Saul Newman’s essay “Anarchism, Poststructuralism and the Future of Radical Politics” discusses, as one might expect, the possibilities for radical politics after such politics are subjected to the critiques of poststructuralism. Newman comes out in favor of a “post-anarchism” that embraces the core values of classical anarchism while incorporating the post-structuralist critiques. If one can see past the barrage of “post-s” (postanarchism, post-Marxism, poststructuralism, postindustrial, post-politics – when will we ever reach post-postism?), this could prove as a fruitful source for anyone interested in the actual political implications of poststructuralist thought. I would also recommend the essay to anyone looking at writing a final paper on Cosmopolitanism as Newman seeks to both critique and affirm certain forms of universality.
Newman begins the essay with an overview of contemporary radical political thinkers and their similarities with anarchism, despite the fact that most shy away from the term. In this essay, postanarchism is defined as “the project of renewing the anarchist tradition through a critique of essentialist identities and the assertion instead of the contingency of politics” (4). Newman breaks down the discussion of classical anarchism into four sections: Politics beyond the state, Politics beyond the party, Politics beyond class, and The politics of emancipation. These four characteristics are the strengths of classical anarchism that ought to be retained in a postanarchist project. Because the postanarchist project can be seen as eliminating reductionism and essentialism from radical politics, politics beyond class is of central importance to Newman as this contains the anarchist rejection of Marxist economic reductionism.
Newman’s next step is to begin rethinking anarchism and outline what a postanarchism (or poststructuralist anarchism) would look like. He contends that “the theoretical innovativeness of anarchism today is…limited by the humanist and positivist in which it was originally conceived” (13). Here he explicitly critiques Chomsky, Zerzan, and Bookchin, which is an interesting move since those three come from wildly different anarchist traditions. However, Newman would most likely contend that, their differences aside, all three are rooted in an ultimately benevolent conception of the human and a conception of society that posits it as containing an underlying and finitely understandable logic. And herein lays the fundamental contribution of poststructuralism to the anarchist tradition. Newman contends that instead of understanding social objects as being rationally discernible, we ought to view them as discursively constructed: “The socio-political field does not bear some objective, rational truth that science can reveal; rather it is characterized by multiple layers of articulation, antagonism and ideological dissimulation” (14). This means that the ontological basis of politics is not the (Marxist) dialectic, but rather the event as event. This primacy of the event shares much in common with many Derridian motifs.
Newman anticipates the obvious critique of this conception of a new radical politics: that these restrictions rob politics of any stable foundation or autonomous agency. He fully acknowledges and incorporates this criticism, arguing that radical politics today must actually abandon any notions of stable foundations “and instead assert the contingency of the political” (14).
He traces the origins of emancipatory politics to the Enlightenment, while acknowledging that the legacy of the Enlightenment is heterogeneous. The legacy that we ought to embrace is legacy of continual questioning and uncertainty, while rejecting the legacy of rational certainty, absolute identity and destiny. Here he invokes Derrida as a thinker who “remains critical of the rationalist and positivist aspect of the Enlightenment but wants to hang on to its emancipative and liberating potential – particularly its insistence on human rights” (15). [See Specters of Marx, p110] The argument here is that Enlightenment should be the reference point for radical political struggles today.
Part of Newman’s suggested path for a post-anarchism, borrowed from Badiou, os that the contingency of the political be viewed as the unbinding of social bonds, a suggestion that seems to fall under Critchley’s category of “active nihilism”. However, Newman states later that this does not amount to a nihilistic politics, though perhaps he is only referring to passive nihilism (to use Critchley’s framework). Another aspect of the postanarchist project is to rethink both sovereignty and universality. Newman says that contemporary radical politics must create a new sovereignty, one without the state. Here he mentions Derrida once more, this time the idea of “messianicty without messianism” in Sovereignties in Question: The Poetics of Paul Celan.Lastly, Newman states that post-anarchism must employ some universal dimension so it can avoid the pitfalls of identity politics. He only gives this a cursory treatment at the very end of the essay, though in the little bit he appeals to it he mentions Cosmopolitanism and globalization as a potential source of universality. Identity politics and the critique thereof is a major topic unto itself, which is perhaps why Newman chose not to delve into it too much in this piece.
In sum, post-anarchism shares with anarchism a critique of authority, a resistance to political domination, and assertions of freedom, autonomy, and equality; it differs with classical anarchism because it embraces contingency and indeterminacy and rejects essentialist identities and ontological foundations. (16)
Newman, Saul. “Anarchism, Post-structuralism and the Future of Radical Politics.” SubStance 113 (2007): 3-18
To deny politics of identity is to deny the humanity of the individuals, it would also criticize the civil rights and feminist movements in Europe and the United States. On must create and attempt to equalize the status of identities within the political sphere if there is to be any meaningful dialogue between fundamental group (As conceived by Gramsci). This I believe must first be actualized in order for a post anarchist movements to gain strength in modern society.
Thanks for the comment. I actually don’t think you’re in opposition to Newman here. Newman praises the (classical) anarchist rejection of economic reductionism, which would tend in favor of identity politics. But he is also aware of the fact that identity politics has its problems. Namely, that identity politics tends to place separate movements of separate identities into their own separate “boxes”, where different movements are unable to work together and learn from each other.
I personally observed this phenomenon at the US Social Forum this past summer where there were representatives of many different movements but there was a general lack of bringing those disparate movements into dialogue with each other. I think that is the major pitfall of identity politics, because there are institutions that inherently oppress people across different identities (i.e. patriarchy disempowers both women and queer folk).
This is why Newman argues that we need to appeal to some universal dimension, so that we can bring oppressed identities into relation to each other without regressing back to essentialism or reductionism. I think this might actually be in agreement with what you cited as Gramsci’s idea of equalizing political identities. I’m curious what you have to say though.
I believe within your reply you have an underlying sense that ‘we’ the people must somehow appeal to ‘the state’ to gift us with the universal rights we should have. Perhaps you might agree with the idea that the state is actually a result of the social and political dimensions within a given society which may be conceived as a dimension almost independent of the economic system. Within the state democracy does not work unless we somehow equalize the power individuals have within political groups or equalize the information all individuals have which I am sure you would say is impossible. The state in order to function and control must dominate on the political and social levels. Repression is the tool that is most useful to the state and marginalizing identities facilitates this and one must realize that the state works at this level. Identity politics will exist, and I believe have to exist, in liberal societies. Richard J.F. Day in his book Gramsci is Dead argues this aptly when he states:
” there is also a normative component to [the unevenness of power in liberal societies] , in the assumption that today’s liberal societies represent the best, or perhaps the only possible mode of social organization that acknowledges and thrives upon this condition of unevenness of power.”
He goes on to state Laclau’s position that no political struggle can include everyone, since it is impossible for those who advance a cause to completely leave behind their own interests. He goes on “similarly, there is no such thing as a merely particular struggle, since no identity can exist without being in relationships with other identities, with what it is not (the ‘constitive outside’).” Identities seek to compete and co-operate, each seeking to enlarge themselves to the point of being able to represent all of the others. This is expanding the democratic revolution, both the universal and the particular are ‘contaminated’ by each other. Thanks for the reply.