Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism - An Unbridgeable Chasm
Murray Bookchin's polemical essay against the increasingly individualist, misanthropic, mystical and anti-organisational trends in US anarchism still holds relevance today, no less in Britain than the States.
Written in the mid-'90s, his emphasis on collective action to achieve meaningful change over the isolation and ineffectiveness of lifestyle politics should be considered by all those tempted to see anarchism as a subculture to join rather than a practice that informs their interaction within (rather than outside of) society. libcom.org 2005
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Apr 7 2008 19:25
#2
i used to have a hard copy of this pamphlet (before my dad decided to throw out all my radical books one day)
it was one of my favorites.......
Dec 2 2008 01:45
#3
I am a social anarchist (anarcho communist), yet I am a lifestylist in the sense that I don't sit around complaining about the atrocities of the state -- I organize and LIVE my philosophy, I demand change by being change myself and I consider myself in no way "individualistic".
Dec 2 2008 09:49
#4
The point is that it is impossible to 'live' communism in any meaningful sense whilst capitalism exists. Its not like capitalism has an outside that we can drop out into. So even though drop outs will likely never consider themselves 'individualistic', the fact that a subculture is being substituted for collective action (which has the possibility of breaking with capitalist social relations and actually allowing us to 'live' communism through the process of communisation) means that they are posing an individualistic response to collective problems. Its not like non-dropout anarchist communists like myself who have rent and bills to pay and need to work to do that just 'sit around complaining' either, but rather have a different idea of what political action we can and should be taking.
What can I say - a must read for any contemporary anarchist. You'll benefit of reading it even if you consider yourself a social anarchist.
Anyone knows the exact date when this stuff was written?