What Is Anarchist Literary Theory

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the course of its history, the anarchist movement has produced a form of literary theory - a critical aesthetics and epistemology grounded in its emancipatory ethics. In sketching an outline of this body of thought, this essay attempts to call attention to several aspects which offer a promising alternative to the sterility of the modes of theory dominant within the academy. 1. The recent revival of academic interest in the anarchist tradition has drawn new attention to its reflections in literature, particularly via the influence of the anarchist movement on avant-garde modernisms (e.g., Pound's poetry, Picasso's collages), and via the role played by figures of 'the anarchist' and 'anarchy' in certain narratives (e.g., Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent or Frank Norris's The Octopus).1 However, this discussion has all but entirely omitted any consideration of the possible contributions of anarchism to literary criticism. As Roger Dadoun writes, this contribution is not simply a matter of cataloging 'anarchist elements in literature,' whether works by anarchist authors, addressing anarchist topics, or purporting to be stylistically anarchic (1997, translation mine). Nor is a coherent body of anarchist theorization on literature a mere hypothesis; it exists, albeit almost completely consigned to official oblivion, in the historical archives. Like other forms of literary theory which draw on the traditions of oppositional political movements, e.g., ecocriticism, postcolonialism, marxism, feminism, queer theory, etc., anarchist literary theory draws its inspiration from the body of thought and practices which have historically comprised the anarchist movement. 2. This tradition is manifold and still evolving; one can trace at least two major lines of development in anarchist theory, one of which leads from Proudhon and Bakunin to Noam Chomsky and the late Murray Bookchin, the other stemming primarily from Max Stirner and coming, by several twists and turns, to influence Raoul Vaneigem, Fredy Perlman, and John Zerzan. The latter tendency, sometimes identified as 'individualist,' 'anti-organizationalist,' or 'primitivist,' has typically attracted a minority, although it now exercises a wider appeal for North American activists; the former, bearing stronger historical ties to the workers' movements of Europe and the Americas, is generally called 'social anarchism.' I will confine my generalizations to the majority tendencies of social anarchism, which have received far less attention in academic scholarship, but which have, I believe, far more to offer to a conversation about literary theory which has wandered into a kind of dead end.2 3. A distinctive feature of anarchism, as a political movement, is that it roots itself not in a fixed epistemological schema, e.g., a set of propositions about the true structure of history, capital, patriarchy, etc., but in an ethical stance, the positive side of which consists in a fundamental affirmation of freedom, equality, and the coexistence of the different not only as ends but as means, the negative side of which consists in a fundamental refusal of domination and hierarchy per se, not only as instanced in relations of class or gender or race, etc., but in any and all relationship (Graeber 2004a:5-6; Granier I.3.3B, translation mine). Anarchists oppose domination as such, not only insofar as this presents itself as the effect or byproduct of some supposedly fundamental category: 'Slavery may change its form or its name - its essence remains the same' (Bakunin 1972: 137). Thus, from the time of Proudhon on, anarchists have regarded not only Capital, the State, and the Church as analogous enemies (with overlapping interests), but also patriarchy, racism, colonialism, heterosexism, and so on, on the same ethical grounds (Colson 2001: 24, translation mine). Marxist theory presents itself as 'science' - as an 'analytical discourse' which describes how history progresses, or how capital works, or how class society is structured (Graeber 2004a: 6). …