hakim bey & ontological anarchism

My personal feeling is if people can't be bothered to write in language i can understand, why should i make the effort to read it?

you may find this thread enlightening...

http://enrager.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1259

I can't really understand what he's on about either. Also loads of fascist websites haev links to his stuff too :confused:

why are fascists interested in him? Loads of websites? I find this hard to believe. whats going on there?

I don't really know - just google "hakim bey national anarchist" or something

blueporta

can anyone explain to a simple bugger like me what ontological anarchism actually is and what, if any its relevance to a working class bloke is! cheers! :red: :rb: :red:

just a mish-mash of zen, 'choas theory', ontological relavitism (basically that we can't be sure that 'being' has a determinate nature due to the imperfect 'access we have to it) with the occasional quote from neitszche thrown in for good measure. The immediatism idea seems to be borrowed from hiedigger (posible explaining the fascist interest?), though ultimately focuses more on combating commodity fetishism and alienation more than anything else. IMHO its trying to sum up a general feeling of emptiness and dissolution with modern life that alot people feel. As for whether its any relevance to working class blokes; guess it depend if they can understand it, no iherent resaon why they shouldn't (unless we're saying concern with philosophical issues is some sort of bougois decedance :mrt: ). Can't really say i rate it, but then if people want to express their alienation with capitalist society in this way don't see anything wrong with that.

My personal feeling is if people can't be bothered to write in language i can understand, why should i make the effort to read it?

Das Kapital or the grundrisse are hardly page-turners either, doesn't mean they don't have anything intersting to say.

captainmission

just a mish-mash of zen, 'choas theory'...

Chaos theory? How does he relate that to anarchism? Is he a mathematician? I hope so cos I really hate it when philosophers who know nothing about science read some pop-science book and think "ooh right I'll use that to prove my point, even though I have no idea what the thing means!"

...ultimately focuses more on combating commodity fetishism and alienation more than anything else.

Do you mean it concentrates on consumerism?

Or the Marxist "commodity fetishism" (which has nothing to do with consumerism)?

Oooh...who woke up the bullshit-buster?

just a mish-mash of zen, 'choas theory'...

Chaos theory? How does he relate that to anarchism? Is he a mathematician? I hope so cos I really hate it when philosophers who know nothing about science read some pop-science book and think "ooh right I'll use that to prove my point, even though I have no idea what the thing means!"

propable the latter, hence the inverted commas

Do you mean it concentrates on consumerism?

Or the Marxist "commodity fetishism" (which has nothing to do with consumerism)?

no i mean commidty fetishism

p.s. has anyone ever told you you're quite cute when you get angry :D

captainmission

Das Kapital or the grundrisse are hardly page-turners either, doesn't mean they don't have anything intersting to say.

Capital or the Grundrisse don't even come close to the level of bullshit that Bey (Lamborn Wilson) or others in this vein do - not even approaching it.

captainmission

propable the latter, hence the inverted commas

What a nobend...

Do you mean it concentrates on consumerism?

Or the Marxist "commodity fetishism" (which has nothing to do with consumerism)?

no i mean commidty fetishism

Aaaarg - meaning what? :confused:

...meaning the obscuring of the social relations that create a product :confused:

Oh.

Thanks :)

Running 'Hakim Bey National Anarchist' on google doesn't come up with many right wing links.

Its mainly websites asserting that he is right-wing, or lifestylist, or just plain wrong. His Critics seem to be from the Bookchinite/Social Ecology camp, or the 'Official' anarchist groups.

Post-modern or techno/rave sites seem to like him. :|

These 3rd positionist/national anarchists seem to praise Bakunin and Kropotkin also- (from what i've just seen)

'Millenium' -One of Hakim Bey's paperbacks, rejects a nationalist position.

Doesn't he part-run Semiotext(e)/Autonomedia? a New York Sci-Fi/ Art/ Situ book company, his real name being Peter Lamborn Wilson?

From the stuff i've just read it seems some Italian Neoists wrote a fake book in his name cut in with lots of Stalin Quotes. heh heh.

Or is that bullshit as well?

captainmission

Das Kapital or the grundrisse are hardly page-turners either, doesn't mean they don't have anything intersting to say.

Haven't read those either :wink:

I dig Hakim Bey/Peter Lamborn Wilson (yes, they're the same person). His early rhetoric - Chaos, Poetic Terrorism, etc - still kicks ass today. I really like the way he blends anarchism with aspects of mysticism, postmodernism and media theory. I have a two-hour speech in my spoken word archive of him discussing the history of radical and anarchist spiritualism -- it's fascinating. Even his essay Against Multiculturalism contains a lot of really good points (although his failure to distinguish between different types of multiculturalism is problematic).

Millennium, though, is not one of his strongest texts. Contrary to what you said, it does not reject nationalism -- rather, it embraces it arbitrarily. If you re-read it (I assume you've read it), you'll come across statements like:

"... some "national struggles" can be considered objectively revolutionary provided they meet basic minimal requirements -- i.e. that they be both non-hegemonic & anti-Capitalist. In the "New World" such movements might perhaps include the Hawaiian secession movement, Puerto Rican independence, maximum autonomy for Native-american "nations", the EZLN, & at least in theory the bioregionalist movement in the US -- and it would probably exclude (with some regrets) such movements as Quebec nationalism, & the militia movement in the US. In Eastern Europe we might see potential in such states as Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, the Ukraine -- but not in Serbia nor in Russia. In the "Mid-East" one cannot help supporting Chechnya & the Kurds. In Western Europe the EU must be opposed, & the smaller nations most likely to be crushed by the weight of Eurotrash & Eurodollars should be encouraged to stay out of the Union or to oppose it from within. This includes the Atlantic littoral from Morocco (where Berber resistance & Saharan independence have our sympathy) to Ireland, Denmark, perhaps, Scandinavia, the Baltics, & Finland. Celtic secessionism should be encouraged in Scotland, Wales, Brittany, & Man; this would add a strong socialist & green tint to any possible coalition of small Atlantic States. In Northern Ireland the best possible solution to the "Troubles" might be an independent Ulster based on socialist anti-sectarian solidarity ..."

(More...)

As an anarchist, I'm not the least bit interested in supporting any form of nationalism -- not even tactically against the global order. Nationalism of any form breeds distrust of the other, whether external or internal to the nation (foreigners and deviants), gives rise to statism, and always develops its own hegemony. Imperialism and "national liberation" are two sides of the same coin.

More criticism of Hakim Bey's cultural nationalist sympathies can be found in this article from Killing King Abacus. For a more general critique of nationalism, read Fredy Perlman's The Continuing Appeal Of Nationalism, which the Killing King Abacus article takes its title from.

Okay, thanks. I'll dig deeper and give his stuff another read.

(Since my last post I found some sufi poetry he helped translate which i really loved- the poems were from his book 'The Drunken Universe')

I really like a lot of the stuff coming from Killing King Abacus too.

in my crowd bey/wilson is notorious for being into little boys (this is not rumor - he writes about it).

that said, i'm interested in lemming's comment that nationalism breeds distrust of the other. my understanding is that "Other distrust" is older than what we call nations.

obviously the consequences of that distrust are worse with nations, but i'm curious about the causal argument.

the reason ravers are into him is that he's decreed the rave to be the most liberating protest against capitalism in the modern age, or something. he brings in pirates somewhere. also, candy ravers drive him wild.

shellls

From the stuff i've just read it seems some Italian Neoists wrote a fake book in his name cut in with lots of Stalin Quotes. heh heh.

Or is that bullshit as well?

That is correct - I have a copy of it somewhere. The authors did it because of the completely uncritical "fannish" way people read Bey's texts in Italy.

Link: http://www.lutherblissett.net/archive/171_en.html

the book has an incredible appendix, a 3-page mycrocosm in which John Zorzan [sic], another brilliant writer of the same school, demolishes our Bey by describing him as perfect mega-trendy blah-blah poseur, a sort of post-modern anarchist. Zorzan [sic] has published for Nautilus another lovely text, "Apprezzare il tempo" [Time And Its Discontents]. Who's right? Zorzan [sic] or Hakim Bey? Both.

:D

In a broad sweep, 'ontological' anarchy can be seen as the actual persona; daily application of anarchist values to the extent that you yourself find personally and ethically comfortable with, rather than holding an anarchist critique in theory but not in praxis. Bey also trys to address the 'spiritual' side of existentialism, approaching it from a hermetic viewpoint, but also saying that as anarchists we should not be tied down by any one dogma or interpretation of 'anarchism', but should be free to loot the arsenal of anarchist, or for that matter any other political, religious or social p.o.v., in order to arrive at a truly liberated personal interpretation of where the self stands in relation to the objective world. Broadly speaking. I hope that helps blue porta. Also NastyNed, if it really gets your goat that people 'can't be bothered' to write in language you understand, I suggest that you stick to The Sun, or any other lowest common denominator publication that relies on no effort whatsoever on your part. :bb:

The more I read/hear about ontological/post-structuralist anarchism and all that shite, the more I think they're just stupidly convuluted ways of articulating things which are (ime at least) part of any (non-shit) anarchist analysis.

"Also NastyNed, if it really gets your goat that people 'can't be bothered' to write in language you understand, I suggest that you stick to The Sun, or any other lowest common denominator publication that relies on no effort whatsoever on your part."

Don't be a cock. It's not a case of effort, it's a case of pretensious pseudo-intellectual shite: your entire post relies on over-articulation and terminology when it could be written equally well without them.

(inevitably becoming far easier to understand in the process)

chimp23

In a broad sweep, 'ontological' anarchy can be seen as the actual persona; daily application of anarchist values to the extent that you yourself find personally and ethically comfortable with, rather than holding an anarchist critique in theory but not in praxis.

Translation: You need to act on your beliefs for them to be meaningful

Bey also trys to address the 'spiritual' side of existentialism, approaching it from a hermetic viewpoint, but also saying that as anarchists we should not be tied down by any one dogma or interpretation of 'anarchism', but should be free to loot the arsenal of anarchist, or for that matter any other political, religious or social p.o.v., in order to arrive at a truly liberated personal interpretation of where the self stands in relation to the objective world.

Translation: Read lots of things and come to your own conclusions.

Broadly speaking.

Translation: With as much supurfluous bollocks as possible added.

Have you even briefly considered the possibility that none of the above makes you look clever?

absolutely-but it really doesn't concern me. But I do like playing with words, concepts, expectations- perhaps in an ironic way? Perhaps taking the fact that someone bemoans the fact that the language that they mainly interact with is not presented to them in a readily consumable form which is easy to superficially absorb and replying to them in language which presents some possible answers if they take the time to cut through the superfluous, although aurally fluid and orally stimulating, crap that constitutes 85% of its content. Get with the zeitgeist! Its all about diversion through presentation, didacticism through deliberate confusion, increasing self awareness through the negation of conventional received wisdom. Or we could reduce everything to its conceptual minimum - read a lot and make your own mind up - duh, thanks, I would never have thought of that! Beware the pseudo-leftist platitude priests dripping the victim sodden bile of identity politics from their working class, nhs reconstructed maws, beware their advice to drop and remain into the comfortable capitalist role of the working class activist. And stay there, reinforcing the totality, maintaining the equilibrium- you poor, poor oppressed, downtrodden victim of your own machination. SHOCK HORROR- chimp23,working class boy, refuses conventional radical politics, dismissing the majority as the authors of their own pathetic reality, a non stop episode of Eastenders with Marx and Bakunin thrown in free, gadzooks (although they did tend to use long words somewhat dontchafink?) Hey thats just like me! I use loads of extravagent syllable saturated constructions, does that mean I'm as clever as they are??? When did nihilism get such a bad press anyway? Answers on a forehead beat repeatedly against a wall please :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :bb:

to be quite honest, anybody with such a fucked up approach towards peadophilia (boys in particular) can just fuck right off. not to be reactionary or anything but i read some of his stuff concerning love with boys and it is just plain fucked. simple as that. that makes all his other arguments pretty much useless to me

boys in particular?

so some types of child abuse are not as bad as others? otherwise why is the differentiation made?

hmm

thats not what i meant. i meant he himself was more interested in boys

ah. apologies

Lemming quoting Hakim Bey

[i]"... some "national struggles" can be considered objectively revolutionary provided they meet basic minimal requirements... it would probably exclude (with some regrets) such movements as Quebec nationalism, & the militia movement in the US.

The Militia movements reluctantly not counted as revolutionary?

Ok so I read the OP and the comments and they don't seem to fully answer the question about the book Immediatism...
I have read & understood both TAZ and immediatism so here is an attempt at the answer....

Immediatism is more of a philosophical book about both "being here & now" (philosophically or spiritually, in the moment - IMMEDIATE) AND about living life "un-mediated" that is.. less media, portrayal, writing, creating art to please the masses.. and more doing art in any form for the sake of only its immediate, relevant beauty.. this would be like poetic terrorism, if you've read TAZ

oh my bad this thread is from 04

Anarchists are aginst oppression, right. >
Oppression does not exist in a vaccuum. How is it, in a universe experiencing itself, that oppression exists.
Your being is already free, the only thing is for your mind to be okay with it.
Ontological anarchy is the universe experiencing itself.
In essence, its reality.

And that my friends, is why sometimes it's ok to say no to drugs, especially the hippy ones.