ANARCHIST PUBLICATIONS:

NEW EDITION OF 'DEMANDING THE IMPOSSIBLE' NOW AVAILABLE:

(A tip of the Molly hat for Eugene from Edmonton for clueing me in on this). An updated version of Peter Marshall's much aclaimed history of anarchism 'Demanding the Impossible' has just been published by Harper Perennial Press in London, England. The new edition has been updated and contains a new epilogue. You can obtain copies from the publisher though as a little Molly note you will have to search their site by author name rather than by book title. As Peter Marshall says on his website, "Continue to demand the Impossible before it is too late".

THE BEST OF THE BLOGS:

THE LETTERS "N" TO "R":

Once more Molly chugs down her blog roll looking for new and interesting things in the Blogs section of her links. Today we do the letters N to R. Not much new here. Only three items.

The Peter Marshall website announces that Harper Perennial will be publishing a new and updated version of Marshall's 'Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism' in November. The book will include a new epilogue that includes what Marshall calls, "so-called (!!!-Molly) 'post anarchism' and 'anarcho-primitivism'". One can only hope that Marshall is as fair here as he is elsewhere in his history ie that he is critical enough about these so-called attempts to "go beyond anarchism". Going beyond in the same sense as going into a black hole in Molly's opinion. No real information will ever escape from the event horizon of such closed incestuous cults. beyond the fact that it is anarchism's fate to always be plagued with nuts on its periphery.

Larry Gambone's Porkupine Blog has an announcement from the Hidden From History:The Canadian Holocaust people. 'To the Survivors of 'Indian Residential Schools'' is an invitation to a travelling tribunal that began its journey across Canada yesterday in Port Alberni, BC. This tribunal hopes to gather the stories of survivors of the residential school system and present them to the United Nations. It will take three months for the Tribunal to make its way across the country. You can see what it is all about from the link above. Their mailing address is 260 Kennedy St, Nanaimo, BC V9R 2H8, Canada. The phone number is 1-250-753-3345 and after tomorrow 1-888-265-1007. You can reach them by email at either genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca or hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca . To learn more see the website above.

Finally, the libertarian blog Rational Reasons has a reprint link to an article by Sean Gangol entitled 'The Problem with Conservatives'. This lays out the difference between libertarianism and conservatism quite plainly. It is best summed up in a quote from the article, "If you truly want to live in a free society, then you have to have tolerance for things you don't like.". the essence of the ideology peddled by conservative leaders is the exact opposite of such tolerance, which is why "the problem" is that conservatives really want to create a police state rather than a free society.

More of Peter on Peter:
As I promised I'll give more quotes of Peter Marshall on Peter Kropotkin.
Here's Peter Marshall on Kropotkin's view of two different systems of morality,
"Kropotkin never completed his work on ethics, and what exists is principally an account of the evolutionary origins of of the moral sense and a history of ethics from the Greeks to the end of the nineteenth century....He distinguished between our innate moral sense and the rigid moral codes imposed by authority. Where the former give rise to sympathy and solidarity. the latter find their origins in primitive superstitions taken over by priests and conquerors to support their rule".(1)
Molly aside- the way that "primitive superstitions" are "taken over" by "priests and conquerors" can be extrapolated to the anarchist movement today in North America where certain people attempt to advance their own agenda of control under the rubric of "primitivism" or "post leftism". The critical reader always has to ask in such cases the question of "sui bona". Who benefits ? Neither "civilization" nor "the left" will be abolished in the foreseeable future, but some people can make BOTH money and fame from promoting nonsense that is appealing at a superficial emotional level.

Marshall goes on to state that Kropotkin's view of social progress contrasted with that of Marx,
"Progress has resulted from the resolution of conflict, not, as in Marx's view, through a dialectical synthesis of opposing forces, but through the triumph of cooperation"(2)
Molly aside- Marx's view was, of course, heavily influenced by the Hegelianism that learned as an adolescent, and unfortunately he never grew out of his "teenage" view. Scientific socialism would have taken an entirely different cast if it had had any connection to reality.
Marshall goes on to describe Kropotkin's vision of the "free society" in the following words,
"Such a society would be composer of a network of voluntary associations of equal individuals who are consumers and producers. They would represent ' an interwoven network, comprised of an infinite variety of groups of all sizes and degrees, local regional, national and international-temporary or more or less permanent- for all possible purposes"(3).
Molly aside- the idea of "pluralism" here is important. It has escaped many serious anarchists today who see the future society as exclusively "anarcho-syndicalist" or "anarcho-communist". In a more important sense it has escaped the view of those who wish to promote "mindless activism" as both a tactic and a strategy. In some cases the origin of this foolishness is pretty obvious. You make your money by this bullshit. In other words -eat shit and die you fucks!! Sui Boni ? It ain't the foolish young people who get assaulted by the police and end up with criminal records. It is, however, the older people who promote this stuff while avoiding the actual violence of the police. The people who promote this sort of nonsense are generally well ensconced entrepreneurs who wish to promote their own view of anarchism that will lead to the greatest personal profit. It's a view that contrasts with the rest of us, who actually work for a living and give our anarchist efforts for free- like Kropotkin imagined. perhaps this is one more reason why I consider Kropotkin "incomplete". The view presented in 'Darwinian Anarchism' may be harsher than mine, but it describes some people within anarchism "very" accurately.
Molly Notes:
1)Demanding the Impossible: op cite p 321
2)Demanding the Impossible: op cite p 326
3)Demanding the Impossible: op cite p 327
Molly

Peter on Peter:
I've mentioned both Kropotkin's view of human sociobiology and Peter Marshall in previous posts here. What follows are some quotations from Marshall on Kropotkin's view of "human nature". The sources are available in the notes.
1)Here's Marshall on Kropotkin's inspiration for his ideas:
"Kropotkin's views were first inspired by a lecture delivered in 1880 'On the Law of Mutual Aid' by Russian zoologist Karl Kessler, who argued that mutual aid is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle, but the former was much more important in the progressive evolution of the species. Kropotkin went on to argue that there is far more evidence in nature of co-operation within a species than of competition. In his most famous work, 'Mutual Aid' (1902) he suggests with a rich array of data that in the struggle for life mutual aid appears to be a rule among the more successful species and argues that it is the most important factor of evolution. " (1)
Molly's aside: This sort of thing is, of course, impossible to quantify even in the crude semi-quantitative manner of "more important". Kropotkin recognized that there was indeed "competition" amongst individual members of a given species. He wouldn't have been a Darwinist otherwise. But his extreme group selectionist views led him to look at the species level in a far greater focus than it deserved. It should also be noted that there is an extreme difference between most of what is called competition and what is called "agonistic" ie aggressive behavior. Neither the giraffe's neck nor the peacock's tail (to give examples from resource access selection and sexual selection) involve any agonistic interactions.

2)Here's Marshall again on Kropotkin's view of the "unit of selection"
"Kropotkin makes clear that the struggle for existence which takes place is a struggle against adverse circumstances rather than between individuals of the same species. Where the other Social Darwinists argued that the struggle between individuals leads to the survival of the fittest, Kropotkin asserted that the unit of competition is the species as a whole and that the species that has the greatest degree of cooperation and support between its members is most likely to flourish." (2)
Molly aside: Point taken and pointed out above.
3)Here's Marshall on how these views integrate with Kropotkin's anarchist views:
"Kropotkin did not hesitate to apply these observations of the animal world to the human species. he maintains that society is a natural phenomenon anterior to the appearance of man, and man is naturally adapted to live in society without artificial regulations. man is and always has been a social species. ...Unbridled individualism is therefore a modern growth. ...Evolutionary theory, if properly understood, will not justify the inevitability of capitalist competition or the need for a strong State but rather point to the possibility of anarchy." (3)
Molly aside: But only the "possibility". Kropotkin was, to say the least, "overoptimistic", and he usually believed that the trends that he observed in society were progressive in nature and almost certain to overwhelm other authoritarian trends. Kropotkin has a better "prediction index" from his view of science as a process of induction than the almost 100% wrong record of Marx's from his viewpoint of "science" (sic) as deductions from Hegelian wordplay, but Kropotkin more often than not let his desires get in the way of his inductions.
4)Finally, there is Marshall on Kropotkin's view of what is actually the "proximate cause" of mutual aid:
"Kropotkin rejected both religious and utilitarian ethics in favour of a third system of morality which sees in moral action 'a mere necessity of the individual to enjoy the joys of his brethren, to suffer when some of his brethren are suffering; a habit and a second nature , slowly elaborated and perfected by life in society." (3)
Molly aside: As will be made plain by future posts Marshall doesn't agree with Kropotkin's views. Marshall is actually close to being a believer in the "blank slate" theory of human nature. Also Kropotkin was presenting his views at a time when neurobiology and sociobiology barely existed. At least the outlines of the "roots of empathy", as the proximate cause behind the evolutionary psychology "cause" of cooperation, are much clearer today than they were in the days of Kropotkin.
More on Peter on Peter in future posts.

Molly Notes:
1)Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. Peter Marshall, Fontana Press, Great Britain 1993, pp 318-319.
2)Ibid, p 319.
3)Ibid, pp 321-322.

More later,
Molly

New Links:
The webcrawler says, "with great curiosity comes great confusion"- with apologies to Stan Lee.
I've added a number of new links to this blog. Three, AK Press, Red Lion Press, and See Sharp Press, are in the 'Anarchist Publishers and Distributors' section. This section will continue to expand.
The other two gave me more than a little puzzlement. Under the general 'Links' section I've added the 'Non-Resistance.Org' listing. These people are not "fine-tuned" Christian anarchists as they concentrate much more on pacifism that on opposition to the state. On the other hand they are not "non-anarchists' either. hence they don't belong in 'Other Interesting Links'. Plunk*- they landed in the 'Links' section.
Then there is Peter Marshall's site listed under the 'Blogs' section. It's a website rather than a blog, but it is highly personal and has a 'Forum' section. Perhaps all personal websites belong under the 'Blog' category. This is anarchist but also much more. Marshall is the author of the history of anarchism entitled 'Demanding the Impossible' and of other writings on anarchism. He is also, however, a popular travel writer and commentator on matters theatrical, ecological and esoteric. I'm sure that Peter would be "pleased as piss" that I couldn't slot him under the simple anarchist category. Maybe Molly's Blog is somewhat similar, though not as diverse.
More on Marshall later. It's also interesting that Marshall's blog/website (http://www.petermarshall.net ) has a link to an interesting article on Prague entitled 'Theatre of the World:Peter Marshall in mystical Prague'. This short essay that introduces one of Marshall's books is a truly poetic description of the "city of dreams" that Praha is. My own choice of "poetry" may be a bit more gritty than that of Marshall, but I can say that this is one item well worth looking at.
Molly