Though for a somewhat more rounded political philosophy on the radical end of the contemporary spectrum, it’s pretty hard to beat the work of John Holloway & David Graeber.

P.S. – Academia isn’t all bad; check out the recent AK Press anthology, “Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigation, Collective Theorization.” It actually covers quite a few of the issues raised in this post about the present academic/activist cultural dichotomy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3622753371052484817

I started reading your blog last week. I first read it when you went to language school in Guatemala, but then I thought you’d stopped posting. Corresponding with you recently reminded me to check, and so I’ve added you to my RSS feed which is how I keep track of all of my friends’ blogs and livejournals.

At any rate, thanks for those further reflections. They’re really interesting. As usual, I learn lots from you.

Regarding your clarification about academia and the nonprofit industrial complex, I think we’re on the same page here. I like your question, “what if the left had been more successful at building its own infrastructure internal to the movement?” I think about that all of the time in relation to grad school. The work I’m trying to do would, in some ways, be much easier if I was able to work within some kind of movement infrastructure rather than academia – and I’m in a very unique corner of academia. And yes, I agree that “even though it’s not radicals’ fault, it is our responsibility to figure out strategic responses that don’t drain our movements.” Figuring out strategic responses is quite difficult, though. I don’t have easy answers. In terms of nonprofits, I am learning lots from INCITE!’s latest collection, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. Have you checked it out?

Regarding leadership, I had no idea about a lot of this Seattle-specific stuff. My time in Olympia was, for the most part, pretty disconnected from Seattle other than participating in the occasional demo or educational event and, of course, all the WTO organizing. Based on my lack of knowledge, your assessment sounds very sharp – and makes the Seattle context sound very challenging. The disconnect between what you call “the anti-oppression left” and “the traditional interests of anarchists” seems pretty widespread to me, but I can see how the prevailing identity-politics/ally politics context exacerbates that disconnect. Have you encountered any examples of groups (or even individuals) that manage to work outside some of these dynamics in Seattle?

I imagine that this situation is all the more challenging when you face it is as an individual. But it does sound like you’re in conversation with other folks about this stuff. Have you considered the possibility of starting up a collective or some other kind of formation? My experience has been that it’s much easier to figure out how to do meaningful political work in difficult circumstances (really, in all circumstances) as part of a group, even a small one, with people who are on a similar page politically. In the near term, you’re probably not going to be able to shift the major dynamics in Seattle, but you might be able to develop and model a different approach.

And finally, a side-note on “radical rock stars”: This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot – the way that status play (so often inflected by various forms of privilege) gets taken up and reproduced in radical left circles. I probably wouldn’t be thinking about this as much if not for two things: (1) my comrades who have called me out to account for the ways that I’ve benefited from the activist star system, and (2) spending some time in academia with its fucked up status games.

I don’t know about you, but I find it very difficult to adequately name this dynamic. However, I’ve gained a lot of clarity from RJ Maccani’s article “Enter the Intergalactic: The Zapatistas’ Sixth Declaration in the US and the World” which appeared in issue #3 of Upping the Anti. (Check it out here: http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/view/2612.) In talking about the Zapatistas, he brings in a term from Mexican social movements: “protagonismo.” He defines this as “the problem within movements (or society as a whole) of people taking credit for work that is not theirs, the problem of self-promotion over promotion of the struggle, of placing one’s own recognition or fame over the growth of the movement.”

Maccani continues, “If protagonismo is understood in this sense then it is what most politicians and party formations do as a matter of course. But it also manifests itself within our networks, in both conscious and unconscious ways. From the classroom to the workplace, the report card to the resume, this internalized dimension of capitalism has us ever fighting to ‘get ahead’ in school, at work, and even in the movement, and forgetting the ways in which such structural privileges and oppressions as class, race, gender, citizenship, sexuality, and social currency, are warping the form and face of our organizing.

“That our movements suffer from protagonismo is certainly not a new worry, though we unfortunately have no similarly economical way of referring to the problem. Important as it is to remind ourselves of the various ways in which we succumb to protagonismo, however, it is equally important to remind ourselves that we are able to resist it, and that many around us are doing so.”

This is the best discussion of the “radical rock stars” thing that I’ve seen.

Chris

I feel like what you’ve offered here in your comments are more nuanced ways of understanding some of my key points, which definitely were coming from a more raw (and problematic) place than normal that evening. Thank you.

However, I do have one thing I’d like to clarify, and one thing that I’d like to develop further.

The first thing is that I just want to make clear, if it wasn’t, that I do understand that the non-profit/academia problem is not radicals’ fault, nor do I generally take puristic stances on it. Lately I’m asking more stark questions of myself because I have some concrete choices I need to make, but overall I do understand the complexities of our various lives and needs and priorities, and I respect the decisions of my friends, even when they make me sad. I am excited for my friends who are pursuing PhD’s, like you, Chris, and others…but I do miss y’all, and I often do find myself wondering “what if the left had been more successful at building its own infrastructure internal to the movement?” Even with the phenomenon of “radical rock stars,” I recognize it as much more a consequence of a lack of horizontal organizational structures, especially on the national level, and not so much the fault of the “rock stars” themselves. At least most of the time.
That said, even though it’s not radicals’ fault, it is our responsibility to figure out strategic responses that don’t drain our movements, as we both would agree.

Secondly, I want to explore a bit more this question of leadership and privilege. Overall, I agree with you, Chris, and I think that the way you are talking is usually how I try to operate. I think quite a bit about the balance between humility and initiative, between stepping up and stepping back. I actually feel quite comfortable thinking about leadership in relation to ally politics, which I think is an area where privileged folks like me are often too frozen by guilt or shame or fear that we don’t think about creative or visionary activity. And in these regards I think your points resonate really well.

However, difficulties arise for me when we go beyond leadership around ally politics, or identity politics, and we start looking at the left’s other questions and struggles: anti-capitalism, building community power…etc. Here in Seattle, there is a wide gap between the traditional interests of anarchists (capitalism and the state) and those of other “anti-oppression” organizing….things that shouldn’t even be understood separately, but they are. That is, here in Seattle, among “anti-oppression” folks, questions of the state, of building community power, of dismantling capitalism, of even discussing capitalism, or even of building revolutionary infrastructure outside of non-profits are not talked about much…at least in my presence. And, on the other hand, among most excplicitly anarchist organizers….well I don’t even hang out with many of them any more because they aren’t very keen on the challenges offered by “anti-oppression” perspectives.

Now, I think this is the situation for two major reasons, both of which make this leadership/initiative/waiting question hard for me:

1) We have an anti-oppression/intersectional left which is heavily dominated by non-profits, and which is incredibly weak at the grassroots…and this creates a situation in which strategic conversations happen at a staff/board level, and thus are usually highly co-opted by the realities of the non-profit system. Thus, we have a few high-profile organizations which are beautiful, but which take up so much space that there is very little room/time left for more democratic strategic discussions to happen among the grassroots intersectional left. If they were happening, I don’t think I would just be shy and wait to be asked. I think I would participate. But then again, maybe not, because of…

2) Which is that Seattle has a particular identity-politics/ally politics context that I (and I’m not alone) think is quite unhealthy, which owes largely to the ideological dominance of a certain national anti-racist group over the local left. I won’t name the group, but it is a group with a very specific race-above-all-else approach and also a very specific, unhealthy view of the role of white people in the movement. I have heard numerous accounts of how this is a problem specific to Seattle, or at least worse here…and I do think it is a real problem.

This context makes it hard for me to participate as a full person in the Seattle left, and not because I want to be a know-it-all, but simply because I want to be able to talk about not just racism and my culpability, but about many other aspects of the world and my role as well. But here, for me to do that is easily branded as “trying to distract away from white privilege.” It’s a weird situation up here, and it’s really problematic, because it creates a kind of special Seattle species of white-anti-racist…extremely self-doubting, guilty, uncreative, lacking almost all interest in independent initiative…and frankly hostile to discussing anything other than racism, even if it’s a discussion of the experiences of queers or women of color. Bad news bears.

Okay. So yeah, I do think that this situation makes maintaining a full, healthy personality in the Seattle left very difficult, and it has made me into someone who is capable of being very vocal about some aspects of my politics (specifically about whiteness and maleness, less about middle class privilege), but which leave very little room to open up discussions around questions of movement-building, socialism, dual-power, community power…or simply of movement strategy beyond critique. These questions, when discussed at all, are relegated first to the non-profits, and when not, then there is a pretty strong climate that white people don’t dabble in those affairs without people of color present, yet people of color aren’t really very interested at all in working with white people in Seattle…other than through extremely mechanical ally relationships.

Is this a criticism of organizers of color in Seattle? No. It shouldn’t be read that way. White activists hold the responsibility of actively demonstrating that we can be both good allies, and creative, visionary, strategic folks…that we don’t need robotic relationships to behave well, that we can actually be peers in a movement. But it’s a viscious cycle for me. We don’t organize in this kind of dynamic way as allies mostly because of the local fear that I’ve discussed…we white folks have learned a kind of ally politics in Seattle that asks people of color to essentially micro-manage us, which is just another way that white activists end up taking up space. So right now I can understand why organizers of color only want to work with their own…we are basket cases (is that an ablist term???).

But if this is all going to change, it does require 1) all grassroots radicals to challenge the hold that non-profits have on this town’s left, and 2) for white folks to step up in their responsible initiative and creativity, with folks of color being open to eventually forming peer relationships with us…as we prove our ability to show up.

So, I just wanted to explore that a bit more deeply. I hope it was interesting for you, because it was really useful to me, and I’d love to hear your feedback on it.

Thanks for writing, Chris…didn’t even know you were reading.

Jeremy

Thanks for sharing these reflections. You’re hitting on some things I’ve really been grappling with. There are two main responses I have. I’m not sure if they count as areas of disagreement or just ways that I’m trying to prod you a bit. If this is disagreement, please take it as comradely disagreement.

First, I completely hear what you’re saying about feeling like your contributions (and potential contributions) aren’t recognized. And trust me, I’m familiar with that sense of longing to be the “great leader” you mentioned in a previous post. It’s hard to resist that, I think, particularly for those of us who are relatively privileged. But I also want to challenge you here: I don’t think your choice is between, on the one hand, being a yet another know-it-all self-appointed leader guy on the left (there are plenty of them, for sure) or, on the other hand, patiently and quietly waiting for that “someday” when someone will ask your opinion, when you will be able to make a difference.

I think the intense cocktail of anarchism (which is sometimes unfortunately understood to suggest that all “leadership” is wrong) and anti-oppression politics (which is sometimes unfortunately oversimplified to mean all privileged white guys step back and shut up) can leave us white, middle-class activist guys a little disoriented – as if we should just stand by until our support is requested. But that’s too easy. It’s true that we have a lot to learn about how much we are *not* central to the struggle for collective liberation. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a responsibility to step up, take initiative, and, dare I say, act as leaders. The real question, it seems to me, is how we can take initiative in ways that advance the leadership and centrality of oppressed people in the struggle.

This is all to say: I don’t think you should wait for “someday.” I want to push you to recognize how you are making a difference right now and to imagine how you can step up to leadership – not in a way that diminishes others’ capacities to take initiative but in a way that widens them. I know you can.

Second, you’re absolutely right about the ways that capitalism creeps into our lives and our life choices as radicals. “It has sucked us dry and turned us way too far inward,” you say, which is all too true. Your analysis of academia and the nonprofit-industrial-complex is dead-on. Both of these institutions play incredibly debilitating roles for the left in the US. But here again I want to challenge you: no one makes choices in a vacuum; it’s not as if we can change our circumstances through sheer will alone. Academia and the nonprofit-industrial-complex aren’t simply problems because radicals gravitate into them; they function as institutions in a much broader system – an aggressively capitalist white supremacist patriarchy which puts a premium on individualism.

I have a lot of questions for my many friends and comrades who are going into grad school and nonprofit organizations. And honestly, since I’ve been in grad school, I’ve become even more critical of academia; of the half-dozen or so activists who write me every year to get my advice about going to grad school, I only recommend it to maybe one person (who can demonstrate a really clear idea of why they’re going and how they see it advancing their movement work). At the same time, though, I’m trying hard to avoid being dismissive of those folks who make the choice to go to grad school or into the nonprofit world. The fact of the matter is, lots of the young radicals who rode the wave of the US global justice movement have watched it crash and are now trying to figure out what the hell to do with their lives. I figure I can either criticize them for not being politically “pure” enough or I can try to figure out ways to connect with them and support them in continuing to do sustained movement work.

This is all to say: academia and the nonprofit-industrial-complex are bad news. But if we’re serious about building mass movements in our society, we need to be building them in all sectors and supporting those who go into different sectors, even while we raise critical questions.

This is one reason, by the way, why I would actually support you going into the Evergreen Masters in Teaching program. I think public schools are a key site of struggle, and I have much admiration for those who are willing and able to fight there. You, my friend, would have much to contribute, I’m sure.

Best,
Chris

And yes, I’d love to hear some time about what is unclear…I actually almost deleted this post this morning, after waking up and feeling that it was way too whiny and self-indulgent. It also made weird ties between Albert, me, my job, and then suddenly capitalism….But I’m glad I didn’t delete it. This was an angry post from me as I felt. That’s cool. Self-critique can come later. (For example, the fact that it takes me personally being hurt at my job and in the movement to get this angry about shit that I’ve noticed happening to other people and have known about for years…this is telling).

Bruin, I hear you about the Bay, although I don’t plan on leaving Washington anytime soon…but you know that I hope you find some kick-ass food justice radicals to organize with down there.

As for SDS, yes my friend Peter Bohmer has talked to me about that conference…and I think there is some potential in SDS/MDS. Just waiting for someone to form a Seattle chapter. I don’t want to be the one.

And also, I CAN’T WAIT until you’re in Seattle, Andrew…seriously.

I still don’t have a radical group to belong to.

I went to the NW SDS regional conference two weekends ago (though I was only there for a night and half a day). For folks who are four to five years younger than us, this is their “radical group…” and a lot of the work we’ve done in the years since the anti-globalization movement, a lot of the issues we’ve hashed out in painful ways, those lessons are being incorporated into this latest wave of young radicals. I’m not saying there weren’t things missing – some of the conference was very bad. Most of it was incredibly inspiring. Folks are starting to move on things. It made me really hopeful. I’m not a student anymore, so I don’t know if it could ever now be “my organization,” but for some folks I think things are coming together. That makes me feel good.

Plus I’m moving to Seattle, Jeremy; we can fight this shit together!

gonna have some writing for me by friday? wanna plan an uprising?

xox.