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#title Ecological Direct Action and the Nature of Anarchism

#subtitle Explorations from 1992 to 2005

#author Michael Duckett

#date 2005

#source <[[https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/bitstream/10443/237/1/duckett06.pdf][theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/bitstream/10443/237/1/duckett06.pdf]]>

#topics green anarchism, direct action, earth liberation front

My research demonstrates, first, that anarchism is alive and well, albeit in a somewhat modified form from the ‘classical anarchism’ of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In researching today’s direct activists, therefore, I have also been examining the nature of anarchism itself. I show that anarchism is to be found most strongly in the dialogue that takes place between activists on the ground, engaged in practical struggles. It is from here, in the strategic debates, self-produced pamphlets, and open-ended discussions of radical environmentalists focussed on practical and immediate issues, that I draw much of my data and ideas.

In pursuing this project, I present an understanding of anarchism as a pluralistic and dynamic discourse in which there is no single, correct line on each issue. Instead, the vigour of anarchism is revealed through the dissent and reflexive debate of its practitioners. This understanding of anarchism, while contrary to a static project of ideological mapping or comprehensive summary of a tradition, may be in keeping with both contemporary theory, and also the anarchist tradition itself. To pursue this understanding of anarchism, I elaborate an ‘anarchist methodology of research’ which is both collective and subjective, ethically-bounded and reflexive. This draws on the experience of politically engaged researchers who have sought to draw lines of consistency between their ideals and the practice of research.

The various forms of ecological direct action manifested in the UK between 1992 and 2005 provide the main source material for this thesis. I survey the practice and proclamations of anti-roads protesters, Earth First!, GM crop-trashers, peat saboteurs, Reclaim the Streets and others, particularly my own local group, ‘Tyneside Action for People and Planet’. Also considered are the explicitly anarchist organisations of the UK, and the direct action wings of related social movements. Comparison with these non-ecological movements serves to highlight influences, alternatives and criticisms across the cultures of anarchistic direct action, and contributes to the overall diversity of the anarchism studied.

In this introductory chapter I state the aims and central themes of my project of research into environmental direct action and its relationship to anarchism. I consider the reasons why I got interested in the topic, and the approaches I have taken to it. I situate my own project in relation to seven flawed approaches to combining environmentalism and anarchism. I then introduce the methodology I use, and I ground it in an anarchist ethics, which I introduce in terms of my approach to anarchist theory itself. I present my understanding of anarchism as not a fixed, static system, but a diverse, dynamic flux of arguments, ethics and practice that is constantly re-constituted through debate. I then provide an outline of chapters before moving into Chapter 2, Anarchist Theory, which provides the theoretical background for the thesis.

It is my view that anarchism can be found in the dialogue of activists talking and acting together. I am therefore challenging the tendency to conflate anarchism with a ‘canon’ of recognised thinkers and texts, and anarchist history with a history of the ‘official’ anarchist movements. I also oppose those who seek to construct a static ‘system’ of anarchist thought, and those who exclude insufficiently orthodox, ‘coherent’ or explicit actors from the anarchist fold. My approach stands as the opposite to those who would discount every ‘hybrid’ or ‘woolly’ anarchist perspective, and build walls around the accepted anarchist positions. To me, there is no <em>pure</em> anarchism, only a <em>living</em> anarchism: one that is grounded in real situations and practices, and which can be heard, seen and felt in actual life. I apply a dialogic perspective that maintains it is the meaning produced between actors, between positions, and done so in the real world as applied to practice, that constitutes the strength and substance of anarchism today. I will state more of my view of the existence and theoretical basis of anarchism in section 1.5, and explore it at more length in Chapter 2.

I have integrated my literature review throughout the chapters of this thesis, so my consideration of other writers’ views is contained within the chapters for which they are relevant. However, in order to show how my thesis is positioned within the literature, I will now present two brief surveys. First, I present a somewhat abstract and stereotyped outline of seven alternative approaches that have been brought to bear on the relationship between anarchism and environmentalism. I do this in order to highlight the flaws and limitations of these (necessarily simplified) approaches, and to position my own approach against them. This is followed by a survey of those contemporary researchers who have studied subjects in a manner most similar to my own approach. My aim in these two surveys is to clarify my approach in relation to what it is not, and what it shares similarities with.

(2) One might think the above deficits might be remedied from studies coming from within the academy - particularly from theorists sympathetic to the values and intentions of anarchist/green practitioners. It is true that such studies often confirm the potential anarchism of green activists and serve to deepen our understanding of certain aspects of activist practice. Yet they rarely go beyond a recognition of’these greens are anarchist’: they treat this as a conclusion instead of a hypothesis to be demonstrated (O’Riordan 1981; Hay 1988; Pepper 1993; Eckersley 1992; Dobson 1995). In my thesis I seek to establish this affinity early on and then utilise the case studies to draw out ‘what happens next’: what exactly the recognition of green anarchism might mean, in what ways it is expressed, what consequences it might have for activist strategy and impact, and for our understanding of anarchism itself. I also seek to demonstrate and contextualise specific perspectives and sites of anarchism, constructing a bridge to take specific arguments (more in-depth than generalised abstractions) into

(4) Others addressing the same topic of green radicalism, having perceived this lack of criticality and historical awareness, have unfortunately tended to utilise not anarchist but Marxist perspectives and lessons to fill the gap, to draw upon for critique, and to provide advice (Pepper 1993; Martell 1994; Luke 1997; Red-Green Study Group 1995). The Marxist heritage (productivist, anthropocentric, economistic) has proved highly unsuitable for this role, and the strategic lessons it provides are woefully inappropriate (Bookchin 1971; Atkinson 1991; Eckersley 1992; Marshall 1992b; Carter 1999). Anarchism, in taking the question of social relationships and power structures as central, can give us much more insight into the possibilities and problems of grassroots environmental practice.

(5) Uber-critical eco-anarchists, seeking to avoid any and all problematic or ‘impure’ examples from the anarchist past, have sadly resorted to the simplest but crudest solution: jettison the lot (<em>Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed} Green Anarchy}</em> Black 1997; Jarach 2004). Thus the primitivist school, for example, presents us with a confusing and frustrating mixture in which thorough critical analysis and healthy anarchist attitudes are framed within an unnaturally bounded and codified ‘ism’ (Moore 1997; Watson 1998; BGN 2002). I have found the tendency to precious separation from and hostility to, other anarchist and libertarian green currents particularly frustrating in that much genuine and profound theorising is taking place amongst primitivist or anti-civilisation circles. I discuss the primitivist stream further in section 2.3.3

(6) Others, anarchists of different schools or eco-activists seeking to build their radicalism anew, have also tended to reify and render static their own position/tradition and that of their opponents (Bradford 1989; Bookchin & Foreman 1991; Bookchin 1995a; Clark [J] 1998; Bonanno c2000). In the worst examples, this has resulted in the absurd position of a reductionist, false anarchism being pitted against a reductionist, false eco-radicalism. If nothing else, these examples provide proof that partisan, engaged analysis is not automatically superior to the academic form. Even within UK activist discussions, textual expressions tend to follow the mistakes of this tendency, solidifying and simplifying particular versions of anarchism or ‘correct’ green practice - which are in reality only possible expressions at one particular time - in order to pit them against even more simplified readings of opponents’ views (EEV 1997; GA 2000).

non-industrial version (in the US, the situation has now also shifted in this direction), but misunderstandings and simplifications are still widespread.

Having identified the flaws and limitations in the above approaches, I wish now to look at those individual researchers who have conducted research in a manner which, when viewed together, I would suggest might constitute an appropriate anarchist approach to research, and to theory, and with which I wish to affiliate my own project. I will draw upon their insights at relevant points in the thesis, but my intention in these next few paragraphs is to distinguish their approaches, and topics of concern, from my own.

It is a critical realist (Wall 1997: 9-10) who has produced the most in-depth analysis of nineties EDA (Wall 1999a), but in Chapter 3 I distinguish my approach from that of critical realists - including those with some sympathies for anarchism, such as Wall and Cox (1998). Wall’s work, while crucially valuable as a historical document of the processes by which Earth First! and the anti-roads movement developed (an achievement which I do not seek to repeat here), has an artificially narrow field of vision when viewed in anarchist terms. I consider it damning of the broader approach of social movement analysis that, as Goaman states, Wall fails to capture the “ethos, spirit and impulse that underpins people’s involvement in Earth First!”. His deployment of a “Theoretical approach deeply lodged in conventional sociological concepts ... tends to ‘suffocate’ his account of living movements with irrelevant intellectual baggage” (Goaman 2002:15). The same could be said of many academic accounts. Plows records that Wall “employs the ‘standard toolbox’ of social movement theories to explain and contextualise direct action mobilisations” (2002b), and Goaman criticises that this means that “Earth First! ideas, with their profound ethos of libertarianism and the rejection of scientific reason and instrumentalism, are reduced to a set of instrumental scientific processes - diagnosis, prognosis and a calling to action” (2002: 16). As Plows indicates, however, Wall is by no means the worst offender (Plows 2002b), and similar condemnations have been made of overly formal and instrumental SM research - of Jordan by Welsh (1997: 77-79); of Lent by Plows (Social Movements List 1998); of Melucci by Heller (2000:9); and of Gathering Force by <em>Do or Die</em> (1998: 139-144). Such SM approaches show a tendency both for a “theoretical overextension of concepts” and an “empricial overextension... the tendency to make broad statements about movement dynamics” (Jasper 1999:41). These critiques, expressive of an anarchist perspective, have all informed my own approach.

Karen Goaman’s own thesis focussed on the situationist current within anarchism. She places more emphasis on ideas than on action (2002:58), and views texts as the primary location of anarchist ideas and identity (2002:1-5), arguing that “It is the critical ideas and their dissemination through texts that form common links between persons who participate in oppositional currents” (Goaman 2002: 13). While I recognise, celebrate and benefit from the texts which, Goaman accurately notes, are commonly produced even for “activist oriented interventions” (2002: 58), I position these within a broader context of activism, communal endeavour and experience which cannot be completely captured within the text. I share Goaman’s view that Wall’s study “would have greatly benefited from... an exploration of key texts, ideas, attitudes and affinities that would have been afforded by periodicals such as <em>Do or Die</em> and even the activist-oriented newsletter Action Update” (2002: 59), but unlike Goaman, I do not prioritise certain ‘influential’ periodicals within anarchist circles. Instead I seek to utilise a diverse range of the most articulate or ‘telling’ of the ephemeral pamphlets, ‘discussion documents’ and gathering debates which arise from the milieus and concerns of EDA: this allows a reading of anarchism that contains more nuance and difference. I would also suggest that a problem with Goaman’s project is that it focuses on the individuals involved in producing texts and zines, as if an understanding of their (self-declared) biographies explains the ideas. It is, furthermore, dangerous to pin anarchism on a few selected individuals (although she emphasises she has only used names

already in the public domain (2002:255)), both in terms of their personal safety, and in terms of the ongoing vitality of the movement.

Mick Smith’s approach is a little further removed from my own study of direct action, focussing on ethics and the theoretical formalisation of ethics, but I wish to cite him here as an inspiring example of how to take the anarchist approach and use it to engage with and refuse the assumptions of dry theory (1995; 2001a; 1997). His prioritisation of context, experience and personal intuition against abtract theoretical expressions has informed my understanding of environmentalism. Where Smith writes my intended argument in the language and concerns of ethics, Jeff Ferrell writes it in terms of space, spontaneity and experience (Ferrell 2001). Situating himself as a full participant of the marginal street cultures of his topic, he views the margins of the city - the margins of power - as “locations of radical openness and possibility” (Soja quoted in Ferrell 2001:241). But while I share an empathy with Ferrell’s approach and would ally myself with many of his insights, Ferrell’s work is an inspiring celebration not a critical analysis, concerned with an evocation of the anarchist practices of marginal elements in society who practically contest the policing of space. Despite the crossovers, therefore, his project is distinct from mine both in its theoretical concerns, and also in its subject matter (not least for being a study of the US, not the UK).

David Heller’s (2000) examination of peace movement direct action, including Faslane Peace Camp and Trident Ploughshares, includes considerations of the links between action and ideology; the symbolic power of material practices; and the concrete effects of symbolism. His study has taken on board many of the anarchist lessons for social movement analysis. The differences from my own project lie in his subject matter- peace movement direct action not environmental direct action - and his anthropological concerns, in which the rich detail of experience takes the place of a closer and more conscious theoretical engagement with the anarchist tradition. But I consider Heller an exemplary anarchist researcher, and he is very useful for many of the concepts he uses, such as intersubjectivity, non-protest forms of resistance, and practical (and contested) forms of power-with, and other positive forms of (anarchist) power, such as the expression of communal solidarity through song and selforganisation (2000: 145) (see section 2.2.5). It is not that he has invented these concepts, which are quite widespread in EDA, but he gives them a practical academic application and convincingly contextualises them in real settings.

Alex Plows has produced a plethora of articles and papers that celebrate and examine various forms of EDA. These began with articles speaking from her subject position as Alex Donga the road-protester (<em>Do or Die</em> 1995: 88-89; Plows 1995; 1997), and developed according to an ever-greater immersion in the language of SM theory (2002a; Wall, Doherty & Plows 2002). She is perhaps the researcher who I have referenced most frequently and been inspired by most regularly, although the shift toward ever- greater technicality in utilising SM theories at first appeared, to me, to erode much of the power in her earlier work. As with the case of Wall, I found that the dry language created a distance from the ground-level of EDA, and that the frameworks were often more concerned with their own theoretical and disciplinary disagreements than an engagement with the dialogue and practice on the ground: it was in reaction to this, and similar SM-framed approaches to EDA that I immersed myself deeper in an anarchist and not an SM approach. However, more recent papers Plows has undertaken with Doherty and Wall have succeeded in re-transcribing SM language onto what I view as anarchist concerns and anarchist arguments, particularly through the application of Welsh’s (2000) concept of’capacity building’ to EDA, and by supporting the anarchist (not liberal) conceptualisation of direct action which I consider in section 6.2.1 (Doherty, Plows & Wall 2003).

Jonathan Purkis is another of the researchers whose research into EF!’s practice has positively informed my own work. Purkis has focussed particularly on the holistic and micro-political aspects of EF! practice, providing a corrective to studies that view direct action solely in terms of moments of conflict In Chapter 5 I draw upon some of his insights, particularly with regard to the radicality or revolutionary quality of EF!. Purkis’ subject matter differs from mine practically, in that he focussed on EF!ers in a different part of the country, and at a period that was at some remove from the bulk of my own fieldwork (2001). He also pursued a sociological line of inquiry which, while similarly grounded in anarchist tenets, was expressive of a discipline and language to which I have had relatively little engagement I consider some of his, and other writers’ analysis of the social ecology — deep ecology variations in EDA to be ‘done’, accepted, and requiring no further academic explanation. Indeed the pursuit of this and similar academic investigations into green ideology (such as ‘post-materialism’ or green consumerism) has enabled me to choose my own area of concern much more finely.

** 1.4 Methodology

I apply anarchist analyses to academia, to my own research and also to the notion of activism itself. This serves to situate my position within the research process, and to prioritise my relationship to the activist group ‘TAPP’. Here I ground my ethical considerations by considering how my involvement in the group affected my intellectual development and perspectives; how TAPP’s experience of research throws up aspects of the activist critique of research (such as the irrelevance, the apoliticism, the power relationship, the exploitation of subjects). I conclude with a consideration of how even the ‘best’ research strategies (which I group according to the themes of’limits’ and security; the dilemmas of the insider researcher; usefulness; and dialogue) remain problematic to a full anarchist ethics.

Ultimately I gave much less attention to fieldwork, ethnographic research and interviews than I had originally considered, but shifted my primary source of’data’ onto publicly available (or at least ‘nonprivate’) expressions, such as gathering debates, ‘discussion documents’, press releases and reports. I then used my extensive insider research and ‘observant participation’ to <em>quietly</em> inform my thesis, and sought to find a liveable, non-disruptive and non-distorting methodology of research. I had to accept an imperfect match, therefore, between the academic urge to record, collate and analyse; and my own life.

** 1.5 Anarchism in this Thesis

In this section I shall state my approach to anarchism, clarify what is not my approach, and consider how we may recognise anarchism. I must insert a disclaimer, however (the first of many): this is my particular reading of anarchism, and I claim no greater ‘authority’ for it than that For me, the recognition of anarchism comes from the recognition of arguments, not of boundaries: there is no tight definition surrounding what is legitimate and what is not legitimate anarchist practice. Rather there is an identifiable and coherent corpus of ethics, argument and strategy that can be applied - to different degrees - to many different situations.

I view anarchism as a mutually supportive matrix of sentiment, critique and practice. Its hallmarks are (1) an opposition to authority and social domination in all their guises; (2) an ideal of social freedom: an optimism by which the inequities of currently existing society can be critically judged; (3) a drive to act freely, to rebel, to refuse to either passively accept exploitation and domination, or to take part in power games; (4) a faith in the capability of one’s fellow human beings, to agree and to work things out better when there are no interfering state structures; (5) a view of power as corrosive, and a corresponding injunction to develop ways of working that counteract build-ups of power or the exercise of power over others. There are certain outgrowths of these central tenets (which I look at in turn in Chapter 2), including an opposition to liberal institutions such as parliament; anti-capitalism; and direct action, but such particular doctrines are not definitive in themselves: they are merely conclusions drawn. I consider anarchism to have a compatibility - though not a fixed equivalence - with radical environmentalism. Fundamentally, I consider it to be plural and dynamic, capable of embracing many contested and conflictual positions, and I consider also that anarchism can be revealed through practice as much as it can be through text In the following paragraphs I will explain how I have approached anarchism as dialogical and plural discourse, evidenced in texts and practice, debate and application.

A key component of my interrogation of the relationship between anarchism and environmental direct action is the belief that anarchism can be found in the dialogue of activists talking and acting together. I argue that this is the same essential anarchism as was formerly expressed in the ‘classical’ anarchist movements - not identical, but akin at its core. Rather than write a monolithic ‘grand narrative’ of anarchism - fixing it for good; speaking of it in a static way; ‘synthesising’ it into a model -1 deal with anarchism according to what I consider to be its own values - fluidity, collective criticality, an ‘ethic’ underlying discourse and practice. This approach stands opposed to the idea that anarchism essentially consists of certain fixed tenets which can then, like a rulebook, be systematically and identically applied to every case. In the next chapter I do detail key tenets of anarchism (anti-authority; freedom; rebellion; human nature; and power, cited above), but I emphasise the variety of interpretations and combinations that can be assembled out of these. A focus on tenets serves as a way-in to understanding anarchism, not as a conclusion or end-point

The way I have attempted to present an understanding of dialogic and pluralistic anarchism is by presenting and sourcing my argument on the debates of activists. I therefore present opposed voices from newsletters, activist reports, photocopied and re-distributed pamphlets, discussions at gatherings, email discussions, and ‘discussion documents’. These are ephemeral texts rarely covered in the ‘above ground’ literature, ie. they are rarely repeated in their ‘original’ form outside the campaigns and activist circles they come from, despite the fact that they strikingly and consistently reproduce central anarchist concerns, arguments and understandings. The discussions and the activist intelligence and ethos communicated in these circles is distinct from how anarchists (or anarchist ‘interpreters’) tend to ‘present’ anarchism to the outside/public world. Yet these discussions - even though they might be narrowly strategic and tactical; exaggerated and overblown; or rooted to obscure points or miniscule sites of struggle - are precisely where anarchism may be found revealed. I strive to present these debates ‘in context’, so far as possible, because decontextualised they become meaningless. The above points do not mean that I relegate anarchist texts or anarchist history to irrelevance, however. Rather, 1 consciously re-apply perspectives from these sources, and I emphasise how traditional anarchist arguments are re-articulated from within EDA.

EDA also shows many conscious links with anarchist history, and I consider these of inestimable importance. If EDA is to have relevance for future anarchism it needs to keep this interaction/continuity going - to take part in the historical thread of hope, generosity and anger that is the anarchist tradition. I am reintegrating EDA into the anarchist frame, and not in an abstract irrelevant way but through the <em>actual,</em> expressed, recognised and restated demonstrations. I use historical anarchism as a critical judge for EDA practice and attitudes, identify the contrasts in context, and assess what <em>remains</em> linked. This may be seen as a reconstruction of anarchism. Because -1 argue - anarchism is being constructed/reconstructed all the time, that process by which the construction/reconstruction is demonstrated <em>is</em> the anarchist tradition.

Instead of talking about anarchism in the abstract, I take voices from different contexts and see how they fit Much of the editing of these is obviously ‘pre-chosen’ by myself -1 have chosen those which I think fit, support, add depth to, or bring up an interesting clash. I believe they tell a truer, closer story of anarchism than an overarching or a uniform framework - to allow the voices available to guide my structure and argument I celebrate this diversity and draw out the shared, in-common lessons it has for our understanding of anarchism.

There are many positions on anarchism that I distance myself from: I will here list three of the most simple of these. First, I refute those eco-anarchists who say ‘ecology is anarchist’, as if that clears up the matter once and for all. True the two streams appear very sympathetic, and there is enough common ground to allow activists to perform eco-anarchism, but it is worthless (false) to speak of it in the abstract.

Second, instead of high theory - whether critical or ‘postmodern’ -1 focus on actual practising ecoanarchists. This indicates that I refuse to conflate anarchism with trendy contemporary theorisations, but rather keep anarchism’s priority - from which position some themes and tools of postmodern theory may then be used (but within an anarchist framework).

I do not (as some class-strugglists do) say anarchism is only the movement - that anarchist practice equates to the explicit anarchist movement only - and that anarchism emerged, as if spontaneously, from the movement But nor do I exclude those classical/historical/class struggle voices as inherently dead or irrelevant (as some ‘post-left’ anarchists do). Instead I utilise statements from these sources to critically engage with EDA and other anarchist positions. They are a vital part of the whole - legitimate voices within anarchist debate (which, in my view, is close to synonymous with anarchism per se).

I do not think that all anarchisms are equal (ie. that all viewpoints on anarchism are fine). Rather some arguments are superior in some contexts; more impressively coherent; avoid contradictions and pitfalls of other arguments; relate more closely to (what I view as) central anarchist themes and values; and some practices and organisational methods have proved more successful in some contexts (those which have related best to ‘working class’ needs do gain extra merit here). There is a tendency for all sides to overblow their positions - and all of these exaggerations can be pricked as I endeavour to do.

Everything can be criticised (and super-criticality is another of the avowed characteristics of anarchism), but some arguments are more valid than others -1 plump for these as I go. However, this never means the argument is ‘done, finished’ - the other voices in the argument are not invalid if they also reflect anarchist themes and feelings, and intuitive arguments of the anarchist ethos. When one position or tendency appears the weaker, it may, under another light or in another context, appear the stronger, and it can (and does) modify and strengthen its position in the light of the opposition and criticism it faces. I do not suggest there is a developmental ‘progress’ in anarchism - on the contrary, the earlier arguments are often the stronger (and frustratingly, often the weaker arguments have demonstrated most appeal and applicability).

To judge whether an argument or practice is anarchist, certain criteria do apply (see for example Bowen & Purkis (2005:7)). The study of the anarchist conception of direct action as the most useful handle/portal to anarchism is especially useful here, as it contains the ethical tenets of means-ends congruity, self-valorisation, direct not indirect, social not political or bureaucratic, collective and capable of being extended by both existing and other actors. A checklist should include the questions: is anyone being repressed/manipulated? Was the organisation free/ spontaneous/ bottom-up? Are there ulterior motives? Does the practice extend the practice and possibilities of freedom or does it close them down for others? These are themes that I explore in Chapters 5,6 and 7, where I examine the contemporary expressions of eco-activism in terms of the anarchist conceptualisation of direct action as the best guide for assessing the EDA of the case studies.

My reading of anarchism allows large margins - not every voice needs to be consistent with every other, hybrids and contradictory or woolly expressions may all float within the space. So long as they are engaged in dialogue on anarchist terms, share an understanding that reveals key anarchist themes (whatever their particular conclusions), and keep this anarchist argument and dialogue going, I include them. Others - perhaps the majority of explicit anarchists - would disavow such an approach, arguing that only those who are consistently, coherently, tightly anarchist (on their particular readings) deserve to be so called. This is a reasonable position to take, and may be strategically crucial (to keep out misguided, misleading or recuperative tendencies), yet for my academic (non-strategic) reading a broader approach is required.[2]

** 1.6 Outline of Chapters

The theoretical grounds of the reading of anarchism I presented in section 1.5 are explored and interrogated in Chapter 2, Anarchist Theory. Chapter 2 provides the background and theoretical support for the thesis as a whole, identifying both the key concepts within anarchist ideology (sections 2.2.1 to 2.2.5), and also the nature of anarchism in a broader, more philosophical sense (sections 2.3.1 to 2.3.6). In the first band of sections (those that begin with ‘2.2’) I consider the distinctive anarchist conceptualisations, or key ideological tenets, of anti-authoritarianism; freedom; rebellion; human nature; and power. I consider some of the implications of these tenets for our analysis and understanding of anarchism, and in the sections of the second band (beginning with 2.3), I argue that all these conceptualisations are interrelated in a matrix of mutually supporting — but not tightly systematised and static - values, arguments and attitudes. The theoretical groundwork established in Chapter 2 introduces the approach and values within which this thesis has been conducted. It justifies my attention to the practice, of diverse (non-orthodox) forms of anarchism and affirms a notion of pluralistic anarchism; of anarchism-as-practice; and the ethos and argumentative ‘spirit’ of anarchism. This chapter, therefore, justifies my placing of EDA within anarchism, and introduces the critical tools with which we ‘think about’ anarchism in this thesis. I endeavour in this chapter to move away from conventional or static mappings of ideology, and instead lay out a basis on which a fully dialogic and enacted anarchism of multiple sites and voices may be understood. Instead of practice being deformed to fit the theory, the practice can be shown to demonstrate and explore the meaning of the theory.

Chapter 3, Methodology, provides the first demonstration of my anarchist approach, as I consider how feminist, postmodern, critical realist and other politically-engaged perspectives may be used to develop research that challenges and is less saturated by statist, capitalist and faux-objective norms. I situate myself within my own research and I introduce the local Newcastle group, TAPP, as the context in which much of my activism and research was situated. I emphasise that I could not conduct research which is either ‘pure’ (free from negative impacts, free from negative power dynamics) or ‘transformatory’ of my subjects, but I do argue that my research has remained true to anarchist ethics. Considerations for a libertarian research methodology characterised by anarchist ethics include a sensitivity to the dangers of ‘representation’ and exploitation, and a commitment to genuine dialogue with actors who are not streamlined to fit hypotheses, but are recognised as rational and complex actors.

strategies, and then marking out the strategic thinking of anarchism in terms of ‘revolutionary’ and ‘direct’ action. Environmentalism may be understood and identified through its practice as well as through recognised ‘green texts’, and the thought and practice of anarchism and environmentalism are engaged in a process of dialogue, hybridisation and contestation: it is within this process that grounds are provided for eco-anarchism to exist Environmentalism and anarchism are broadly compatible, and each gains by the application of the insights and ethos of the other (although no final synthesis is possible - they exist in an <em>ongoing</em> process of dialogue). I consider what radicalism is inherent to ecological thinking, and assess the relationship of environmentalism to different traditions: specifically anarchism. In the latter part of the chapter, I then outline the eco-anarchist critiques of capitalism, the state, and all green strategies that fail to systematically oppose those factors. This is followed by a presentation of the anarchist approach to ‘true’ revolutionary action. Here I emphasis the place of freedom at the heart of all legitimate anarchist approaches to change: a point that will follow us through the ensuing chapters.

In Chapter 5, Activist Anarchism: the case of Earth First!, I provide a detailed assessment of an actual example of experiential, ecologically-motivated activism, one that defines itself on anarchist terms and holds its debates according to recognisably anarchist terms. I first consider the dynamics involved in the creation of anarchistic activists and activist organisations such as Earth First! The chief two factors here are the institutionalisation - the co-option, neutralisation, bureaucractisation and state-ification of environmental organisations - and the radicalisation (both alienation and empowerment) of activists engaged in extra-institutional struggle to defend the places they love. I also introduce DIY Culture, as the counter-cultural milieu out of which EF! emerged, and as die clearest example of an informal anarchist movement that was bound by deeds not words, and was therefore able to accommodate difference at its very heart. In the second band of sections I assess Earth First! as the most clearly eco- anarchist organisation in the UK. I characterise the activist anarchism of Earth First! as a compound of many varieties, none overbearing, and I demonstrate that the arguments of many anarchist currents have been practically re-expressed in the EF! network I chart Earth First!s ‘revolutionary’ qualities through a critical examination of notions of ‘success’; I note its strategic rationale and note how it demonstrated traditional dualisms of individualism vs community, red vs green and lifestyle changes vs social objectives, to be irrelevant to an anarchist practice. Finally, I look most fully at Earth First!’s organisation and identity, as expressed through an anarchist process of dialogue and dissensus at the 1999 Winter Moot. Here we may glimpse many traditional and divergent elements of anarchist ideology, and witness how they are accommodated to a contemporaiy ecological context.

Chapter 7, Reclaim the Streets and the Limits of Activist Anarchism, turns to the forms of nineties EDA most celebrated by anarchists, and then most criticised and commented upon by press, politicians, and EDA practitioners. Reclaim the Streets was the site of 1990s EDA that was most celebrated by anarchists, for holding the most promise of a truly confrontational, anti-authoritarian challenge in society. I establish the anarchist basis of the critical mass and street party tactics deployed by RTS in London and then spread around the world (using Newcastle as a provincial example). In addition to drawing out the anarchism contained in the practice, I also look at the anarchism contained in the diverse ideology promoted by RTS, including elaborations such as the revolutionary carnival, the TAZ and the Street Party of Street Parties. I argue that their development into a more abstract, static and repetitive practice of anticapitalism eroded many of the grounds of their success. This demonstrates the tension that still pertains between ideological anarchism and EDA practices, and between the ideals of anarchist organisation and the practicalities of’successful’ action. I conclude by utilising the example of Mayday 2000 as the much-heralded conjoining of traditional ideological anarchism and the looser activist anarchism of EDA. I focus mostly on the problems that were perceived to arise on this occasion, and I return to the strengths of earlier EDA to identify reasons what had been lost.

<br>

* 2. Anarchist Theory

** 2.1 Introduction

This chapter introduces the theory with which - and <em>within</em> which -1 will be working throughout the thesis. This involves (a) grounding the reader in the central tenets of anarchist discourse, (b) evaluating the idea of ‘anarchism’ itself and (c) introducing some of the critical tools of anarchism. The subject of this thesis is not just the counter-cultural activists engaged in environmental defence, but also the body of arguments, values and experience termed anarchism.

The first part of this chapter looks at the distinctive conceptualisations or key tenets held by anarchists, and explores some of the implications for our study of anarchism. 2.2.1, Against Authority, Against Definition, negotiates the initial problems faced when gaining a grasp of anarchism’s identity. I introduce the ‘sources’ of anarchism that I shall be drawing on in this thesis, and use the first principle of anarchism (anti-authority) to sound a note of caution concerning our ability to authoritatively define anarchism. The next four sections establish a further four key tenets and hallmarks of anarchism, namely 2.2.2 Freedom, 2.2.3, Rebellion, 2.2.4, Human Nature and 2.2.5, Power. I present a case for anarchism in which these tenets are interrelated, distinctive and, I argue, both coherent and accurate. The distinctive anarchist perspectives on these issues go a long way to revealing the essence of anarchism. Yet it is not my aim to fix these tenets, but rather to use them to aid the exploration of possibilities later in the thesis. Moving to the nature of anarchism, the next three sections, 2.3.1, Strength in Flexibility, 2.3.2, History and the Idea, and 2.3.3 Orthodoxy and Second Wave Anarchism, identify apparent inconsistencies and problems of a closer definition of what anarchism is. I argue for anarchism’s flexibility - its fundamental simplicity making it capable of great complexity when applied. I also argue for an anarchism that it is practical not purist, and I argue that it manages to be both diverse, yet coherent, and I insist that it should not be simplistically equated with any of its particular historical or doctrinal versions. By understanding these aspects of anarchist ideological ‘structure’, and examining how the construct of’anarchism’ relates to reality, we find ourselves more accurately situated within anarchism, and less likely to make mistakes of reductivism, over-literalism, confusing a part for the whole, and so on. Finally, I assess how anarchism is expressed through 2.3.4, Emotion, 2.3.5, Reason, and 2.3.6, Practice. These are the facets of anarchism that are manifested through EDA, and they are also the <em>signs</em> by which we might get to know anarchism.

By working within a broadly anarchist framework, this thesis might run the danger of uncritical self- referentiality. I do note criticisms of anarchism, but when these rest on foundations antithetical to anarchist values, I have generally found they are a case of talking <em>past</em> the ideology, rather than to it This means they can be dismissed by anarchists as either ‘reformist’ or ‘authoritarian’, a position I elaborate in the environmentalist context in Chapter 4. Much more severe and hard-hitting critiques have been launched from <em>within</em> the anarchist camp, however: between the many different camps- within-the-camp. An incessantly critical and questioning attitude is integral to anarchism. Thus anarcho-syndicalists condemn eco-anarchists, class-struggle anarchists critique anarcho-pacifists, individualist anarchists attack anarcho-communists and so on: anarchism is no placid philosophical scene but a cockpit of competing, impassioned and vigorous viewpoints, and it is tested daily <em>on-the-ground.</em> It is this lively and contested terrain that forms the substance of this thesis.

In studying the forms of anarchism deployed by today’s environmental activists, I shall also be noting which elements of’classical’ anarchism have been left behind, and which have re-emphasised. In so doing, I will be considering what constitutes the ‘core’ of anarchism - what cannot be left behind without losing the title. I will also be paying strict attention to the manner in which the ‘key tenets’ are adapted to their environment-of-use and how, in so doing, they become modified - sometimes almost completely estranged - from their nineteenth-century or early-twentieth-century meanings. The concept of ‘direct action’ constitutes the main object of study in this regard, but I shall also consider such conceptualisations as sabotage, revolution, organisation, solidarity and anticapitalism. This thesis presents an exploration of the nature of ideological continuity and coherence in the context of almost

wholesale change. This chapter provides a foundation for this process by exploring the central tenets and key aspects of the anarchist doctrine.

** 2.2 Key Tenets of Anarchism

*** 2.2.1 Against Authority - Against Definition

“Beware of believing anarchism to be a dogma, a doctrine above question or debate, to be venerated by its adepts as is the Koran by devout Moslems, No! the absolute freedom which we demand constantly develops our thinking and raises it towards new horizons ... takes it out of the narrow framework of regulation and codification” (Emile Henry, written before his execution, quoted in Calendar Riots c2002: 8^th November).

Defining anarchism is a difficult task: whatever definition I adopt will be given the lie by one or other variety of anarchist. Almost every attempt at definition begins with a disclaimer, such as the following from the first ‘Anarchist Encyclopaedia’: “There is not, and there cannot be, a libertarian Creed or Catechism. That which exists and constitutes what one might call the anarchist doctrine is a cluster of general principles, fundamental conceptions and practical applications” (Faure in Woodcock 1980: 62; cf Bonanno 1998:2). We must limit the ambitions of what is being attempted here. Even the most standard definition of ‘Anarchism’ is only the definition of <em>one type</em> of anarchism.

There are nevertheless certain statements that can be made about anarchism, as the Encyclopaedia goes on to do: the “many varieties of anarchist... all have a common characteristic that separates them from the rest of humankind. This uniting point is the negation of the principle of Authority in social organisations and the hatred of all constraints that originate in institutions founded on this principle” (in Woodcock 1980:62; cf Sylvan 1993:216; Walter 2002: 27; <em>Notes from Nowhere</em> 2003:27; Makhno et al. 1989: General Section). Anti-authoritarianism will be our first point of contact with anarchism.

Anarchy is opposed to authority, as demonstrated by the etymology of the word “‘an-archy’: ‘without government’: the state of a people without any constituted authority” (Malatesta in Woodcock 1980: 62; cf Morland 2004:24). Others may translate the Greek slightly differently, as ‘against authority’, ‘without rule’ or ‘absence of domination’, but the gist at least is clear. Woodcock notes that Faure’s statement in the Encylopaedia (‘Whoever denies authority and fights against it is an anarchist’)

“marks out the area in which anarchism exists...[ but ] by no means all who deny authority and fight against it can reasonably be called anarchists”. Thus he states that both ‘unthinking revolt’ and ‘philosophical or religious rejection of earthly power’ cannot be called anarchism. In this thesis we will encounter many claims of what does and does not make an anarchist, and it will be clear that I myself am also engaged in various attempts at constructing a border around the term. All such attempts at definition are by their nature problematic and liable to critique, although the family resemblances of the various branches of anarchism are, at least in my view, reasonably clear-cut.

Within the revolutionary socialist tradition, anarchism distinguished itself by declaring “the viewpoint that the war against capitalism must be at the same time a war against all institutions of political power”, such as parliament (Rocker C1938:17; cf Kropotkin 2001:49). This division was most clearly displayed in history by the “famous, definitive and prognostic” split in 1872 between Marx and Bakunin in the International (Ruins 2003:2; 1871 Sonvillier Anarchist Congress, quoted in Woodcock 1986:229), when the anarchists rejected the proto-state being formed within the international revolutionary organisation. In Bakunin’s terms, “The smallest and most inoffensive State is still criminal in its dreams” (Bakunin quoted in Camus 1951:126; cf Bakunin 1980: 143), and anarchists consistently argue that an instrument of oppression cannot be used for the liberation of the oppressed. For this reason, anarchists rejected revolutionary strategies aimed at ‘capturing the state’ and insisted instead that “Freedom can only be created by freedom, that is, by a universal popular rebellion and the

free organisation of the working masses from below upwards” (Bakunin 1981:42-3; cf Goldman 1980:154).

I do not wish to examine traditional anarchist history in any depth, however. In line with the assessment of Woodcock that I shall consider in section 2.3.2,1 feel that anarchy is best understood as an <em>ideal,</em> which provokes and inspires many different manifestations according to different historical circumstances. None of these is ‘pure’ anarchy - a correct model for all descendants to copy - but an attempt to realise unbounded freedom within a specific context The historical situation, the technology and culture, the needs and desires of the people of the time and the challenges they face all play a part in the form of anarchism which they develop (Welsh & Purkis 2003:5). As Purkis & Bowen put it, “Anarchy has many masks which are all important and this diversity cannot be united under one banner” (1997:1). In exploring specific contemporary examples of anarchism in this thesis, and offering insights that affect our understanding of anarchism as a whole, my intention is to enlarge and diversify our understanding of anarchism, and <em>not</em> to attempt an everlasting or definitive analysis. There are, however, five recurring tenets of anarchism that may be used to help identify it. We have here introduced the first, anti-authority, and I will now turn to the second, freedom.

*** 2.2.2 Freedom

“to look for my happiness in the happiness of others, for my own worth in the worth of all those around me, to be free in the freedom of others - that is my whole faith, the aspiration of my whole life” (Bakunin 1990b: xv-xvi; cf Kropotkin 1987:222).

The one substantive principle we have thus far is that anarchists are opposed to authority. The converse of this is that they are in favour of a type of freedom in which there is no authority. John Henry Mackay sums up what this ideal signifies in a couplet:

“I am an Anarchist! Where I will

Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!” (quoted in Goldman 1969:47).

Thus anarchist freedom is not the same as individual license, which can be oppressive and exploitative (Ritter 1980: 24). The libertine or ‘negative’ liberty of individualism may reach its apotheosis in both antisocial egotism, and in neo-liberal, unregulated capitalism. Both of these are antithetical to anarchism (Chan 2004: 119; <em>TCA</em> 7(1) 2005: 31; Zerzan 1991: 5).[3] For anarchism to make any sense, one’s individual liberty must be matched by a social freedom, in which no-one is denied their own liberty by, for example, lack of resources and opportunities: “freedom to become what one is”, in Read’s terms (1949:161; cf Berlin 1967:141; MacCallum 1972). Carter extends this anarchist conceptualisation of freedom into the green sphere, where he argues “the freedom to act so as to compromise ecological integrity is, in the long run, freedom-inhibiting” (1999:302; cf Wieck 1973:95). We shall see this argument deployed particularly in the case of cars (section 7.4), but also underlying much green activism.

Representing the viewpoint of social anarchism, Bakunin argues that our individual freedom is given us by society, and that “this liberty... far from finding itself checked by the freedom of others, is, on the contrary confirmed by it” (quoted in Bookchin 1995a: 74; cf ACF c 1991:42; Woodcock 1992: 82[4]).

Such is the hope of social anarchists, summed up by Malatesta when he states that their ideal is “complete liberty with complete solidarity” (in Woodcock 1980: 64; cf Malatesta 1974:27; Walter 2002:29; Ritter 1980:3; Hill 1973:35). Such is the noblest ideal of anarchism, and it emerges in all

kinds of ways throughout anarchist theory and practice. In 4.3.4 we will underline the place of freedom within the anarchist method of revolution.

I am only touching here upon an issue that is of the highest importance to some anarchist individualists, who part company with social anarchists on precisely these grounds of individual liberty (Miller 1984: 14; cf Carroll 1974:47; Caudwell 1977:72). To my own project, however, this issue has proved largely irrelevant, which perhaps demonstrates how far within the realm of social anarchism (not individualism) the eco-activists of my study are. The reason for this could be that the very impulse to and practice of activism is an embodiment of individual social responsibility. Zinn sums this up with the idea that, “To the extent that we feel free, we feel responsible” (1997:632).

“Anarchists understand that freedom is grounded in the refusal of the individual to exercise power over others coupled with the opposition of the individual to restrictions by any external authority. Thus, anarclu’sts challenge any form of organisation or relationship which fosters the exercise of power and domination. For instance, anarchists oppose the state because the act of governing depends upon the exercise of power, whether it be of monarchs over their subjects or, as in the case of a democracy, of the majority over the minority” (1996:150; cf Brown 1989: 8-9).

We will examine the anarchist view of power in 2.2.5, but let us for now recognise that the anarchist hostility to government lies not in a grasping desire for personal power, but is based on an <em>ethical</em> desire for social freedom. If there are self-proclaimed anarchists who act solely for their own gain, then they have little relation to anarchism as a political theory.

*** 2.2.3 Rebellion

“As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy” (Proudhon in Woodcock 1980:10).

The key belief held by anarchists is that government is at best useless, and more commonly the source of society’s ills and suffering. The converse of this belief is that people without government are able to create a just society that caters to everyone’s needs (Bookchin 1989a: 174; Barclay 1986). Thus Harper states that “Anarchy is pretty simple when you get down to it - people are at their very best when they are living free of authority, co-operating and deciding things among themselves rather than being ordered around” (1987: vii).

[[m-d-michael-duckett-ecological-direct-action-and-t-58.png][Figure 2.1 The Circled A]]

This is where the symbol of anarchy, the circled A illustrated in Figure 2.1, acquires one of its interpretations: ‘Anarchy is Order’[5]. This is a counter-intuitive statement when anarchy is so universally associated with chaos and rebellion. But within a society warped by authority and law, anarchists champion spontaneous expressions of revolt and creativity: “Anarchists are forced to become what politicians describe them as: ‘agents of disorder’“ (Meltzer 2000; cf Jasper 1999: 359). In a world so upside-down that following normal, everyday life means conniving in oppression and exploitation, the expression of a ‘natural’ or ethical order may well take the form of protest or resistance. As Wilde phrased it: “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion” (in Woodcock 1980: 72; cf Chumbawamba in <em>Schnews</em> 1999; Heller 1999 [C]: 108-109). A demonstration that this theme is still current is demonstrated in Figure 2.2.

[[m-d-michael-duckett-ecological-direct-action-and-t-57.jpg][Figure 2.2 ‘Disobedients’ flyer produced for anti-war protests, 31.10.2001]]

Here we are provided with a justification for focussing on direct action and protest, because this is the place where, according to anarchist theory, the right life of society takes place. In Chapters 4 and 7, however, we will see that protest - and even direct action - is not a sufficient ingredient for anarchism. Values from elsewhere in anarchism may therefore be brought to bear on the practice of activism, and are used to critique it. I clarify this point in my characterisation of ‘anarchism through practice’ in 2.3.6.

While the actual proclivities of anarchists may often be for rebellion and spontaneous creativity, the ultimate goal of a free society is defined by order and peace. With this end in view, Kropotkin in the 1910 <em>Encyclopaedia Britannica</em> gives perhaps the most authoritative definition of anarchism[6]:

“a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilised being” (1910: 914).

We may note that this is an <em>organisational</em> definition: perspectives on organisation occupy a central place within anarchist political theory, and we will encounter the issue of both theoretical and practical organisation in every chapter of this thesis. What ; wish to make clear here is that, notwithstanding the many peaceful and constructive attempts to build anarchist structures and cultures in the here and now, anarchism more than any other ideology is one of contestation, opposition and active resistance. As an ideological support for the kind of protests and actions covered in this thesis, from sit-down protests to inner-city street-fighting, anarchism is unsurpassed.

*** 2.2.4 Human Nature

Anarchists are commonly accused of having an over-optimistic view of human nature (Adams 1993: 172-3; Heywood 1994:28). This is because they have argued that, left to its own devices, humanity would naturally choose a non-exploitative society based on natural solidarity: “This does not mean that anarchists think that all human beings are naturally good, or identical, or perfectible, or any romantic nonsense of that kind. It means that anarchists think that almost all human beings are sociable, and similar, and capable of living their own lives and helping each other” (Walter 2002:28; cf Woodcock 1980:18; Heller [C] 1999:85-88[7]).

Carter states that the supposedly over-optimistic account in anarchism is “an over-simplification” and “a perennial half-truth that deserves to be critically examined” (1971:11-16; cf Miller 1984:76-7). Instead, “Anarchists are proprietors of a double-barrelled conception of human nature”, in which “Egoism is balanced by sociability” (Morland 1997a: 12-13). Humans are neither intrinsically good nor bad, but they have the <em>potential</em> for both. As Proudhon writes:

“Authority and liberty are as old as the human race; they are bom with us, and live on in each of us. Let us note but one thing, which few readers would notice otherwise: these principles form a couple, so to speak, whose two terms, though indissolubly linked together, are nevertheless irreducible one to the other, and remain, despite all our efforts, perpetually at odds” (quoted in Purkis & Bowen 1997: 6; cf Marshall 1989:45; Walter 2002:53).

Even Kropotkin (generally considered the most optimistic of the classical anarchists) balances his identification of innate solidarity with an equally natural tendency to ‘self-assertion’ that can lend itself to authoritarianism (2001:110; Miller 1984:73).

The anarchists’ double-barrelled concept of human potential is seen as a “central tension within their ideology”, and has been claimed as a healthy thing and a strength (Morland 1997a: 16; cf Morland 1997b). Miller states that the anarchists view ‘human nature’ not as a fixed quality, but rather as something that varies (within limits) according to the social and political context in which particular members of the species find themselves (1984:63-69). Faith in the potential of human nature is essential to all projects of radical change (Ball & Dagger 1991: 13-16; Porritt 1986: 195; Pepper 1993: 113; Doherty 2002; 77), and is commonly expressed in contemporary EDA: “We are all weapons of mass construction” (Our Mayday 2003b). The anarchist position on human nature is what underlies and justifies the anarchist strategies for social change and their vision of a harmonious future society without the need for authority. It is the anarchists’ distrust of power, meanwhile, that explains their distinctive political strategies, and it is this that we will look at now.

*** 2.2.5 Power

“authority depraves, submission to authority debases” (Bakunin to a nurse on his deathbed, quoted in Skirda 2002:38).

Taken out from its liberal heritage, Lord Acton’s statement that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (quoted in Purkis & Bowen 1997:19) is one with which anarchists heartily agree (Martin 1998). In a sense, it sums up the anarchist message, and justifies the anarchist political vision. If the more power one has, the more likely one is to abuse it then, so argue the anarchists, power must be ‘destroyed’ (or dispersed) so that everyone has an equal amount (TCA 7(1) 2005: 27). Bakunin argued on this basis that “Power must be dispersed ... not so much because everyone is always good, but because when power is concentrated some people tend to become extremely evil” (in Woodcock 1980:109; cf Carter 1999: 99; May 1994:13; Kropotkin 1972:135; Bakunin 1990a: 134-6; Martin 1998). We thus have a negative grounding for anarchism even if we cannot hold onto the positive hopes of the nineteenth century: “Nobody is fit to rule anybody else” (Meltzer 2000:19).[8]

Bakunin expresses most clearly the anarchist position by pinpointing their notion of domination:

Anarchists view the state as the most nefarious source of power, but it is not solely against the state that their opposition is directed.[9] Brown states that “Anarchism goes beyond other liberatory movements in opposing oppression in whatever form it takes, without assigning priority to one oppression over another” (1996:154; cf Dominick 1997:11; ACF 1990; Morland 2004: 28). Anarchist writers commonly include in their critique such realms as psychotherapy, criminology, urban planning and technology. Even in the 19^th century, for example, Bakunin was warning of the dangers of ‘scientism’ in addition to his personal <em>bete noires</em> of religion and the state (1990a: 210-214).

Anarchism’s affinity with feminist lines of thinking can be found here. Brown states that, “As anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes <em>all</em> relationships of power, it is inherently feminist. An anarchist who supports male domination contradicts the implicit critique of power which is the fundamental principle upon which all of anarchism is built. Sexist anarchists do exist but only by virtue of contradicting their own anarchism” (1996:153). Feminist theorists analyse power in manner comparable to anarchists, and to certain postmodernists. Pratt, for example, has written that “Instead of a system of patriarchy, we see more local and specific relations of gender domination that are interlocked but fundamentally fragmented and sometimes working in opposition to each other” (1993: 57). I will draw on feminist theorisations and practical tools further in Chapter 3.

Todd May has done most to argue that anarchism and post-structuralism make excellent bedfellows (1994:13; cf Amster 1998; Franks 2003:23), and suggests that “Micropolitical theory... must be seen as carrying through the anarchist critique of representation” (1994:98; cf Best & Kellner 1991:4; cf Bakunin 1990: 37; Proudhon quoted in Hoffman 1973:52; Morland 2004:25; <em>Evading Standards</em> 1997), illustrated in figure F2.3. Others have sought to draw out the affinities between anarchism and Lyotard and Derrida’s work (Gordon 2000), and the work of Deleuze & Guattari (Bey 1994: 1-6; Newman 2001; Call 1999:100).

It is possible to view the development of post-structuralist and deconstructive analysis as providing additional tools for the anarchist tool box. They can reveal hidden forms of domination in places that

political struggle might miss (Spivak 1996; Gordon 2000:2.1). The most significant aspect to take onboard is Foucault’s view that “Power not only intervenes in many places; its intervention is of different types” (May 1994:50; cf Foucault 1990:11; Welsh & Purkis 2003: 6). Foucault states that “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (1990: 93). He argues that there is no binary and all-encompassing opposition between rulers and ruled (no universal ‘class war’), but that power is exercised from innumerable points and is embedded in every relationship (1990:94). Some anarchists have taken Foucault’s work to suggest a support for their own attention to multiple forms of domination and power relationships (Brown 1996: 154; London Anarchist Forum 2000), although his politics have not been felt to match anarchism’s revolutionary optimism (Chomsky & Foucault 1971).

Moore is one anarchist who defends the traditional anarchist attitude: “Whether power is suppressive or productive, it is still power: that is to say, it still uses force (whether overtly or insidiously) to construct and define individuals and make them think or act in particular ways. Whether power says ‘thou shalt not...’ or ‘here are your options...’, coercion is involved” (1997:160; cf Carter 1999:94, 99; Bonanno 1998:6; SmartMeme Project 2003: 28; Martin 2001:18; Grassby 2003:109). To the anarchists, a capitalism of consumer choices and manipulated desires is still one of oppression (X in <em>Do or Die</em> 2000: 162; IE 2005: 8; Clark 1981:4; cf Marcuse 1969:23; Bauman 1988: 221-223). May, while emphasising the common ground between post-structuralists and anarchists in seeing the “political character of social space... in terms of intersections of power rather than emanations from a source”, is also careful not to imply that this undermines the anarchist prioritisation of the state, because “some points of power, for instance the state, may be more determinative for the social configuration than others” (1994: 5). Heller also raises the activist optimism (contra his reading of Foucault), that it <em>is</em> possible “to open up <em>discursive</em> spaces that do not depend on the use of discourses of domination” (2000:143).

Foucault’s particular theorisation of power need not be read in such a way that it undermines the anarchist opposition to power concentrations: rather it has been appropriated and interpreted to support it Thus, while the concept of’power over’ is a zero-sum game, Heller in his study of Faslane Peace Camp has emphasised the many activist manifestations of ‘power with’: a form of power in which everyone benefits through cooperation (2000: 7; cf Cattleprod c200Ia: 2; ESI 2001: 2; Starhawk 1990; Clark [H] 1998: 10-11; Arendt 1958:200; Carter 1999:91; Marshall 1992b: 452; <em>AT</em> 1999; Morris 1998). Heller argues that “the process of resistance is not simply the stripping away of domination, or ‘power’ more generally, to reveal some nascent ‘freedom’, but involves die active creation of a web of relations distinct from that involved in domination” (2000: 8). The notion of’power with’ fits perfectly into anarchist frameworks, and can be used to describe the positive developments that emerge from collective sites of protest. The hope exists, therefore, that forms of positive ‘empowerment’ and collective practices of ‘power-with’ that are manifested in EDA might serve to develop alternatives to the power-over paradigm (Holloway 2002:36).

[[m-d-michael-duckett-ecological-direct-action-and-t-56.jpg][Figure 2.3 The Meaning of ‘Representation’ (Bakunin & Warren 1981: 19).]]

May notes that, “as Foucault lias seen, the project of political action is not total liberation from oppression, but an expanding of local spaces of situated freedom” (1994: 116; cf Bowen & Purkis 2005: 36). He interprets Foucault to argue that “The problem is not of trying to dissolve them in the utopia of a perfectly transparent communication, but to give one’s self the ethics, the ethos, the practice ol self, which would allow these games of power to be played with a minimum o f domination” (May 1994: 123). May’s reading of Foucault’s position that Liberty is a practice” (May 1994: 117) is used to move the terrain of debate onto ethical grounds. I follow him in this, and consider the ethical content of the anarchist tradition equal to the task here given it. I will explore this in section 4.3.4. Anarchist analysis adds ‘bite’ to the pluralistic postmodern attempts at an ethics of freedom, and provides a constant reminder not to brget the larger factors of state and capitalism: I look at this further in sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2. Having looked at the distinctive anarchist views on authority, freedom, rebellion, human nature and power, I will now move away from discussion of the tenets of anarchism to look at the more ideological and existential of anarchism. I will here be addressing such fundamental questions as What is anarchism? What is its source? And how do its ideas relate to reality?

*** 2.3.1 Strength in Flexibility

Many people consider anarchism to be an antiquated theory that properly belongs to the nineteenth century and can have no relevance today (Adams 1993: 321; Suskind 1971: 171; Lichtheim 1967: 264). In contrast to other theories, however (particularly Marxism), anarchism has never become ossified into one set doctrine. Woodcock notes that “As a doctrine it changes constantly; as a movement it grows and disintegrates, in constant fluctuation” (1980: 15; cf Cahill quoted in Goaman 2002: 35). The reason for this fluidity lies in the very essence of anarchist theory, as Faure noted in his Encyclopaedia definition quoted in 2.2.1. Anarchism is a flexible array of mutually reinforcing principles that can be applied to any social situation and which can create numerous different applications (Ritter 1980:71). Greenway writes that, “anarchism ... as an approach, a critique, a set of questions to be asked about power relations, rather than a theory or set of answers ... can escape the fate of yesterday’s discarded ideologies” (1997: 177; cf Weir in Bonanno 1990: 11; Cohn & Wilbur 2003). It is this sense of anarchism that I am engaged with in this thesis.

In this and the following sections I will argue that the nature of anarchism is practical, not purist; that it is diverse, yet coherent; that it is fundamentally simple, but capable of great complexity, and that it remains a relative approach and not therefore a fixed or essentialised corpus. Unlike the ‘victorious’ ideologies of the twentieth century, “Anarchism can claim ... the equivocal merit of never having really been tried out Not having come to power, it was never discredited in power, and in this sense it presents an untarnished image” (Woodcock 1992:50). Carter states that “Their political failure is also the anarchists’ strength” (1971:1), and Apter notes that this gives anarchism “exceptional moral power. They are released from the burdens of past error” (1971:4). Here, then, anarchism is associated with unworldly ‘purity’ and it is on this basis that critics have condemned it for ineffectuality (Manuel & Manuel 1979: 740; Carter 1971: 107; Nomad 1968:402). However, the movements covered in this thesis are eminently practical, not averse to getting their hands dirty, and have very specific, historically-grounded perspectives to offer. By identifying these movements as anarchist, and charting how they apply anarchist principles to their contexts, I am also therefore demonstrating anarchism to be alive and well, and <em>useful.</em>

Commentators (particularly Marxists) have criticised the vagueness and diversity of anarchist doctrine, as “amorphous and full of paradoxes and contradictions” (Miller 1984:2). Indeed some have considered that “The disagreements and differences between anarchisms ... overwhelm the single point on which they agree” (Ball & Dagger 1991: 19; cf Miller 1984:2-3). In this thesis I am arguing the case for at least some coherence and continuity of the anarchist tradition: that it is not a mere mishmash of contradictory romantic ideas. It is nonetheless true that anarchism may be viewed as an exemplar of the definition of ideology made by Adams, who states that

Others, furthermore, view anarchism’s lack of a fixed, theoretically complex ideology (that is complex in the manner that a bureaucracy is complex) as vital to its success. Thus Woodcock notes that “the very nature of the libertarian attitude - its rejection of dogma, its deliberate avoidance of rigidly systematic theory, and, above all, its stress on extreme freedom of choice and on the primacy of the individual judgement - creates immediately the possibility of a variety of viewpoints inconceivable in a closely dogmatic system” (1977: 15; cf Wieck in Hoffman 1973: 95). Anarchist theory’s non-rigidity is the reason why more complex applications are made possible on the ground. Anarchism’s lack of a fixed, top-down blueprint is the reason why innumerable grassroots solutions are made possible.

“Anarchism recognises only the relative significance of ideas, institutions, and social forms. It is, therefore, not a fixed, self-enclosed social system, but rather a definite trend in the historic

development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept” (cl938:28- 29; cf Grassby 2002:136).

While Woodcock explains anarchism’s flexibility with reference to the individual’s centrality (and creativity), therefore, Rocker emphasises the position of the theoiy in providing relative, not absolute guidelines. By contrast, the grand theories of Marxism, with their totalising metaphysics and ‘scientific’ methods, have suffered far more from the verdict of history than has anarchism, with predictions proved false and Marxist scholars anxiously rewriting the textbook every few years (May 1994:18; cf Gombin 1979: Holloway 2002: Laclau& Mouffe 1985; Hall & Jacques 1989:14-15; Waterman 2002: 6-7; Kellner 1981). Those strands of anarchism that adopted Marxist theories most wholeheartedly have also suffered, and are under attack from ecological and post-left anarchists, as we shall note in 2.3.3 and 4.2.4.

It is important to note that this flexibility is <em>inherent</em> in the essential nature of anarchism, and not a convenient side-effect of having a loose and contradictory bundle of ideas: “a jumble of beliefs without rhyme or reason” in Miller’s terms (1984:3; cf Sylvan 1993:233). Anarchism is the negation of all authority, and the antithesis of fixed systems. As a theory, therefore, anarchism can be applied not only to the political world but also to the very world of theory itself, as I will demonstrate in the next chapter. It will be seen that this anarchist approach does not result in an ‘anything goes’ position, but a deeply ethical matrix of drives. In 2.3.61 will also present a contrast between practical and ideological anarchisms, in which the latter form is critiqued by the former. The fact that such a critique is possible is an indication of the overflowing of anarchist attitudes and arguments beyond any fixed theoretical basis. It is my argument and assumption within this thesis that anarchism is the antithesis of abstraction: it is dynamic, it is lived and it only has substance through its relationship to the real world. Any exposition of anarchism that is removed from this reality is not really about anarchism at all.

*** 2.3.2 History and the Idea

“Anarchism properly has no history - i.e. in the sense of continuity and development. It is a spontaneous movement of people in particular times and circumstances. A history of anarchism would not be in the nature of political history, it would be analogous to a history of the heart-beat. One may make new discoveries about it, one may compare its reactions under varying conditions, but there is nothing new of itself’ (Spark quoted in Haiper 1987: vi).

Anarchism claims to be relevant to every age, from the time before histoiy began to the unimaginable worlds of the future. The ideal of complete freedom, and the use of that yardstick to judge contemporary structures/strictures inadequate to the full realisation of humanity, is a perspective that cannot age with time. Only its particular manifestations and historical expressions alter. Despite its flexibility and fluidity, anarchism nonetheless constitutes a tradition still. Apter notes that “Anarchism may appear to be dead when it is dormant and exceptionally fresh when it springs to life” (1971:2). Even critical commentators like Green recognise that “Anarchism has had more lives than the proverbial cat. It is as old as resistance to oppression” (1971:19; cf Woodcock 1980:453).

In 1961, Woodcock wrote an obituary of the ‘classical’ anarchist movement whose greatest moment had been Spain, and whose irrelevance to the modem world was being made apparent by its ever- dwindling following (1992:42). In 1968, however, he returned to these words in a state of astonishment, because the late sixties had witnessed an upsurge in the popularity of anarchism amongst a new constituency (‘second-wave anarchism’). This renewed enthusiasm for anarchist ideals might appear to have rendered his gloomy prediction false, yet it actually underlined an important point he had made. As he explains, “The anarchists of the 1960s were not the historic anarchist movement resurrected; they were something quite different, a new manifestation of the idea” (1992:45; cf Perlin 1979:27; Bonanno 1998: 15). We may view the EDA of this thesis in the same light

The anarchist view of history is quite different from that of Marxism, because for anarchists, history is ultimately a matter of will (Miller 1984:79; Clark 1981:3; Pouget 2003: 7-8). Morland writes that “The course of history cannot be mapped out according to the development of the relations and the forces of production” (1997a: 14), and Marshall states that there “is no pre-ordained pattern to history, no iron law of capitalist development, no straight railroad which we have to follow. Although it is always made on prior circumstances, history is what we make it; and the future, as the past, can be either authoritarian or libertarian depending on our choices and actions” (1992b: 144; cf IE 2005:6; Routledge & Simons 1995:481). This, in common with much anarchist theoiy, is remarkably simple as a basic idea, but it becomes highly complex once applied, as the strategic debtes of EDA activists considered later in the thesis will reveal.

Even in a nineteenth century ‘modernist’ world, anarchists rejected any simple faith in ‘progress’, so that “the anarchist theory of history is not linear but dualistic” (Miller 1984:73-75). The dualism lies between authority and freedom. Proudhon, for example, disagreed with Hegel, holding that thesis and antithesis are <em>not</em> be resolved in a synthesis, but rather exist in an unstable balance (Proudhon 1970: 229; cf Gordon 2000:4.2). Woodcock suggests that “the formula is almost Heraclitean; it suggest the flux of never-ending change rather than the dialectical forward movement of the Hegelians and the Marxists... it suggests contradiction as a positive and productive element, and equilibrium as a dynamic condition in a world that changes constantly and never reaches the stillness of perfection because imperfection is a cause and consequence of its everlasting movement” (1977:27; cf Best & Kellner 1991: 81; Deleuze & Guattari 1983: 157). I take this notion of non-stillness and the acceptance of difference on board for this thesis — both for the practice of EDA, whose acceptance of difference is demonstrated in section 5.2.3, and in theory, as I will consider further in Chapter 4.

The anarchist perspective on history sees a constant struggle between liberation and authority, between freedom and oppression (Bookchin 1971:211; cf Mumford 1973:465). The role of the anarchist in each age is therefore to seek to extend freedom in every way possible, because if freedom is not practised and tested, it will be taken away. As Morland writes, “History has taught anarchists that they should be prepared to grasp any opportunity that presents itself for moving in the direction of a freer society, whilst paying attention to human nature and avoiding any repetition of past mistakes in the twenty-first century” (1997a: 21). The chief’mistake’ in this regard (and the historical trump card traditionally raised against Marxists in debate), is the corruption of the Russian Revolution into a party dictatorship. In Chapter 5 I will explore these perspectives in the terms of institutionalisation and radicalisation.

Anarchist theory thus supports a strategy which continually presses against society in search of its weak-points, trying to open up areas that would make revolutionary change possible (Kropotkin 2001: 143). The view of history as determined by will is logically an activist standpoint - it justifies action, on however small a scale. Anarchists thus hold onto their belief in the infinite possibility of mankind. “Given the right circumstances, human nature can be transformed from that which corresponds to the climate of economic liberalism to that which maintains the establishment of an anarchist-communist society” (Morland 1997a: 15). This perspective has been criticised as ‘the voluntarist fallacy’ by both internal and external critics (<em>CW</em> 1997: 12; <em>Notes from Nowhere</em> 2003:14; <em>Schnews</em> 2004: 1;

Thompson 1978: 99; Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992:197; Atkinson 1991:214), yet it stands at the heart of activist anarchism and it has often achieved what the critical commentators are unable to predict. As an EF!er has argued, “it is only by attempting the impossible that real progress has been achieved” (Jeff 1998).

*** 2.3.3 Orthodoxy and ‘Second Wave’ Anarchism

“It might naively have been imagined that anarchism would be the one school of thought where the very grounds for... proprietoriality were necessarily absent, but apparently not” (Gordon 2000:4).

In this chapter, I have been utilising points made by a range of anarchist writers, but these do not all recognise each other as legitimate. Class-struggle anarchists denigrate Woodcock, for example, as the embodiment of mid-twentieth century ‘liberal’ anarchism (AF 1996a: 15; cf Franks 2003:36), and insist that “Now, as circumstances within capitalist society change, class struggle anarchism is reasserting itself’ (AF 1996c: 17). But the AF’s claim is as controversial as that of Woodcock. All claims regarding the truth or orthodoxy of anarchism are <em>actively contested</em> by other anarchists: I mustn’t allow this heterogeneity to be subsumed under my <em>own</em> viewpoint and authorial decisions. Indeed, the idea of ‘orthodoxy’ within anarchism is a contradiction within its own terms (Henderson 1998). Yet, frequently anarchists of various stripes <em>are</em> accused of attempting to impose such orthodoxies on the rest, and there are innumerable debates over what counts as legitimate anarchism and what does not. It is this range of anarchist streams that I wish to clarify now.

When a particular stream of anarchism achieves dominance, however, this is only a relative dominance, based on numbers and persuasive power. It will almost immediately generate critics and opposition - hence the frequent cries of ‘ideologist!’ - and any bubble of’orthodoxy’ will quickly be pricked. In this way, the ongoing (and tempestuous) movement of’anarchism’ is perpetually rebuilt and reconstituted. Thus Kropotkin writes that anarchism “comprises in its midst an infinite variety of capacities, temperaments and individual energies: it excludes none. It even calls for struggles and contentions” (quoted in Gordon 2000:4.1). This ongoing dispute and dissensus hones the criticality of anarchism, but such conflict can also be damaging, as Plows notes in the case of the eco-activist movement (2002a).

There are, then, many formulations of anarchism, or ‘anarchisms’ (Franks 2003:18; Bowen & Purkis 2005:11). I do not wish to spend much time over the separate schools. The historical differences that lie between Bakunin’s anarchist collectivism and Kropotkin’s anarcho-communism, or Proudhon’s mutualism and Rocker’s anarcho-syndicalism, are irrelevant to this thesis. As a rough guide, however, I feel it is useful to distinguish classical or class-struggle anarchism from ‘second wave’ currents of anarchism developed from the mid twentieth century, for which “The Situationists represent a convenient marker of the transition point” (Moore 1997:157; cf Goaman 2002:242). Second wave anarchism “is characterised, not by the narrow focus on class, the State and capitalism, but by a project which questions the totality, which seeks the abolition of all forms of control” (Moore letter to <em>Organise!</em> 44 1997:17; cf Moore 1997 :157; Goaman 2002: 62; Bowen & Purkis 2005: 12). The ‘anticivilisation’ or ‘primitivist’ currents of anarchism, which have moved away from a concern for state and capital toward the aim of dismantling industrial capitalism, most technology, most agricultural systems, and city-scale human habitation (for starters), may be placed in this latter bracket. I will look at distinctive aspects of primitivism in 2.3.5 (primitivism as ideology, and primitivism’s claims for being more radical than anarchism), 4.3.1 (views on technology), 4.3.4 (identification with the wild) and 6.5.3 (attitudes to violence). In general, however, I do not believe schools such as primitivism to have moved outside the anarchist orbit: they express recognisably anarchist arguments, engage in recognisably anarchist practice, and within the schools themselves they contain a diversity of views on all the issues dear to anarchists.

I consider it questionable whether the ‘second wave’ tendency is in any way <em>superior</em> to classical anarchism. Boookchin implies that classical anarchists have had their day when he states that “Despite their many insights, anarchosyndicalism, Proudhonianism, and Bakuninism belong to an irrecoverable past. They do not lack ideological coherence and meaning ... but they speak to epochs that have faded into history. There is much that they can teach us, but their significance has long been transcended by historically new issues” (1996:24). But ‘second wave’ anarchism has not, in my view, demonstrated itself to be more appropriate to contemporary conditions (Bowen & Purkis 2005:13), and it has certainly not eclipsed the ‘classical’ anarchism that it opposes. In the UK, class-struggle anarchism of the ‘classical’ kind still appears to be dominant[10]: the written contributions of’second-wave’ anarchists, for example, are generally disappointing. Representatives of both ‘classical’ and ‘second wave’ anarchism are, furthermore, involved in eco-activism (and contribute to the debates which I assess in this thesis), but neither define it[11].

Nevertheless, there are some (non-essential and non-defining) elements of historical anarchism that have been dropped in recent decades. As I have noted, a view of human nature as essentially ‘good’ is both peripheral and discredited, and may accordingly be rejected. Also, in my view, the degree to which anarchists drew their succour from Marxist ideas, is the degree to which they have become outdated, specifically with regard to ‘productivism’; class-struggle as the over-riding theme; and the proletariat as revolutionary subject: see 4.2.4. Any “a-priori assumptions” and reductive elements in anarchism may also be criticised (May 1994: 61). I should note, however, that classical anarchism held a much stronger and more flexible notion of, for example, revolutionary change than the version critiqued by recent commentators. I shall consider something of this in later sections, where I shall also make clear that the really significant conflicts and disagreements amongst anarchists are those relating, not to ideology, but to strategy (Epstein 1991: 17). Now, I wish to move away from the ‘fixing’ of such streams to a more fruitful exploration of the <em>sources</em> of anarchism. I argue that anarchism is found in an emotion of’love and rage’, a super-criticality, and a distinctive practice.

*** 2.3.4 Emotion

“The rationalist discourse of Enlightenment political philosophy can only hope to address the rational faculties ... If anarchism is to touch people then it must reach into their unconscious, and activate their repressed desires for freedom” (Moore 1998; cf Thompson 1978:367; Zinn 1997:655).

I wish to state something of what I consider to be the core ‘spirit’, or ‘mood’ of anarchism. I do this because no purely theoretical elaboration of anarchism will capture its essence. I feel it is legitimate to address the question of what anarchism is in this way, furthermore, because anarchism allots an important place to the emotional and affective element of thinking. It is a doctrine of the heart as well as of the head.

Joli notes that “The rationalist streak in anarchism is balanced through the history of anarchism by an anti-rationalist one” (1971:213; cf Ritter 1980: 68). Not all anarchists view themselves as ‘serious’. Rather, anarchists promote ‘play’ as an alternative paradigm to ‘work’ (‘Maybe’ 2000:3; Ward 1988: 88-94; Read 1954; Black 1996; Freedom Press 1997): I explore the ludic element of anarchism with the study of ‘Reclaim the Streets’ in section 7.4.

Of equal importance is the <em>moral</em> dimension of anarchism. Woodcock notes that “All anarchism has... a moral-religious element which distinguishes it from ordinaiy political movements” (1977:359; cf AF 2001a: 30). Apter pins this down for us: “The primitive core of anarchism is not so very different from Christianity. That is, it rests on the notion that man has a need, not just a preference, to love” (1971:3). Thus Malatesta, in the speech he made to an Italian courtroom in 1921 after 10 months in jail, defended his faith in “The idea of liberty, of justice, and of <em>love”</em> (in Nomad 1968:43, my italics; cf Richard Turner quoted in Goaman 2002:125; Heller [C] 1999: 6). The central place of this emotion in anarchist history means it is not just a ‘theory’ but a movement of much deeper solidarity (Cohn & Wilbur 2003).

Apter explains how most systems of belief prioritise either rationality or emotionality over the subordinated (and thus distorted) other. Within anarchism, however, neither the super-rationalism of a Godwin nor the anti-intellectualism of stereotype can be taken as full embodiments of the anarchist stance. Both tendencies exist, in some tension. Yet this tension can be creative when it encourages the stepping out of conventional ways of thinking and doing. Apter states, “For anarchists the appropriate

balance between the two is creativity” (1971:3). Creativity is central to the tactics used in EDA, as demonstrated by the strong emphasis on innovation and creativity in tactics and expression to be found in movement literature. Therefore, the anarchist ‘mood’ which Joli dismissed as “a desire to push things to extremes”, and to pursue “the act of revolution for its own sake” without concerning oneself with the consequences, is better thought of as an “insistence on spontaneity, on theoretical flexibility, on simplicity of life, on love and anger as complementary and necessary components in social as in individual action” (Woodcock 1980:459). It is for this reason that some UK Earth First!ers often sign off their emails or communiques with the words ‘love and rage’: a three-word summation of the anarchist urge.[12]

I agree, therefore, that there is a certain temperament to anarchism, but I disagree that this is standardly one of hot-headed or short-sighted ‘extremism’. The attitude of anarchism is one of fierce independence, and one of extended empathy, it is one of anger, yet also one of love, and it is one in which critical reason is allied to emotion in a perhaps unique way. Anarchism is not opposed to rationality, no matter how strong the degree of emotionalism or play.[13] Apter notes that “Behind the appearance of anti-intellectualism there lies a presumptive belief in an ultimate rationality as the common and unifying property of all men if unfettered by an inappropriate system” (1971:6). It is this faith in humanity that underlies the anarchist injunction to allow the spontaneity of the masses to lead the way.[14] This stands in direct contrast to the Leninist conception of a theoretically enlightened vanguard destined to show the way. Anarchists instead talk of the ‘leadership of ideas’ (by which of course they mean <em>anarchist</em> ideas), and they also demonstrate a sincere faith in the power of dialogue and reason. It is on this basis that they reject state laws, as an imposition of arbitrary violence, in favour of the free dialogue and organisation by the people who, being those affected and nearby, are the ones best able to arrange things in the best way.

*** 2.3.5 Reason

“for God’s sake, when we have demolished all a priori dogmas, do not let us think of indoctrinating the people in our turn” (Proudhon, letter to Marx 17^th May 1846, in 1970: 1501).

It is on grounds of <em>rationality</em> that anarchists oppose <em>theory.</em> “Theory in the view of anarchists should not be an intellectual contrivance because this will reduce freedom and clutter the will with tempting injunctions” (Apter 1971:6; cf Woodcock 1980:14). It is for this reason that there are relatively few theoretical journals for anarchists: “in a future anarchist society we won’t need to read Kropotkin and Malatesta before going out of the house in the morning” (AF 1996a: 23). We might even say that in activist anarchism the place of the theoretical journal is replaced by the critical tool-kit (examples of which I utilise in each chapter), and by faith in the enlightenment that comes from experience and dialogue.

In this chapter I have been using the terms ‘theory’, ‘ideology’ and ‘anarchwm’ loosely, and I shall continue to do so. I do not accept the complex Marxist definitions of ideology, and instead employ the term in a more narrowly functional capacity, loosely as “action-related systems of beliefs, norms, and ideas” (Rejai 1984: 7; cf Bell [D.S.A.] 2002). When I discuss ‘anarchist theory’ I do so as a matrix of

arguments and values that are connected in diverse, overlapping and often contested ways: not as a scientific system that can be mapped out to any degree of accuracy. Abstraction does not help here, but che context of dialogue does. Ideology need not be expressed in dense theoretical works, furthermore, but in simple symbolism and through practice, as I shall consider in the next section.

First, we should recognise that ‘Ideology’ can be used as a swear-word amongst anarchists, and consider why this is so. Neal, for example, states that “the ideologue is a closeted authoritarian” (1997), and Vaneigem argues that “all ideologies are totalitarian. Cut off from the very life they are supposed to represent... they invariably take over a repressive power’ i. 1994: 7; cf IE 2005: 3). Ideology is condemned for its abstraction and its authoritarianism. <em>Organise!</em> contrast ideology to the process and needs of rational argument (AF 1996a: 42: cf Watson 1997; Minogue 2000: 94), and Jarach makes a similar distinction: “Critical thinking leads to theory, where life is examined with a mixture of objective and subjective analysis. Ideology, on the other hand, leads to pat answers that have been previously formulated according to particular agendas” (<em>Anarchy</em> 53 2002: 57; cf <em>Do or Die</em> 1996: 123; ‘cw(3po)’ 2002: 3; <em>TCA</em> 5(1) 2002: 6; POO 1998: 2). This commonly voiced rhetorical position leads to some interesting contradictions. Later in the thesis, for example, I will draw on <em>Green Anarchist’s</em> opposition to ideological anarchists, but GA’s own ideological output is considerable (demonstrated for example by 25% of their total articles being editorial articles) (Atton 2002: 109).

I join those like Laclau who condemn ‘ideology’ as the desire for total closure by political projects and movements < 1983: 24; Jasper 1999: 351-355). Anarchism is not about deciding what will and must happen, but about an open future in which we can all take part. Hence the Cunningham Amendment (<em>TCA)</em> state that they “are on guard against the blueprints of the Left and the Right. Context is always ongoing. New events unfold hour by hour’ (<em>TCA</em> 3(1) 2001: 19), and provide a warning against tendencies antithetical to the open dialogical spirit in F2.4:

ALWAYS identify the INTENTION of a Dominant voice. Mostly, you will find their words addressed to shoring-up their own standing. BEWARE!

The voice of the Other is not required

Beware the Monological voice. The voice ol the Utner is not rcqu.icu and answers are not expected. Encoding itself in high language the Monological voice will seek to impose limits on lesser voices. It declines to enter into dialogue with voices other than its own. And it deems itself sufficient to explain all the events of the world.

[[m-d-michael-duckett-ecological-direct-action-and-t-28.jpg][Figure 2.4 ‘Beware the Monological Voice’ (<em>TCA 5</em> 11 2002: 7).]]

The arrival of’Primitivism’ has supplied an interesting demonstration and clarification of the anarchist view on ‘ideology’. The primitivists denied that they were promoting a new political ideology because they opposed “all systems, institutions, abstractions, the artificial, the synthetic, and the machine, because they embody power relations” (Moore c 1997: 4). This opposition to all ‘ideologies’ also led primitivists to deny being “anarchists per se, but pro-anarchy, which is for us a living, integral experience, incommensurate with power and refusing all ideology’’ (<em>Fifth Estate</em> quoted in Moore c!997:2).

In a similar manner to the posturing of Situationists and other anarchists as being the ‘only’ revolutionary position in opposition to a totality of repression, primitivists claimed that “From the perspective of anarcho-primitivism, all other forms of radicalism appear as reformist” (Moore cl 997: 2). This <em>included</em> anarchism.[15] Yet the discourse in which primitivism phrased its own claims to

radicality bore a remarkable similarity to traditional anarchist arguments (Moore cl997: 5), and others were able to define primitivism’s opposition to the ‘totality’ of civilisation (as opposed to just capitalism and state), as an <em>extension</em> of anarchist principles (BGN 2002 : 13 >.[16] The primitivist condemnation o: anarchism actually demonstrated a continuity, in so far as it was grounded in anarchist values, and replayed anarchist arguments, albeit with new inflections, and some new vocabulary.

However, it has been claimed that such representations of primitivism reified it into an ideology that never actually existed (Watson 1998: 60). Watson attacked those “tempted to establish a political tendency with its myth o ‘origins, canon, genealogy and pantheon of luminaries” (1998: 58). He states that Moore’s ‘Primitivist primer’ “borders on an attempt to codify a primitivist sensibility. Its catechism-like qtestion-and-answer format and its indirect suggestion of primitivist taxonomy gives it an ‘objective’, descriptive authority. It even comes with a kind of five-point action program, Phrases like ‘From the [ the? ][17] perspective of anarcho-primitivism’ and ‘according to anarcho-primitivists’ abound” (1998: 59). Although denying ideologism, the discourse of primitivists led them to be condemned as “fully-fledged ideologues” themselves (Roy Emery, letter, <em>Freedom</em> 24.1.2004: 6; ‘cw(3po) 2002: 3). As for my own view, I follow Black’s point that, “Like standards and values, the anarchist ‘isms’, old and new, are best regarded as resources, not restraints. They exist for us, not us for them” (2004: 6).

I he fact that anarchism has no dominant strand means that it is breed to remain in dialogue, at least within certain boundaries. It therefore leaves ‘the answer’ open, and encourages a constant questioning, particularly of those who claim they do have an answer. This may make anarchism a paradigmatic example of discourse: “dialogic, dynamic and riven with contradictions, an interactive process of producing meaning witliin specific historical situations” (Doherty 2002: 89). The <em>TCA</em> employ Bakhtin’s dialogism to underline this aspect of anarchism: meaning lies between people and not within separate voices (5(1)2002: 10). This is illustrated in Figure 2.5.

All language is social. Even in our thoughts we are in dialogue with other voices. Every utterance I make is unique to its own time and space. And only I can occupy the same unique time and space. No one else can do this for me. Because of this I accept some responsibility for the context of every encounter. Life is to be lived and engaged with. It is to be won by interactive dialogue with real people in real encounters.

][Figure 2.5 ‘All Language Is Social’ (<em>TCA</em> 5(1 I 2002: 11).]]

There is no original source of authority within anarchism: the nearest that is commonly attempted is the authority of practice, and of what ‘the people’ (sometimes ‘the working class’) believe or do. This is the opposite standpoint from the ‘approved’ ideology of a regime or revolutionary vanguard. Class War state that vanguardists “never want to admit that maybe they have got it all wrong” (<em>CW</em> 1997: 16), and present their honest self-criticality as the anarchist contrast (1997: 2 i. In interview, TAPPers similarly condemned the SWP on these grounds, of pretending to have answers to every issue, and being dishonest to their followers: see Appendix.

Bakunin writes that “As soon as official truth is pronounced ... why discuss anything?” (1972: 302; ci Bakunin 1990a: 220).[18] In Neal’s view, “the anarchist holds that 1’ruth tends to end up in the back pocket of the most powerful” (1997; cf AF 1996a: 23). He advocates that anarchists should hold truth as fundamentally subjective, and states that “Freethinking is the only methodology you can safely rely on, in the absence of external Truth - that is, thinking and evaluating for yourself what is and isn’t” (1997). Neal goes on to argue that this leads not to a-political relativism, but to the matrix of anarchist ethics: “Does anarchist rejection of Truth mean that anarchism, in turn, means anything goes? Yes, and no - that which destroys illegitimate authority is anarchistic; that which doesn’t, isn’t” (1997).

We are here returned to what is simultaneously the source and the end-point of anarchism: freedom. As a contributor to <em>Total Liberty</em> puts it, all forms of anarchism “spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is ... Anarchism is not normative ... Liberty is a space in which people may live. It does not tell you how they will live, It says, eternally, only that they can” (Bad Press 2002:13; cf Malatesta 1074:52). I will evaluate what this means in practice in sections 4.3.4 and 5.2.2.

One more point should be underlined here: that the diversity of opinions within anarchism should be lauded as a strength (Roseneil 2000:123; <em>GA</em> 1997a: 12). Consensus is retained by many activist anarchists as a valued demonstration of collective will. Yet it is rarely prioritised over individual dissent. Lyotard’s celebration of dissensus may be employed here, as he charges that “Consensus does violence to the heterogeneity of language games. And invention is always bom of dissension” (1984: 75; cf Best & Kellner 1991:166). Many anarchists would agree with Lyotard’s point, and even those who would not (perhaps tired by incessant argument and factionalism), must still recognise the right of everyone to dissent, and to form a different view.

Anarchism’s reputation for factionalism and dissent is not wholly undeserved (Walter 2002: 51; Mayday2000 2000d). While this may have negative practical impacts for inter-anarchist organising, however, it is a demonstration of strength in the realm of ideology. In section 2.3.2 we noted how anarchism as critique is celebrated even when the manifest movement appears in a sorry state (Ritter 1980: 155; Shatz in Bakunin 1990a: xxxvii3). Apter, for example, states that “At its best [ classical anarchism contains a ] social critique of capitalism as a system and socialism as a form of bureaucratic tyranny’ (1971: 10; cf Goodway 1989:1). Apter hangs the strength and popularity of anarchism on its ability to articulate the reasons behind real faults in the system. He equates anarchism to an analysis that states present arrangements are responsible for these faults, and terms it “a language useful for identifying the more grotesque anomalies of these systems” (1971: 5-12). Apter’s argument is certainly supported in the environmental field, where anarchists lay the blame for environmental disasters on the logic of capitalism (see section 4.3.1). We might note that anarchism’s obsession with power provides it with the chief critical tool here. Jordan states that “‘Power’ is the term that fills the gap, which in one word allows reference to all of the diverse exploitations and oppressions of this world without implying that they are the same exploitations and oppressions” (2002: 146; cf Heller [C] 1999:73).

One further point should be made about the strength of anarchist critique, and that is that it is equally adept at turning inward, and pointing the finger at the anarchist agitators themselves (Franks 2003:19). Young demonstrates this when he states that “It is the insidious counter-revolutionary forces residing ‘inside’ the anarchist movement that has the greatest potential for diverting us from our primary goal of agitating for world social revolution” (in AF 2001a: 3). Situationism has made the most useful contribution here, with the emphasis laid on the “constant danger of any idea being recuperated to the benefit of the present system” (AF 1996a: 23). We will employ this perspective at several points within the thesis, but for now we have said enough about theory. Super-criticality alone does not provide the source of anarchist thought Rather, anarchism is a discourse of practice, of experiment and real-world contestation. Anarchism seeks to be the expression of freedom, and it is with practical activity and relationships that anarchist thought is ultimately concerned.

*** 2.3.6 Practice

“Anarchism knows the need for sober thinking, but also for that action which clarifies otherwise academic and abstract thought” (Zinn 1997: 655).

I have already laid out the significance of emotionality and rationality in supporting the anarchist movement. I would now like to emphasise how they are joined by a third, and perhaps most important element of <em>action.</em> In keeping with the general down-grading of theory within anarchism, Meltzer writes that “There were never theoreticians of Anarchism as such, though it produced a number of theoreticians who discussed aspects of the philosophy. Anarchism has remained a creed that has been worked out in practice rather than from a philosophy” (2000:18). I concur that this is so.

<em>Organise!</em> are typical in arguing that “there is a reciprocal exchange between ideas and practice which grow from one another” (AF 1997b: 20; cf Bonanno 1998:2). In the ‘unofficial’ stream of anarchistic direct action, also, it is often the case, as at Greenham Common, that “theory and practice ... existed in

a feedback loop” (Roseneil 1995: 60). This is also taken to be the case with my own subject. Such an interaction between practice and theory is neither a smooth nor a painless process. What is, however, certain is that “The tightly assumed flow between given theory and advocated practice no longer obtains” (Freeden 2000: 320). Anarchist ideas are constantly formulated and adapted to their context,

which almost inevitably means that they must compete with other, more dominant or ‘common sense’ ideas. The writers in <em>Organise!</em> recognise this: “Ideas do not spring from the air. Our ideology (and indeed all others) came from a contestation with the very physical forces of our opponents” (AF 1996a: 23). In observing this point, we should recognise that many of the ‘sources’ of anarchist discourse used in this thesis are made ‘on the hoof, and in contest with others. They are rarely equivalent to distant and balanced academic observations, but rather make their appearance as moving, rhetorical positions made in the midst of debate (Benton & Remie Short 1999:2). They therefore owe much of their meaning to their <em>political</em> context, and also to the place they hold within a <em>dialogue (</em> Godwin 1969:310; cf Cox & Barker 2002:12). This does not make them less ‘true’, but it does

underline the difficulty of taking such ideas out of context Where possible, I provide the bare bones of this context, and in the case studies I provide more than one expression from within each of the activist-anarchist dialogues.

As figure F2.4 indicates, anarchists do not bemoan the necessarily contingent and partial basis of their expressions: rather they celebrate it Thus <em>Organise!</em> suggest to their readers, “If the contents of one of the articles in this issue provokes thought makes you angry, compels a response then let us know. Revolutionary ideas develop from debate, they do not merely drop out of the air!” (AF 2001a: 2; cf CW 1997: 2). Discussion is also held to improve thinking, perhaps an obvious point but one worth remembering with regard to my justification of this thesis to anarchists who are suspicious of academic writings. The EDA movement evaluated in the course of my research demonstrated this belief: “one of our strengths has always been that many heads are better than one...so, learn as a group, argue, criticise,

pull it apart and develop your own theory” (Notts ef! 1998). The pamphlets put together after Mayday 2000, June 18^th 1999 and the G8 street party in May 1998 provide good textual demonstrations, the latter inviting people to

stop the need for people putting on street parties to keep re-inventing the wheel help street parties be a relevant and effective part of the political process stop street parties disappearing up their own fundamentals and instead move forward boldly and heroically towards glorious eco-anarcho utopia” (GSP 1998:1; cf GTB 2001).

I will conclude this chapter by defining what I term ‘anarchism through practice’ by contrasting it to its proposed opposite of’ideological anarchism’. This borrows from Neal’s distinction between ‘ideological’ anarchists and ‘methodological’ anarchists. Neal argues that ideological anarchists view their anarchism as ‘a set of rules and conventions to which you must abide’, while the methodologists see anarchism as a matter of practice, ‘a way of acting’. His characterisation of the ideological anarchist is worth recording for the accuracy with which it describes such groups as Britain’s <em>Anarchist Federation (AF).</em> This kind of anarchist

“stresses ideological conformity as the prerequisite for social revolution - in other words, you swallow A,B, and C doctrines and THEN you are an Anarchist Their plan of action revolves around: 1) creating a central Anarchist organisation; 2) educating (e.g. indoctrinating) the working class as to the tenets of Anarchism; 3) thereby building a mass movement; 4) creating a social revolution.

The [ ideological ] Anarchist is comfortable with the idea of a manifesto, platform, or other guiding doctrine as the means of ‘spreading the gospel’ - their emphasis is unity in thought and action, and ideological conformity as the basis for effective organisation” (1997; cf Bookchin 1995a: 60; <em>Door Die</em> 1999:123).

Adams divides the anarchist movement into two streams. One is the ‘specific and self-conscious’ movement (1993:168), the other less well-defined (‘intuitive’ or ‘activist’ in my terms (1993:169)). The ‘intuitive’ or ‘spontaneous’ anarchist movement is generally considered to arise first, and in some situations never declares itself as ‘anarchist’ (Heller [C] 1999: 85-7; Adams 2002; Goldman 1917; Newman 2003). In this thesis I am looking at EF! and the other ‘disorganisations’ and mobilisations that arose from the EDA movement as being rooted in this informal anarchism, and in this I am supported by other commentators (Purkis 2001; Wall 2001:154). This is not to imply that there can be <em>no</em> expression of anarchist ideology in these movements, however - far from it! It is the expressions of ideology, in text, in discussion, in repertoire, strategy and inter-personal practice, that constitute the subject of this thesis and I will be explicitly tying them to anarchist themes, ethics and principles. The crucial difference from an ideological anarchist organisation (or an ideological anarchist thesis), is that I am emphasising the <em>difference</em> and <em>incompleteness</em> contained within these expressions of anarchism (<em>Schnews</em> 1999a: 3). The informality of these activist milieus, the commitment to deeds over words, and the embracing of difference at their heart (<em>Do or Die</em> 1999:108; Hetherington quoted in Seel 1999:119), serves to keep them distinct from the explicit, official or rigid anarchist organisations. This remains true even once we recognise that a fruitful dialogue and interpenetration takes places between the two scenes: indeed the variations in anarchist backgrounds and interprations greatly increases the vitality and expressiveness of the manifestations of anarchism.