and i laugh and i laugh...

From A Las Barricadas, by Iván Fernando Mérida Aguilar*

Notes on the anarchist drive and its necessary return to the West

The unreason of the totalizing delirium, emerging from the authoritarian models of the 20th century, in its assumptions and in its theoretical constructs, was imposed as a truth coming from simplifications of the past -argumentum ad antiquitatem- projected to the present. Thus, there are no rationalized explanations, only simplified and, in turn, absurd statements. Statements so weak that, in the West, they led to a fall into pessimism, radicalization ad absurdum and a nihilistic void from the 60s onwards.

From that fall to pessimism, finding gaps of freedom allowed us to appreciate the value of difference, of non-conformity, of being different, and of the limited power that we exercise in collective relationships. Despite all social conditioning, mental biases, and global forces that act on enormous social groups, the search for freedom continued to be a definitive axis for the existence of humans who still dream and create in the same way. the way their ancestors did 100,000 years ago. This search for freedom parting from imagination and creation is the anarchist drive, which is opposed to the bellum omnium contra omnes and the infinite deconstruction of man.

However, these are hostile times for the freedom of individuals, in which revenge and egoism outweigh creation, imagination, empathy and compassion. Regarding our human nature, our cognitive biases are deepened under a scenario of existential threat. Therefore, it is from that extreme selfishness that the will to dominate and its manifestation in the cupiditas dominatio [1] derives from the hedonistic ethos that prevails in the fragmented and liquid culture of the West. In this, their states and nations yesterday, are today patiens, and fragmented identities; hubris or excess is what prevails in their intention to apply ideas and arrogant deconstructions of themselves in the face of a peripheral and authoritarian global environment that is linked, concatenating solid efforts against all open societies.

Without a society that prevails as a catalyst for strong common ties, everything becomes a relative discourse, where the individual is not really connected to anything, because his life is an accelerated virtualization, which ends up nullifying his concern about all public and political matters. Thus, the individual ends up becoming an apolitical subject .

And it is in this apoliticism that there lies all the acquiescence sufficient for the consolidation of an environment hostile to freedom, prevailing the regression of democracies that are no longer minimal, but non-existent; eliminating the small gaps in freedom that anti-authoritarians sought to enhance in defense of the values ​​of an open and free society.

In this regard, contemporary liberal societies, increasingly fragmented and more fragile, can claim civil liberties and rights, but they do not compensate for the lack of existential reasons; In these societies there is no sense of being, but rather an inclination towards nihilism. Where, cupiditas dominatio, and nihilism, coexist in individual egos. Thus, for the new postmodern nihilists of the West, if they do not like the concepts of modernity, then the social environment must be de-structured and de-constructed; identity, nation, gender, love, knowledge, truth, ethics, history, science, order and reality, among others, are relativized in uncertainty and non-affirmation. Subduing minds, through the continuous degradation and confusion of enlightened ideals from a spectacularized immediacy.

In this way, from the uncertainty produced by the growing openness to the infinite, to experimentation, and to the uprooting of all Western values, we return to the certainty intended by illiberal projects, in which the hard truths of hard power in the War, fundamentalism, and irrational violence are applied against the bland idealizations of the West.

The United States is an important example that demonstrates the extent of postmodern uncertainty, fragmentation, polarization, self-referencing, and the dissolution of collective discourse. In fact, it was the microcauses of the minorities rescued by the discourse of the moderns, which were radicalized by the postmodernists, undoing the social fabric, annulling collective identities, and eliminating the idea of ​​self-sacrifice that the Postwar Generations had in the 1950s to rebuild their nations and defend their freedoms.

Today, new generations do not remember the importance of identity and self-sacrifice for the collective; The new metanarratives, the evanescent identities -fluid, hybrid, intersectional, transgressive-, and the counter-enlightened ideas have permeated the elites that defend an antipolitics of simplification, with devastating consequences for their attempt to apply micropolitical theory to macrostructural relations. that are dominated by powers with strong identities and completely adverse to any liberal order.

In this way, it must be stated that the attack on stability, identity and the collective is not compatible with libertarian discourse, which never sought the identity dissolution of man through ultra-individualism based on nihilistic unreason. On the contrary, anarchists coming from the ideas of the Enlightenment -e.g., William Goodwin, Piotr Kropotkin, Rudolf Rocker, Murray Bookchin - had an ethos, the search for an amalgam between collective and individual freedom. For them there was an obligation with society, they with the world, not in fragmentation, but in recognition of an immanent differentiation, of a human nature with a drive for life and freedom.

Anarchism, more than a fixed and static theoretical corpus, was a principle for life and conduct. Its principle, its axiological ethos was and is freedom. Freedom as the possibility of the individual to develop innate faculties, capacities and talents in his life, being in and with society, with his society, not with a State.

For this reason, yesterday the anarchists promoted mutual support as a ratio against war, however, today the relativism of the postmodernists does not affirm, it only doubts; It does not build, but de-constructs. In this inability to be an alternative to the fictitious validity of the illiberal authoritarian discourse lies the failure not only of the postmodernists, but also of the enlightened Westerners, who did not avoid the overflows of doubt about the very foundations of a free society.

Thus, to affirm a ratio contrary to authoritarian mechanisms, a commitment to a cause, to a sense of identity, is required, which in turn requires time and dedication. Therefore, the cause of human freedom in a hostile environment requires recognizing the ethical foundations of its society and the characteristics of human nature, which cannot be relativized under any argument. That is, a return of anarchism to the West, to certainties, to great ideas and to truth; opposing a libertarian and realistic alternative to the totalitarian challenges that seek to remodel history, geopolitics and the global order, in an attempt to return us to the 15th century of the tsars and emperors.

Going back to anarchist anthropology, the existence of societies without domination is an antecedent of a historical minority, thus not implying the idealization of a society without coercion or the relativization of the predominant dominance in the majority of current societies, because they are episodes humans, not generalizable to everyone. And it is only in the West that it was possible to rescue these episodes from history and appreciate the value of non-domination [2]. This does not happen in the fundamentalist borders and illiberal peripheries, where the destruction of any gap in freedom is permanent.

Thus, it is in the West where one can be fully libertarian and critical of their conditioning. For this reason, a realistic praxis of libertarian ethics [3] must be exercised that does not owe concessions to any ideology of the State, being disbelieving in any metaphysics, contrary to theoretical orthodoxies and adverse to political correctness.

It is clear that today: the development of artificial intelligence for war, the dissolution process of the West and the acceleration of the arms and nuclear race, pose unsolvable problems to us through idealization; being only understandable from a micro and macro structural approach to power networks. That is, establishing that the theoretical reading of global power excludes all relativism and emptying of human principles. And if Power and the State have been thought about from micropolitics before ; Today, thinking about power in relation to the international networks of hegemons requires a realistic and pragmatic reading of the constitution of the fields of influence that are exercised through the apparatus of intelligence, propaganda and deterrent military force.

At this point, it is imperative to defend a centripetal character in open societies, because a centrifugal character is precisely the ratio promoted by anti-Western powers that seek the decomposition of the social organism into detritus. Even more so, when these are times of Western uncertainty, times in which man is deconstructed, in which the French and the North American do not know what sense of identity France and the United States have as nations, and in which modernity relegates its historical role to premodern ones .

And, if we moderns have lost our freedom and, in addition, have adopted a desire for submission [4] -whether by imposition or deception-, it should not surprise us that the enlightened ideas of freedom are becoming corrupted, first creating theoretically antithetical polarizations. and then turning both positions into similarly totalitarian versions of themselves.

This means that, in those spaces where radicalism managed to establish governments, the totalizing power legitimized by the masses turns against them by eliminating all decentralized organization through a rationalized power of an instrumentalized reason, which perfects the bureaucratic machinery for the benefit of central power, standardizing, educating, structuring, documenting, recording and formulating the guiding patterns of its forward functioning, never with a perspective of transfer of power, but with an indefinite continuity of Orwellian control, exercising total control over the rest.

Although the anarchism of anti-authoritarians is a drive and a disbelieving realism of purely good ideologies, it is a realism depressed by the pessimism of a global society that looks in the direction of authoritarian rule based on governance technologies or nuclear catastrophe, but not so. to freedom. That anarchist drive to search for freedom is also an idealization, which requires changes and transformations of subjectivities, from authoritarian subjectification towards an identity and libertarian stability, which defends the last gaps in freedom in the West.

Finally, the freedom of the modern heirs of the enlightenment must be defended by returning to their values, principles and identities that offered stability and from there, directing the libertarian project from the construction of realistic alternatives rather than the demolition of truths. Anarchists must return to the West and its enlightened values ​​to continue the steps in the progression of human development, continuing the project of the 18th century in defense of freedom and respect for the immanent differentiation of human nature. Only then, authoritarianism will not mean an option, only a mere fiction, an impossibility, the Self will once again be evil.

* Iván Fernando Mérida Aguilar is an international lawyer, master in International Relations and Diplomacy and doctorate in Political Science and International Relations at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. His field of research is Soft Power and authoritarian processes.

Notes.

1. From Latin, Cupiditas: Desire and passion; Dominatio: Dominion. Pierre Clastres (1981), following Etienne de La Boétie in his reasoning, tells us about power: “(…) first of all, that power exists only in its effective exercise; secondly, that the desire for power cannot be realized if it does not manage to raise a favorable echo of its necessary complement, the desire for submission.”

2. Power is not only the relationship, dominated/dominant, its complexity is greater if we consider the existence of human environments that did not establish the domination of the Self. In those societies power did exist, but not in a form of domination; Therefore, human freedom has always been an aberration of any absolutist order.

3. “(…) anarchism is above all an ethical project that directly involves, even in its smallest practice, a judgment on the value of relationships and situations. (…) Libertarian ethics is constituted within the very interior of things, situations and relationships experienced by different collective beings. It depends entirely on the quality of those situations and those relationships, on their capacity to increase or not the strength and autonomy of the beings of which they are the cause or effect.” (Colson, 2003)

4. “It is true that, at the beginning, one serves because one is forced by force. But those who come after get used to it and gladly do what their predecessors had done out of obligation. Thus, men who are born under the yoke, educated and raised in servitude, without looking beyond, are content with living as they were born and, without thinking about having any other good or any other right than the one they found, they accept the state as something natural. in which they were born.” (de la Boétie, 2008)

Bibliography
Barclay, H. (2009). People without government: an anthropology of anarchy. Kahn & Averill.
Clastres, P. (1981). Investigaciones en antropología política. Gedisa.
Colson, D. (2003). Léxico filosófico del anarquismo. De Proudhon a Deleuze. Nueva Visión.
Graeber, D. (2011). Fragmentos de antropología anarquista. Virus editorial.
La Boétie, E. (2008). El discurso de la servidumbre voluntaria. Utopía Libertaria.
Rocker, R. (1944). Las corrientes liberales en los Estados Unidos. Editorial Americalee.
Scott, J. (2013). Elogio del anarquismo. Crítica.

Comments

alex (not verified) Mon, 05/20/2024 - 07:56

i threw this lawyer's lecture into the big ole centrifuge i use to decompose the social organism into detritus and here's what came out: three parts western chauvinism, one part liberal rhetoric, nine mussolini particles and a gust of stale air

lumpy (not verified) Mon, 05/20/2024 - 13:21

In reply to by anon (not verified)

yeah maybe? depending on who we're talking about and where they're at but "deconstruction" is a means, not an end

or this is where i part ways with some nihilists, presumably because their end game is digging to the exact centre of the earth and throwing themselves in to core of liquid metal. i like nihilism and use it all the time in my analysis but it's only a tool to me.

once you put down the tool and ask yourself "now what?", you hit this part -

"the search for an amalgam between collective and individual freedom"

alex (not verified) Mon, 05/20/2024 - 14:22

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

generally you need liquid metal to form an amalgam :)

to be serious though, i see anon's point and the problem with this piece as people going far enough to see the basic critique of a thing--that it is founded on nothing, or is contradictory in practice with its supposed justification, etc--but then, for lack of a guide on how to proceed, and out of fear or anxiety about what it means to lose the orientation they felt they had before, simply turn to asserting that the thing is real or could be made real. hence this person advising we take back up the mantle of progressive enlightenment moral philosophy to defend the west against the illiberal barbarians in the scary periphery. or give into despair or whatever.

short version, understanding the critique isnt enough. bringing it home and accepting that the sense of security or freedom or whatever that you relied on before is where that critique starts to matter for your own perspective, way of life etc is what (imo) is missing here. i agree with you generally about proceeding from there but i would not say that's what's happening here

lumpy (not verified) Tue, 05/21/2024 - 10:24

In reply to by alex (not verified)

oh right, yeah i didn't mean to imply that this writer "solves for x" at all, more like this piece of writing walks me up to the edge of the same old cliff that much of radical analysis has been staring in to for as long as i can remember?

it's just familiar to me now, i have a comfy spot where i pitch camp and stare in to the abyss

ahhh yes! the place where the sincere famously throw themselves in to the void!

anon (not verified) Mon, 05/20/2024 - 20:05

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

an amalgam is easy: you do what you do and i'll do what i do and we'll see if we decide to tolerate each other. we'll see how our paths cross and if we synergize, and if one or both move on its a part of free association in action. but other people have different ideas, ya kno? how are you gonna neutralize people who seek to control others?

you know that's one for folks to do and figure out for themselves. more interesting is "just how much deconstruction is required to facilitate the termination of industrial civilization?"

lumpy (not verified) Tue, 05/21/2024 - 10:30

In reply to by anon (not verified)

i don't disagree, you make good points but have you noticed you're still talking almost exclusively in the individual terms that the piece rightly points out is part of the problem?

for example, "neutralizing people who seek control" runs right in to it, very quickly. you and your friends might be able to "neutralize" the petty control freaks who exist at the same scale as you, just a few people, scheming together but what about that asshole hobbes and his stupid leviathan?

anon (not verified) Tue, 05/21/2024 - 12:14

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

I look around and all I see is beauty and nature and fine naked sexual bodies and bbq. Where you at, bro? Maybe the immportal leviathan can't find you if you just move?

lumpy (not verified) Tue, 05/21/2024 - 18:37

In reply to by anon (not verified)

seriously mods? you gonna leave up this lazy, illiterate libertarian bullshit but not any pushback?

the @news equivalent of a boomer telling everyone to quit whining and move somewhere you can afford

anon (not verified) Tue, 05/21/2024 - 20:19

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

First you accuse them of being an influencer and now they're an illiterate libertarian? Because they like nature and sexy bodies and bbq and suggest leaving bad situations? Wow, lumpy, you should take a little "me time" methinks.

anon (not verified) Fri, 05/24/2024 - 08:43

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

anon from earlier in the thread. if op posits postmodernism and lack of unifying metanarrative as the reasons for apathy and disinterest in jerking the reigns of leviathan, i have found postmodernism, nihilism, and deconstruction have eventually led me to absurd affirmation of life, love, beauty, joy. behind the shroud of name-of-the-father illusions this world is beautiful and moving, and giving up on my initial conceptions of those spook words above was a crucial part of seeing through the shroud.

i think the apathy must be solved by pushing through the illusions with others; if every person remembers that they themself are whole and don't need to prove anything to anyone, the human species would have a good foundation for resilience against leviathan. need a praxis for this. i'm an ecologist but this is one of the few declarations i'm willing to make on the species scale

anon (not verified) Fri, 05/24/2024 - 18:45

In reply to by anon (not verified)

People are looking for community, as society has none to offer. They cling to mirages, illusions of communities and they keep getting down the spiral (or up the "pyramid") so they can find the invitation-only orgy, or glare of higher status from on top of a skyscraper or a yacht. Yes I'd be ideal to breaking through the ghosts, but how to make people stop chasing them is a question that haunts me. And what if there's also a collective illusion in an anarchist gathering, or even a decentralized constellation? Like I also I used to be seeing everyprole as a potential comrade in the revolution that was waiting at every corner (that was waaaay back during my anarkid days).

Let's first realize how omnipresent the illusion is... how even the very thing we call "the world" is one in itself.

anon (not verified) Mon, 05/20/2024 - 15:33

apart from the ad hominem of disqualifying this author for actually being western chauvinist trad auth...
as a pessimistic anarchist who is not a nihilist, i find this conflation of pessimism and nihilism to be very annoying.
no, you are not more realist than thou just because you claim to be. if you have philosophical claims, they have to hold up against the scrutiny of nihilism. if you have a political rhetoric, it must overcome the appeal of nihilism or the nihilistic affect of the times to be successful. scolding the kids, like a grumpy academic old man, for being nihilistic or into nihilism won't do.

i think nihilism is a useful to avoid reifying all sorts of spooks into moralist universalisms and totalitarian political projects.

but i think people claiming to be nihilists are merely doing a cheap rhetorical move where they hide their own morals, or aesthetics sensibilities or preferences, as if they are free from all the baggage that nihilism can erode. just like claiming to be finally enlightened, claiming to be a nihilist is a pose.

on the other hand, you can choose to be an anarchist and what that means has concrete implications, unlike nihilism, where the answer is always 'nothing'. most people will not be anarchists, even if it's a fairly more straightforward thing to understand than nihilism. there many flavors of comforting authoritarianism which allows for people to be leaders and followers of all kinds, feeling empowered, supported, served, embraced, dissatisfied, malcontent, and providing them for outlets for protest and change.

a recent article posted on anews posted this: Bakunin from a letter to Nechaev:

“...This passion is only real and salutary when both sides, the positive and the negative, are closely connected in it. Hate, the negative side alone, does not create anything, does not even create the power necessary for destruction and thus destroys nothing. The positive side alone will not destroy anything since the creation of the new is impossible without the destruction of the old, and will not create anything, remaining always a doctrinaire dream or a dreaming doctrine.”

Nihilism destroys doctrines and reminds you of the very real amoral playing field. The will to authority, and the artifices that legitimize it and preserve it is the enemy of anarchy, not nihilism, which is nothing.

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