Interviewer: You’ve just written and published a new book called “Anarchy and Anarchisms”. What is the book about and why have you written it?
Anarxistica: The book showcases some examples of things that are either called anarchism by some people today, things like anarchoprimitivism and anarchafeminism, and other things, such as a practical appraisal of how Jesus of Nazareth lived and what he taught or the writings of Chinese Daoists or the meditative lifestyle of Zen Buddhists or the philosophy of self-creation espoused by Friedrich Nietzsche, and uses them to look at the ideas “anarchy” and “anarchism” to ask what they are and what they mean. So, from this angle, its a book about these things that hopes to inspire readers to think about them for themselves.
But there’s another reason for writing the book besides this and that’s to make an argument for anarchism not as some political set of beliefs or goals but as a kind of personal virtue, an ethics of living, a lived character which shows who we are. For me, anarchism can never be relegated to being a set of ideas. For me its something you live and who you are. It comes up from your insides and flows out into the world. Its much, much more than just some ideology to be put on like a coat or cast aside like an old sweater.
Interviewer: Are you against a more traditional description of “anarchism” then as a political desire for no government or the abolition of police and prisons, for example?
Anarxistica: No, not at all. But I do want to go much deeper into the mentality that leads to such conclusions and where it comes from. My context for anarchism is much wider than many others who claim the description “anarchist” today. In addition, many of the more traditional anarchists of 19th century anarchism, those we might think of as having founding roles in what became anarchism, were philosophical people who wanted to give some kind of reasoned or explicatory basis for why they came to the conclusion that anarchism was a reasonable answer to the question, “How should human beings live one with another?” So when people today talk about their political desires - the end of top down government, abolition of police and prisons, etc, - I understand why people come to those conclusions but I want to do work underneath such conclusions and positions and make an argument for why we come to them thinking of us as intelligent beings who live in the world.
Interviewer: You say your context for anarchism is much wider than that of many others who talk about anarchism. What is that context?
Anarxistica: The short version is that it is the cosmos. This I regard as essentially anarchy. Here “anarchy” does not mean “chaos” however or, at least, it does not mean “chaos” understood as the opposition of “order”. In fact, I do not see “chaos” and “order” as opposites but, as a Daoist would, as one thing always entailing the other. It would be very binary thinking to see them as opposites where such thinking is not necessary. Order and chaos can then be seen as versions of the same thing or components of a necessary whole and applied to the cosmos and so everything in it. This is my context of anarchy - and anarchism is what I argue to be an appropriate human response to it, its nature and its manner of operation.
Interviewer: This is a very philosophical or even spiritual conception of anarchy and anarchism. What would you say about this?
Anarxistica: Its a description I would agree with and own. My influences for it are those kinds of influences, things such as a reading of Chinese Daoism and Zen Buddhism or activities of Jesus of Nazareth, things which had spiritual and even philosophical bases but which resulted in certain kinds of lifestyles and practices, and so I see no shame in that. Philosophical and spiritual thought are two types of thought which are remarkably common throughout human history and so they must be attenuating something in the human being that finds itself in need of expression. One thing that is very important to me is having authenticity in our conversations and in our thinking about things. So I feel no shame if my conception of anarchy or anarchism ultimately comes from philosophical or spiritual roots. What’s more important is to be honest and to explain oneself as clearly and honestly as one can and let your authenticity speak for itself. That will do so not only in terms of what it is you say you want but also in terms of where it comes from.
Interviewer: What do you think are the prospects for anarchism in the world we live in today and where does your conception of anarchism fit into this?
Anarxistica: This is where I say it depends on what you think anarchy and anarchism are. The political anarchist sees anarchism as a list of things they want to bring to pass. They emphasize direct action and taking things into your own hands. Anarchism, on these terms, fails if the things that are wanted do not come to pass. In addition, such anarchism is inherently about conflict and perhaps even violent conflict. Often such anarchism is based on anger and its not anger that I would condemn at all because its anger thats been earned by decades and even centuries of one kind of a person’s domination of another. People are angrily crying out for freedom from oppression and from their literal exploitation and coercion to serve other people’s purposes with the threat that they might even lose their lives if they don’t comply. One cannot condemn and so deny that. One must be open about the problem before one can attempt a solution. One must recognise the pain and anger and the justice it cries out for.
But I think we need to take the bull by the horns and be realistic though. Are the governments of the world going to fall overnight, regardless of how oppressive and how much the tools of capitalists and simple crooks they are? No. Are police and armies just going to put down their guns? No. Are prisons just going to open the doors and then close down? No. Are possessive capitalists going to turn into people who renounce property? No. I think anarchists need to think a lot more closer to home than this. They need to start with themselves and manifest anarchism in their own lives and choices - and not to forget in their own relationships with other people. My view is that the best chance anarchism has is when other people see anarchists living as anarchists and come to the conclusion that it is a better way to live. Now this might include protests, strikes, boycotts and opposing the cruel actions of authoritarians and capitalists. I am not saying these should stop or that they are wrong. In fact, they are often necessary. I’d particularly be in favour of continuous micro-refusals to go along with the prevailing authoritarian and capitalist narrative in society. You should not always do as you are told and its essential that you don’t. But I am saying that anarchism must always be more than such actions, big or small. It must be the life lived as an anarchist existence that examples the values it claims it wants to see victorious in the end. The means is the end and the end is the means.
Interviewer: Can anarchism ever win?
Anarxistica: Again, it depends on your terms. Anarchism wins a million times a day all over the world if you think anarchism is cooperation, helping someone in need, opposing those who want to dominate, coerce or oppress. For, everywhere, all over the world, people do those things every day. Those who think of “anarchism” as toppling the government and only toppling the government, however, have, in my view, completely missed the point. We do not topple the government for its own sake but because it is in the furtherance of values we already live out in our own lives and want to spread as widely in their effects as possible. Anarchism, at least as I understand it, is not just ending physical domination but is ending the idea of domination as a thought anyone would ever have. And so, to come back to your question, my anarchism isn’t about “winning” as if just winning were enough. Its about being but, more than that, its about becoming. Its about becoming non-dominating, non-coercive, non-exploitative. Its about becoming compassionate, peace-loving, cooperative. Its about becoming people for whom “winning” is not even on their radar anymore. Any “win” in a physical conflict that did not also achieve that becoming would be just another battle in an ongoing war. The aim of my anarchism is an end to war.
Interviewer: You discuss a number of different kinds of anarchism in your book. Is there one kind that you favour or would recommend?
Anarxistica: No, there isn't. I am a convinced anarchist. Its not my job to tell you what to do or think. That is strictly a matter for you. I believe in quite a strict notion of personal responsibility when it comes to this. Modern, liberal society breeds lazy people and it wants to lull them into a sleep which about dependency. Because then they are more easily controlled. I take an opposing view. You are responsible for you and no one can take that away. Part of what this means is that you must decide for yourself how you will live and I think that this is one of our best defences against dictatorship and control - when people take responsibility for themselves. So I encourage education. I encourage discussion and conversation. I encourage learning from others and getting to know what other people think about things. But they can’t tell you what to do. They can’t say, “We are doing this now.” What you are doing is up to you - in the context of a whole load of other people who have needs too, of course. So I don’t recommend this view or that although I may certainly say what convinces me and why. I say that if we are all thinkers and talkers who take responsibility for ourselves seriously then we will work something out we can all find mutually beneficial.
Interviewer: In part of your book you discuss the anarchoprimitivism of John Zerzan which says civilisation is the problem. Do you agree with him in this? How could you possibly convince millions of people that going backwards is an improvement?
Anarxistica: By convincing them that people are very, very fallible and that they make mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes. In fact, is there a person alive who isn’t already aware of this? All that needs to be done, then, is to convince them that civilisation is one of these mistakes, a mistake so disastrous its now clear it threatens life on the planet generally. If you think that is true then you cannot avoid the conclusion that it is our fault and that, consequently, we need to change.
This is another area where I think people need to examine their thinking. We like to use words like “progress” and to designate our past selves “primitive” but we are our past selves. Just because we have carpeted our caves and now travel around in cars rather than animal skins it doesn’t make this “progress”. What do you do when the creature creates myriad ways to destroy itself? Do you let it carry on? Give control of it to a few, self-interested examples? Or do you say, “Stop! Look at what we are doing and have done. Look at what will happen if we continue”? I think we say the latter. I think we own up to all this destruction done in civilisation’s name by those who use the term “civilised” as if it were a badge of honour when, in reality, its a badge of shame, something people who went around almost naked in the streets 2300 or 2400 years ago thought was corrupting and illegitimate even then! Civilisation is that thing which is killing us and everything else. The notion it might then be reformed or is even our saviour then becomes simply nonsensical. We need a total revolution of our values and I think anarchism set in a cosmos of anarchy is what that is. I also, by the way, think that surviving is an improvement on slow, but rapidly increasing, suicide. Even better than that would be a reason to survive. A few decades more life so that authoritarians can control us for longer is no achievement to be proud of and neither is that reality soothed because you have Netflix and an XBox whilst, down the street, people look in the bins for their next meal. Seriously, fuck civilisation!
Interviewer: Your book also contains a chapter on “identity”. This is certainly a hot topic today but why is it in a book about anarchism?
Anarxistica: Because, in many ways, this is where it all starts for me, in questions of who we are, where we are, what this situation is. You cannot decide what, if anything, you should do if you haven’t given these things a description which then is a context for your own action. So questions such as these matter a great deal because they set the scene for who you are, where you are and what is to be done. In fact, on an intellectual level, we might see this as simply another way to view the whole. This is important, then, because it shows us our thoughts about ourselves, each other, and where we are. But it also shows them up as thoughts, as interpretations, opinions and beliefs, as things which need not be what they are. I think this view will probably upset quite a lot of people because they become very attached to what I have come to think of as fictions of and about ourselves but I must admit that I can now see such things in no other way. Human beings, for me, are those beings who tell themselves stories and then do their utmost, often regardless of circumstances, to convince themselves that they are true. They think that if they believe hard enough they will be. But I think when we do that we’re always wrong. Its fictions, nothing more. Once we admit to that, we can get to what they are for and where they take us. And that will be a good thing.
Interviewer: This almost sounds like an existential view of life, that people fight themselves in their various existences as they try to survive.
Anarxistica: I think that’s often true and I think the struggle is often to be authentic people in a world that begs you to be anything but authentic because it tells you that that is the only way to get to tomorrow, by constantly betraying yourself. I take the view that it would be better to be authentically me, and authentically free as me, for one day - and not see tomorrow - than to have lived an inauthentic life in which I was constantly coerced to be something else. This is to say that freedom comes from within and is not just about the material conditions of our existence, important as they, of course, are. I see this as being important to everyone although issues such as the current persecution of trans people is something which raises it to my consciousness again and again, as only one example. It is a basic freedom that people should be allowed to be who they are. All anarchists should fight for this even as they do for groups and communities.
Interviewer: What would you like to happen as a result of the book?
Anarxistica: I would be happy if anyone read it and thought about the issues it raises for themselves. That’s my only ambition, such as it is. People certainly don’t have to agree with me. And if they disagree with me, having thought about the issues I raise and for reasons of their own, then that’s a success as well. We all win from people who think, take responsibility and act with virtue. We all lose when they don’t.
You can read or download “Anarchy and Anarchisms” for free HERE!
