and convulsed with (and even celebrated) their contradictions.

How do you relate to the position of the outsider? Is it a place from which to draw strength, an overindulgent fantasy, or maybe both at the same time? Are there particular examples that resonate with you? Ones you find rather silly?

What about the role of the outsider within a group of proclaimed outsiders, like anarchists? When conversation and practice becomes uniform and all are nodding their heads in agreement, is this a sign of a job well done or perhaps a queue for an outsider to shake things up?

There are 48 Comments

resistance culture. I personally don't care much for that...i just want to steal/borrow everything useful and be an egoist: i don't need some authoritarian rebel in my head telling me that I don't deny myself enough. As far as the anarchist social aspect goes, that's mostly what I have found. If that makes me an Outsider to anarchists, then good: it appears you can only be one by embracing normalcy the best you can! Maybe in this age of radical politics, hijacked by right-wing transgressive thinking and fake leftist cheers of solidarity for "the marginalized", you can only be a rebel by being normal and discrete.

You do not speak for the bold Stirnerian anarchs who inhabit this mud ball called Earth!

Some people like you want to turn egoism into a form identity politics like you. This image of "the bold stirnerian anarchs" you construct is a complete joke! Stirner was not the same person as Ernst Junger, despite what you seem to imagine. Everyone is an egoist: Get over your pearl clutching and lonely internet trolling!

if you were a true Stirner fan, you would have a sense of humor

Max Stirner, or Johanne Casper Shmidt, that I have read about in books. On all accounts was a rather quiet reclusive person.

would realize that a universal sense of humor never will exist, and an empty reference to "the true" is always a spook.

The trauma of living day to day which such a loss of control for ones life leads to seeking control in various forms. One form is the desperate desire to control narratives. For example call-out culture rarely plays out in any meaningful, transformative way. All too often it devolves into a social power struggle for positions of popularity. Social capital extracted from drama and gossip tends to be a desirable venture. With the power to control narratives that determine who is cancelled, who is labeled an abuser, or who is an eco-fash, even an outsider can be respected through fear in the movement.

Crowds are the byproduct of social conformity schemes, you should have known this since your teenage.The true anticonformist is one who can't fit with culturally-defined milieus and groups, but that also means being a beautiful stirnerian lonely individualist butterfly like me!

YeeEees, our magnificent individualist cognitive wings flash and dazzle as they flutter against the thick slow soup of conventional thought and ideas,,,

The trite as hell and harmless individual rebellion responses here are what can be found in a less pretentious form on the rack at a fast fashion chain like Forever 21.

Calvin. please have some patience. You commented already on the article. There is no need for you to reply to every comment now and turn this forum into like so many before, ALL ABOUT CALVIN posts. Please try to keep your replies to one (or none) per article.

thank you,
- the other users of this website

But thanks the corporate memo.

I, for one, am ONLY here for Calvin's comments and I hope there is AT LEAST one on each and every article.

Calvin is THE HERO that Anews deserves

thank you,
- the REAL other users of this website

I think it's better to do more of what u naturally want to do rather than trying to conform to some set of standards bc in my view if u try to act in accordance with a set of rules or norms u don't like you'll attract ppl u don't like but if u do more of what comes naturally to u then you might attract ppl u do like.

some say there is no outside to the system (cisheterosettlercolonialcapitalistpatriarchy) and that may be the case, but no one cool wants to be inside that system. we make cuts, incisions, dividing lines (of flight), out of & away from inclusion and capture.

the upside is getting outside of the inside. the downside is never being inside the inside, which, if one is honest, one does want, at least some of the time. not inside the system but inside the in group, having each other's backs, backing up our rhetoric with action and getting back into the relatively secure inside.

all this slicing and dicing of in/out/up/down leaves in tatters what is only ever whole, except for those that think they can have an inside and leave the rest of us outside to do all the toiling.

don't get me wrong, there are differences between us and them, you and me, we and they, but differences without separation, (to borrow a phrase). Klee is correct about the many contradictions of anarchists, our longing for outsider status, but also our desire to be part of (inside) something else. our contradictions are, to borrow another phrase, what we have to work with.

that's a bong not bongos, for one. for another, it's beet cafe, we come from underground and we're rooting for you to turnip.

Looks like it'll be fun at the Wendy's and the WalMart when they allow openly LGBTQ+ people to become branch managers!

I think you could read more books on how the "system" works, and how in neoliberalism there's always more ways to "get with the program".

i've been drawn to ne'er-do-well "outsider" types since a young age (skateboarders destroying public property for fun, musicians with "job-stopper" tattoos who seemed to have no regard for their future). maybe this was all effective 90's marketing for the brand of how to be Cool (Do the Dew!), but it's stuck with me nevertheless. It felt better than going to school and doing the things i knew i didn't want to do. in that way, i definitely enjoyed being the outsider.

but things change, right? life humbles the outsider. skateboarding is a career and an olympic sport now. everyone is tatted up, even my managers. even anarchists are doing phds on love and rage.

as I've watch these "outsider" activities go mainstream, I've tried to not develop a sour position on how everything's doomed to "sell out" eventually. recuperation may feel inevitable in theory, but rules (laws/morals/expectations/sacred cows) can be broken to interrupt or at least stall inevitability.

skateboarding doesn't have to pay the bills (like that was even an option for me lol), the search continues for a way to ruin my employability beyond tattoos, and anarchy exists in multitudes outside the academy if only i can join in the fun.

i don't think of myself as an outsider anymore. maybe that makes me the ultimate outsider! but anarchists pitting themselves against Everything (including other anarchists) is part of the dialectic, right? the non-position, the lived critique. it's a tactic used to keep things from going the way of prescriptive, mundane inevitability. sounds exhausting :/

the challenge (to me) seems to be finding people with the energy to continue the "dynamic" process Klee mentions (or finding a way to do it alone, but i've always glomed enthusiasm from others). am i searching for fellow outsiders? maybe. but it makes me wonder if "stubborn curiosity" is really what I'm looking for in concepts like "freedom," "autonomy," and "desire."

who left the church and quit school in 11th gade to become a skateboarder and punk rocker. I went to shows and had a crew and became a teenage alcoholic. I was heavily steeped in drug culture. Eventually I suffered a health crisis as a result of my debauchery and got sober. I learned how to live long and prosper by synthesizing many ideas from recovery and self help without compromising everything I believe in. This dialectical process is the only reason I am alive today. There are some things we all have in common that have to be tended to. Ignore these at your own peril and head down the primrose path or you can choose the road less traveled and walk like an Egyptian.

GO3

No one's going to fight for this awful brand of libcom/anarcho-leftism like the crap we've been fed with over /r/Anarchism, Anarchismo, IGD and Libcom. Like said above anarchy is a continuously evolving agglomerate of sensibilities and positions, and as usual the structures that are too rigid to adapt to new conditions always get to be left behind in favor of better approaches, that often come from a different place. The anarchopunk counterculture, too, used to be relevant and have a social edge, but now it's pretty gone due to being undermined by both liberal entryists seeking good careers and on the darker side, drug abuse with often fatal outcomes.

Feel free to develop new socio-cultural forms that might cause an interesting tension upon the social order. Abolishing the "cishet heternormative patriarchy" (lol) by just being Trans is just more neoliberalism confused by the same-old college kids as "radicalism". If you want a true radical social edge you'll need something that challenges way more than just your local Baptist church. You gonna need something involving a culture of negation, like punk used to be, or affirmation of something else entirely than what society has to offer...

The anarchist, by definition, IS a perpetual outsider, at least in terms of society (especially of the mass variety), and, in my opinion, preferable to being inside or actively or intentionally part of society, or, to be more honest and accurate, it is preferable to be turning away from rather than towards society. I greatly value the bands of gypsies, the gangs of misfits, the unions of egos, the packs of feral forest dwellers, the situational aggregates of outlaws, and the chosen freak family models over any larger and more abstract and alienating conglomeration. Sadly, anarchism, especially with the complete proliferation of the technological-verse, social media, the performance of cultural politics, and just plain laziness and conformity, has mostly lost this vital component and has essentially been reduced to just a dramatic and fashionable flavor of the mainstream, certainly not the anti-societal element it inherently demands. For too long, anarchists have acted as recruiters for their ideas, organizers for their fights, and promoters for their projects, rather than living their anarchy here and now, on their terms.

As far as anarchists loving “outsider narratives” and “stories of rebels, tricksters, outlaws, criminals, queers, and wingnuts”, this was once very true and inspiring, its why i showed up to the party and got highly intoxicated, but it seems now these tales and characters have been primarily replaced by narratives which are about inclusion, equality, and justice, with stories of oppression, victimization, performance, and assimilation, very uninspiring non-anarchistic themes.

I would agree with Klee that anarchism “has been developed and redeveloped as a dynamic position that strengthens with its contortions.” Post-left, anti-civ, egoism, indigenous anarchy, and queer-nihilism have all added to the strengthening of anarchism in their own unique ways, as have many projects and activities over the years, but it has been a while since this has been a strength of anarchists. Over the past ten years or so the redevelopment has been a devolution, oversimplification, and even misinterpretation. Most new inputs and alterations have not made anarchism more interesting, nuanced, or complex, just the opposite. All change is not good, without critical analysis and practice, novelty brings out the most superficial, and often detrimental of effects.

“When conversation and practice becomes uniform and all are nodding their heads in agreement” it is an indication of groupthink, vacuousness, ideology, homogenization, and sterility. I want an anarchy where people violently disagree with each other, and maybe still have a beer together later, or not. To be alive is to be in conflict. To grow is to learn from those conflicts. Shaking up the stagnation and solidification is a natural and understandable response, I know that I’ve done it more than my share, but often by this point it seems that it will mostly be met with more solidified herd-like behavior and blind adherence to the group and its ideology (whether recognized or not). It is probably most strategic and fulfilling to move along to more fertile terrain, possibly with some direct and explicit parting words and leaving a few nasty stink bombs, and then associate with more interesting, dynamic, and anarchic folk. This, sadly, is what many of us are doing in relation to “anarchism”, which has now almost fully shed all of its anarchy. Another beautiful idea, perhaps the most beautiful, lost to the “ism”, to society, and to the shallow herd.

When they bring anarchism inside, it is time to go live anarchy outside.

yes, your first 2 sentences lay out this ambivalence about outside & inside; outside mass society, inside the band of feral theory heads, or whatever small group.

i would like to trouble, in a certain way, the notion of there being an outside. because what gets left out of the conversation on society is place. unless you are disembodied, you are in place, maybe of a place, certainly there is Earth beneath your feet. we ignore at our peril the needs and wants of place, the more than human world. i think anarchy is less about prescribed and/or proscribed particular actions or thoughts, and more so about each person (human & more-than-human) doing their own thing. yes, there is conflict at the edges, but these conflicts are not all there is. there is also conviviality, coexistence, entanglement. deep, deep entanglement.

Everybody tried to push me, push me around
Everybody tried to put me, tried to put me down

All messed up, hey everyone
I've already had all my fun
More troubles are gonna come
I've already had all my fun

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

You folks should read more, like, Camus, The Outsider. Then you will know that identity is what determines ones inclusiveness or expulsion.

These days you don't get the unique individualist alternative cerebral/cognitive paradigm spokesperson as someone like Timothy Leary, his 60s detourement, his antiwork vision. He said that everyone was an outsider and a gypsies in a nomadic psycho-socially balanced holistic unison.

Aw right. Everyone's a "gypsie" 'til you become the White guy not being thrown to concentration camps by the government for being one, coz you ain't no Roma.

hey, person, it is just polite to use the word the the people referred to prefer. if you weren't so bent out of shape by a gentle reminder you'd know that.

Leary was an FBI informant for years.

Then how come he got deported illegally back to Muhrica by the CIA to face dr7g related charges?

just because he fed the fed tons of information on various people and groups doesn't mean he was their puppet or that it gave him unlimited impunity. he still had his own agenda that put him at odds with law enforcement, and the feds eventually decided his antics were too much to ignore. super easy to figure out if you understand that the state is not all-powerful.

Leary, early on, had some intriguing ideas, such as his 8-circuit model of consciousness.

later though, he went full woo-woo with his SMI²LE idiocy, which if you're not familiar, means - space migration, intelligence increase & life extension.

as with us all, there are parts of his work worth knowing about, and parts that suck.

"Idiocy" is abelist and hurtful. Please refrain from this language. It's not hard to be a little more polite and word choices are important if we want to live anarchy.

idiot, when referring to a person is offensive and no one uses it that way any more. idiotic, as i used it here, refers to Leary's SMI²LE scheme, not to Leary the person. reading comprehension is also important if we want to live anarchy.

"idiot, when referring to a person is offensive and no one uses it that way any more. "

What? I mean, fuck the anon above, but fuck your idiocy too! People in the U.S. love calling each other idiots and it's a great pastime. It's more popular than Apple pie and baseball.

"reading comprehension is also important if we want to live anarchy"

This too is ableist and classist to the many who can't read largely due to socioeconomic reasons. Additionally, it is very Anglophonic-centric which is equally disgusting.
Try harder please. You are better than this, Nettle.

I'd say that Leary despite indeed having some interesting ideas early on, suffered from the typical dopehead syndrome of hazy intellectual sloppiness and magic thinking... which led him to his merging of the two traditions of the '60s-'70s; namely the psychedelics and dodgy futurism.

Psychedelics and dodgy futurism = psychological epiphany and prophetic sci-fi visionary = revolutionary cultural paradigm = nemesis of puritans everywhere.

= really just hippie idiocy.

If you want better food for thoughts there was Robert Anton Wilson, Discordians, Krishnamurti and Frank Herbert as the real actual philosophers of psychedelia. Leary was so sloppy.

Furthermore the FBI has little obligation to defend their snitches once they get thrown to jail.

Like there's a much smaller story from 20 years ago about a dude in a Montreal squat who got prosecuted over drug trade charges. Dude was revealed during the trial as an RCMP snitch, who was selling weed in the squat for the extra perk of an informal VIP position there, that of course he used to profile people around. But this didn't prevent him from prosecution by the provincial (or city) police, as these agencies got different jurisdictions and get their funding from different sources. They're hardly in close joint collaboration with each other like some assumed monolithic state apparatus, unless there's some casus belli like terrorism, murders, high-profile drug trafficking business or other severe "crime".

The cops CAN throw a snitch under a bus, and they do. Which is one of the few things that fools interested in collaborating should know.

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