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« Bird Mix | Main | Sensitivity... »
Why Anarchism?
November 9, 2007
I have been reading one of the rare print issues of LiP magazine I have in my collection (sadly, the magazine folded along with a bunch of other more prominent small press magazines. I keep meaning to write about that!). This quote from an interview with Vandana Shiva, although not necessarily about anarchism, is exactly how I wish I would have always answered people who have asked me "Isn't anarchism ultimately a selfish philosophy?":
I see living society the way I see living systems. I don't see society as an aggregation of atomized, fragmented individuals. That's why I don't go down the Hobbesian path. I see society as organic, in which every level has an autonomous existence, and a self-organizing capacity, but in relationship with other self-organizing systems. Which means that your freedom, your personal freedom, is then in the context of total consciousness and awareness of other people's personal freedom. It is that awareness which I call compassion, I call solidarity. And it's through compassion and solidarity that you do not have the irresponsibility built into personal freedom the way it has in Western philosophy and political science, with the terrorizing by these guys who exaggerate certain human tendencies. Personal freedom is real. A person is a full subject. But a person is not a subject in isolation: We are in family, we are in friendships, we are in community, we are in working contexts, we are in certain towns, we are living in certain lands—all that does define levels of who we are and our identities and therefore, also, our searching for our freedoms. Because all those freedoms have to be carried together.
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Comments
actually, i might beg to differ and say that the quote here is most definitely about the core principles of a functioning anarchist philosophy. especially the bit about how autonomy is our current natural state, implying that authority is a construct.
i love the attitude that being anti-authoritarian is "selfish". as if to be truly in service of others we have to submit to a political big daddy who tells us how to behave. in reality, we have political leaders who have gone so far as to tell us to NOT help others, as in the cases of the recent big american disasters. i think katrina is probably one of the biggest advertisements for anarchism there has ever been.
thanks for posting this.