In this chapter, the author draws on ideas from Michael Freeden’s theory of ideology to show that the so-called anarchist tradition is best regarded as a constellation of diffuse and evolving concepts rather than a bounded historical reality. This, in turn, allows one to distinguish between what he calls “anarchist” thought (i.e., thought that emerges within and in response to historical anarchist movements) and “anarchistic” thought (i.e., thought that emerges outside historical anarchist movements but is conceptually harmonious with various fundamental (...) “anarchist” commitments). (shrink)

When people talk about anarchism, what they have in mind is typically political anarchism, that is, the view that there should be no state. As the philosopher and anarchism scholar David Miller observes, however, anarchism itself is a more general view, namely the view that there should be no rulers. Miller writes that “although the state is the most distinctive object of anarchist attack, it is by no means the only object. Any institution which, like the state, appears to anarchists (...) coercive, punitive, exploitative or destructive is condemned in the same way”—including, for example, religious institutions, schools, or economic systems (Miller 1984: 8). In this sense, one can be an anarchist about different things. Relationship anarchy is anarchism about personal relationships. -/- Several thinkers in the anarchist tradition have held views on personal relationships (e.g., Godwin 1793; Bakunin 1866; Goldman 1910). In what follows, however, our focus is not on the general issue of anarchist views on relationships, but on the ideas of the contemporary movement of self-identifying relationship anarchists. -/- The ideas of relationship anarchy in this sense—hereafter RA—have been developed in queer and countercultural communities over the last two decades. Rather than focusing primarily on mechanisms of political power, RA theorists have been concerned with understanding and challenging the power dynamics at play in close personal relationships. Andie Nordgren, the movement’s central, founding theorist, describes RA as a radical commitment “to avoid defining relationships by attempts to exercise power over each other” (Nordgren 2018). -/- Our aim is to give a concise presentation and defense of RA. We will approach RA as a theory in applied ethics—in particular, as a theory in sexual ethics and relationship ethics—and relate it to ongoing debates in these areas. We, the authors, are both queer men with a background in countercultures where RA is widely practiced and discussed. One of us is an activist working on trans- and sex workers’ rights (Sørlie), the other is a philosophy professor (Moen). Although we make several claims about the scope, content, and justification of RA, we do not claim to speak with any special authority on the issue. Moreover, many of the points that we make here, while not attributable to a specific source, are not original to us, but are the result of several years of fruitful discussion with others in the RA community. -/- We start by considering the cases where, from an RA perspective, current mainstream relationship norms are too restrictive. Then we turn to the cases where current norms are too permissive. Our views on what counts as “mainstream” relationship norms are, no doubt, influenced by the fact that we are writing from a Scandinavian perspective. -/- We then proceed to consider the relationship between RA and polyamory. We argue that RA is compatible with some, but not all, forms of polyamorous practice. We also argue that, from an RA perspective, the increasingly popular term “consensual non-monogamy” is a misleading term that should be avoided. In the conclusion, we explain how RA, as a position in applied ethics, can be justified within consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethical frameworks alike. -/- We have restricted our scope, in what follows, to chosen relationships between adults. Thus, we are not dealing with, for example, kinship relationships into which one is born, nor relationships between adults and minors. Although many issues and arguments deserve to be explored in greater depth than we can do here, we hope, nevertheless, to be able to convey the main nature and thrust of RA. (shrink)

When central authority fails in socially crucial tasks, mutual aid, solidarity, and grassroots organization frequently arise as people take up slack on the basis of informal networks and civil society organizations. We can learn something important about the possibility of horizontal organization by studying such experiments. In this paper we focus on the rationality, care, and effectiveness of grassroots measures to respond to the pandemic and show how they illustrate core elements of anarchist thought. We do not argue for the (...) correctness of any version of anarchist politics, nor claim that the bulk of this grassroots work was done with anarchist ideas explicitly in mind. Nonetheless, the current pandemic, like many social crises before it, serves as a sort experiment in political implementation. -/- Two things have been striking in the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic: the chaos, incompetence, irrationality, and often cruel misguidedness of the centralized government response; and the rationality, care, and effectiveness of grassroots measures in many parts of the country. In this paper we focus on the latter—especially the case of Washington, DC—to illustrate core features of anarchist politics. We do not argue for the correctness of any version of anarchist politics here, but merely illustrate guiding ideas that have been a part of anarchist theory and practice for well over a century. We also do not claim that the bulk of this grassroots work was done with anarchist ideas in mind, or explicitly out of a commitment to anarchist politics. Some was, and some arises out of related ideological commitments, but most simply functions out of no more than a desire to support one another. -/- The current pandemic, like many social crises before it, rather than providing a stand-alone argument or functioning as an implementation of any political theory, serves as a sort of laboratory experiment. When central authority fails in socially crucial tasks, mutual aid, solidarity, and grassroots organization frequently arise as people take up slack on the basis of informal networks and civil society organizations. We can learn something important about the possibility of horizontal organization by studying such experiments, including how it arises through spontaneous action. If political thought is best illustrated through its implementation in practice, the functioning of grassroots individuals and organizations in a time of crisis is one way to understand the political mechanisms core to anarchist thought. (shrink)

In the last few years, it has become a commonplace to state that domination takes place through a multiplicity of axes, where gender, class, race, and sexuality intersect with one another. While a lot of insightful empirical work is being done under the heading of intersectionality, it is very rarely linked to the anarchist tradition that preceded it. In this article, I would like to articulate this point by showing the usefulness but also the limits of the notion of intersectionality (...) to understand mechanisms of domination and then move on to argue for the need of an anarcha-feminist research program. Secondly, I will try to provide the philosophical framework for such an enterprise by arguing that it is in a Spinozist ontology of the transindividual that we can best find the conceptual resources for thinking about the plural nature of women’s bodies and thus of their oppression. This will allow me to attempt to articulate the question of ‘what it means to be a woman’ in pluralistic terms and thus also to defend a specifically feminist form of anarchism. In conclusion, I will go back to the anarcha-feminist tradition and will show why today it is the best possible ally of feminism in the pursuit of a critical theory of society. (shrink)

This essay argues that current advocacy of lesbian and gay rights to legal marriage and parenthood insufficiently criticizes both marriage and motherhood as they are currently practiced and structured by Northern legal institutions. Instead we would do better not to let the State define our intimate unions and parenting would be improved if the power presently concentrated in the hands of one or two guardians were diluted and distributed through an appropriately concerned community.

This chapter draws upon Michael Freeden's morphological approach to examine the various ways freedom has been conceptualized within the anarchist tradition. It determines how and to what extent these conceptions serve to differentiate anarchism from liberalism and other ideologies that claim freedom as a core concept. The chapter explores the role they play in the formulation of diverse anarchist tendencies. It argues that prevailing anarchist conceptions of freedom uniformly obviate the "assumed tension between the freedom of the individual and the (...) good of society" as well as "between negative and positive definitions of the concept". The rejection of such dichotomies is a unifying theme in anarchism more generally and a key aspect of its ideological distinctiveness. When anarchism is defined solely in terms of what it opposes, the underlying motivations for that opposition tend to be obscured. For social anarchists, any concept of freedom that lacks an explicitly teleological dimension is an abstraction devoid of concrete moral significance. (shrink)

Las Brigadas Internacionales organizadas durante la Guerra Civil Española estaban compuestas por más de 35 mil voluntarixs provenientes de 53 naciones diferentes. Por su parte, las milicias del P.O.U.M. contaban con otrxs 10 mil milicianxs. Cerca de 9.000 judíxs voluntarixs lucharon por la República y la revolución, alistándose en las brigadas o las milicias. El objetivo de esta investigación ha sido recobrar una de aquellas identidades. Aquí, presenta la historia de una argentina anarquista de origen judío que buscó la revolución (...) mediante la lucha armada y la comandancia de una milicia del P.O.U.M. Micaela Feldman dejó un testimonio escrito de su combate: un discurso que funda una utopía. El artículo, fruto de una investigación de archivo, se centra en las cuestiones de género que surgen en el texto, las prácticas anarquistas propuestas por la protagonista de estas memorias y las significaciones estéticas de su escritura en torno al deseo y la práctica de la revolución. (shrink)

The “Home” is ideologically understood as a place of safety and refuge. Such an account cloaks violence against women. The voices of battered women can disrupt that dominant construction of the space of the home, a construction typified by the work of Gaston Bachelard. The space that Bachelard presupposes and theorizes as given is in fact being-produced, cleaned, and organized by people who themselves may not find in it any solace or respite.

Marilyn Frye's first book, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, presents nine philosophical lectures: four on women's subordination, four on resistance and rebellion, one on revolution. Its approach combines a lesbian perspective with analytical philosophy of language. The major contributions of the book are its analysis of oppression, highly suggestive discussions of the roles of attention in knowledge and ignorance and in arrogance and love, a defense of political separatism not based on female supremacism, and a development of (...) the idea of lesbian epistemology. Its proposal for resisting White racism will be controversial. Its treatment of gay rights is not balanced by an acknowledgement that drag queens, like “totaled women,” are products of oppression, not simply of intolerance. The most philosophically problematic aspect of the book is its analysis of coercion and of the roles of coercion in women's subordination. This creates an unresolved tension with the positive message of the second half of the book. Despite this difficulty, these essays are an outstanding contribution to contemporary feminist theory. (shrink)

Gay marriage highlights a contradiction in American national identity: if gay marriage is supported, the normative status of the heterosexual nuclear family is undermined, while if not, the civil rights of homosexuals are undermined. This essay discusses the feminist dilemma of whether to support gay marriage to promote these individual civil rights or whether to critique marriage as a part of the patriarchal system that oppresses women.

Hoy en día, la mayoría de las grandes instituciones públicas y privadas está marcada por el escándalo de los abusos sexuales. La saturación en los medios de estos escándalos no se restringe a alguna organización, afecta a todas, ya sea gubernamental, no gubernamental, religiosa o política Hay miles de víctimas. Desafortunadamente, en torno a estos abusos inaceptables, nace un nuevo tipo de marketing que «folcloriza» el dolor, transformándolo en negocio. Estamos presenciando el surgimiento de una nueva clase de víctima y (...) de una nueva forma de ser una víctima. Es un victimismo sutil lo que se discute aquí, el mismo que ve la condición de víctima como una situación ventajosa de la cual obtener grandes ganancias. La reflexión que sigue explora la cuestión del victimismo, así como sus desafíos en la Iglesia Católica y en una tendencia del feminismo contemporáneo. (shrink)