Dialectical Communitarian Anarchism as Negation of Domination: Review of "The Impossible Community"

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Dialectical Communitarian Anarchism as the Negation of Domination: A Review of "The Impossible Community"

Saturday, 30 November 2013 09:50
By Javier Sethness, Truthout | Op-Ed


Professor John P. Clark's The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013) is a masterful work, one which seeks to invert radically the destruction of nature and oppression of humanity as prosecuted by capitalism, the state and patriarchy by encouraging the intervention of a mass-confluence of anarcho-communist - or communitarian anarchist - socio-political movements. This project is only "impossible" because its realization is heterotopic - inherently contradictory - to the prevailing system of domination, such that it demands the abolition of hegemony in favor of a different, liberated world: that of the "third great epoch of history," in Clark's vision, when "humanity finally frees itself and the earth from the yoke of dominion." Taking equally from Buddhism as from dialectical philosophy, Clark stresses the importance of enlightenment, mindfulness and awakening as preconditions of revolutionary political praxis. And although he implicitly seems to agree with the overall thesis of the (anti)catastrophist line developed by Sasha Lilley and company, he also affirms the productivity of a commitment to truth that squarely confronts the profoundly shocking, traumatic and even convulsive nature of such truth: the very first page of his preface acknowledges the sixth mass extinction in which terrestrial life is at present entrapped and notes the "horror" of a capitalist world in which billions go without the basic necessities of a good life. Advancing the philosophy and practice of communitarian anarchism as an exit from the depraved present, Clark dedicates much of his text to examining the anti-authoritarian and cooperative spirit of humanity, as embodied in many of the customs of pre-modern or "traditional" societies, as in the history of Western revolutionary movements. In this sense, Clark does well to distance himself from the Eurocentrism advanced by many Western radical thinkers, including social ecologist Murray Bookchin, whose imprint on The Impossible Community is otherwise nearly palpable.

Much of Clark's introductory commentary focuses on the problem of individual and collective human enlightenment: The question is how to induce what Paulo Freire termed "conscientization" (conscientização), a catalyst for a societal awakening that would take into account normally overlooked social and ecological problems toward the end of engaging with and ultimately resolving them. How might a shattering intervention break the mass of humanity from much of its observed complacency and complicity with the capitalist everyday, which, "if we are to speak honestly, must be called a culture of extinction, a culture of extermination, and ecocidal culture"? In response, Clark presents a revival of classical anarchism, as developed in the thought of Mikhail Bakunin, Pyotr Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, Gustav Landauer and Murray Bookchin, and he works to integrate the perspectives of such theorists together with the life-affirming aspects of various traditional cultures of the world to advance his communitarian anarchist vision. Practically, Clark argues that the notion of communitarian anarchism (or anarcho-communism) should be understood as referring to activity that renders the life-world common, as against its largely privatized nature now. In Clark's vision, a multitude of strong international communitarian anarchist movements would work together to overturn the historical trend toward popular disenfranchisement, as promulgated by the expanding hegemony of state and capital seen in modernity, in favor of decentralized participatory democracy. Philosophically resisting much of the dominant dogmatism, nihilism, cynicism and relativism that he sees evinced by many contemporary anarchists, Clark defends a dialectical theoretical vision whereby the world comes to be seen as a "site of constant change and transformation that takes place through processes of mutual interaction, negation and contradiction." Clark declares that one of the main goals of his Impossible Community is "to be fully and consistently dialectical," such that the given social reality comes under challenge and "new possibilities for radical social transformation" are opened up. I should note that within this vein it is strange that, next to declaring Mohandas K. Gandhi's Sarvodaya ("common welfare&quot movement the "largest anarchist-inspired movement to appear between the Spanish Revolution and the present moment," Clark favorably cites the "radical kibbutzim" of Palestine/Israel on two occasions in the first two chapters of the work without noting a word about the imperialist dispossession processes directed against indigenous Palestinians with which such kibbutzim were complicit. The recognition that the kibbutz might function as a "tool of colonialism and oppression" is made only in a footnote during its third and last mention in the book's sixth chapter. One wonders how this lapse jibes with Clark's stated desire to preserve the positive communalist customs of non-Western cultures and overcome the strong tendencies toward Eurocentrism within much of anarchist thought.

Within his discussion of the philosophy of communitarian anarchism, Clark notes the mainstream's puzzling perpetuation of mechanisms of denial, even amid the depths of the various interlinking crises of corporate capital. Against such uninspiring trends, Clark argues for a "Phantom of Possibility," one that presently haunts left-wing and ordinary consciousness alike: It is "the chance that revolutionary, liberatory social transformation is still possible." Evaluating the prospect for the embodied realization of such rebellious specters, Clark here expresses pessimism for the "mass of humanity" that continues to fail to act autonomously and radically to resolve the threats that imperil its future existence, particularly through looming eco-apocalypse: In observing this alarming violation of collective human self-responsibility, Clark would seem to agree with Karl Marx, whom he cites as declaring that history "progresses by its bad side." Gloomily, though perhaps rationally, the author declares a "spectrum of possible ecofascisms" to be the most likely future outgrowth of society's present structure, although his focus clearly is on making visible the chance of a "turning" - as in the etymology of the word revolution, a "turning around." Bracketing his recognition of the frightening power of reactionary grass-roots movements in the United States, Clark considers Occupy, cooperative labor, the possibility of economic decommodification and the solidarity and marginalization of immigrant communities as important popular counter-trends that point the way forward. At both the individual and social levels, Clark calls for a total revolt of the organism, one reminiscent of Herbert Marcuse's Great Refusal, whereby individuals associate and develop autonomous alternatives that promote an institutional framework, social ethos and social imaginary different from those on offer from the dominant death-culture. Equating the ecological crisis with the "ultimate intrusion of the traumatic real" into human life - a veritable "death sentence for humanity and much of life" on Earth - Clark raises the question of why there still is nothing approximating an anarchist Masdar City, in reference to the project currently financed by the Emir of Abu Dhabi in conjunction with private capital to create a waste-free, carbon-neutral settlement for 50,000 people in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. Given the very real existence of strong left-wing movements - for example, as seen in the solidarity volunteerism engaged in by many youths in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - Clark recognizes that the struggle continues, but, like Marx in the "Theses on Feuerbach," he leaves open the practical question of how to change the world at this point in the text. ............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20158-dialectical-communitarian-anarchism-as-the-negation-of-domination-a-review-of-the-impossible-community