Anarchy and the Utopian This weeks readings discussed notions of anarchism as a prism to understand the conception of the

societal relations that existed at the time and how there could be a systematic break from the current form of organization to a different freer form that preexisted as Kropotkin writes It was only then, after the defeat of the free medieval communes had been completed that the mutual insurance company between military, judicial, landlord, and capitalist authority which we call "State," could be fully established. Central to the anarchist conception of imbalanced power relations are the monopolization of force and violence vested in the state which colludes with powerful institutions like the church and groups like the capitalists to promote capitalist accumulation, protection of private property, and the violent suppression of free initiative, free action, free association to create uniformity. According to Kropotkin anarchism is a state when the human mind frees itself from ideas inculcated by minorities of priests, military chiefs and judges, all striving to establish their domination, and of scientists paid to perpetuate it, a conception of society arises in which there is no longer room for those dominating minorities. A society entering into possession of the social capital accumulated by the labor of preceding generations, organizing itself so as to make use of this capital in the interests of all, and constituting itself without reconstituting the power of the ruling minorities.. Bakunin further critiques the capitalist state showing its evolution undergirded by theology and science, the matrix of these interconnected hegemonic systems of power can be mapped historically. He writes the revolt of life against science, or rather against the government of science, not to destroy sciencethat would be high treason to humanitybut to remand it to its place so that it can never leave it again. Until now all human history has been only a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstractionGod, country, power of State, national honor, historical rights, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare. Such has been up to to-day the natural, spontaneous, and inevitable movement of human societies. In the same vein as Kropotkin and Bakunin, but with more specificity, Emma Goldman critiques institutional structures like the prison systems, she argues that most of the crimes committed are the result of social and economic inequities and laws are in place to maintain the status quo The notion of a free will, the idea that man is at all times a free agent for good or evil; if he chooses the latter, he must be made to pay the price. Although this theory has long been exploded... it continues to be applied daily by the entire machinery of government, turning it into the most cruel and brutal tormentor of human life. Another critique of the prison system is how this population of people is exploited as almost free labour by state by contracting out their services to corporations.
1 2

She also critiques how the emancipation of women which should have been about make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery. but instead it has worked towards a kind of external emancipation and leads to a situation where women's labour is exploited both inside and outside the home. She argues against the conception of emancipation that doesnt fully
3

understand women's experience and created a need to be emancipated from the emancipation itself. In combination all these writers are exposing the interlocking systems of power and violence that underlie the somewhat a historical, a contextual idea of the state and its attendant as well as concurrent ideologies and as an oppositional progressive ideal they suggest Anarchism. An interesting practical manifestation of these anarchists ideals could be the pirate utopias like Hispaniola which are largely undocumented because they threaten main stream ideas of naturalized development and progress of state, law religion and society, as if their were no historical alternatives. Finally, Fanon theorizes against the unquestioning acceptance of western liberal nation state project, specially in the post colonies. He exposes the underpinning of the western liberal project as the legitimation of colonization, slavery and other forms of human exploitation. So, comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states, institutions, and societies which draw their inspiration from her.
4

Questions:

Question 1. According to Bakunin in God and the State, "materialism starts from animality to establish humanity; idealism starts from divinity to establish slavery and condemn the masses to an endless animality" (48). Likewise, Bakunin continues, "Materialism denies free will and ends in the establishment of liberty; idealism, in the name of human dignity, proclaims free will, and on the ruins of every liberty founds authority" (48). Thus in beginning from some set of abstract human ideals, the goal of a liberal utopia is to secure in advance some set of conditions, which politically has yet to be actually secured. It is in the attempt to secure these ideal human ideals through some sort of state apparatus that the tendency towards fascism emerges. How is Bakunin's argument a condemnation not only of Dr. Balsidus' Black Empire, but also of the struggle to secure human rights and more generally of every liberal, representative democracy today?

Question 2. This week's readings contend that liberty arises from the individual. In the 1960's women's movement, a focus on incremental, institutional changes like the right to vote, or equal civil rights has precluded true emancipation which begins neither at the polls or in courts but in woman's soul (Goldman, p. 224). Goldman also argues, in her treatise against prisons, that the first step in reform of the system, is the renovation of the social consciousness to acknowledge that we all have the rudiments of crime in us (121). For Kropotkin, realization of an anarchic communist utopia would require that individualism... which represents the full expansion of man's faculties (141). These perspectives coincide with Avery Gordon's idea that we authorize ourselves, a monumental act of freedom in the authoritarian world in which we live (126). As these anarchist writers assert, we will not find salvation by merely tweaking institutions of control, but through more honest performance of the fully articulated individual. On the other hand, Kropotkin argues that anarchic communism requires continual contact between all, through the volunteer associations which have begun to proliferate in Europe, and through the practi ce of mutual help, the only sure means to achieve a more moral society (140, 137). Peter Wilson's Pirate Utopias demonstrate that alternatives to the State are created only through highly integrated, communal action. Wilson urges us to understand the pirate's land enclaves as more than a mere glitch in the smooth

and inevitable progress of European culture, but rather, an intentional resistance, achieved by the collective rule-making of crew and captain, often through assent to a set of democratic rules (203). If the State's enforcement of order suppresses human spirit and morality, wouldn't rules created by other governing bodies have the same effect? Voluntary associations, pirate utopias, and organizationally-led women's movements still use rules, bracketing behavior through coercion. Do these methods compromise the anarchist vision? Kropotkin critiques a cautious, evolutionary approach to anarchism; he advises that from today we should work for the destruction of the institutions and their tendenci es, including rulemaking beyond the State (142). How, then, does the anarchist gain political traction? Is the loose association of disordered voices enough to threaten an institution as powerful as the State (or, for Kropotkin, capital; for Bakunin, the Church)?

Question 3. Kropotkin suggests that the state can be supplanted with voluntary free association and federalism (p. 130). But he does not preclude systems of control. These systems take the form of societal norms intended to govern and prevent, as Goldman also suggests, the conditions that engender crime and anti-social behavior as well as their requisite consequences. For Kropotkin, refiguring the moral dimension of social relationships has only three such means: the repression of anti -social acts; moral teaching; and the practice of mutual help itself (p. 137). Excepting Wilsons descriptions of Missions speechifying, the authors of this weeks readings are generally ambiguous on the actual practice of this moralistic transition. (Kropotkins cursory outline on page 141 not quite satisfying). In light of that open space, I would like to ask: What strategies might be effectively employed toward creating such a moralistic change? In simpler words with a slightly different spirit: How can such a moral transformation be achieved? Are there systemic, institutional, or other barriers to fulfilling the change? If so, how can they be challenged or removed? How effective can social norms be in restraining a populace that Bakunin admits is prone to abuses of power? Lastly, and moving a bit beyond the immediate scope, are socially grounded systems of control inherently less coercive than their imposition by the state or the church?

Question 1. According to Bakunin in God and the State, "materialism starts from animality to establish humanity; idealism starts from divinity to establish slavery and condemn the masses to an endless animality" (48). Likewise, Bakunin continues, "Materialism denies free will and ends in the establishment of liberty; idealism, in the name of human dignity, proclaims free will, and on the ruins of every liberty founds authority" (48). Thus in beginning from some set of abstract human ideals, the goal of a liberal utopia is to secure in advance some set of conditions, which politically has yet to be actually secured. It is in the attempt to secure these ideal human ideals through some sort of state apparatus that the tendency towards fascism emerges. How is Bakunin's argument a condemnation not only of Dr. Balsidus' Black Empire, but also of the struggle to secure human rights and more generally of every liberal, representative democracy today?

It knows that man, the last and most perfect animal of earth, presents the most complete and most remarkable individuality, because of his power to conceive, concrete, personify, as it were, in his social and private existence, the universal law. It knows, finally, when it is not vitiated by theological or metaphysical,

political or judicial doctrinairisme, or even by a narrow scientific pride, when it is not deaf to the instincts and spontaneous aspirations of lifeit knows (and this is its last word) that respect for man is the supreme law of Humanity, and that the great, the real object of history, its only legitimate object, is the humanization and emancipation, the real liberty, the prosperity and happiness of each individual living in society. For, if we would not fall back into the liberticidal fiction of the public welfare represented by the State, a fiction always founded on the systematic sacrifice of the people, we must clearly recognize that collective liberty and prosperity exist only so far as they represent the sum of individual liberties and prosperities.
5

Bakunin maps historical development of the various constellation of powers that competed,colluded and consolidated to make up the modern state. He holds all the institutions we think to be sacred accountable to the political imperatives that governed them, which were far removed from a desire for human emancipation rather they represent the degradation of the human condition for the accumulation of power.

As an example he claims positive science to have similar impact as religion, politics and law. the reason for this is because the claims science makes in terms of kind of elite knowledge base that can be accessed by a few, and its underlying presumption that it holds some ultimate and singular key to human progress. As a way of thinking, Bakunin is critiquing the totalizing tendencies within the scientific discourse that can possibly displace the religious, legal other kinds hegemonic discourses. The critical aspect that privileges positive science is in its ability to make abstractions that are truer which express the genera l nature and logic of things, their general relations, and the general laws of their development. . Despite truth claims
6

being grounded in logic, one aspect in which it resembles all these doctrines: its only possibl e object being

abstractions, it is forced by its very nature to ignore real men, outside of whom the truest abstractions have no existence.
7

In Black Empire, Dr Belsidus has a plan to liberate the black people from s lavery and colonization, he sees the tools of religion, science and capital accumulation as the tools that should be employed to dismantle to the imperialist hegemony of European powers in Africa, but in fact he also recognizes these same tools have been used to subjugate back people. His subversion of the institutions of imperialism for liberation of black people seems ingenious but maybe not as radical a break as Fanon would espouse So,

comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states, institutions, and societies which draw their inspiration from her I contend this because Belsidus in his final speech says I
8

have led you to victory, with your cooperation. Now I shall lead you to a higher civilization than Europe has ever seen, with your consent... shall again make Africa first in the family of Nations. So the idea of
9

nation state is still playing on Belsidus's imagination although he hopes to draw his inspiration from non european nations. But he remains aware of the flaw of trying to enslaving others. So as a project he understands

. These abstraction of human ideals that arose in a particular context and do explain the material realities of the people
1Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin. God and the State (Kindle Locations 782-789). 2Emma Goldman. Anarchism and Other Essays (Kindle Locations 1214-1217). 3Emma Goldman. Anarchism and Other Essays (Kindle Locations 2212-2214). 4Wretched of the Earth, Conclusion pg. 5 Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin. God and the State (Kindle Locations 755-763) 6Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin. God and the State (Kindle Locations 800-801). 7Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin. God and the State (Kindle Locations 802-804)

8 9Black Empire pg. 258