Response to: "The Incredible Lameness of Left-Anarchism"
by Jason McQuinn
(See: http://tinyurl.com/d6bwt)
I fully agree with Mr. Quinn that
the Anarchist movement should distance itself from the ills that have beset the
Left for all of the reasons he states in this article and more.
However, I must ask: why did the
author find it necessary to indulge in the sarcasm that has gone past being ubiquitous
to the point of being de rigueur?
Can't a bit of Anarchist spirit be
applied here too and can we not resist the temptation to use expressions like:
"Duh!" and "Wow!" that litter so much of the writings on
the internet and mar an otherwise intelligent essay that pains were obviously
taken to craft?
There is simply no room for sarcasm,
which evinces surrender to one's visceral emotions, when writing an essay that also
expresses the wish to be accepted on its intellectual merit alone.
Secondly, and more importantly, why is post-Marxist/Leninist /Maoist Anarchism called
post-Leftist?
Gustav Landauer
was a Leftist also, yet he was anti-Marxist and predicted with preternatural
prescience what would happen if governments were to be based on Marxist theory.
Yet, he called himself a Socialist and published a paper called Der Sozialist.
You, Jason, speak against the
reification of the state, and quite correctly so. Was it not Gustav Landauer who spoke most eloquently against the reification
of the state?
Most importantly, and this is what Landauer's Socialist Anarchism included that Marx's did
not, was his full acceptance, nay embracing, of Geist
(Spirit). Landauer
was not only a great mind and a great heart, he was a
man of great Spirit, who did not shy away from using the term Spirit. Fom that Spirit derived his vision, his energy, his
perseverance and his bravery even when being faced with murder.
Had the Socialism of Landauer not been eclipsed by that of Marx the entire 20th
C. would have been different. It behooves us to delve deeply into the human
psyche to understand why the teachings of Marx were found to be so very
attractive, while those of Gustav Landauer were
rejected during his lifetime for the most part and thereafter as well.
When I think that while the Nazi
machine churned, the Stalinist purges ravaged the
And so, Jason, I would recommend to
you not to call the Anarchist movement that you set yourself in
contradistinction to "Leftist Anarchism" or call it "lame",
but rather call it what it is – soulless. Being soulless was the undoing of
Marxism from its inception.
May we have the robustness and the
courage to embrace an Anarchy that is infused with Spirit.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan,