your dose of anarchist theory for Holy Saturday
Apr 7th, 2012
Everyone would be an anarchist if they weren't trained to have a visceral reaction against the word as if it were something dirty like "social darwinism." Here's a lovely paragraph from one of my favorite blogs that I hardly read:
Gustav Landauer was one primary example of a constructive anarchist (and a mystical one at that!). Landauer reframed the classic anarchist question about the necessity of abolishing the state. Landauer wrote “The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.” The State only seems to be necessary because we presume it. In fact, the State is artificial and can be overcome by forming real relationships with “People”. The question of state or no-state is a false choice. “If the State is a relationship which can only be destroyed by entering into another relationship, then we shall always be helping destroy it to the extent that we do in fact enter into another.” Landauer advised the formation of alternative communities of real relationships that would not destroy the prevailing system by a frontal assault, but by withdrawing energy from it and rendering its institutions redundant. Landauer’s position didn’t require that everyone become an anarchist, nor did it force anyone to do so. It only forced those who desired to live differently to begin doing so immediately – to practice radical democracy.
According to Ric Hudgens at Jesus Radicals.
When I say I hardly read Jesus Radicals, it's only because of the length of the articles, and the PHD department writing style. Whenever I do understand something I'm pleasantly piqued. Go energy-sucking alternative communities!