Bigotry and Revolution
Keith Preston is someone whose work I’ve been aware of and mostly respected. The problem is that, while he’s the sort who is usually right about many things — when he’s wrong, he’s really, really, really wrong.
Rothbard’s Law, the observed phenomenon that people tend to specialize in what they are worst at, has got a cruel hold on Preston. Henry George was (from a free market libertarian standpoint) pretty good on almost all issues except land. Naturally, he made land his principal focus. Rothbard saw Milton Friedman as correct on a lot of economic matters but horrible on money, which naturally became Friedman’s principal focus. Preston makes the error of expanding pluralism in anarchist theory so far as forge overt alliances with the nutzoid authoritarian right (i.e. Nazis and Klansmen), so long as they make insurrectionary sounding noises. Naturally, he has come to see that as his own special niche and is apparently determined to ride said hobby-horse to Hades.
I’ve mostly ignored Preston for the past few years after this tragic flaw of his became clear, although that was interspersed with a handful of episodes in which I felt compelled to explain and defend him as merely mistaken. All the while, I was hoping he would eventually straighten up and fly right.
I can’t do that anymore. At least, not after he posted the odious piece of garbage he titled “Is Extremism in the Defense of Sodomy No Vice?”, anyway.
The critiques of Preston’s post that I’ve noticed have been pretty spot-on overall and particularly precise and incisive in the case of Kevin Carson’s post.
- Taking sides on the right to be a complete jackass by Mike Gogulski
- An Open Letter to Keith Preston by Kevin Carson
- Perverts Versus Preston by Darian Worden
The first thing that came to mind for myself was that Preston’s colorful call to purge the queers reeks of the influence of the sort of strutting leather-boys with way to much Fallschirmjäger memorabilia who think that they’re not gay as long as they’re always the top.
Carson, though, aptly summarized this mess when he wrote:
But while I could respect your willingness to tolerate loathsome people on pragmatic grounds, I can’t remain neutral when you advocate purging the anti-state movement in order to appease those loathsome people. You have “evolved,” if you can call it that, from a willingness to share a tent with racists and homophobes for the sake of defeating Empire as the primary enemy, to promoting an active purge of anti-racists and gays from the anti-Empire movement because the majority of your anti-state coalition might find them offensive. In short, you have “evolved” from tolerating racist and homophobic groups as a means to an end, to withdrawing support from the “cultural left” in order to appease the right wing of your coalition.
You’ve drawn a line that requires me to take a public stand, and publicly disassociate myself from your statements. If my choice is between “self-hating whites, bearded ladies, cock-ringed queers, or persons of one or another surgically altered ‘gender identity’,” and Nazis, Klansmen and white nationalists, I know which side I’ll take.
Indeed. Give me your freaks, your weird, your huddled masses yearning to exchange bodily fluids.
Towards the end of his piece, Preston encapsulates what I take as his principal point:
Before we can have an anarchist revolution, we need to have a revolution within anarchism itself. We need to convey the message to other radical tendencies and to the public at-large that anarchism as a political ideology is not simply some freak show that exists to provide group psychotherapy to a bunch of psychologically damaged personalities.
I will list and debunk some of the apparent misconceptions touched on in that statement and which it appears to rest upon.
First, as I see it, Preston mistakes the sociopathic proclivity for personal violence commonly encountered among white nationalists for martial prowess and “fighting spirit”. Simply put — every bigot is a bully, and every bully is a coward. If we are to fight, let us fight at the side of the brave. There is no Nazi utopia. The handful of “damaged personalities” who would lay down their lives for a twisted, dystopian vision would undoubtedly be no challenge for a suitably well-armed Girl Scout troop.
Secondly, despite wearing the grandiose term “American Revolutionary Vanguard” on his sleeve, that same above statement by Preston betrays an apparently very crude, shallow and underdeveloped understanding of anarchist revolution as simply insurrection. It appears that in Preston’s view, if we can manage to collect enough of those who simply want to kill people and blow things up, we “win”. A more credible understanding is the notion that by attacking the illusionary moral legitimacy of the state we build a revolutionary class consciousness among the victims of statism that can compel them to cooperate in defending themselves against the state. And since you can’t blow up a set of dysfunctional social relationships, Preston is metaphorically flailing about at imagined nails because the only tool he apparently respects is a hammer.
Third, Preston suffers from a failure to understand the realities of multilateral conflict in failing states. I’ll use Iraq as an example. Ba’athists, tribal militias and Islamists commonly do cooperate on the battlefield on a per-project basis when it suits them, despite the gross differences in their visions of what they are fighting for. They create no unifying organization. Preston’s laughable proposal to “purge” an entire family of related movements with no centralized command and control speaks volumes about his understanding of organization. He’s acting as if he seeks some sort of neo-Maoist political coalition unified in thought and action — and any thoughts would apparently be okay, as long as those thoughts gather together a sufficient amount of cannon fodder.
Preston doesn’t understand people, he doesn’t understand revolution and he doesn’t understand warfare. These are serious matters.
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> “A more credible understanding is the notion that by attacking the illusionary moral legitimacy of the state we build a revolutionary class consciousness among the victims of statism that can compel them to cooperate in defending themselves against the state. And since you can’t blow up a set of dysfunctional social relationships, Preston is metaphorically flailing about at imagined nails because the only tool he apparently respects is a hammer.”
brilliant, brad.
I’m not happy with the essay Keith wrote, but mostly because I think he’s contradicting his own position. He has always maintained that the revolution will not be anarchist in character, so even as a bad joke I don’t understand why the anarchist movement(s) would be worth purging. I also think it’s a poor attempt at coalition building to dismiss broad groups of people based on something as irrelevant as sexual identity.
I agree with his core point that many people who call themselves radicals are not really, but I disagree with him that this is any more of a problem with sexual minorities than with, say, Christian Identity folks, or radical anti-abortionists. The issue is not the particular groups; it is individuals whose identity politics are more important than ending the Empire.
Jeremy, there’s an apocryphal story that for a long time the KKK in Kansas City consisted of two people — an ATF informant and an FBI informant who were spying on each other.
While I won’t accuse Preston specifically of this without better info, the general “national-anarchist” tendency to me smells like an effort to mass leverage a whole battalion of undiscovered little two-bit shitbirds on the state’s payroll into anarchist circles.
Thank you. That’s one more person I can trust.
No one should be accused of being an agent provocateur without evidece, and I have no such evidence as regards either Keith and his anarcho-fascist friends. Innocent until proven guilty. End of discussion.
But I have discussed this matter with a friend with a background in the intelligence community- and no, you aren’t the only one to smell a Javert. National anarchism is such an absurd offence to the rational mind that its oddly rapid proliferation does remind one of the ‘no plane theory’.
Thanks Brad.
“But I have discussed this matter with a friend with a background in the intelligence community- and no, you aren’t the only one to smell a Javert. National anarchism is such an absurd offence to the rational mind that its oddly rapid proliferation does remind one of the ‘no plane theory’.”
I go with Occam and think it’s largely just one crazy offshoot of the European New Right/Third Positionist phenomenon, which has managed to incorporate some social anarchist ideas is something that still amounts to village fascism. Part of this is simply because anarchism has gotten more popular in recent decades, so there’s more incentive to leach off this now much more visible political idea. It’s also because anarchists of all kinds tend to fetishize decentralism as an end unto itself, which leaves them conceptually unable to defend against separatism (it also doesn’t help that many of them do embrace forms of “identity politics” that emphasize division into discrete categories rather than deconstructing the same, so they can’t consistently argue against white nationalism because they really aren’t consistently arguing against identity, period.)
Unfortunately this is only going to get worse as the recession deepens. Rome just elected a self-described fascist as mayor, who ran on an anti-immigrant platform. His party is part of the same coalition as Berlusconi and Alessandra Mussolini (yes, that Mussolini).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1915484/Romes-new-mayor-promises-purge-of-migrants.html
Sorry guys, but I just couldn’t resist.
http://libertarianleft.freeforums.org/is-extremism-in-the-defense-of-sodomy-no-vice-t342-25.html#p4937
Well put Brad.
Its pretty shocking and I am really disappointed with Presto. Good to know that intelligence still reigns in our midst, rather than mindless, lizard brain hatred.
There has to be an anarchist Godwin’s law about agent provocateurs. I just know it.
You can’t simply disagree with them? This is the problem I have with the cultural leftist crowd in our movement; for them, every single deviation from leftist orthodoxy is a symptom of deep-seated irrationality and going to special kinds of hells. And so you have left libertarians writing long treatises justifying, mostly to themselves, the exact philosophical and moral disposition of somebody’s asshole behavior.
If you don’t want to discuss things that piss you off, well, don’t discuss them. Much of this controversy could have been avoided had people adhered to this very simple rule.
And, no, I don’t think National Anarchism is an absurd offense to the rational mind. I think it’s simply an ideology people embrace where they define their interests in nationalistic or tribal terms. Is that wrong? *shrug* Whatever. People is weird.
I do think we on the libertarian left are far too quick to dismiss particularist constructions of anti-statism. I love my mother and my hometown. This doesn’t mean she’s the best mother or it’s the best hometown. It doesn’t mean I should trample on your moms and hometowns. I love them because they are *mine*, because they are part of who I am. Those of us who claim to have transcended such petty provincial symbols are not as advanced as we believe: we’ve merely reified certain ideals and turned THOSE into identity charms.
Does disagreement mean something or not? I disagree with fascists. In fact, I disagree with them so fundamentally that I openly oppose what they stand for, and it goes without saying that I choose not to work with them. And guess what? They openly oppose what I stand for too. So why is that I’m the one who’s expected to shut up and roll over for the sake of tact, but not them?
I think I’ve made it pretty clear that some of my criticisms of “rightism” apply just as much to “leftist orthodoxy” for the same reasons.
It’s not about left or right. It’s about something more substantive than “not the United States”.
What. The. Hell.
Why shouldn’t we discuss things that we feel are an affront to our core ideals, ESPECIALLY when there’s a question of whether or not to accept them with open arms and buddy up for activism. This isn’t just the irrelevant intellectual masturbation you despise. They question is being thrust on us against our will, and it has practical strategic implications.
Knowing this, it seems like what you’re really saying is “just shut up and go with the flow”.
WHAT. THE. HELL.
Wanting people to wall themselves off from each other over superficial passive traits is objectively irrational. Subordinating actual human contact and cultural process to the preservation of discrete and arbitrarily defined “cultures” is objectively irrational. How isn’t it?
It isn’t just about people thinking of their interests in a local context. The interests themselves are insane.
Pick a superficial characteristic that both you and your mother share. You both have brown hair, say. Now you build an identity based on people with brown hair and place value in that instead. This is anti-human for two reasons.
The first is the simple and obvious reason that you’ve preemptively walled yourself off from others for the most stupid of reasons.
The second is that it kills contact even within this select group, because no one’s really relating to each other as they are, without fetishizing facets of people over people, they’re all just relating to an alienated construct as a substitute for relating to one another. Fascism is the death of humanity and the worship of identity. To quote something that you yourself once quoted:
“Because we have derived so much benefit from our associating with one another, most of us have no doubt expected that bringing people together into institutional collectives will foster greater social unity. But this has not been the case. Our expectations have failed to materialize because we have failed to distinguish between those spontaneous, unstructured organizations in which people come together for their mutual interests, and the structured institutional systems that mobilize people, inducing them - through intimidative or coercive means - to sacrifice their individual interests in favor of the alleged collective good. But on close examination, what is purported to be the collective good ends up being on the narrow good of the institution itself. One of the consequences of our being pushed together by institutional pressures has been an increased social isolation, a pulling away from one another.”
That would actually be pretty insightful if it were actually true, and I might agree with it.
It’s actually not true, at least for anybody here pushing a “leftist” perspective, and least of all me. I have gone out of my way to make my war against substituting the worship of reified human artifacts (society, community, locality, family, nation, tribe) over actual, rational human interaction, and I oppose national anarchism precisely because takes that dynamic (present in all existing political and social milieu to some degree) to the furthest possible extent. What makes fascism uniquely evil isn’t that it’s always so murderous in practice (since there are plenty of equally murderous ideologies), but the fact that it erases all humanity in the service of a totalizing identity. There’s not one ounce of genuine affinity in it. Fascism is the death of humanity and the worship of identity.
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Oh, goddess, Brad-
This is another one of those ‘I’ve been waiting for someone to say that for YEARS moments.’ Word. WORD. On everything you are saying.
Does someone in the movement make money on the side trying to sell ALL patches? If so, I want to sew one on to my Hello Kitty knockoff outdoor cat jacket. I assume y’all’ll take debit?
See, this is something that I’ve been having a problem with for a while now. It didn’t start with this latest episode; it’s actually been part of my process of reflection on my political identity and how I manifest it. What, exactly, does it *mean* that you oppose them?
And, no, I don’t expect you to shut up about your disagreements whatsoever. If you check out the ATS discussion group, you’ll see that I, too, have challenged NAs core views on things. But since I don’t feel threatened by ideas, I don’t escalate the disagreement to some sort of ultimate showdown in my mind - at least, when I’m thinking and not being overly emotional. I try not to cultivate an outraged tone any longer.
Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I know a lot of people, Matthew, who think our preoccupation with political ideas, and the way we rage against different elements in society, is profoundly offputting and divisive. The world we live in is full of people whom I don’t understand and with whom I disagree. This does not keep me up at nights.
But I don’t think NAs are fascists, anymore than native American tribes are fascists for identifying heavily with their own cultural identity. There’s a spectrum here. I don’t understand national pride, but I’m not going to expel people from the free world because they do. It’s ok for them to be wrong.
I don’t mean to come off as condescending, but… your war? Is that really how you view what we’re doing here on the internet? It’s not what I think I’m doing - although, I admit, there was a time where I had built up a narrative in which I took part where I believed I was doing this. I’m
Also, I don’t thinks NAs take tribalism to the furthest possible extent. I think supremacists are much more dangerous in this regard than mere separatists - mostly because they tend to *act* on their hatred. But I don’t see the danger of mere separatism - especially when it is geared, not towards isolation, but in the search for genuine community (as flawed as I might think the basis for that community is).
Finally, I don’t see an alternative to tolerating separatists except forcing them into situations they would not choose to be in. Since their beliefs don’t come from a rational place (and, frankly, I see nothing wrong with that - there are many beliefs I hold entirely arbitrarily), there’s no real basis for expecting them to voluntarily recant. I’d rather live in peace with them than douse them in the righteous fire of my indignation.
Soviet Onion: have you not reified your conception of “rational human interaction” and turned it into something with which you identify?
@Aster — Is that in reference to my post or to someone’s comment?
One other thing: I should amend my above statement. I don’t think national anarchists are fascists except when they are - in other words, when they are not merely separatist but supremacists who support violence. Even then, I think it’s weird to call people fascists when they are against the state, but then again with supremacist beliefs I think you should take all bets off the table.
incidentally, Preston also thinks supremacists are disqualified from the coalition he’s assembling.
They want something fundamentally different than I do. They have a different conception of what affinity is supposed to look like and be about. When they say they’re opposed to globalization, they really mean global interconnectivity and cosmopolitanism, not just neoliberal capitalism. They want closed societies that deprive people of opportunities I think they should have. Even at present, they take actions in opposition to forms of controversial expression they would, if they had the power, suppress completely (Folsom Street Fair, for example).
To put it as succinctly as I can, I’m in this for humanity, and I find what they believe to be deeply anti-human. When I say they want something fundamentally different than I do, I mean it in the deepest possible way. For me it would be exactly like working with totalitarians.
You should.
As a staunch anarcho-cowboy, I feel obliged to pursue a showdown whenever one presents itself.
What. The. Hell.
That’s a completely different thing. They fetishize difference and identity as part of a plan to intentionally wall themselves (and their children, and anything still living in the areas they control) off in service to their fictive constructs. I’m a universalist, and to the extent that I put any people off at all it’s as a side effect and not an intentional strategy for social engineering. BIG difference.
I do. I oppose all identity-mongering, even when practiced be oppressed groups as an attempted springboard to raise self-esteem for resistance. If leftists have a problem with that, tough shit. It just shows what hypocrites they are.
The funny thing about my attitude is that it’s vehemently opposed to exactly the kind of “PC leftoid identity politics”(your conception) that you and Keith claim left-libertarians are pushing, and yet you still seize on it to pigeonhole as “one of them”. I can’t say anything without people trying to tie me down to some strawman factional position and then argue against that instead.
Rhetorical effect. I could talk boring-like if that would help avoid overreactions in the future.
To me the the mentality of fascism is what’s primarily important. And yes, that’s partially because of the types of actions it encourages and enables, not just as some useless ideological thing, Jeremy. I’m the grandchild of two Holocaust survivors; I know well enough the weight of those actions, and I still think the mentality is most important.
Village statism is still statism. What do you think would happen if someone of the wrong group were to suddenly move into the middle of their enclave, simply to try and live there? How long do you think “live and let live” would last in that situation?
The absence of worshiping social constructs as a substitute for interacting with people is not just another construct. Life outside the walls of a prison is not just another prison. I’m not into this postmodernist bullshit that says “anything can mean anything and it’s all the same thing”.
I realize that that some of these deep-going explorations of how we think about our relationships to one another take a lot of unlearning and a bit of Zen to grasp. They did for me, when I first started down this intellectual path. But trust me, you eventually get to a point where it’s obvious and you wonder just what’s so wrong with the rest of the world. Tribalism is not inevitable.