The piece was well-written, but a bit on the long side. In essence, Allen is accusing all seven people and groups of not being anarchist enough for him. In our conversation, I provided the connection that he was describing different incentive traps which no one has the incentive to get out -- i.e. Scott Alexander's use of Moloch.
Anarchism, like the rest of politics, is something I only allow myself the indulgence of finding meta-interesting, especially in its meta-politics. Anarchism is absolutely an example of wandist, if not godist, thinking. So, once you admit it's never going to happen, as Darren Allen does in our exchange, what do you do next? One option is to try to implement your ideas on a small scale. Another is to continue on in a wandist mode and accuse others of not taking pure enough symbolic stances. If an anarchist keeps going it is usually out of the joy of perceiving that they are correct. (Libertarianism is like this but usually in practice also includes an identification with, and thus a fetish for, our captains of industry).
But life isn't just about winning political arguments. Ran Prieur has very much understood this in his post-doomer / post-back-to-the-land phase. And I'll speak for myself: I'm no longer going to waste my limited life feeling horror, dread, or debilitating depression about things I cannot control. I have tried to remove these from my information diet and habits of thought and instead seek out beauty. And though there have been alterations to how I go about it, that's the current project of my life: trying to live well in the face of an inevitable death, one that might be hastened by forces around me.
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Hopefully the above gives enough context for my last post in the thread, which Mr. Allen has at this point not responded to. It begins with a quote from him:
As i say, I still like him as a private bod, but as a public intellectual (thinker / teacher / writer / etc) he has nothing to say any more, and it is my duty to point that out and why
That might be as good as a place as any to examine, assuming we are wanting to find common ground. What does a private/public divide mean to you? Why is the binary useful in this context?
Or, really, why should anyone have "obligations" to the public side when we have so little ability to move any needle at all? And surely that is a fair summary of our last exchange. It looks like the impediments to your preferred world are 1) political inaction, which means corporations and the security state continue unabetted 2) the entire political right 3) capture of the official left 4) the subtle capture of the unofficial socialists you outline.
Though there are more people who understand collapse, I'll agree with your figure of 1,000 to 100,000 who understand that the best state for humanity is anarcho-primitivism in an area with human activity below ecological carrying capacity. And if I could magic wand it, I'd probably will into existence something close to what you would as well. I buy that we made a wrong turn at agriculture and the bad situation became increasingly worse with institutions seeking legibility.
But I have no position in a meaningful res publica, let alone a polis, let alone king of the world. The real position for us who see through is to drop out or semi-drop out. And then what?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you are saying people need to dedicate themselves to a purity politics that you know won't work. But why?
I think it is noble enough to look for what is beautiful and interesting, and share what you find. It's being a private person and sharing the overflow.
The last few months of Ran's blog have
- Turned me on to Miles Davis's later psychedelic/funk work
- interrogated American chore habits
- had open-minded essays (attempts, not proclamations) about confidence, panpsychism, and the like.
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I also used Reddit as the comments section. Ran even responded.
